January on the library block: brick sidewalk, cold blue light, and a foot of snow that has to be gone before the doors open. Stride Services LLC handles snow across Wakefield — walkways and entries shoveled clean, driveways and lots plowed out, sand and salt laid where the melt runs and refreezes by mid-afternoon. The tricky ground is always the same ground: stairs, ramps, and that shaded strip along a north wall. Storms that begin as rain and finish as ice call for a return visit, and that is built into the way the routes get run. A clear path is a small thing right up until the morning it is not there.