"If I ever gave it up, I would never get it back," Damrosch says. "I would have go all the way back to the bottom of the list."

Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein '61 has a pooled parking spot in the Littauer parking lot, but says that if he doesn't arrive early in the morning, there is often no place for him to park.

"That suggests that the University has set the price too low for the parking places, or that they do not tow cars that are illegally parked," Feldstein says. "Or have someone check that anyone entering with a car has the permit."

Perhaps, Feldstein suggests, there should be a higher price for parking spaces and that the parking office should only sell as many permits as they have spots.

But like water in the desert, a parking place at Harvard is hard to come by--even for those in high places.

"Since I'm a dean and a senior professor and don't have a parking place, I would doubt there is too much hierarchy involved," Pedersen says.

For those who, like Campbell, are fed up with Harvard parking altogether, like Campbell, the alternative of a breath of fresh air on the alternative walk to work is a welcome shift.

Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53 walks to work on a regular basis and thus has only the rare encounter with the Harvard Parking bureaucracy.