How could I have forgotten this? Ladies and gentlemen, I now own my college education. I paid off my last student loan on Saturday.

It's quite fashionable among liberal arts graduates of my age (especially those who never went to graduate school) to disparage our education... you know, "I can deconstruct a short story by Ambrose Bierce but I can't balance my checkbook" and all that. Well, I'm here to tell you that college taught me very little that I remember on a regular basis. But it taught me one thing that will stay with me forever--how to think.

Now if only I had taken that course on "Self Esteem in the Late Twentieth Century" I'd be all right.