DELAWARE, Ohio — Getting advice from family and friends after high school graduation can be expected.

        But two recent grads got more than 100 pages of advice in the form of handwritten notes from celebrities, war heroes and inventors — many who are now deceased.

        Brent Carson started the project for his nephews after realizing Nelson and Hugo, who were then 3 and 4 years old respectively, would graduate at the beginning of a new century.

        Since 1986, Mr. Carson wrote 650 celebrities or people who had achieved something great and asked them to give his nephews some guidance for their futures.

        Mr. Carson gave the scrapbooks to his nephews Saturday after Nelson graduated from Delaware Hayes High School. Hugo graduated last spring but has been out of the country.

        “I thought this would be a gift to give them for their future if we could get wisdom from somebody who made their mark in the 20th century,” Mr. Carson told the Delaware Gazette.

        With the letters he enclosed a picture of the boys in their baseball uniforms with their arms around each other.

        As the years rolled by, 75 of Mr. Carson's letter recipients replied to his handwritten notes, addressing their comments to the two young boys in the picture who would be teen-agers when they read them.

        Among the respondents were: entertainers Bob Hope and George Burns, This Is Your Life host Ralph Edwards, baseball Hall of Famer Bob Feller, basketball star John Havlicek and Clayton Moore, television's “Lone Ranger.”

        Others who replied included Medal of Honor winners, a Holocaust survivor and World War II veterans.

        Mr. Burns said in his letter, “By the time you two are able to read this, I'll be almost 100 years old and playing Vegas. And when you graduate ... I won't be playing Vegas. I'll be in Atlantic City.

        “It doesn't matter where I am. The important thing for you boys to remember is love and peace.”

        The personal responses surprised and touched Mr. Carson.

        “Anymore, you have autograph dealers and the like who are just out to make a profit,” said Mr. Carson, who is a sixth-grade teacher and history enthusiast. “But because they saw this was for kids for graduation and the idea of going into the 21st century, many of them wrote some really personal thoughts.”

        Sgt. Charles MacGillivary wrote about difficult times they endured and what the experiences taught them.

        “The price of freedom comes very high,” said the Medal of Honor recipient who fought the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge in 1945. “I advise you to get all the education you possibly can and realize that you live in the greatest nation of the world.”

        Late beat poet Allen Ginsberg wrote nothing, but sent a copy of an application he submitted to NASA to become an astronaut, which was rejected.

        Nelson, 18, and Hugo, 19, spent half of their school years in Delaware and the other half in Brazil. Hugo graduated in the South American country last year, and Nelson came back to Delaware last fall to finish his senior year.

        Nelson and Hugo's father, Bill Carson, got his first glimpse of the scrapbooks last week.

        “I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years,” he said. “I never imagined it was anything like this.”

        Their mother died of cancer in 1987.

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