to avoid the car snarl out west, roll to the store in Old Headington. There is a corner maze of passageways and flaking stone cottages here, a sweep of grand trees that border the park. Atoms trapped for centuries. Too often I take the still air of the past for granted as I move about this town. Tonight I’m meeting a pal in a pub that’s more than 400 years old. Hardy used to sit in there, mapping out Jude the Obscure. And in all that inhabited past are deeds foul and fair, our inheritance to probe, bury, triumph or regret. The rain lifts old memories out from the cobble stones.