The corn maze at the Paproski Castle Hill Farm off Route 302 has opened just in time to help train thousands of drivers who wish to hone their route-mapping and problem-solving skills. On weekends, drivers can work out in the maze, and then on weekdays they can take their polished skills onto Newtown’s roadways for a real test.

Getting across town this week completely demoralized more than a few Newtown drivers as they ran into impenetrable traffic jams on Route 25 at the scene of the horrendous gas tanker truck crash and fire and on Route 34, where the normal before and after school morass was complicated by a paving project in front of the high school. Add to that the closure of an alternate work-around route on Botsford Hill Road in the aftermath of yet another truck accident there; all the town needed was an army of crusty Yankees in coveralls standing at every intersection in town opining that “You can’t get there from here.”

Somehow lots of the moms have made their way to Newtown Health and Fitness where they routinely work out. Many of them are participating in a poll there, sampling their opinions about the new start times in Newtown’s schools. I’m not sure how the voting is going, but I am surprised that moms these days have enough energy to work out after running the Newtown maze to get their kids all over town to school, to sports, and to friends’ houses. Maybe they go to the gym for a little quiet time.

There can be nothing more frustrating for a veteran hawk watcher than sitting out on a lonely hillside hour after hour, scanning the skies and not seeing any hawks. Each year, from the middle until the end of September, thousands of migrating hawks are usually spotted flying south on sunny days when there is a northwest wind. But the 2003 count results were disappointing. Local raptor expert Larry Fischer saw only nine birds on his day spent at Huntington State Park in Redding, and Newtown birder Renee Baade saw a similar number of migrating raptors, with a few swallows mixed in, from her observation point high on Botsford Hill in Bridgewater. It was Newtown naturalist Polly Brody, though, who best expressed the frustrations of the job. Even though she spotted 33 birds, including 14 broad-winged hawks, during her day’s watch from Heritage Village, she was less than impressed. “It was the poorest September count in my entire 23-year span of taking this census,” Polly wrote on the Internet site HMANA (Hawk Migration Association of Northern America). “Today’s highpoint was a single adult bald eagle passing to the west at about 11:30 am heading southwest…fruitless hours of sky-scanning have left this observer with cervical vertebrae pain and burning eyes.” It’s a thankless job being a hawk watcher. Better luck next year, everyone.

Newtown Conservation Official C. Stephen Driver is hot on the campaign trail to become a Republican selectman in Southbury, where he is a Heritage Village resident. Steve has been passing out color campaign brochures in his travels through Southbury in encouraging voters to support him in the November 4 election. The brochure describes him as “an effective voice for Heritage Village and all Southbury seniors.” Steve is running as a Republican with incumbent First Selectman Mark Cooper. Mark formerly worked as Newtown’s health director. I think Newtown probably should simply annex Southbury since we seem to be sending a lot of administrative talent in that direction anyway.

Workmen at Edmond Town Hall have been carting off the equipment and fencing they used while rebuilding the deteriorated terrace on the northern end of the building, adjacent to First Selectman Herb Rosenthal’s office. Decades of wind and weathering had caused the terrace to fall into decay. The refurbishment project really has that section of the building looking sharp.

In another spruce-up project, workers from the state Department of Transportation spent some time recently eradicating some of the graffiti that vandals had spray-painted onto the new railroad bridge over Church Hill Road. I still think we should get David Merrill to paint a trompe l’oeil mural on each side of the bridge so it seems to disappear. Then we could watch trains flying over Church Hill Road.

Well, it’s time for me to fly, but be sure to…

Read me again.