"And how 'bout that Boomer?"

"Actually, I was in a library all day and didn't hear the storm," the student confesses.

"What did you think of Ickey and Rice?"

"Well, I wouldn't call the rice we had at dinner ickey. Maybe malodorous."

"Montana had his rough spots..."

"It certainly does. I went mountain climbing there once."

"Do you know what the hell I've been talking about all this time?" asks the exasperated traveler.

Hopefully none of us will be put in such an uncompromising situation but, in this day of books calling for academic institutions to help students become culturally literate, forcing countless Harvard students to miss what over half the United States saw yesterday doesn't make them any more in tune with what American culture is about.

Right or wrong, someone who knows nothing about Milton, Marlowe and Jonson is safer from ridicule than someone who is ignorant of Ickey, Montana and Boomer. At least for this week.

Fortunately, there are enough diehard fans or lucky souls already on intersession that most of us can hold our own when we venture out of Cambridge next weekend. For those of you who were locked in a library yesterday, for those who still say "Einstein" instead of "Bill Walsh" when asked to name a genius, a little research into yesterday's happenings in Miami would be in order. And I don't mean the riots in Overtown.