Cavanaugh & Son

About Cavanaugh & Son

In Lisbon the cold slides down off the Notch and pools in the Ammonoosuc valley overnight, so that morning arrives blue and stiff, every dooryard drawn over in a soft blank line. Cavanaugh & Son is a snow removal outfit working those streets — the mill-town blocks close to the river, the steep short driveways above them, the long climbing drives out toward Lyman and Landaff where the plow's headlights go first. There is a plain, physical pleasure in the work: the opening pass, the bank pushed back clean to the treeline, dark pavement showing again while the hills are still only half-lit. What's left behind is simply a house that can get out — a drive cleared before the coffee cools, a walk widened enough for boots, a yard squared away for whatever the next sky brings.