Since Jerry Herron begins his forum essay, "Notes toward an Excellent Marxist-Elitist Honors Admissions Policy," with his anecdotal True Genealogical Confessions, Jeffery Portnoy, writes here that he feels feel obligated to begin in a similar mode. One side of Portnoy's family was in the real estate business in St. Louis, and the other operated on the production side of industry--garment manufacturing, in the "schmatta" business so to speak. Like Herron, Portnoy has benefitted from a familial confluence of disparate skill sets in his position as Director of the Georgia Perimeter College Honors Program, which during the recruiting and registration season he would liken to that of the Buddhist monk selling water from a haphazardly constructed "lemonadesque" stand situated on the bank of a river. The recruiting business in honors at GPC is dramatically different from that at Wayne State University, and Portnoy feels that these differences are compelling him to contribute to this forum precisely because they underscore the oft-repeated honors truism that Herron fervently intones and greatly respects: honors programs are part and parcel of their home institution's landscape. Portnoy defends the position that, while honors programs and colleges obviously share many features, the differences can be profound; moreover, the differences between institutions matter as well, and the significance of those institutional differences should not be dismissed in the face of what Stanley Fish labels "the culture of measurement [that] is in the ascendancy" and the fervent zealots of cookie-cutter measurements and certifications.