Today in New England, the sky looked just like that in the picture above and the trees had lost most of their leaves as above. The air was bracing, the first real Fall day we have had this autumn. I was transported back in time to my first year in college.

A girl I knew only vaguely invited me to go canoeing on the Concord River(pictured above) from her uncle’s house along the river. I was delighted to have a chance to get away from the city and into the real New England countryside. The paddle was refreshing, her uncle very kind, the day well spent.

That day comes to mind many years when fall really sets in. Partly it is because I reflect on how little we can foretell the future. I remember envying her having an uncle close by and her parents in New York City. My family was across the country and I wouldn’t be seeing them until Christmas. But within a few years of graduating, this same lovely young woman was brutally assaulted, suffering brain damage, cutting short the “privileged” trajectory I had imagined for her.

But that fine day, paddling peacefully down the Concord River, we both looked forward to the unfolding of our lives. We soaked in the beauty of a place famous for its history, thankfully oblivious of what hazards lay ahead.