Editor:

Wednesday’s Oktoberfest provided a good opportunity to reflect on what it means to be a dry campus.

To my friend and me, a dry U means this: putting a 12- pack of Hefeweizen in our backpacks and making the occasional stops to the Union men’s room to refill our water bottles.

I have some kind of mental association between Oktoberfest and free beer.

I wondered if I was the only one. Maybe I’m just a pathetic alcoholic, I thought. So I decided to conduct my own poll.

The poll went something like this:

Me: I’m going to say a word and you tell me the first word that comes to your mind.

Pollee: OK.

Me: Oktoberfest.

Pollee: Beer.

More than 90 percent of the responses were beer. Other responses were “drunk,” “drinks,” “sausage,” and “Mutterbettgaschlectaufwachen,” which roughly translates to “waking up in bed next to your best friend’s mom.”

Oktoberfest is a celebration of beer.

Not people who are acting drunk, dancing to polka music and stumbling through a beer-goggled obstacle course. This “dry Oktoberfest” is nothing more than a sober mockery of a great German holiday.

The U should either lose its dry campus status or stop celebrating Oktoberfest.

Ryan Taylor

Senior, Computer Science

Clinton Watson

Senior, History