Dan Rather Interview (page: 4 / 9) Broadcast Journalist	Print Interview

Were you expected to go to college?

Dan Rather: No.

I wasn't expected to finish high school except in my mother's absolute determination. In this time and place, in Texas in the late '30s and on into the '40s, one was expected to contribute to the support of the family once you became a man. And the definition of being a man pretty much had to do with your physical size and strength, but beginning at about 14, certainly by the time you were 16, you were pretty much considered a man for a lot of practical purposes, including work. And nobody in our family had been to college. With the exception of my Aunt Marie, I don't think anybody had ever even been on a college campus at any time. And going to college just seemed a bridge too far for most of the people in our general neighborhood, and certainly for people in my family.
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So the discussion from the time I was about maybe 14 on up was whether I would finish high school or at about 16 go to work in the oil fields, which a lot of boy-men at that time and place did.

My mother was absolutely determined that I not only would finish high school but that I would go to college. My father was not opposed to it but he was not nearly as fierce in his determination about it as my mother. In fairness to my father it was pretty hard for him to imagine how it was all going to happen. He didn't know anything about college except engineers came out of colleges. Where will the money come from? How would we do it? College seemed to be something that other people in other places might do. It wasn't very likely to happen.

My father, being a very practical person, was very big on not raising false expectations. One of his favorite things was, "Let's be realistic." So no, I was not expected to go to college except that my mother just from a fairly early age would whisper to me about that. She had finished at Bloomington high school but it was a country school. She later went back and got a high school equivalency degree certificate to make sure that she was a qualified high school graduate.

My mother was extremely determined that I would go to college, and when I got old enough to understand it, she was very rational about why, and she had it right. You know, "Look, in your father's time and your grandfather's time going to college was not an important thing, but in your time it's going to be a really important thing. And besides that, if --" and this is almost word for word -- "If you go to college and you make it, then your brother is very likely to be able to go, and he's going to make it, and if he does then your sister will." Now she had this all figured out in her head, and there's no doubt in my mind if it had not been for her, I wouldn't have gone to college. I might not have finished high school. Although I would say in high school the critical thing was football, that if I hadn't made it in football, I probably would have been gone from high school maybe in the eleventh grade, possibly as early as the tenth. But I wanted to play football so badly and I was beginning to see I just might make it. That, plus my mother's determination, kept me in high school.
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When I got out of high school, we had no idea how I was going to college. Coming out of the Depression, out of World War II, there were a lot of families who wanted their children to go to college, particularly the oldest child, for the reasons my mother had stated: If the oldest child goes, the others will likely go. But the infrastructure of scholarships and student aid didn't exist. Or if it did exist, the Rathers didn't know anything about it.

Have you ever reflected on how different your life might have been?

Dan Rather: Yes, I have a lot. I think I would have gone straight to the oil fields.

I worked in and around the oil fields every summer from 14 on up. I started cutting brush to clear a path for pipeline when I was 14. I was a roustabout when I was 15 and a half, 16. I was a roughneck by the time I was 17. This is the pecking order. You start with a survey crew. Then you get to be a roustabout. Then you get to be a roughneck. Then maybe later on you get to be a driller, tool pusher, and I probably would have worked my way up with that. But my mother had a very good saying, you know, she said, "About yesterday no tears, about tomorrow no fears." So while I have reflected on it sometimes, not very often. But I was reared by people who were very forward looking. You know, just keep looking forward.
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