“What? Oh. Yale? I got in.” Both men were weepier than my mother. “He’s got to get cracking now,” Bill said to Bud, who was wiping his eyes, blowing his nose, sniffing his fist. “Boy oh boy he’s got a hell of a lot of reading to do this summer.” “Plato,” Bud said. “He should read The Republic right away.” “Yes, yes,” Bud said, “they’ll start him on the Greeks, to be sure. But maybe he should read some plays. Aeschylus? Antigone? The Birds?” “What about Thoreau and Emerson? How can he go wrong with Emerson?”
