A parking lot in January tells you everything about who cleared it. Asphalt MD Sealcoating and Excavating works the drives and lots of Owosso when a low slides in from the west and lays four inches down between supper and sunrise. The blade peels the white back and there it is — dark pavement corner to corner, the windrows stacked where they won't block a sightline, the path to the door opened and treated. Shiawassee County wakes up early, so the trucks come in before the light does, and the aim is that nobody has to think about the snow at all. That is the whole ambition: a clear lot, an open door, a morning that goes on as planned.