Highland Park holds two of Kokomo's strangest points of pride — Old Ben, the taxidermied steer that's been a park fixture for as long as anyone can remember, and a hollowed sycamore stump big enough to stand inside — and the streets ringing that park are where Rayls' Outdoor Services spends its winter mornings. The crew treats a driveway in January the way they'd treat a lawn in July: edges kept square, nothing left ragged, snow pushed back clean from the garage door to the street. Cold snaps here tend to arrive fast off the plains to the north, dropping overnight so a wet afternoon snow refreezes into something harder to move by morning, which rewards a crew that starts before sunrise rather than one that waits on the sun. Working a route past the park gates while the swing sets sit frozen and still, knowing the same walks that carried kids to the old stump all summer will carry them just as easily through a foot of snow, is a good way to spend a cold morning. By midmorning the blocks around the park run bare to the curb, porch steps salted, the swing sets still frozen but the sidewalks finally safe for the first dog walker of the day.