[Rhodes22-list] College Funding

[brad haslett]

To All,

Since we're telling college funding war stories I'll
tell mine.  I worked as an apprentice aircraft
mechanic all through high school and the original
program was to finish my apprenticeship (about 6 more
months) after graduation, and pay my way through
school.  The very next day after graduation I lipped
off to my mother something about how unfair it was to
have been raised in such a small backward "one-horse"
town and she sweetly replied, "Son, I'm sorry, your
father and I bought you the wrong gift.  You don't
need a watch, you know what time it is, what you need
is a suitcase".  Two weeks later I was working in "The
City", Decatur, IL,(about 90,000) at a larger shop and
on my own.  In the meantime I turned 18, got my
Commercial Pilot license, Instrument Rating, and
finished the Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic
apprenticeship.  I'd attended classes three days at
Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville (SIU-E)
when I learned that a local company was moving their
corporate headquarters to Waco, TX and the pilot
wasn't moving.  I knew the CEO and convinced him to
hire me because I'd worked on the plane for two years
(it sure wasn't based on my vast experience as a
pilot). He let me use the plane while I was there to
get my Flight Instructor and Instrument & Multi-engine
Instructor ratings.  After a year in Waco I was ready
to start college again and returned to Illinois, this
time to SIU-Carbondale where I'd been promised a job
flight instructing.  After finding a mobile home for
rent near the airport and signing up for classes, I
report for duty only to be told that "times are hard,
money's tight, etc.".  Before I could even get a good
pity party going my Dad called to say Mom had some
serious health problems, had to quit her job, and they
were sorry they couldn't help.  Out with some friends
to drown my sorrows I ran into twin brothers from a
wealthy Chicago suburb that had been given a Cessna
150 by their parents.  We got the bright idea that
they'd rent the plane to me and I'd start my own
flight school.  I put flyers all over campus and by
the end of the week the phone was ringing off the
wall.  Business was so good that the company that
offered me a job (and then didn't) along with the
University's own flight school sicked the FAA and the
airport authority on me to try and shut it down.  It
didn't matter because as soon as the bills for the
extra fuel and maintenance found their way to Chicago
it got shut down anyway.  By then I had enough money
to make it through the semester.

A pilot friend of mine from Waco asked me to come
after finals and take over his student load so he
could take two weeks off.  I headed out for Texas in
my Opal Manta, great little car that would go 97 mph
downwind.  After five hours driving through cotton and
bean fields I stopped in Benton, Arkansas because 1 -
I needed gas and 2 - I couldn't see out the
windshield.  An old man was cleaning the windshield
while the gas was pumping and he started a
conversation.

"Where you headed son?

"Texas"

"Better slow er down goin through Arkladelphia boy,
the fuzz has got the radar out"

"Oh that's OK sir, I've been driving the speed limit
all day!"

He stopped what he was doing mid-squigee and looked me
in the eye.

"Son, I've been scraping bugs offa windshields for
thirty years.  They just don't splatter like that at
55".

I laughed the rest of the way to Waco and vowed to
myself that I'd always have enough education and job
skills to never develop into a bug splatter expert.

Six years, two universities, several jobs, and ten
years of student loan payments later I got a BS in
Accounting.  The rest is history.

Now my boys go to college on the "My dad's an airline
pilot, life is good, lets party!" college fund and the
oldest is voting for Kerry.

Go Figure.

Brad Haslett
"CoraShen"


		
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