Cape Clean Outs

About Cape Clean Outs

Snow comes at this peninsula sideways, wet and heavy off the water, and it never has the courtesy to wait for daylight. Cape Clean Outs is out ahead of it — headlights on, blade down, driveways in Cape May Court House opened to bare pavement and walks cut wide enough for two people to pass. Clearing a lot while the town is still asleep is its own reward; the first car of the morning simply backs out, and nobody has to touch a shovel. Salt goes down at the corners where meltwater likes to refreeze hard by dark. Some winters the coast gets one storm and some winters six, and either way the truck is fueled when the sky turns that low, close gray.