Which is exactly my point when saying the level of education I received in plain public schooling prior to the implementation of the federal behemoth known as the Dept of Education is far superior to what is meted out today.

I was sittin in a bar one night in a suburb of Indianapolis when on the road installing a machine and happened upon a college professor who seemed like an interesting guy, so we chewed the fat for a bit.

I was relating to him details of a trip I'd taken to Washington state and how impressed I'd been with the lifestyle and scenery there and in mentioning having seen some incredible water falls I said "This one in particular was really amazing, I mean here you have this sheer escarpment rising over 600 feet up and water just falling off the top of it, creating this beautiful, lush area beneath, where the falls pooled down below."

He looked at me incredulously and asked me if I had really just used the term "escarpment" and if I truly knew the meaning of the word, to which I said yeah and regurgitated the definition of the word, while he stared at me in amazement.

When I finished he asked me what my degree was in and I chuckled telling him I didn't have one, which seemed to mystify him even more.

He related that he doubted most of his professorial colleagues would even know the word, much less be able to use it in a sentence or define it and was mystified that a simple high school education anywhere would have availed me of such knowledge.

I picked up my glass, shoved it his way and said "A toast to education then!". As we both smiled and downed our sups of scotch I thought to myself .... "Sheesh, what a buncha dumbasses they must be raisin in this end of the world!"