Thanked Daphne for my lodging, promised to return soon, took the Tube towards Uxbridge, and hitched a ride or two northwest to Oxford, 60 miles or so up the M40 where the
Thames
is a stream lingering in the golden gleam — life, what is it but a dream?
On its way to Birmingham, the
M40
The M40 seemed a lot more like a country road then than it does today.
bypasses Oxford to the north. In its planning stage, it threatened to cut through the chess board fields of nearby Otmoor where
Alice's Meadow 
is located. But the citizens thereabouts protested so vigorously that Alice was left unravished by the aggressions of technology. I would have been among the protesters.
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Alice is my favorite storybook character, more so than Peter Pan, Peter Rabbit, or even Harry Potter. I read Alice's adventures somewhere around my 10th birthday on Washington Avenue about a mile from Northwestern University. By some inexplicable logic, after devouring the mysteries of Wonderland, I swore never to marry. I have no idea how that relates to Alice, but I can see how it relates to Alice's creator. How can any guy remain innocent enough to continue living such awesome childhood adventures and be married too? Of course, these days we would lock up Professor Dodgson for child pornography, but in Victorian England, there was no such thing. Besides, Catholic priests had been indulging in choir boys for centuries without complaint. Innocence has a price that may be monstrous, but hey, where's the harm in a few naked prepubescent photos? [Insert Smiley Face]
I wanted to visit Oxford just so I could say that once upon a time I was a Roads Scholar Bill Clinton had preceded me by a few years before he moved onto Yale. at Oxford University. Like Prof Dodgson, I was a math teacher for many years, but was not proficient, or obsessive, enough to create any new math. I felt more at home with paints than with numbers. Perhaps I would have been even more at home taking photos of Playboy bunnies? Although attending Oxford, or any major university, is prestigious, very little learning occurs in a college classroom. College can only teach you what you need to learn on your own. College may inspire you or it may discourage you, but you must learn what you need to know in your own space and time all by yourself. The sooner young people wise up to the limitations of academia, the sooner their enslavement to Sallie Mae will end. Learn your stuff, pass a test, become an expert. Leave academics to academics who only want to chase white rabbits down looking glass holes. The rest is just hype for your family and you to fall for so you can finance the many research projects, both meaningful and trivial, taking place in graduate schools throughout the land.
The college bubble is set to burst before the year 2024. Don't be left holding an empty bag with a lifetime of debt. You need not let your mind be ravished, nor your wallet. You will learn more on Facebook conferencing with strangers. Use your college years to learn what you really love to do. Don't become an architect because your daddy wanted you to be one. You may have been happier as an interior decorator. It's never too late, you know.
Did the fellows find an extra bunk for me in their halls of ivy?
By the logic of Wonderland, I dreamt of rabbit holes both past and future.
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