I was surprised this morning to see a pair of mourning doves perched on a telephone wire out my kitchen window showing affection the way horses do preening each other's necks I imagined how pleased they must have been to find such a place to alight so far from stinging nettles pine needles branches and trees I wanted to ask them what's going on but generally you don't need to ask that of crows or ravens or rooks or all manner of non blondes and just then I imagined how the local French Canadians with their own special joual got their nid de poule by analogy with the more familiar nid de corbeau which marks Turtle Mountain and the Frank Slide and the Crowsnest Pass as a place of love and loss and longing stopped fast I can't think now of those souls without longing I can't actually ask the mourning doves a thing but I believe I heard them say take time to do your laundry t...

If you really want to understand the University of Chicago and its Great Books program, you must first get through a few preliminaries, including, (1) getting to Hyde Park--the once affluent commuter community on the south side of Chicago; (2) learning the language of town and gown; (3) finding a place to live; and (4) hearing from Ford and learning about "umbrella coverage", which has nothing whatever to do with Ford or insurance. Getting there I have never owned a car, so have taken the bus, or subway, or elevated, or electric light rail--or even real trains--all of my life.  For those who enjoyed Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , and actually took on board the idea that almost as important as reaching a destination is your journey (physically and spiritually) to get there, taking slower forms of public transportation has a number of side benefits. Oh, there's the interesting people you see (after all, it takes all kinds--as we have all been...