Sunday, March 17, 2013

Happy St. Patrick's Day

COTTonLINE extends to its readers a wish for a pleasant and safe Saint Patrick's Day ... and a hang-over free tomorrow. The arrival of St. Paddy's Day brings me an interesting memory.

At the university where I spent my career, most students live on or near the campus during the school year; they do not commute daily from their parents' homes. When Spring Break occurs the dorms close and most go home (or to San Diego or Cabo San Lucas if they can afford it) for a week.

The small university town had serious problems with St. Patrick's Day student drunkenness when I taught there. The university solved the problem in an clever way: now St. Patrick's Day always occurs during Spring Break.

Students are elsewhere and their drunkenness, if it occurs, is someone else's responsibility. Nobody is unhappy except the owners of the bars around campus.