I was three years old. By this point in my life, the residents of Sesame Street had educated me about as well as any community of puppets could reasonably be expected to educate any small child. Family legend has my father holding me, age fifteen months, as he selected an ice cream treat from the Dickie Dee vendor outside our Virginia home. I don’t know if I recognized the varieties of snacks, but apparently I could make some sense of their names. “I,” I enunciated, pointing. “C. E. C…” Incredulous, my father informed my mother, “She knows letters.” Since neither…