TED LAMBROS

Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf

Than that I may not disappoint myself,

That in my action I may soar as high,

As I can now discern with this clear eye.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU,

CLASS OF 1837

All sensible people are selfish.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON,

CLASS OF 1821

He was a commuter. A member of that small and near-invisible minority whose finances were not sufficient to allow them the luxury of living with their classmates on campus. Thus, they were Harvard men only by day — a part and yet apart — forced to return at night by bus or subway to the real world, Ironically, Ted Lambros had been born almost in the shadow of the Yard. His father, Socrates, who had come to America from Greece in the early thirties, was the popular proprietor of The Marathon restaurant on Massachusetts Avenue, a brisk walk north from Widener Library.

In his establishment, as he would frequently boast to members of his staff (in other words, his family), more great minds would nightly gather than ever had “symposiazed” at the Academy of Plato. Not just philosophers, but Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics. And even Mrs. Julia Child, who had pronounced his wife’s lamb in lemons “most amusing.”

Moreover, his son Theodore attended Cambridge High and Latin School, so very near the sacred precinct that it was almost part of the college itself.

Since the elder Lambros held the members of the faculty in a reverence bordering on idolatry, it was natural that his son grew up with a passionate desire to go to Harvard.

At sixteen, the tall and darkly handsome Theodore was promoted to full waiterhood, thus bringing him in closer contact with these academic luminaries.

Ted felt a thrill when they merely said good evening to him.

He wondered why. Just what was this Harvardian charisma he could sense even in the briefest motion of depositing a plate of Kleftiko?

One apocalyptic evening, it at last became clear. They had such uncanny confidence. Self-assurance emanated from these dignitaries like a halo — whether they were discussing metaphysics or the merits of a new instructor’s wife.

Being the son of an insecure immigrant, Ted especially admired their ability to love themselves and treasure their own intellects.

And it gave him a goal in life. He wanted to become one of them. Not just an undergraduate but an actual professor. And his father shared the dream.

Much to the discomfort of the other Lambros children, Daphne and Alexander, Papa would often rhapsodize at dinner about Ted’s glorious future.

“I don’t know why everybody thinks he’s so great,” young Alex would grudgingly retort.

“Because he is,” said Socrates with mantic fervor. “Theo is this family’s true lambros .” He smiled at his pun on their last name, which in Greek meant “gleam” or “brilliance.”

From Ted’s small room on Prescott Street, where he grinded well into the night, he could see the lights of Harvard Yard barely two hundred yards away. So close, so very close. And if his concentration ever flagged, he would rouse himself by thinking, “Hang in, Lambros, you’re almost there.” For, like Odysseus in the swirling sea around Phaeacia, he could actually perceive the goal of all his long and mighty struggles.

Consistent with these epic fantasies, he dreamed about the maiden who’d be waiting for him on this magic isle. A golden-haired young princess like Nausicaa. Ted’s Harvard dreams embraced the Radcliffe girls as well.

Thus, when he read the Odyssey for senior English honors class and reached book 6 — Nausicaa’s great infatuation with the handsome Greek washed up on her shore — he saw it as an augury of the delirious reception he would get when at last he arrived.

But Ted’s straight A in that English course was one of the very few he received all year. In fact, most of the time he earned solid if not brilliant B-pluses. He was more plugger than slugger. So could he dare hope to be admitted to Fair Harvard?

He stood merely seventh in his class, with College-Board scores only slightly higher than average. True, Harvard usually sought out well-rounded individuals. But Ted adjudged himself to be a square. For after studying and waitering, where was the time to learn the harp or go out for a team? He was somberly objective and kept trying to persuade his — father not to expect the impossible.

But Papa Lambros was unswervingly optimistic. He was confident that Ted’s letters of recommendation from the “gigantic personalities” who dined at The Marathon would have a magical effect.

And in a way, they did. Ted Lambros was accepted — albeit without financial aid. This meant he was condemned to remain in his cell on Prescott Street, unable to taste the joys of Harvard life beyond the classroom. For he would have to spend his evenings slaving at The Marathon to earn the six-hundred-dollar tuition.

Still Ted was undaunted. Though he was only at the foothills of Olympus, at least he was there, ready to climb.

For Ted believed in the American dream. That if you wanted something badly enough and devoted your heart and soul to it, you would ultimately succeed.

And he wanted Harvard with the same “unperishable fire” that drove Achilles till he conquered Troy.

But then Achilles didn’t have to wait on tables every night.