If Only

Yes, if only I had been born in the city of Detroit where, in lieu of attending college classes, I could just walk over to the University of Michigan libraries and spend all day every day reading through their vast collection of old 19th century magazines. I would feel like a genius I am sure having spotted every point of intelligence and sparkling wit to be drawn from those sources, not to mention the technology that followed a century later. Michigan's collection seems to rival anything that New England Ivy Leaguers might offer in the way of 19th century magazines. And yet who even knew that stuff was there until Google did us the favor of putting it all online? Thank you very much, Google. We will always be grateful at least for that. Now we can all pretend to be one of those snarky know-it-all Detroit high school dropouts, never mind that we could never get access to the contents of private libraries of wealthy people such as the Rockefellers, etc. etc. At least Google's efforts have leveled the playing field somewhat for the rest of us clueless persons geographically disadvantaged in terms of library access even if we do not get the money side of it.