Bad American

The spirit of John Blutarsky lives every weekend at the honors and scholars dorms at The Ohio State University.

Today’s Contemporary Americana!

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Ah, student ‘journalism!’ Here’s the headline:

Alcohol consumption low

Most students consume alcohol one time a week or less, said Student Wellness official

But you’d never know that from the article which seems to focus on the drinking exploits of an OSU student named Vince B (not his real name, of course):

Vince B.*, a senior at Ohio State, spent $100 on alcohol Sunday after bar-hopping Friday and downing bottles of wine on Saturday.

“Honestly, my habits are such that last night I got hammered drunk and I don’t remember going to Taco Bell and I threw up,” Vince said. “I would say I drink heavily three to four nights a week and drink lightly the rest and by light I mean five or six beers.”

snip

For some students, such as Vince, the limits they set are above average.

“I like to drink, I like beer a lot,” he said. “When else in my life can I do this? My lifestyle facilitates how much I drink. I have no responsibilities.”

Wow. Where do you begin here? First, the excuse that a lot of college students use to justify their drinking and drugging lifestyles in college is that this is the last time they’ll be able to ‘cut loose’ before ‘The Man’ makes them put on the goddamn suit and earn a freakin’ living.

This is alluded to here:

Vince also said his drinking is more of a phase. Blake would agree.

“Studies show that heavy drinkers in college are more likely to develop a problem, but I wouldn’t say its an indicator,” Blake said.

I call bullshit on that and so would most reputable addiction counselors. Some of these kids won’t make it out of college and those that do tend to carry their addictive drinking personalities to their jobs, their marriages and their families. But it’s so much easier to dismiss the warning signs to let the university and the local booze merchants off the hook.

I suppose it would be better if we allowed kids to have supervised drinking at home prior to college to demystify alcohol (like my father did with me) but fat chance on that. We’ll keep the lid on the kids’ consumption of demon run until they get to the unsupervised air of the state college - then all hell breaks loose and we wonder why.

Now back to the ‘lifestyle’ issue: the thing is, social trends being what they are, most of these kids can enjoy an extended adolescence well into their adulthood. And I don’t just mean the guys living in their parents’ basements designed like the USS Enterprise bridge, working at Taco Bell and playing endless hours of World of Warcraft. And I’m not just talking men either - what do you think the whole idea of women emulating the girls of “Sex and the City” is all about?

Life for many of these people is one long drawn out party.

This, of course, is about to change. And it’s going to be a hard rain that’s going to fall on the perpetual children of Ohio State and other universities around the nation. The coming economic catastrophes are going to rattle windows from Wall Street to your parent’s basement. And it’s not going to be pretty.

I suppose there will always be the bottle - alcohol can be made locally from common grains and recipes abound. While we’re no longer able to drive, work, or find endless entertainment options, the two college stand-byes will always be readily available - alcohol and sex.

What a wonderful world this will be; what a glorious time to be free. . .

Anyway, back to the story at hand: I think OSU officialdom really turns a blind eye to their own problems for the sake of PR and liability. From what my son tells me, drinking is rampant both in the college bars and the college dorms and most of the RAs and the rest of OSU officialdom either are clueless or refuse to see.

My son lives in an honors and scholars dorm on campus which simply means the kids invent more clever ways to get alcohol, drugs, weapons and all other manner of contraband through the clueless RAs. Every Friday, the suitcases full of beer get wheeled by the front desk of the dorm upstairs where thirsty students await. It happens every Friday, courtesy of the local beer store than knows how to make a good student dollar when they see it.

And yet, the amazing thing, is that most of the students stay just within the (loose) rules and just this side of flunking out. Now I’m not going to tell you my boy’s never taken a nip - he has. But never to the extent of the rest of his dorm mates. Because he knows if his grades suffer the next thing he’ll be doing is bagging groceries back at the Hy-Vee or asking someone “do you want fries with that?” And he knows we’re not kidding. Unlike a lot of OSU legacies, our money is pretty tight right now.

But parents, don’t be like the university and kid yourself - the campus is awash in booze and drugs and the university turns a blind eye to it.

After all, how many beer serving and retailing jobs would be affected by a crackdown? How many of mummy and daddy’s little darlings would be thrown out of school by such a crackdown?

Can’t have that.

So raise your glasses for Cardinal Puff and good old Brutus Buckeye and thank the beer and alcohol distributors of America for making the college experience what it has been for the last hundred years!

(PS: if you’ve wondered why my neither my son nor I have ratted out my son’s dorm mates myself, he has specifically asked me not to since he feels threatened by one of his dorm mates who has the booze, the bong and the aforementioned non firearm weapons. And no, I don’t trust housing or the OSU police to protect him before he can get assigned to another dorm - if you ask anyone who knows the campus cops, they can barely get out of their own way)