Retirement Offers US Supreme Court Justice Souter a Chance to Read and Meet Meryl Streep
Retirement has allowed former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter a long-awaited chance to catch up on his reading in between stints on the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals bench.
But he had to move to another home in New Hampshire instead of returning to his longtime abode, described by the Washington Post as a ramshackle farmhouse, because he was advised that it risked collapse under the weight of his book collection, the newspaper reports.
In its latest issue, Harvard Magazine offers not only details about Souter’s reading list but this firsthand gem concerning his post-retirement meeting with Meryl Streep, as both awaited the award of honorary doctorates from Harvard.
Initially, “she happened to be somewhat ahead of me in the cohort of honorands processing into the New Yard between rows of regular degree candidates, and we were just about at the corner of Widener when one senior boy reluctantly took his eyes off the eminent actress and noticed me,” Souter recounts. “He smiled with diminished voltage as he said, ‘You’re no Meryl Streep.’”
Related coverage:
ABA Journal: “Second Lives: For These Former Justices, Retirement Is No Day at the Beach”
