It was graduation day at Yale and I flicked through the official program to the page that would give the names of the people fetching honorary degrees. Subconsciously one looks for a Surprise. Marshal Ky would have qualified in 1976. I noticed the name of Trudeau, and uttered a silent prayer of gratitude for Yale’s tradition against speeches by endoctored celebrities. It turned out of course to be another Trudeau, one of whom I had not heard; only a year or two older than my graduating son. I assumed he was a local divinity of sorts; indeed, he was so treated—I think I remember rightly that only he received a standing ovation from the graduating class when his name was called out. Perhaps he had invented the neutron bomb? I remembered somebody telling me that all geniuses in the physical sciences discover their fourth dimensions when they are 22 years old.
My surprise was genuine, upon hearing the citation, to deduce that he was an artist, or social critic; indeed he was festooned so lavishly by the president of Yale that I wondered how it could be that I had not heard his name before. On mentioning this later to my astonished son I was made to feel as though I had not heard of an entire world war. I strained to see, but from mid-crowd everyone wearing reading glasses and an academic gown looks pretty much the same—and anyway, what did it matter? I did not suppose that merely looking at G. B. Trudeau would make me laugh, the way merely looking at Jack Benny used to make
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