His Decision

As my plane flew east, his flew west. We passed, I suppose, somewhere over Texas or Louisiana. That evening, we Skyped, and he shared his decision.

He was in his room at his mom's house, reclining on his bed in his oft-used Cleopatra pose. I was in my hotel room on the edge of my chair — at least that's what it seems now that I look at the screenshot as I captured his decision as he uttered the words, "I want to go to Oberlin."

In truth, it wasn't really a hard decision for him, although he paid attention to all his options, and he evidently weighed the financial contrasts seriously. But I told him toward the end, that this didn't need to be a financial decision, advice that will come back to bite me, since in Oberlin's view he has four parents each with a full time job, and consequently their financial aid offer was, shall we say, modest enough to make one blush. Still, come back to bite me or not, it's advice I'd give again if we had to go through it all over.

The next day, as we introduced ourselves at the meeting I had flown to Florida for, several of us chose our children's college choices as factoids to accompany our summaries of the work we do. The theme was consistent, and someone commented afterwards that it sounded like an AA meeting.

"My name is David, and my son is going to college."

"HELLO DAVID."

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