September light in Oak Park arrives sideways and turns Longfellow Park the color of weak honey around six o'clock. It is the kindest month for grass here — the heat lets go, the lawns green back up, and a cut holds its shape for days on end. Splendid Lawn Care works straight through it: the mower out, the trimmer after it, the edges redrawn, and then the year rolls forward into leaf cleanups and, soon enough, plowing and shoveling. Winter in this village is a run of early mornings, each one a driveway that needs to be open before anybody is awake to see it happen. Both halves of the calendar come down to the same thing — a place that looks cared for from the curb.