Beth Macy

I would deliver in my neighborhood to all kinds of people, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class.

It was possible to grow up right around the corner from a wealthy person and to get to take advantage of public things that all kids got to take advantage of then.

Because when I left for college in 1982, I remember filling out the financial aid paperwork.

My mom helped me.

Our family income was $8,000 a year, which put us in the lowest quartile.

And the Pell Grant is need-based, so we qualified for the full freight.

So that means I got my state tuition paid for, my room and board paid.

My textbooks were paid for, and I always had two or three work-study jobs so I could have pizza and beer money just like everybody else and not feel like a food stamp recipient in the line at Whole Foods.

And it changed my life.

It just totally changed my life going to college.

Not that I made –

great money as a newspaper reporter for many, many years.

It was paycheck to paycheck.

But what it did is it took me out of the environment I was raised in, and it put me in a peer group of people, including my husband, who were solidly middle class and not having to deal with addiction, trauma, utility cutoff notices.

And it was just a peaceful environment that I hadn't before experienced.

I think she did.

I've got this funny picture of her sort of half waving, half smiling, pretending to cry, saying goodbye to me.

And I remember saying on the way up, I was so nervous.

She could probably hear my stomach, you know, making weird noises.

And, you know, about half asked her to turn around and take me back because no one in my family had been to college.