Richard Feenstra:  

Yeah, those 4 years on High St just flew by. Walked the halls at Laurier HS for my G13 then enrolled at McMaster w/o a break. Some take a year to work and save some coin, perhaps that's an idea worth doing. My major was English lit and political science and what an enjoyable time it was. Made some great friends who remain w me to this day. I quickly become drawn to the student newspaper and it became my second home on the campus.. Many, many news stories were printed under my by-line and I could never count the number of hours spent generating the volumes of copy which were needed each week before deadline. Academically I was an average B or C student, and chose to live at the homestead instead of sharing a place close to the campus. A mistake I wish I could rectify. After a total of 5 yrs full- and part-time study I struck out into the workforce---and discovered the harsh reality of the low-paid job market. Several attempts to break into the newspaper industry failed. The recession of the early 1980s certainly did not help me. Thus it came to be a series of dead-end jobs in community newspapers and retail food, all for single-digit wages the whole time. I crawled throught the 80s and 90s surviving on Hong Kong wages while renting rooms in private homes or sharing an apt w a relative. Tried not to think about others who were miraculously doing much better. C'est la Vie... Marriage occurred in 1989 and my partner and I learne...Expand for more