Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
We’ve all heard that phrase one way or another: the more things change, the more they stay the same. And we can all name examples. Politics, for one.
But enough of that. Here are two stories showing how that phrase is sometimes not true.
When we took Isaac to college yesterday, we went early, because he wished it. Therefore we sat in the car, in a line of cars, waiting with all the other families who listened to their first-year children who wished to come early (to beat the rush don’t you know) so they could get into their dorm rooms before everyone else. It had been obvious to Isaac that we knew nothing about the process. His friend Sam knew. So we sat there for half an hour.
When we arrived at the designated unloading spot we made fun of the family which had a Hertz Rental Moving Van for their child’s stuff! What were they thinking? Maybe they were the first of their family ever to go to college.
After unpacking the car, the kids got a trolley and guarded the stuff, and the parents went, parked the car, and walked back.
Then we all shuffled his stuff into his room, made him fill out the form detailing the degree of soundness in his room, made him unpack the two suitcases and cloth carrying bags so we could take them home, and after all this parental harassment, walked with him to the large gym where he went to his college table and got given free stuff: shirts, a backpack bag, a calendar, a planner, a highlighter, etc. We walked around the gym looking at all the tables, ate a few bites of free food and then he walked us to the car, where we said our good-byes and he ran away. Literally. Smiling a Cheshire Cat smile.
It took us less than 1.5 hours. It was now one hour into the three hours given for his designated living area to come unload.
And when we walked past the waiting-in-car-lines parking lot, guess how many cars were there, waiting? None. Zero. Zip.
Huh. What about that?
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When my father got ready to go to college, in 1947, his father took him early Monday morning to the pawnbroker in downtown Rochester because my grandfather knew that the dealer gave a 10% discount on the first sale of the day. Grandpa bought his son a used leather satchel.
Wednesday morning of that week, my grandparents dropped their youngest child and only son off on the intersection of two main roads. It took him three days to hitchhike to Kansas State University. The satchel was his only piece of luggage.
It didn’t seem to harm him a bit.
