Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2017.

Sometimes, it seems, you really can turn the clock back when you want to.

Last week, I went back more than a decade, to the time when I walked every day on the bike path next to Corte Madera Creek, watching oarsmen row by and stately egrets pace the shore.

I hardly missed a day for 14 years.

I would meet my friends Mary and Carol at 6 a.m. across from Marin General Hospital, and we would set off on our 2-mile walk to Half Day Cafe and back.

Along the way, we would stop to watch the birds, which in those days I could identify by name. The most beautiful, of course, were the egrets. Occasionally we would see a great blue heron.

We even saw otters and a sea lion. And once, a female swimmer who lived in a house by the creek.

Every day we met the same walkers — Brookie and Sandy and Nancy and others — and if there was any gossip worth embellishing, we would stop to add our 2 cents’ worth. All of us became friends. I miss them still.

At age 91, I am much less mobile than I was. My sons have more than risen to the challenge.

Last week it was Pete, who remembered my love of the creek and announced he was taking me there for a walk, which he did, loading a wheelchair into his Subaru and driving us down to a parking spot near the hospital. For the next hour he pushed me along the asphalt path, pausing to point out birds I missed and commenting with me on how gorgeous the day was: not a cloud in the sky, not a ripple in the creek.

We sat for a while on one of the benches, inscribed with the name of its donor. I had wanted to buy a bench of my own, but the parks people said (sigh) they already had more than enough, so the answer was no.

Nonetheless, I hope to leave my “mark.” I have told Rowland I would like a handful of my ashes to go in the creek and a small memorial get-together held near the bridge. (Byron and Gilbert and Guy could play sax, and Pete the drums, but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.)

Pete and I kept congratulating ourselves on the glorious weather.

“They knew you were coming,” Pete said.

When we got back to the car, I apologized to Pete for all the work he had given, but he just scoffed; he is a fencing official and instructor, so he’s in really good shape.

Still, he gave much of his precious time to help me.

“I can’t thank you enough, darling Pete,” I told him.

He patted my arm.

“Not a problem,” he said. “Let’s do it again next Tuesday.”