Old Man With A Truck

About Old Man With A Truck

Four in the morning at Common Fence Point, the wind comes straight across open water with nothing to slow it down, and the snow doesn't fall so much as travel sideways. That is the shift Old Man With A Truck keeps — headlights, a warm cab, a blade down, and street after street of Portsmouth driveways opening one at a time. Drifting is the real enemy out here; a driveway cleared at midnight can be closed again by dawn, so the piles get pushed well back and set where the next gust won't refill the work. Walks get shoveled to the door and salted, because the ten feet between the car and the step is where winter actually gets people. When the sky finally goes grey and the plow trucks head in, the driveways along the point are dark and open. That's the whole job, done right.