The first real storm usually finds Hawthorne in December sometime after midnight, and by five the platform lights down at the station are hazy and the streets are still untouched. Snow-Be-Gone Plowing Services runs those hours — plowing driveways open, shoveling walks and front steps, spreading salt where the morning is going to need it. People here leave early; the entire point is that the drive is clear before they do. Wind out of the northwest packs the lee side of a garage, so the return pass matters as much as the first one. A cleared apron at daybreak is the whole report.