The Library of Congress.

If you ever go to the Library of Congress, be sure to take the tour. And if you ever take the tour, do your best to take it with Irwin Deutscher, a retired sociology professor from the University of Akron.

Having wasted a few unretrievable hours of my life on bad tours, I scouted the three tour guides carefully as I sat through the tour introduction. Two older ladies who looked like they came from the Don't Touch That school and Irwin, who said, "I'll take the bunch in the back of the class." Though the ladies did their best to divide us into precise thirds, I chose fun over numerical precision.

Irwin did not disappoint. The Library of Congress is an ornate, gorgeous building with an interesting history that came alive during our enthusiastically delivered tour. Anyone who describes Benjamin Franklin as the "original long-haired hippie-freak American" has the right idea for making history interesting. I unfortunately didn't take enough notes to remember most of the verbal gems, but he did describe the Three Graces, who are depicted in the ceiling frescoes, as "the party girls of the gods." Whenever the gods wanted to have a good time, the Graces were the ones who ordered the wine and set the tables.

The piece de resistance of the library is the Reading Room. Only card-carrying researchers can enter- the masses have to observe the room from the upstairs balconies and refrain from talking, photographing or otherwise disturbing the Great American Scholars. It is a beautiful room, and Irwin encouraged us to pay attention to it rather than to him, saying, "I'm done talking, except to myself, and you may eavesdrop if you wish."

I later found out that anyone can get a library card- you might have to pretend that you're studying South Dakotan Rural Dialects, but any citizen can get a card. It's not an advertised priviledge because they don't want people getting cards as souvenirs. A little ironic that the nation's library would discourage access to books, but there you have it.