Letters From College. 40 Years Ago!

Traveling back in time again today, through letters I wrote my family in my early years of college at Sacramento State. I had a few scholarship checks (totaling about $500) which helped me pay initial expenses of my first semester at college, and a State Scholarship that paid my tuition for the first two years of college (I think it was two years). However all other expenses such as books, rent, utilities, food, clothes (ha!), bus fare, and bike tires were all on me for my second semester and thereafter.
Here's a note to my parents about how I survived on $192 a month in earnings 1975 (about $850 in today's dollars):

"I averaged up my food costs--about $35 a month. And the average book cost for a semester is $70. My average (necessary items) monthly expenditure was about $170."

And in case you don't see how my food could have been $35 a month, here's an explanation from a different communication:

"Actually I can get by (food-wise) on $5 a week. 'Cause a loaf of bread lasts me a week. So does a dozen eggs, 2 cans of tuna, 1 stick of butter and a box of cup-a-soup and instant breakfast." (Presumably I bought separate boxes of cup-a-soup and Instant Breakfast.) "So I haven't been eating too bad." (now I think arghh. no!) "I open a can of tuna and have tuna sandwiches [I wrote 'samwiches' back then but I refuse to now] for dinner, breakfast, and lunch again. And a hunk of cheese makes snacks, sandwiches, and tastes yummy in salad."

My parents didn't give me any money, so I had worked for the $192 at my Student Assistant job in the Sac State Library at $2 per hour.* The folks did help me with a dozen eggs frequently, like weekly for bimonthly, which I could obtain if I got a lift home to Clear Lake, 100 miles away, on the weekends.

I still like eggs, but no tuna please thanks.

But think about it. $5 a week is like $22 a week now. Could you live on that if you had to? I think I couldn't unless... lots of beans and rice and cheap greens.
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* for awhile I also supplemented my Student Assistant salary by housecleaning at $5 a pop, when I could get that work. That story is for another day.

Time Travel: Letter from 50 years ago Kat

It's always interesting to meet someone--especially a child--from the past, and to read about their dreams and plans for life. That happened to me yesterday when I came across old school papers of mine from 53 years ago, and later. I got these papers when I helped my siblings move my parents to a different state. Each of us five kids got a pile of old school items. But I hadn't really looked carefully at mine in the three years since receiving them. because life.
But since it's my birthday, I decided to do ME things, starting with meeting my 8-year-old self from 50 years ago.
The first paper I saw was an assignment to write, in cursive, what I wanted to be when I grow up.

In the upper left corner, my name is printed "Kathy Griffin," then it begins "I would like to be a teacher and be someone plain."
What does someone plain mean? Well, I think I was saying that I didn't want to stand out, I didn't want to get attention.
Wait--how can a teacher do her job without demanding attention? 
But I get it. I get why young Kathy/Kat wrote it. At my home 50 years ago, if you got attention, it usually meant that you were in trouble, and that might earn you a spanking whether it was deserved or not. Yes I think I know that girl is telling us she didn't want negative attention. The way she promises, later in the assignment, to read to her students, to show them how to make art, and to think well of teachers, she is saying that children will benefit from her work. And she will give them positive attention, which all children deserve.
I'm glad she changed her mind about attention. I'm glad she got out and did things and lived her life. My life.
And became a teacher, too.

  

Eldercare blog is not here

Spring from the Boulders is my blog for fun happenings and personal observances. The Eldercare blog is here My Adventures in Eldercare