Puzzling over the meanderings of great rivers, and the upsurges of unnamed mountain ranges, I watched the South go past below as I flew (not under my own power; US Airways provided the wings) from muggy Austin to the frozen North. At present, in Danbury in a quiet corner of Connecticut, I find myself a mile or so from the Charles Ives Center, on the campus of my part-time employer, Western Connecticut State University, near where Ives quietly despaired and composed his Three Places in New England, of which Danbury wasn't one; and right behind my hotel is a scene like the one above. In the streets slush melts, then freezes hard. The wind whips away at you like a dominatrix. Good thing I'm inside, downing a vodka or two. Tomorrow, unknown students, an unknown task...then a reading from the Olympiad.