With a Junior in High School, memories of my own experience applying to college way back when are flooding back to me, especially with the help of old cartoon books.

I don’t know what is more astonishing — the things that are different or the things that are the same. For example, my mother still burns hamburger buns with alarming regularity and I think I still have that Fair Isle sweater. But what I love most about this drawing is the snapshot it takes in time. Not just the late 70s, but the point in time it captures in my family’s life: my sister Leslie away at college and calling to ask for money, my Mom in her pom-pom tennis socks, and Steve’s huge teen feet in a pair of Wallabees.

I have vowed to take a calmer, gentler approach towards helping my children with the college application process, which of course means that the whole thing will have to be outsourced. (Stay tuned for updates on college visits– those we will have to handle ourselves.)

But, the way I see it, as long as none of it gets in the way of my tennis game, everything will be just fine.