Education Paper: Survival without a Diploma

I sometimes wonder what the outcome would be, if my mother had gone on past ninth grade. She stopped riding the bus that took her to North High to go to work at a local hosiery mill, in order to financially help her family. But then I think about the rich attributes that may have gone undeveloped had she continued on to graduate. My mother's home-situation wasn't supportive of going to school. There was farm …

…And my brother periodically opens her business meetings in Portland, Oregon with anecdotes about my mother that inspire men she'll never meet. He gives he mother all the credit for his success, as he analogizes resolutions to company problems to his experiences back in the South. The literacy mother achieved didn't necessarily come from a brief time at high school, nor did it come from college, but from her interaction with and response to life.