At three in the morning the Cascades sit frozen into a staircase of ice, and the basin at Sparks Foundation Park holds the cold the way a bowl holds water. That is the hour Lester Brothers Inc is already out, headlights swinging across a driveway nobody has walked on yet. Plow, backdrag, then a clean pass at the apron so the county truck's ridge doesn't get the last word. Salt goes down where the shade sits longest, along north walls and stair treads that never see February sun. By the time the first porch light comes on in Jackson, the pavement is dark and open and the day can simply begin.