You can't make it up. Two guys on the Mesaba Miner got into a knife fight at 3am as she was upbound, about 10 miles north of our beloved Apostle Islands. Apparently they were in their early 20's and drunk. They made port in Duluth at around 6am and the stabee, who turned out to be OK, was taken to the hospital and the stabber was grilled by the Coast Guard and the FBI for 10 hours. Other than wondering why it took 10 hours for two Federal agencies to get to the bottom of what appears to be an altercation between two acquaintances, I wonder about that age old relationship between alcohol and young men. One of PJ O'Rourke's greatest quotes is, "Giving money and power to Congress is like giving alcohol and car keys to teen age boys". Other than the more than deserved rip on our legislative bodies, it underscores that volatile mix that has been a problem for a couple of millenniums. On a related drunken youth note, the Ely6, subject of a couple posts on this site, had their preliminary hearing for their 79 counts of harassing BWCAW campers. The disturbing thing about that was that these teen and early 20's types had a 37 year old yahoo acting as their 'mentor'.
What to do? I sure as hell don't know and am as guilty as anyone regarding stupid youthful drinking escapades. I guess, like parenthood, its one of those things that everyone gets to do but some people are much more adept at than others. Freshman level course, Drinking 101 perhaps? The homework would be fun but its not the answer. Like most things parents need to take the lead. My dad took me downstairs when I was about 15 or so, popped a beer, handed it to me and proceeded to fill me in on the possible scenarios should I decide to go out and drink 6 or 8 of them on my own. It certainly didn't prevent that from happening but made me think, which I guess is about all you can ask for. No solutions, no monumental revelations, but certainly something that people have puzzled about since the 6th century BC when people discovered that their barley had 'gone bad' and made you feel funny when you ingested it.
2 comments:
There's a missing element here, me thinks. Lots of us have had a youthful binge followed by a headache. While under the curse, however, we didn't do mean-spirited things. We were probably more silly than anything. I'm thinking that the most important thing is the pre-intoxicated make up of the imbiber.
The old nature vs nurture. Are we predisposed to violent and stupid acts or does our choice of drinking companions influence our behavior while under the influence? Our Ely6 incident might make a case for either.
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