Fame is a vapor.

-- Horace Greeley

In case you missed it last week, we reported that Augusta State University is raising cash by letting people buy naming rights to campus stuff.

That's right, come up with the cash and Double-B's boys will let you put your name on a bench ($2,000), a cannon ($25,000), a classroom or a lab ($50,000 to $100,000).

For a quarter of a million bucks, they'll name a professorship after you. And $2 million can get your name on the College of Education.

I think all this is a great idea. I would love to play along. Unfortunately, I had a lot of my pending wealth in the stock market.

Still, I can dream. What would a college name for me? What would my college consider appropriate?

The list would have to include:

- The last row of any lecture hall. That's where you'd probably find me during my campus career. Often awake.

- The university health clinic, which during my collegiate days successfully diagnosed and treated strep, bronchitis, flu (the real one), mononucleosis, food poisoning, a broken tooth, knee ligament damage and two shoulder injuries.

- The ballfields where I got the last three of those. ("Pain doesn't last; chicks dig scars; glory lasts forever.")

- The P.E. Building where I padded my accumulative average with enough class time to qualify for a minor in physical education. (Yes, coed badminton was a class, and yes, I got an A in it.)

- The college library, which I visited once during freshman orientation. Come to think of it -- it was named for somebody. Wonder how much he paid?

-

SMALL WORLD: Former Georgia state Rep. Jim Martin, a Democrat, is running against U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican, for his Senate seat.

The two have known each other longer than most candidates. Both were Sigma Chi fraternity brothers at UGA, according to Mr. Chambliss' press office. Also, Mr. Chambliss' wife was the sweetheart of Mr. Martin's fraternity pledge class.

-

NUMBERS GAME: On Tuesday, I mentioned an Internet item making the rounds that if the money in a proposed government bailout was instead divided up and sent back to taxpayers, we'd all get $425,000.

I no longer have the original, but several of you do. You did the math and said it would be more like $425 each.

-

TODAY'S JOKE: Here's one from Charlie Williams .

Two paramedics were dispatched to check on a 92-year-old man who had become disoriented. They decided to take him to the hospital for evaluation.

En route, with the siren blaring, they questioned the man to determine his level of awareness.

Leaning close, one asked, "Sir, do you know what we're doing right now?"

The old man slowly looked up at him and then gazed out the ambulance window.

"Oh," he replied, "I'd say about 50, maybe 55."

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.