I moved home after college, slept for a week straight, then returned to my summertime place of employment—a Roaring Twenties-themed restaurant called Yesterday’s Royal. I’d started out there four years ago as a lowly dishwasher, but had worked my way up through the ranks in subsequent summers from kitchen expeditor to ice cream-scooper in the old-time ice cream parlor to I.D. checker/doorman at the front door on Friday and Saturday nights, until finally getting promoted to work behind the bar itself. While my fellow graduates were busy joining the Peace Corps or jockeying for internships with Lehman Brothers in Manhattan,…