Free Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) by Michele Bachmann

bureaucrats were trying to limit output, in accordance with a politically correct dogma that further entrenched the power of a distant and arrogant elite, many of whom had never been to Alaska.
    So I learned a lot in Alaska. And yet as I thought about my own future, including college, I knew I wanted to be closer to home. Once again, God’s hand intervened in my life. I met a geologist there who had formerly taught at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota; he took a kindly interest in me. I told him I didn’t want to go back to community college but didn’t have the money for a costly school. He recommended Winona, not far from the Twin Cities. He explained that it was inexpensive, was situated in a wonderful little town, and offered great academics. He sold me on it. So I sent away for the school catalog; my letter went out on the airplane that came to and from our small Aleutian camp once a week. A couple of weeks later, the plane dropped its regular mailbag, and in the pouch was a catalog from Winona State. I read it, filled out an application, sent a check for the application fee, and was soon accepted. That was the beginning of my new life—first as a student and then, later, as a wife, mother, and career woman.
    I borrowed my cousin’s college guidebook and sent requests for catalogues for fifty colleges across the country. We had no TV, radio, or telephone; only a shortwave radio we used for emergencies. With long sun-filled days and evenings—we had three days when the sun never truly set—I had nothing to do after work except read college catalogues. So I scoured them all, even as I was teased each week by my uncle and cousins, because I was the one getting all the mail and packages. One day while cleaning the cabins, I read the Winona State catalogue. The school had it all: every department, a beautiful romantic campus; it was the oldest college west of the Mississippi. And it was eight dollars a credit hour! I could do this! When we were little, our dad had told us never to go into debt. That’s the way everyone we knew lived. No one had much money, but everyone saved a little, they gave their money to church, and spent less than they had. Democrats, Republicans, apolitical, we all lived that way. “Bankruptcy” was a dirty word. Taking money from the government was something we wouldn’t consider doing. Besides, there was no need. Our parents were careful and were not foolish with their money. I knew that finishing college was my goal and that there would be a better life thereafter, so I made it my mission to pay as I went and to not graduate with debt. I wouldn’t even put a quarter in the pop machine on campus, much less spend money on a spring break trip. I worked. I went to school, because I had that greater goal.
    But I should pause here and step back a couple of years to describe the single most important relationship I will ever have—my relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
    If you had asked me growing up if I was a believing Christian, I would have said, “Of course!”
    I loved the Lutheran Church. I had been baptized as a Lutheran, went to church every Sunday, attended vacation Bible school every summer, and prayed a traditional Lutheran prayer at night before I went to bed. And I was proud that I came from a long line of Lutherans; I remember, as a kid, driving through Iowa with my parents and stopping at a Lutheran church near a little place called Jericho, where many of my ancestors had once lived and were buried. There we were able to look at the old church records and see all sorts of family names—including that of Halvor Munson, my great-great-grandfather. I was proud that my ancestors had been actively involved in their church, but as far as I was concerned, that was mainly a matter of history. For me as a girl, being a Christian was a simple duty, doing what was expected, it was what we did on our way through life. I