All Around

About All Around

Ann Arbor's hills are a problem you only really notice in January. The grade climbing away from the Broadway Bridge, the pitch of a Lower Town driveway, the small rise that turns to glass after a thaw refreezes overnight — All Around does snow, and only snow, which means the entire winter goes into exactly that. Plowing, shoveling walks and steps down to bare surface, salt laid where the ice keeps coming back for another try. Storms here rarely announce themselves politely; they arrive on a west wind at two in the morning and the work begins then. By daylight the drive is open and the day happens the way it was planned.