Cardinal Concrete

About Cardinal Concrete

Snow arrives in Vandalia on a west wind, running flat across open ground with nothing much to slow it down. Cardinal Concrete meets it in the blue hour — plowing drives and lots, clearing walkways, laying salt where the ice wants to set up. The old National Road has carried traffic through this town since long before anyone thought to plow it, and the work follows the same idea: keep the way open. There is a particular satisfaction in a lot scraped to black pavement while the streetlights are still burning, piles stacked neat at the corners, ready for the first car in. The storm gets the night; the morning gets to go as planned.