My mother was fond of a story about the little boy, miffed at his parents, who informs them he is planning to run away from home. His mother tells him she won’t stop him from doing so and packs a small suitcase for him. “Run away if you like,” she says, “but remember you’re not to leave the block.”

This story came back to me the other day when it occurred to me that I, though no little boy, have no need to leave my block. Sitting in my morning reading chair, tea and toast on a table beside me, H. L. Mencken’s hefty The American Language on my lap, looking down on the thoroughfare that is Chicago Avenue from the windows of our sixth-floor apartment, I felt that if need be I could survive nicely without ever having to leave my block. Within a hundred yards or so of our apartment are a bank, a supermarket, the main branch of the town library, the offices of my dentist and barber, a dry cleaner, two coffee shops, roughly a dozen restaurants of various ethnicities, and (though I hope to avoid inhabiting it) a retirement home.