School daze

School starts this week.

For my oldest daughter, it means her last year in high school. Which means the onset of Senior-itis. Not hers, mine.

How did I get to be old enough to have a child about to enter college?

Lately I've been seeing a spate of articles questioning the value of a 4-year college education. And with a quarter million dollar price tag for each child I'm wondering about the wisdom of it all myself.

How am I going to come up with that kind of money?

More importantly, wouldn't that money be better spent on vacations to the Caribbean?
A week at Dodger Training Camp?
A '67 Cherry Red Mustang Convertible?
Or a blonde goomah in a Hollywood pied-a-terre?

Of course, my wife will have none of that. Particularly the last option.

The fact is, she didn't speak to me for a week when I seriously suggested enrolling our daughters in the ROTC program.

"What, the discipline will be good for them."

Would I really want to deprive my children of a college education she asked. Prompting me to consider what it is exactly that I learned in college. The answer did not bolster her argument.

The first two years I was at Syracuse University I was an intended Math Major. By the time I got to Calculus 4, The Analysis of Transformational Objects Moving Through Three Dimensional Space, I was hopelessly lost. I was the only white male in a sausage-fest classroom of Indians and Pakistanis, who seemed to know more about the subject matter than the professor.

I couldn't draw a parabola.
Much less, one that rotated around the Z-axis.

Having failed the course, twice, I switched to the much less rigorous Broadcast Journalism program. The subject matter was far easier. Full semesters devoted to the study of MASH, the Mary Tyler Moore Show and All In the Family.

Had I known then what I know now, I would've dropped out of college and gone to Dodger Training Camp. Truth is, I had a better chance of becoming a major league catcher than I did of learning anything that would actually make me a better writer.

I'm staring at the inescapable. I need to bite the bullet and pony up the dough for my daughter(s) college education, both of them.

But if I had my druthers they'd be less concerned about getting a sheepskin and more focused on getting pregnant.

Because when the times comes, I intend to be the world's best grandfather.