re: #315 Teddy’s Person

My parents, both public school teachers, put three kids through college. Two in the first half of the 1980s and a third in the early 1990s. They could because tuition was affordable at state schools, not because public school teachers were ever well paid.

The U of MN cost $325 for a full load credit per semester in 1973. I was paying for it myself with a part time job. My parents let me live at home as long as I was attending the U of M.

Living at home wound up being a mistake because my dad didn’t really give a shit that I was attending the U. It was more important to him that I was working. I wound up not giving a shit about the U either, and I floundered and dropped out in my second year.

When I finally moved out of the house it was to be a full time musician, which my dad REALLY hated. He stopped talking to me once I’d made that decision. He couldn’t believe that I never had to move back home again due to poverty.