This week, The Sun embarks on a romantic voyage through life 100 years ago -- that ripe, youthful year of 1904. Indeed, it is in sustained, curious investigations such as these that comparisons begin to be made: How has life at Cornell improved since the glorious time of Spring Days, required freshman caps and horse carriages? How has it changed? Is there something about life in the early 20th century that we at Cornell are now missing desperately?

The answer, friends, is an emphatic, vigorous yes.

A state-of-the-art engineering college? Balderdash. Wireless Internet access? Inconceivable! A worldwide network of institutes, centers and study-abroad programs? Poppycock. Lake-source cooling? We will take our coal and kerosene, thank you kindly. No; new advancements in technology and knowledge do not always lead to improved lives. Eugenics? Nuclear power? These so-called panaceas have been the bane of world leaders for the past 50 years!

This precise fact, indeed, is why the City of Ithaca and Cornell University must destroy their vile pack of motor-buses and bring to its glorious return ... the trolley.

O trolley of yore, how we yearn for thee!

How we wish for the day when Cornell students can again make pilgrimage from the Commons of Ithaca to the Quad in style, grace and dignity.

We at The Sun remember the classic route as if it had never vanished: Trolley ho!, debarking from Lehigh Valley Station -- now The Station Restaurant -- through State Street, the current Commons, up the hill, left at Eddy Street, and up Collegetown in front of Cascadilla Hall. Another left, past the current "Collegetown Bagels," and across the Trolley Bridge, the remains of which serve as a clever shortcut to the then-nonexistent Engineering Quad. A brief roll down East Avenue, over Thurston Bridge, and around Thurston Avenue to Stewart and back to State completed the vaunted trolley's roundabout passage upon the Hill. And for those brisk freshmen donning their caps and galoshes, a convenient embarking point in front of Boardman Hall -- cruelly demolished to allow for the modernist Olin Library -- allowed for easy travel to more remote parts of campus.

O trolley, how we pine for thee!

In this modern age of buses and bullet-trains and aero-planes, is there not room for the simple, unselfish trolley? Must the trolley of days past remain only as a memory in The Sun's pages and in the triage of rail-tracks unnaturally cemented upon the Commons?

We implore you, O great leaders of Cornell and Ithaca beyond. The great city of New Orleans, once rever'd for its grand trolleys, is refurbishing Bourbon Street with their presence once again. Ithaca, land of great progress and ideals, deserves to be next. Why, think of the benefits! What heartless student would turn down an offer to live in a place of magical trolleys, tracks and cables? What tourist would decline an opportunity to visit the City of Ithaca and its world-famous trolleys? What commuter would make excuses to ride alone rather than hop upon the cheerful trolley?

None, we say! Bring back the trolley from the Land of Make-Believe!

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