Member-only story
Because I was a sharp little whippersnapper in the early seventies, a well-loved and cherished Jewish first son of my generation since my parents were both oldest children, my mother enrolled me into kindergarten when I was only four.
It’s no big deal.
It’s just that the difference between a six-year-old boy and a seven-year-old one or a ten-year-old versus an eleven-year-old can be major. I grew up on the south side of Evanston and was often one of the smallest, weakest, and slowest kids in my classes until about eighth grade when the differences are not so vast and I was more like average size, slightly stronger than average, and one of the fastest kids on the junior high and then high school track and cross-country teams.
What does that have to do with raising your credit score to over 800?
I’ll get to that.
So when I walked across the stage to receive my high school diploma in June of 1988, I was seventeen years old. When my dear late father dropped me off at Rust House in Madison, Wisconsin in August of 1988, I was still seventeen years old. My birthday is just before Thanksgiving.
Walking around that campus, credit card representatives set up shop in front of the student union and even in front of some academic…
