PALO ALTO — I've never taken an antidepressant, but if the time comes, I'm hoping the effect will be like that of driving onto the Stanford campus for the first time.
As the towering palm trees march past in the raking light of a fall afternoon, the gentle declivity of a grassy oval comes into view, gamboling youths upon it and a cluster of red blossoms in the shape of an "S."
Then you notice the first stately sandstone buildings, the glittering Memorial Church facade beyond them, a beaming undergrad gliding down an arcade on her bike. And as a gentle breeze brushes past the campus lake and golf course, you try to imagine a bitter argument between those who say these buildings are more Richardsonian Romanesque and those who insist they're more rooted in Mission Revival.
But ultimately, you find yourself asking: What is there on this Earth to worry about, really?
OK, maybe getting in. Or affording tuition. But if you're just here to drink in the atmosphere, Stanford is just plain dreamy.
My wife, Mary Frances, 4-year-old daughter, Grace, and I rolled in on a Friday, peeked at the campus, then headed back to University Avenue, the main drag. We crept along under the tree-lined street, gazing at the gleaming shops, the twinkling lights strung in the trees, the lines for Miyake and Thaiphoon, the crowds at Madison & Fifth and the Cheesecake Factory.
Eventually, we settled in a block off University at the Palo Alto Creamery, a bustling soda fountain and grill that traces its history to the 1920s. This is a family-friendly place with the usual nostalgic overtones but also an extra sheen of affluence. Along with the sandwiches and shakes, risotto was on the menu, as was the Bubbly Burger -- a hamburger with a bottle of Dom Perignon for $195.
"We sell a couple a month," Eric Beamesderfer, Creamery operations director, told me later. "After all, we are in Palo Alto."
The real world seems even farther away when you stroll the university-owned Stanford Shopping Center, where Neiman Marcus, Burberry and company ply their wares.
No doubt, they're feeling some of the current economic unpleasantness, but I couldn't see any sign of the strain among the shopping throngs that day. And the security guards looked really cool, patrolling by Segway.
Palo Alto (population about 58,000 in 24 square miles) counts itself among the wealthiest U.S. college towns, with a median income of $90,000 (twice Berkeley's) and a median home price around $1.4 million.
