Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, February 13, 1987
Opinion
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Drinker takes all
With the withdrawal of its earlier “dramshop liability” decision,
the Texas Supreme Court has returned drunken driving laws to the
realm of common sense and shifted responsibility for intoxication
from the server back to the drinker, where it belongs.
1 he court announced Wednesday that is was withdrawing its
previous decision to let stand an appeals court ruling holding an El
Chico restaurant liable for the 1983 Houston traffic death of a driver
who had been to happy hour.
The dramshop liability is also a taxpayer liability. It opens a hor-
ilr<
n
sh;
fee
in
it;i
nets’ nest of potential lawsuits in an already litigious society. Other
cases would have to determine the extent of a server’s responsibilty
to drinkers. It also allows drunken drivers to blame bars and restau
rants for the drivers’ irresponsible actions.
Bar owners do have a duty to motorists, as well as to their cus
tomers, to not allow intoxicated drivers on the road. But this does
not justify holding bartenders responsible for actions taken by pa
trons after they leave the establishment. A bartender or waiter has
few means of detaining a drunken customer aside from uttering the
cliche, “I think you’ve had enough.”
Uh, Congressman, I’ll ask you please not to kick the tires anymore-.”
S
Feb. 14 can be a
How can a bartender be absolutely certain customers are not in
toxicated before serving them a drink? Waiters do not have legal au
thorization to detain customers against their will, even if they show
signs of inebriation.
True, the National Alcoholic Beverage Control Association says
that 41 other states have laws that place liability on commercials
servers of alcohol. But as we’ve said before, a bad law, whether in one
state or 41, is still a bad law.
Friday the 13th
seems like an ap
propriate day to
write about the
holiday for sweet
hearts.
Long ago, the
Romans cele-
brated Lupercalia
as a lovers’ festi
val. Part of the
ceremony consis-
ted of putting
girls’ names in a box and letting the
those they love. The day when men
send a pound of chocolate to their
sweethearts and then tell them they’re
fat. The day Charlie Brown runs to the
mailbox to search for a card from the
little red-haired girl, only to find an
other Valentine’s Day has come and
gone and he still can’t get a date. It’s the
day Hallmark plans for, hoping to make
a fortune selling mushy love poems on
decorative cards.
When it comes to alcohol-related legislation, Texas never has
been quick to mimic other states. Texas legislators stubbornly refuse
to enact an open container law, despite the example of other states,
not to mention the dictates of common sense.
Bartenders should not place profits above human decency by en
couraging already intoxicated customers to purchase more drinks.
They should exercise concern for customers and try not to let them
leave if they show signs of intoxication.
But at the same time, it is the customers who are doing the drink
ing. They must accept the consequences of their weakness. The mes
sage should be clear — think before you drink.
The dramshop ruling needs to be abandoned. Although it rarely
takes such action, the Supreme Court was right to withdraw its ear
lier decision. We must not become so intoxicated by the anti-
drunken driving crusade that we support unfair rulings.
The dramshop ruling had a sobering effect. The court should
learn from past mistakes and not attempt to re-create October’s
fiasco. It time to stop offering irresponsible drinkers — especially
those who drink and drive — undue credit. It’s time to stop making
bar and restaurant owners pick up the tab for customers’ actions.
boys draw them out. This supposedly
paired off couples for a whole year, un
til the next Lupercalia. Later, the
church attempted to give a Christain
meaning to this pagan celebration.
Around A.D. 496, the Pope Gelasius
changed Lupercalia, held on Feb. 15, to
St. Valentine’s Day and began celebrat
ing it on Feb. 14.
Some say there were two saints
named Valentine — both were martyrs.
One was beheaded on Feb. 14, A.D. 270
for refusing to denounce Christianity.
According to legend, he left a farewell
note for a jailer’s little daughter who
had befriended him in prison and
signed it “from your Valentine.”
There also is evidence that Valen
tine’s Day was celebrated in England
during the time of Chaucer. Men sent
valentines as a way of proposing. The
English believed Feb. 14 was the day
birds paired, and the holiday remained
on this date.
