Editor's note: The following column was written by Bill Plante in 1989. As he looked for the clipping recently, it fell to the floor from a stack of newspapers, a coincidence Plante presumes was an ethereal gesture from his late wife, with whom he shared countless walks to the Hay Street bridge.

It's about nine in the evening. The hour and the temperature are as one.

We are standing on the bridge facing Oldtown Hill to the southeast. Beneath us, Little River growls and booms as the ice collapses upon the falling tide. A quarter moon hovers in a cloudless sky, and a tipsy Orion falls toward the hill's crest. Only the flickering landing lights of the evening parade into Logan to the south intrude.

What we see before us is not much changed since the receding of the glacier that formed the landscape. The marshes are alluvial soil pushed beyond the hill. Little River is a stream meandering through the ancient marshes, much the same as it was when the first settlers placed a mill upstream at Four Rocks.

It's an agreeable evening with the westerly at our insulated backs. Our bodies are warmed by the mile-long walk with Trig, our Keeshound, and we do not notice the fresh westerly until we turn to face it.

There had been only two passing automobiles, both of which slowed at the sight of our anchor light we use to accompany our walks. We use the low setting — enough to permit motorists to see us, but dim enough not to intrude on the sky's natural light. I close my eyes to the headlights of the passing cars so as not to lose night vision.

Sailors, foot soldiers, country folk appreciate how much light there is from a clear night sky. Artificial light blinds us to it, reducing our field of vision to that illuminated by the glare about us.

There are few vistas remaining on the Eastern Seaboard where man-made light does not obscure natural illumination, and this particular view is one.

There is not much to be seen on such a night as this, and we do not speak, Herself and I, as we gaze out upon the marsh. For these brief moments, this is ours. The marsh belongs to no one else, and its tenants, save for the growling river, are silent. It forms a screen upon which we etch our private thoughts.

For 40 of our 50 years together we have been coming to the bridge to stand at this place. We have witnessed 160 changes of seasons here, hand in hand. Each is much the same. Each is wondrously new. Occasionally, by day, others pass, but on such nights as this it is ours, alone.

"No one else is foolish enough to go out on such nights,'' she says.

I grunt in appreciation knowing that we are both well pleased that — save for the dog — we do not to have company.

He, too, is content, sniffing and marking all the spots he has sniffed and marked before — places sniffed and marked by all those who preceded him — Dart, Scooter, Mica and Bear. He will join them just as we will one day be followed by others over the small river to listen to the ice breaking the silence of the marsh under the starlit sky of a winter's evening.