Around two a.m. on a summer morning watch a barge lock through a dam on the Mississippi (the Upper River, of course -- the good part of The River).

Or stand on a dock and watch the mists rise off the water in light of a full Autumn moon like the wraiths of the drowned coming back to accuse the living.

Or see the snow-covered ice -- too thin to hold your weight -- turn to crystal silver in the moonlight of January as flakes of snow from an approaching storm whirl and dance around you in the night.

Or look, really look, at a mother duck taking her ducklings for their first swim on a Spring morning when the first wild violets are starting to bloom.