Paying For College, One Crushed Beer Can at a Time
It takes 21,000 aluminum cans to pay for a calculus textbook. I know that from firsthand experience. And it takes a hell of a lot of time — and work — to gather up 21,000 aluminum cans.
My stepfather passed away a few years ago. His death came suddenly and without warning—he went into the bathroom one morning, and my mother discovered him unresponsive on the floor a short time later.
Government cheese shows up in the punch lines of jokes and song lyrics, but to those who have actually lived on it, it’s both a cornerstone of survival and an object that inspires complicated tinges of nostalgia.