I’ve just moved those hangars to the front of my closet (again). I NEED those shoulder pads now.
I already have broad shoulders and shoulder pads make me look like a linebacker. (I was in the ensemble of 42nd Street in sixth grade and my dress made me look like a football-playing grandma.)
ditto on shoulder pads… 
me “what are you doing today?”
boy “trying to finish FallOut before I leave.”
Goals. The boy has Goals.
My gosh, this drive sucks. About 80 miles out… Been on the road about 10 hours.
Accidentally bought cargo shorts at the local Macy’s… Was bargain shopping and saw a twenty dollar pair of shorts and just grabbed it. Should have known it was too cheap to be true…
The first day of classes in the books. Latin is interesting. He’s one of the few that completed summer reading for English/History. In bio, they will be dissecting worms, eyeballs, frogs and pigs, all of which he has already done. The geometry teacher grades effort not right/wrong (however that works). He is the only boy in theatre. He is the only walk on freshman on the football team. He sounded happy, and slightly peeved that he hasn’t gotten a care package yet. And he can’t wait to see me on parents weekend.
Non sequitur, but something occurred to me recently:
- You know how a few folks have come on the BS board asking the "why BS?" question...and posted things like "how could you let kids go at such a critical/formative time?" and argue for sticking with "the gifted programs at LPS and local enrichment and/or CTY courses?" For some reason I was struck with the question if these same people sing the same tune when it comes to college...are they all pro-honors college at state university or do they go "Ivy or bust" or somewhere else on the continuum.
I’ve definitely seen people espouse a “honors college & scholarship at public U > private college (of any degree of selectivity/elite-ness) & debt” POV on the college forum…
I think to some extent it must vary depending on geography. State universities aren’t nearly as big a deal in the Northeast, for instance, as they are in the Midwest and South. I absolutely guarantee you that a significant percentage of parents in MA/CT/RI who are staunch advocates of sending their kids to public school for grade school and high school would be aghast by any suggestion of having their kids apply to the state universities in their home states.
The 2015-16 ranking and reviews is out… and I’d like to ask for a moment of silence for Harvard. 
Darn it. Hang on.
Did you see the 4-way tie with LACs? Bowdoin, Middlebury, Pomona, and Wellesley all tied for 4th (or 7th, I guess)!
@stargirl3 they are tied for fourth. The next school after all four of them is #7. It makes total sense as each of those schools is just as good as the other three…or the top three for that matter.
I’m in CA where you would think that nobody in their right mind would apply to private universities. However, many of my friends’ kids are in private school and many of them are not seriously considering the UC schools. For my part, I can’t figure out why CA residents want to go to private universities in California. It’s a lot of extra money and I’m not convinced it’s worth it - and yes, I include Stanford in that assessment.
My sister lives in CA, and most of the private schools her daughter got into were more affordable than the UC schools. She is attending a private college in Oregon. Stanford’s aid is particularly good for middle class and low income families. The same is true in other states–I’ve been running FA calculators for my senior, and the LACs (including those stargirl mentions) and Ivies he is looking at are, without exception, the same or cheaper for us than sending him to our state flagship. Sooo…for families that qualify for FA, public schools are not always the least expensive option.
Same situation with my nephew. The most expensive private school he got in to gave him the most competitive total package. Large universities may not be these kids’ preferences. I went to a very large state school (40k+) and I would prefer my kids don’t go to a very large school like that. The UCs also don’t let students defer enrollment for a gap year.
I miss the days when this thread was discussing shampoo and colognes from the 70s. Anyone remember drive-ins? Any good drive-in stories?
I remember my parents taking me and my brother with them to the drive in when we were little. Of course, the movie was for them, not us, but drive-ins made good baby-sitters. My brother and I would play with the other kids on the playground set up in the front below the ginormous movie screen then later we’d fall asleep in the back seat of the car before the main attraction even started. Sometimes, we even had popcorn.
Years later, I saw “Alien” at the drive-in with my HS boyfriend. I was terrified. I actually saw the entire movie.
@stracciatella: Love your avatar. I’m hungry.
We still go to the drive-in. Went as a family twice this summer. Always a double feature.
@ChoatieMom: Way to get the thread back “on topic”!
Drive-ins were in decline in our area during my childhood…but I do distinctly remember my parents taking us to see “Jaws” of all things. For some reason, my memory includes not actually sitting in our car, but on some grassy knoll (not THAT grassy knoll) with a view of the screen. Maybe we didn’t pay? But I did hear the sound, so…
Then, when we moved to PA, there was a famous X-rated drive-in theater that was still advertising on the radio and maybe even billboards? To answer the inevitable question, no, I never went to it.