In our society, Feb. 14 is the day of
the year when people send valentines to
Despite the commercialization and
hype about just another ordinary day,
having a valentine remains important to
many people. Valentine’s Day never
really meant much to me until this year,
probably because the only valentines I
ever got from a male before were from
my dad. I don’t
count the Donald
Duck and Goofy
valentines I re
ceived in second
grade. In high
school, my Dad
joked with me
about how I al
ways was in-be
tween boyfriends
in February, but I
could always
count on Dad to
remember me on
Valentine’s Day.
lovely card from my dad” alwaysiseu
tly the one she wanted to hear.
On the flip side, there are somep
pie who complain because they do wt
a valentine, but don’t want tospendai?
money on them. Couples seemtobrali
up for no apparent reason just btfuiHL
Valentine's Dav and patch thin^. th<
right after the stores remove theirVtH
entitle merchandise. Other peoplee If
cape town, if jxjssihle, and spend the# |f|
with a friend who also is boycotting lb®
holiday. IB
Holidays always depress some peop
because celebrations are supposed toll j
spent with family and friends. Unfofl ^
nately, there are people whomustsjxtt
these days alone, but Valentine's to
can be an especi*.
A hot summer day in America’s past
Back when my
only goal in life
was to be tall
enough to see over
the kitchen coun-
Carol
Rust
Guest Columnist
ter, things were clearly defined.
Good. Bad. Hot. Cold. Yes. No.
Shreveport was a sleepy little cow-
town back then, mired in red dirt, talk
of cotton prices, the leathery smells of
saddles in the hardware store and Au
gusts that dragged by more slowly than
a pregnant hog.
There were good, honest, Christian
men who worked and sweated hard for
a living and sang “How Great Thou
Art” in church on Sundays. Those were
the white men.The black men, even
though most worked and sweated hard
for a living, too, and went to church and
had kids and everything that the white
men did, didn’t get quite the same
credit. They'were the lazy, shiftless sort
you couldn’t trust to do anything but
not show up for work. That’s what folks
said, anyway.
That was one more designation of my
youth, and perhaps the most obvious:
black and white.There were black and
white waiting rooms at the doctor’s of
fice, black and white water fountains,
black and white schools, black and white
churches. There would have been black
and white swimming pools, but the city
didn’t waste time building pools for Ne
groes, using the polite term. They’d tear
up the pool in a year or two, you know
how they are. That’s what folks said,
anyway.
Well, I didn’t think much of it, be
cause that’s the world everybody else
lived in back when I was five or so years
old. Another part of my world as the
first-born child of a veterinarian was the
official title of gate-opener down at the
pasture when Dad was on call.
The phone call one Saturday morn
ing couldn’t have come at a more unfor
tunate time, because Tom was just fix
ing to knock Jerry to kingdom come and
Bugs Bunny was coming on right after
that.And some stupid cow somewhere
was sick and I was going to miss it all.
I reluctantly got ready to go, dread
ing Dad’s dusty truck that didn’t have a
proper place to sit and smelled so much
like animal medicine that pretty soon
you started tasting it, too. We bounced
along, almost clear to Mansfield, and I
was mighty happy by then to get out and
open the gate when we finally did get
there.
The colored man who kept the land
for whoever owned it came up to Dad
dy’s side of the truck and pointed way
out to the pasture. I’m not sure what he
said, but whatever it was, it made Dad
think twice about taking me with him.
So he pointed me to the colored
man’s front yard right up next to the
road, where a little black girl was play
ing, and told me to stay there and play
with her.You could have knocked me
down with a feather. Not that Daddy
ever told me to stay away from colored
people, but he didn’t exactly encourage
it, either. And here I was supposed to
play with one.
I walked in the yard, not knowing
what to say to this girl about my age who
was so very black. I couldn’t say much
anyway because my tongue was just
about stuck to the roof of my mouth,
dry and all mediciny-tasting, from the
long ride down. She was hopping
around, making little clouds of dust in
the grassless yard with her feet, and
holding the most delicious-looking,
half-eaten purple Popsicle in the world.
