The Transcendental Outpost, 71st Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Helios): In the 1970s, I would sit in my classrooms at Boston University and let my gaze wander out the window, where I could see MIT across the Charles River. If I craned my neck just a little bit and looked upriver, I could see the rooftops and dreaming spires of Harvard.

Sometimes, especially in my last year, I could almost picture helicopters full of job recruiters flying right over BU and parachuting down to Harvard and MIT. I could picture imaginary streams of job offers and salaries cascading onto those two schools with nothing at all falling on BU. 

For two years, I shared an Alston apartment with a Harvard student and a BU Law transfer from Harvard, and they were every bit as insufferable and elitist as you might think. 

In the 1970s, Harvard had a fine geology department, I'm sure, and an even finer museum of rocks, minerals, and fossils dating back to the 19th Century and Louis Agassiz. But they weren't particularly active in the local, '70s geological community in Boston, and I can't recall them participating in the New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference or other organizations. 

The age of the bedrock in the Boston Basin has long been regarded as Carboniferous based on its similarity to other, nearby Carboniferous basins. But as of the '70s, nobody had found any fossils in the Boston Basin to confirm the age of the rocks and then, bang!, out of nowhere, some profs and staff from the Harvard museum turned up the first fossils in the basin. Virtually no involvement in local geological research and then they suddenly hit a grand slam home run with the biggest find of the century. Why of all the schools did it have to be Harvard?, all the other geology departments wondered.       

So it's with no small amount of surprise that I now find myself sympathizing with Harvard in their existential battle with the fascistic Trump regime. Check your favorite news service if you don't know what I'm talking about. As I don't have the time, patience or stomach to go over all the details here, I'll just assume you know all about it.

Anyway, the enemies of my enemy are my friends, I guess. Boston schools need to hang together, I suppose, or else, etc. The whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl, and we don't need to quibble over which side of the Charles we got our diplomas. Besides, if we're not careful, a team from Harvard will probably find that one bright pearl and add it to their collection.