Three in the morning on War Memorial Drive, the lots sit empty and the sodium lamps turn falling snow to amber. This is Blunier Builders Snow Removal's hour: blade down, a first cut along the curb, windrows stacked in the far corner where they won't eat parking spaces come February. Salt follows the plow, walks are cleared to the doorway, and the pavement lies dark and wet again before the first headlights swing in off Sterling Avenue. Storms cross this flat country with the wind pushing behind them, drifting shut what was just opened, so the route gets run twice and sometimes three times. Nobody watches it happen; they only notice a place that never had to close.