It can be whatever you decide to make it. —Ronald Reagan to his son Michael on the eve of Michael’s marriage, June 1971 “Brace yourself. You are going to have a lot to say about this one,” I said. “Sounds like you’re the one who needs bracing,” my friend Farren said, jabbing her plastic ice cream spoon toward me. We were parked at a table on the broad wooden porch of Williamstown’s legendary ice cream shop, Lickety-Split, which I have been known to tell people is the sole reason I moved back to my college town. It was the kind of summer evening with which Massachusetts makes up for February: slanting caramel sunlight and air so rich it was practically a cocktail. Wind purred in the trees behind the building. Farren was up to her tonsils in a swiftly melting mountain of Purple Cow (black raspberry ice cream with white and dark chocolate chips), which she had requested be bedecked with every variety of topping, one after another, until the young clerk looked at her in concern and said, “Ma’am, I don’t think there’s room for any more.”
