"I Never Knew They Could Do That with Ordinary String"

This is a story I wrote and the first line had to start with "I never knew they could do that with ordinary string." It is an essay prompt for a college application in Chicago. This is the story I came up with:

"I never knew they could do that with ordinary string" was the headline of the article I randomly turned to one day. I was intrigued by this and started to read, little did I know that it had nothing to do with an ordinary string, but rather of a college that did things a little different than other colleges. For your application essay you would have to write a story with the starting line, "I never knew they could do that with ordinary string." After reading the article I clipped it out of the newspaper to hang on the wall because I was to intrigued by it. When friends and family came over and they would ask me more and more questions about the college, which I did not have the answers too. As the article became older and the paper became browner and wrinklier.

When it was finally time for my daughter to apply to a college she only wanted to go to one place, University of Chicago, the place she grew up knowing as "the string essay college." When her essay topic came, it was none other than "I never knew they could do that with ordinary string." She took it and flew with it, writing the story of her ordinary life leading to her to apply to UC because she grew up with this article posted on her father's office wall. When her acceptance letter came we were more than thrilled. That fall we were all on our way to drop her, including her life long friend, Mr. Fuzzicle, the big fat tabby she had since about she was five.

Getting to the college is a whole different story and how many times we got lost I can't even count on all three of our hands. But finally getting to this college that I had spent the last half of my life learning so much about because of one article, it was a great moment in my life. Learning all I could about this college and their unusual methods, it was amazing to finally be there and stand in front of their doors.

My daughter spent all four years of college at the University of Chicago. Towards the end of the third year of her college she met and boy who she would now looking back call "the one," but I just call him son-in-law. They fell in love and two years after they graduated (with honors) got married and moved 20 minutes away from us and had three beautiful kids. While they wished for all three of them to go to University of Chicago only one did,the youngest, the other two claimed they wanted to direct their own future and not follow in their parents footsteps. He, just like his parents, graduated with honors, his older sisters didn't.

When all is said and done, and I am looking down on my family from where ever I will be in the end, I know how lucky I am to have picked up the newspaper that day and read that one article. Without that I would never have had my three beautiful grandchildren and a son-in-law who loves my daughter the way she deserves to be loved. Who knows the life I would have had if I had not picked up that article that day, maybe someone out there is living that life because they did not pick up the article.We make life changing decisions every day, but are we making the right ones?