"When I Was Your Age..."

ChoatieMom
Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:23:59 +0000

Straight-A, straight-laced, bus-riding, book-loving high school student; no cigarettes, no alcohol, no sex. Went to beauty school and worked in a bookstore after graduation, but wound up at UMich in ’77 because my best HS friend needed a roommate for a semester. A gorgeous boy who lived on our co-ed floor kissed me on my 19th birthday and taught me to be a little less straight-laced. (We just celebrated our 30th anniversary.) I don’t remember parents being involved in our lives at all. I simply told my mom and dad that I was going to U-M for a semester and needed a ride to Ann Arbor. Tuition that first term was $683.00. I paid room/board from bookstore savings and qualified for a full scholarship later that paid the rest of my way (the boy was too cute to leave after just one semester). Summer after freshman year, roommate and I hitch-hiked up the California coast from Mexicali to San Fran camping at KOAs and living out of our backpacks. Had a lovely time, no danger. Married the boy in ’81, had our first/only child in ’97. Have avoided the “when I was your age…” line because we’ve brought him up to take risks and be independent, no hovering here. At 14, he’s 3,000 miles away at boarding school, loving it and, I hope, having “adventures” of his own.