I guess my eyes stuck to that purple
Popsicle about like my tongue was stuck
to the roof of my mouth.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I said.
Then she lifted the Popsicle up be
tween us and held it there. I stared at it
stupidly, and only a minute later did I
ilize she was offering it to me.
I guess my dad
is probably breathing a sigh of relief this
year because his daughter, a senior in
college, finally got a valentine. Of
course, I’ll never forget all the years that
I didn’t have a valentine. It’s amazing
how one day out of the year can make
you feel so rejected, not to mention the
blow to your self-esteem and ego when
people brag about all the gifts their
sweethearts gave them. And of course,
there’s always some obnoxious
bleached-blonde with a dozen red roses
asking you what you got for Valentine’s
Day. Funny how the response, “I got a
cruel holi
those individuiii
who desperate
want a serioii
relationship.!
serves as a remiff
that they nil
haven’t foundtk
right person.
the most self-#
dent and happysf
gle person can k
little put-off wilti
the inquiries aim
their love lift (!
V alentine’s Day
It’s sad how we promote a day
sweethearts that also seems to hum
those who don’t have one. I guessitsl 1
man nature to want someone locally^
own. To bad we don’t tell allthepef
we love and care about how we fo
more often, instead of doing it » ll!
candy and flowers one day out of ^
year. Better yet, maybe we could respt
the feelings of those who are still kw
for a valentine.
Jo St re it is a senior
and a columnist for The Battalion.
real
S it
er. Purple. That a
colored girl had already bitten into.
I knew I would drop dead if I took
one bite, even a slurp. I might drop
dead if I even thought about taking a
slurp.And yet I was awful thirsty, maybe
the thirstiest I’d ever been in my five
years. I took it in my hand.
That was the longest moment of my
life. I felt suspended in time as I was
drawing that purple Popsicle up to my
mouth.
I was fixing to drop dead and go to
hell for ever and ever and never see my
little brother again.
But I took a bite anyway.
All in all, I took two bites and three
slurps before I gave it back to her. It was
a very good Popsicle.And after that,
when I saw all tnose signs over water
fountains and on doors and in conversa
tions saying, “black” and “colored,” I
thought someone must have tricked a
whole bunch of people or something
along time back and no one had found
out about it yet.
Sure, there’s black and white — al
ways has been, always will be.
But there’s also purple, the color of
the juicy Popsicle a little black girl gave
me one hot, Louisiana afternoon when I
was thirsty.
Carol Rust writes for the Beaumont
Enterprise.
Mail Call
Wasting money
EDITOR:
So A&M feels it needs to build a new events center to replace G. Rollie
White Coliseum. This new center, which will have double the capacity of G.
Rollie, will enable A&M to draw more rock and pop groups and be a larger
home for Aggie basketball. I see. Well, I attended two big events atG. Rollie
White this week and had little problem with “close quarters.” At the
Pretenders concert, I had all the room I needed to dance myself silly—a
scant crowd of 2,200 showed up! On Sunday, Top 20-ranked TCU came to
town and attracted a crowd of barely half capacity. I heard many a TCU fan
wonder out loud where all the Aggie fans were. Maybe A&M should take the
money it has collected for this new center and use it to get the Financial Aid
Office into the 20th century. The only thing that’s going to fill a new 15,000
seat arena is a gathering of students waiting for their Guaranteed Student
Loan’s to come through — or maybe Bruce Springsteen.
Craig Salsgiver, Graduate Student
Send money
EDITOR:
Congratulations, Karl Pallmeyer! It’s nice to finally see you come up wit! 1
something I agree with. Your article on Oral Roberts was well worth reading
I enjoyed the humor. It might have been a touch sacrilegious, but hopefully
God has a sense of humor, too.Thanks again. And by the way, folks, if
Pallmeyer needs some disciples to help collect his $2 million, don’t hesitate! 0
call. I plan on being here for a long time, and though I appreciated this
particular column, I would still hate to see Karl’s curse become my curse,to°
Jay Porter *87
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