Higher Education

I felt a little sorry for The Athlete.


The Brainiac and her boyfriend, Frenchie, (he's Basque) were along for the trip to camp because we were going on from there to visit several colleges in the area. Our first appointment was at 1 p.m. at a college four hours away.


In order to get to the tour of Colgate University on time, we would have to literally push The Athlete out the door of the car with her bags and keep on rolling.


Our Rising Seniors were not too happy when I insisted we at least help her unpack and meet her counselor before heading out. And so we jogged to her cabin and tucked the sheets haphazardly into her bunk and assuaged our guilt with $40 for a camp sweatshirt before waving goodbye.


We pulled away from camp at 10 a.m.



Our GPS, Silicone Sally, said we would be to our destination at 2:02, making us just over one hour late for our scheduled campus tour.


Had I been driving, making the tour on time would have been out of the question. But, sadly, I was not driving.



The Entrepreneur was driving, and he considered it a personal challenge and his duty as a father to get The Brainiac to her college tour dead or alive.


So off we went through the Amish-buggy dotted hills of Pennsylvania cruising at speeds I can't confess in order to avoid my mother, who I know is reading, having a heart attack. Let's just say at times I felt like I was in a live version of the arcade car game you play where you blow into a million pieces when you hit a wall - or an Amish buggy.

A minute at a time, the GPS reduced our arrival time, and we pulled into the little town of Hamilton, NY just in time for the tour.

Now, having been on several of these tours by this point, let me point out that what I look for in a school is not the same as what Frenchie and The Brainiac look for.

I am checking to see if the lawns are weed-free and the shrubs are properly pruned and there are some decent annual beds and sizable container gardens to improve the view.

Frenchie and Brainiac are checking class sizes, research opportunities and student life.



For me the end-of-the-tour treat is also very important.

At Colgate, the end of the tour treat was a delicious Vanilla Cookiewich provided by the local Byrne Dairy. It is two tasty chocolate chip cookies with some yummy vanilla ice cream sandwiched between.

Colgate gives away 10,000 of these each year, according to the University Catalog.

At Kalamazoo College, the end of the tour treat was a cold bottle of water. Guess which college is at the top of my list?