Simmons College Library, September 2007 self-portrait

Six years ago today, I arrived in Boston a bright-eyed youth of twenty-six, with a rental car full of worldly belongings and paperwork confirming my enrollment in Simmons’ dual-degree history/archives program.

Within a week of this self-portrait taken at the Simmons library, I had met my future wife, within a month I had remembered why I loved history and hated school, and within the first semester I’d resigned my position as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble to work as a library assistant at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Arnold Arboretum, May 2013 photograph by Joseph Tychonievich

The world is so often an unexpected and adventuresome place.

Update: For the interested, here are my posts from 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.