It was the fall of my senior year of high school. Having been a solid B/B+ student despite exerting as little effort as possible, I was definitely college material. Getting in to the schools I applied to wasn't in doubt. The question was, would I be staying home or moving away? It would all come down to scholarships, grants and financial aid.
My father suffered a severe stroke three years prior, two weeks before his 50th birthday. He was left permanently disabled - in addition to reduced cognitive function, he walked with a cane, had range of motion issues with his arms and neuropathy in his hands and was deemed unable to go back to work in the electrician's union. His disability and SSI paid the mortgage, and my mother's customer service job was left to cover the rest. So, like I said, the financial packages from schools were going to be the deciding factor.
More about me, I was your typical late-90s teenager, days spent at an all boys private school, evenings and weekends working my part time job at a local grocery store. I was relatively tall at 6'3 and heavier than I should have been at my age, probably 260lbs but no real muscle bulk or definition. Had my current 37 year old "dad bod" at 18.
Pre-internet, we had to keep a Maxim under the bed or hope to catch the latest Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera video on MTV to get our rocks off. I know it's how most guys begin their sexual awakening, but I was definitely a boob guy, but didn't like the look (God help me if I ever got to FEEL, haha) of implants. I liked big natural tits best, but wasn't too picky when it came time to fire one off before bed, or before school, or after school, or... you get it.
Having done some research through catalogs and brochures (again, this was pre-internet), I narrowed my list down to a half dozen. All in state, within a roughly three hour radius. Only one in our home town, though. I was not so secretly giving myself the best odds to wind up at a school allowing me move away for the full college experience.
My mother proposed a weekend road trip to visit campuses and see them in person. She was off work for Columbus Day the following Monday, so the plan was to leave Saturday morning, drive to the farthest school and work our way home, seeing two Saturday, two Sunday and one Monday. This amount of travel and walking wasn't conducive to my father coming along, so he was going to stay home and wait til I picked a school before visiting it.
We woke early Saturday morning, showered, had breakfast and set out. I mostly stared out the window and made small talk while mom drove. She did her motherly best to talk about my interests - comedy, movies, sports, mostly college and pro football this time of year and let me pick the radio station so as to not sit there in silence while I had headphones in listening to my discman.
With no traffic and one stop for gas and a bathroom break, we arrived at the first school a little more than three hours later. Went to the admissions office and were met by a tour guide. Most mid-Atlantic and Northeast schools are picturesque on fall Saturdays and this one was no different. The turning leaves and trees blowing in the wind, paired with the students on campus in sweatshirts of the school's primary colors were everything the tour guide could hope for.
As the tour wrapped up, we got back in the car and made our way to the second school. As we pulled into campus an hour or so later, we were confused to find the football stadium filling up from the Homecoming game. Great planning, Rob... All parking lots were full and the thousands of people in them began the process of filing into the game.