Yet we only come to appreciate time as we age.
My earliest perception of time that I remember was when I was four on a long trip to England with my mother and grandmother. When will the ocean liner trip end? When will I see my Dad again? When I was in grade school summer vacation seemed to last so long. Other than that, I didn’t really think about time much, if at all.
In 1986 I was approaching the end of a year Susan and I spent living in Toronto. It was October. My Dad and I took our bikes on a ride along the Humber river trail down to Lake Ontario, and then on along the lakeshore to downtown. My Dad was 57, I was 34.
That river trail, like many of Toronto’s ravine trails, is very special. As you explore the ravines it’s easy to forget that you are in the heart of the fourth largest city in North America.
The Humber river trail in the fall is particularly spectacular. The colours of fall are of course amazing.
But the Humber holds a fall secret that mesmerizes those who witness it.
40 years ago I witnessed for the first time with my father.
Yesterday I witnessed it for the second time. This bike ride I was with my son Jonathan, and my granddaughter Leianna. We are 74, 45 and 7.
The ride totalled just over eight-and-a-half kilometres from my son’s home, to the Lambton Woods gravel trail leading from York Mills boulevard down into the ravine and over a pedestrian bridge to the Humber river trail on the east bank of the river. For an old guy, I did OK.
We followed the trail south along the Humber until we reached one of the small dams that create the basins that punctuate the Humber’s flow.
It's at those dams that the fall magic happens.
I never would have imagined that there were salmon in Lake Ontario, or that they swam upstream to spawn in the fall. It came as a surprise 40 years ago, and witnessing it once more on our Sunday ride was another amazing treat.
