I graduted from college on 17 June 1956. Sixty years ago, today. I left with a brand new B. A. degree, 2 brand new gold bars of a second Lieutenant - penned on my shoulders by my mother. Walked away penniless but without owing a penny.
Every good thing that has ever happened to me since that day is a result of my going to college. I was a lonesome traveler, just a kid, getting ready to leave a country high school out on the Illilnois prarire and go forth into a world which was poised to fly into the greatest changes that had ever happened to any nation in the history of humanity.
Looking back I think the reason it worked so well was that we were mostly farm kids. We did the impossible every day. We always had problems that we couldn’t do but we had to do something, and we usually made the day turn out better than it would have been without us.
Now we still look forward to the future which gleams so brightly I can’t imagine what will happen next. Still, I look forward with the desire to confront a new course, to learn a new skill, a new subject, and to change who I used to be for someone who can create a new future.
