Who Knew?

Here is another book report....I can't believe how many books I have recently finished. This is on Condoleezza Rice's Book, "Extraordinary Ordinary People", which is really the story of her and her parents. The book stops when Bush gets elected. First of all, I had no idea she and I were nearly the same age. Good thing I have been nearly as successful as her, or I would be embarrassed! So reading the book brought back so many similar memories of my own childhood, it was a much simpler time to be a child in the 50's. Of course, I am not black, and was not raised in segregated Birmingham Alabama, but her parents did an excellent job of shielding her from the ugliness of her surroundings. Of course she was living in the center of the storm that became the Civil Rights Movement, and it is fascinating to read her perception of what was going on. She does not fill the book with a lot of detail (a lot like her boss, George W. Bush), which makes the book a very quick easy read....now where the book became fascinating to me is when she began to visit Denver in the summers and eventually moved there. So many of my Denver memories came flooding back. So unless you are a child of the 50's and 60's and grew up in Birmingham and Denver, you may not find the book as fascinating as I did. She talked about wanting to go to high school at George Washington (GW), but couldn't because she didn't live in the district. That is the high school my brothers graduated from! She also took ice skating lessons at DU (Denver University)....SO DID I! We may have been in the same class (although it sounded like she took it much more seriously than I did). Her parents chose to send her to private school, and she talked about the 2 available, one was Kent, which I had forgotten all about! My sister was always so sure my parents were going to send her to Kent because she was not a very good student and was always in trouble. She talked about Kent all the time, and I had forgotten about it until I saw the mention of it in this book. (BTW that is not where Condoleezza or my sister went). She also dated Rick Upchurch, according to some they were engaged and she broke it off, but she does not say that in her book. He was a Denver Bronco, and I love the Bronco's! However I have to say, having dated a Bronco, and then went to Stanford and was there John Elway's senior year, she does not have a love for the Bronco's. That was very disappointing. Her teams are the Browns and Bengals. That seems very random to me. Also, each time she went to college, first to Notre Dame to get her Masters and then to Stanford to get her PhD, she mentions flying there, but then her next paragraph talks about driving the clunker of a car her parents provided for her at each place. Now my question is, if she flew there, how did the cars get to the colleges? That is a conundrum she never addresses. I very much enjoyed this book. I read some reviews that were disappointed that she didn't address the social problems of black families and how to address them...first of all, that is not what this book was about, it was a personal love story to her parents, but secondly, I think she does address it. Her family was all about education being the road to success, and they modeled that for her and were quite the educational evangelists. And I think that is her power and her solution, education, education, education.... and do not accept the limits other people may place on you. Good advise.