Talk about road trips! The plow truck drivers for Newtown’s Highway Department hit the road at 3 pm last Sunday as the sleet and snow began to fly in Newtown, and they didn’t pull their plows up off the road and shut down the sanders until Wednesday. Together they added over 6,000 miles to the odometers of town trucks. Staring into swirling snow hour after hour in white-knuckle driving conditions, they kept Newtown’s 300-plus miles of roads clear through the worst of it, stopping only to keep the coffee and carbohydrates moving through their systems and for the rare, exhausted cat-nap. When it was all over, they were red-eyed, scruffy, and not very pretty. But the roads sure looked good.

When you talk to them about it, the snow plow drivers say that it’s all part of the job. And while that is true, it is a part of the job that requires extraordinary effort and coordination in the most difficult of  circumstances. We want them never to think that their difficult work goes unnoticed or unappreciated. We lie safe in our beds on the wildest of winter nights and listen to them go by, comforted and reassured by their dedication to our safety on the roads. We cannot thank them enough.