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Things are just so different now. So much more planned. by Raoul

My dad was from Canada. He's 89 so having heard of ND only from football in late 1940's ==> 1970's he had no idea it was any kind of good school. He assumed both ND and USC had 40-60K kids like all the big football colleges in the US (i.e. Michigan State and Michigan and OSU). Didn't realize it was so small until my brother applied.

My older brother only looked into ND because his best friend's dad went there. That dad was a 50's era Irish guy whose brothers all went. Talked about it like it was the greatest place on earth. I subsequently went there because my brother went there. That is it. That I was valedictorian of my HS was not a big part of the deal. My public HS counselor openly wondered why any smart kid from Michigan would ever feel the need to go out of state.

This was only 35-40 years ago. It might as well have been 200 years. I have much more in common with my dad's life from 0 to age 22 (he graduated University of Ottawa in 1951) than I do (or will have) with my son's for that same time period.

BTW - my dad only went to college after an older family friend encouraged him to do so in July of 1947. "What are you going to do with yourself? I know someone at University of Ottawa you can write to and maybe go there." No one in his family went to college so he hadn't thought of it. There was no big application process. He only applied to one school. If he didn't do that he said he would have been working at the Chryslers plant just like his older sister's husband who had started there right after the war. It paid much better than working at his dad's small corner store stacking canned peas and carrots to sell to the neighborhood women.

No wonder kids are so stressed. I don't think he ever thought much beyond the coming week...or even the next meal at that age. His oldest brother died at 24 so just being alive was a pretty good thing.