Dear Rachel:

Your dad’s excited about your senior year in high school and all the big-girl choices you’ll have to make this year.

I know you’re thrilled that this may end my “when I was in high school” chatter. Like our recent late-night car ride across Ohio when dad insisted on listening to an entire replay of an “American Top 40” from the summer of 1974 — when your dad was a budding high school senior.

That stroll down memory lane nudged two notions out of dad’s brain: (1) popular music has gone downhill and (2) as harsh as the world seems today — we’ve been there before.

And more than survived.

So, Rachel, a brief history lesson — Stuyvesant High ’75 vs. Trabuco Hills High ’12:

•HERE? The political scene is upsetting these days, with angry debates topped by Congress narrowly avoiding a self-inflicted U.S. default on its debts. Back in my day, Rachel, all we suffered through was a constitution crisis. It led to Richard Nixon — yah, the guy from Yorba Linda — quitting the presidency in August 1974 because he was a crook.

•THERE? Yes, the U.S. is fighting two wars today. Pick a month and another Middle East dictator is on the way out, with unsettling unrest in the process. But back in ’74, the U.S. was desperately trying to exit the Vietnam War after a decade of battling. Our partner, South Vietnam, was to lose its battle in ’75. At the same time, the Middle East was still shaken by the 1973 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

•JOBS? When U.S. unemployment today runs 9 percent, it’s hard to see hope for a decent career. Well, when your dad was a high school senior, unemployment ran at 6 percent and headed to 8.5% in 1975 — the worst year for American workers until 1982-83 and then the current downturn.

•INFLATION? When dad was first driving a car, he filled it with gasoline (leaded) priced around 52 cents a gallon. But that was up double primarily due to an Arab oil embargo tied to the ’73 war. This helped fuel other prices spikes that pushed inflation to 11% in 1974. So, you get little sympathy for today’s rising prices on fancy coffee drinks, four-buck gas or the current 3 percent inflation rate.

•WALL STREET? I’ll admit stocks — with all the volatility today — look like a kooky way to invest. But as dad was pondering college choices, the stock market was in the middle of a horrible slump. The 1973-74 bear market basically sliced U.S. stock values in half.

•INTEREST RATES? Rachel, please note a true bargain: 4 percent mortgages. Back in late summer ‘74, mortgage rates ran 10%. Also, that was so long ago it was a time when banks actually paid interest on your savings — long story — also in the 10 percent range.

•HOMETOWN? Looks like California government — state and local — is in a long-term money pinch. Among other things, it means college-cost hikes. Hey, welcome to my world. Through much of the early 1970s, my New York City was a financial mess — and nearly went bankrupt.

So what’s the point here? No, Rachel, this is not a “what-year-was-harsher” contest.

Just think that in the 37 years since my senior year …

•The U.S. economy has added 52 million jobs, or an average 120,000 a month.

•As for American stocks, the Dow Jones Average is up almost 20 fold, and stocks appreciated at 10.7 percent annual rate when you toss in dividends.

•And even U.S. home prices — as shaky as they are today — are up 530 percent, or a pace of 4.6 percent per year since ’74.

Rachel, I could go on and on. What such trends show is the one given about the unpredictable world: History repeats itself! We range from civility to instability and from boom to bust.

With 20-20 hindsight, 1974 — for all its gloom — was actually a time of opportunity.

So, all your old man can offer you — and your 2012 classmates — is hope that history does its same old trick, once again.

Love,

Dad