Brush Bandit Tree

About Brush Bandit Tree

The Tuscarawas River runs low and brown through the bottomland below New Franklin, and when a January thaw is chased by a hard freeze, everything the melt touched turns to glass. Brush Bandit Tree meets that with plow and spreader — drives opened, walkways scraped down to the pavement, ice broken up before it can set into the day. There is a particular pleasure in reading a storm right: knowing which lane fills first, which shaded curve holds slick long after the sun has found the rest. Clearing begins while the snow is still coming down, because one early pass saves three later ones. By the time the school buses are grinding up out of the river valley, the way is open.