GrayMac Softwash

About GrayMac Softwash

Snow arrives in Port Allegany the way it arrives in all the high valleys of McKean County — quietly, all night, filling the hollow where Portage Creek comes down to meet the river. GrayMac Softwash is out in it before the borough wakes, plowing driveways and opening walks so the first person through the door steps onto blacktop instead of a drift. Salt goes down on the steep spots, the ones that glaze over when the temperature swings around dawn. By breakfast the lots are open and the mailboxes are reachable again. Winter up here is long and it means it, and the work is simply making an ordinary morning possible.