Pickles by Brian Crane for May 04, 2014

When I graduated from high school in 1962, my husband and I owned a house and two cars within a year. Most of the men who graduated with my class had similar paying jobs right out of high school. I didn’t work, didn’t need to. Most women didn’t, and those that did actually chose to work. Today, it’s not a choice for most families, and when those families break up, everyone is in poverty. When I did decide to go back to college, I paid $79 tuition for 15-18 hours of credit at SIU Edwardsville and we paid a $20 fee to rent whichever books we needed. Everyone could go to college, paying for it with a part time job. Since then American productivity has skyrocketed. But, Middle Class people don’t have anywhere near the advantages we did. And, with the cost of college, it’s darn near impossible to get a start, you already owe the cost of a house before you graduate college, and buying one right out of high school is an impossible dream. So if anyone in my generation tells you that we were deprived without microwaves and computers, you should tell them they are full of it.