FIFTY YEARS AGO!

It seems like only yesterday that I dreamt about going to college. To a young boy from an uneducated family beyond high school, the very idea of college was beyond my expectations for myself. Being we were a poor family and Mom and Dad struggled to make ends meet, and the fact that no one in my family had attended college until a few of my siblings and I became of age to do so, the college was a fantasy.

I recall discussing it with an aunt and uncle and their putting college aside as something you really didn’t need, because as they said and believed; “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know!” But I felt that is was a little deeper than that, it was” “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know with the right tools!” and so, I forged a plan to attend college after graduating high school.

Today, after a herculean struggle to graduate college because of the expense of my major and the distances I traveled, I marvel that I had the stomach or the strength to do so, in the face of hitch-hiking for miles, traveling the Railroad and sometimes because of a lack of funds, sneaking onto the train, I finally found myself with a degree and a very good job with a prestigious company. I had made it and it was my little triumph! Thinking back to the day of graduation, I remember my grandmother attended and how proud and overwhelmed she was, just like my dad was.

And now, I reflect on 50 years that have passed and the places, people and events that have happened, I can’t believe it did happen. One year to the day I was married.