I looked at the “Today in History” note in my morning paper and two old friends jumped out at me. One I knew very well. I never met the other, but he knew me; and every other kid of my generation. March 2nd is the birthday of Theodore Geisel (1904-1991); better known as Dr. Seuss. On a college application I was asked to name my “most memorable book”. I knew they expected 18-year-old males to respond with Hemmingway, Tolkien, Melville or Salinger. In the seventies they surely got their fair share of Keseys and Kerouacs. Maybe even a Hunter S. Thompson or two. I’m sure they reveled in more ambitious responses featuring Joyce or Milton. They did not get it from me. The application said “most memorable” and I interpreted that quite literally. I declared Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop as the obvious answer. After all, I had memorized it cover to cover by the time I was 5 and could still recite it verbatim as I completed that application in 1977. What could be more memorable than that? From “Up,...