We had a wicked good time back East for the last five days. Having grown up in Maryland, spent two years in New England, and relished the variety of seasons in Europe, it’s always comforting to return to a geography that somehow feels right to me. I enjoyed magnificent blazing colors . . . gorgeous sunshine with that autumn crispness in the air . . . pumpkins and mums on the steps to every porch . . . grand old houses with yards and sidewalks (we don’t have these in California) . . . mounds of fallen leaves and bushels of apples . . . graveyards with headstones from the 1600s . . . American history everywhere present . . .  cobblestone streets and gas lamps . . . chowdah and lobstah and blueberries in Maine . . . a boat ride from Cross Chartering on the Narragansett Bay off the rocky Rhode Island coast . . . the Campus Crusade office in a wonderful old building right on Boston’s Freedom Trail (can there be a more perfect location?) . . . my niece’s field hockey game on Columbus Day . . . and most of all, a good time laughing and catching up with family.