I never actually saw any philosophy students smoking Gitanes in the Philosophy department lounge--oh, yes, these were the bad old days, when people smoked everywhere--professors in bathrooms and classrooms, students in coffee lounges and corridors.  The only place that was sacred--notice I don't say smoke free--was the library, where old rules prevailed.  There the pledge I took--the oath I swore--to get my library card at the Bodleian Library in Oxford (note: Old Bod) seems to have made the trip to the New World.  Smoke no cigarette, kindle no flame ... so I promised the Earl of Pembroke, who guarded the door. Yes, they had treasures to protect, and there are miles of tunnels with book fetchers among cast iron stacks (book presses) designed by Gladstone in the New Bod, and luggers at their push carts--hurrying picked books and manuscripts to a waiting conveyor belt in response to reader requests--in triplicate--that traveled from the handwritten quarto sized guard bo...

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...