A Story from the "Good Old Days"

A story from today's Star Tribune told of a woman receiving her high school diploma posthumously. She died in September of this year at age 82, and should have been part of the class of 1961.

The reason Carole Clark McBride didn't get her diploma originally was because she had cerebral palsy and failed physical education. She had good grades in her other classes and took part in extracurriculars, but because she couldn't do gym class up to the teacher's standards — which was, I'm sure, clearly unreasonable — the school gave her an unsigned diploma.

Her Gen X kids organized to get her a real diploma, presented in a special ceremony yesterday in front of the student body at the now-consolidated school district in northern Minnesota. One of the kids brought their mom's ashes to the ceremony.

According to the story,

Doctors said Carole Clark McBride would never walk, but she did up until she had a stroke late in life. She wasn't supposed to have children, but she had four.

I'm happy for her family that this wrong has been corrected, of course, but the thing this story makes me think of is how the past is often romanticized as the good old days. This is an example to remember of how the good old days were only good for some people.