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Jewish World Review August 31, 2001 / 12 Elul, 5761
Lori Borgman
http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- WE'VE been scouring the Internet and paging through books, hunting for college scholarship money for Child No. 2. For some reason, the kid objects to selling her plasma. So far the results have been negative. "Look honey, here's a scholarship for a left-handed student willing to attend college in Santa Rosa, California. Would you consider -?" "No." "OK, well here's the Scholarship for the Advancement of Overweight and Fat People. Could we interest you in gaining 30 pounds?" "No." "Here's a great one for golf. Could you force yourself to wear long boxy shorts and pastel polo shirts?" "No." "Would you consider taking up the baton your senior year?" "No." "I suppose that means you wouldn't consider twirling a baton with fire either?" "No." "Here's one for girls who are at least 5-feet 8-inches tall. What do you say we put you in stiletto heels and tease your hair 5 inches?" "No." "What do you think about going to college to study shade trees? There's a nice scholarship for shade study from the International Society of Arboriculture." "No." As you can see, the kid doesn't give us a lot to work with. For a while it looked like she was a perfect match for an asthma scholarship. She has a great grade point average and an even better wheeze. But it turned out that thousands of others are wheezing above average, too, which is why they discontinued the scholarship. Next on our list was the Tylenol Scholarship (we never use anything but). Unfortunately, the 1-800 information number said, "Tylenol has restructured and redefined who we are in the health care industry. We have given thousands of dollars in scholarships but have discontinued all scholarships." Fine. Can you spell A-D-V-I-L? We also blew the Dog Writers Educational Trust Scholarship. It is awarded to "those who participate in organized activities with dogs." We did a brief stint with two felines, but no dogs. Ever try to interest cats in organized activities? On the upside, there is a nice assortment of scholarships sponsored by community service organizations, providing your parent or grandparent has been a member. We're looking at one particular scholarship that, as an added incentive, increases the amount of the award if your relative is incapacitated. I hesitate to ask a grandparent to fake a catastrophic illness just so the kid can avoid student loans. There's a chunk of money out there for anyone interested in attending truck driving school in Wyoming and significant pocket change for gays and lesbians living in the state of New Hampshire. If you have a parent who is a pipefitter, member of a labor union or affiliated with the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, you also may be eligible for some college dough. If you or a parent have been involved in Harness Racing, giddyup. If you are the dependent child of a worker in the footwear industry, you're right in step. If you are female and interested in becoming a helicopter pilot, you're as good as airborne. We know there's something out there for our kid somewhere. We just need to keep looking for that special scholarship for a short, bright, non-baton twirling, shade tree-ambivalent, dog-deprived, right-handed, heterosexual white kid whose parents have never been truckers, Teamsters or harness racers. Like that should be so hard.
If you know of such a scholarship, drop me a line. If you don't know of
such a scholarship, just send small unmarked
08/24/01:The test for parents
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