West Quincy is built on granite, and the driveways show it: pitched hard against the old ledge, short and steep, the kind that go to glass the night a January rain lands on cold pavement. Clearing snow through those grades is careful, low-gear work — push where the surface will hold it, stack where the melt won't run back down, treat the ice at the foot of the hill first. This is winter work only, and the season is spent reading the sky over the quarries for the moment rain turns to sleet. There may be no better feeling in February than a steep drive scraped clean to its seams before the bus comes up the street.