Lifestyles: August 2008 Archives

A hundred college presidents want the nation's drinking age lowered to 18. As one cowboy once told The Hound: Too much college, not enough high school. What is Lake Forest College President Stephen Schott thinking? He is one of the 100.

Veteran reporters (read old) at The News-Sun have told The Hound of the days when Illinois and Wisconsin lowered their drinking ages to 19 and 18 respectively. These university eggheads are worried about binge drinking on campus? They should have been here back in the late '70s and early '80s, The Hound was told. There was binge drinking every night!

Along with that were the alcohol-related fatals. So many in fact they dubbed the Lake County/Kenosha County line "Blood Border". College kids, high school kids, sailors --- they all died DUI deaths. This is what reported educated college administrators are pushing for, including the president of The Ohio State University.

Sounds like perhaps these college presidents have a problem on campus and want the rest of us to take responsibility for it. Which has The Hound confused about the call by the LFC prexy for a lower drinking age. When's the last time they had binge drinking at Sheridan Road and Deer Path? Don't those crazy Foresters go to Highwood to be booze hounds? Heck, Lake Forest only has one tavern, The Lantern. Do they even have a full-service liquor store?

Hopefully, calmer heads will prevail, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and this call to get 18 year olds loaded more often will pass. And don't even bring up the fact they can vote at 18 they should be able to drink. Or, The Hound's favorite: If they can carry a rifle. Most of the collegians clamoring for a drink aren't going into the service. Bring back the draft, then we'll talk.

As for LFC prez Schott, he needs a couple of Jager bombs to sober him up. Skol!

The Hound is disillusioned that Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik is not voluptuous. On Monday, The News-Sun reported some bystander along the Gurnee Days Parade route said she was voluptuous. On Wednesday, they corrected that and said she was merely vivacious. The Hound would rather be voluptuous than vivacious and would be except for that trip to the Beach Park Animal Hospital.

Perhaps the parade-route heckler said the mayor was vivaciously voluptuous, although the newspaper did correct that. The Hound figures voluptuous means hot. In a good way, not the Paris Hilton way. Vivacious means perky. In a good way, not the Paris Hilton way.

Regardless, both "v words" could be considered sexist for which male mayor would one consider voluptuous or vivacious. Most need to have their pulses checked to see if they're still with us on most Village Board nights.

But on the other hand, there's this new official guidebook for the next women's revolution, "Red Hot Revolution", that's just out by author Arielle (no last name!) "The '70s revealed a generation determined to change the face of women and we did!" Arielle says. "It's time for us to do it again...Let's kick up our red stilettos!" Now that sounds voluptuous and vivacious.

Arielle says a member of the new revolution is one "who is living or, aspires to live, her passion, thus creating an entire body of women who are living and giving with passion." There's also the economic side: Most women over 50 have more money and power than ever before and are expected to live longer than previous generations.

Her Web site is www.redhotrevolution.com. Arielle may be on to something both voluptuous and vivacious.

They've taken Waukegan's new car dealerships , so is Scoop the Loop in Gurnee the next thing the village scoops out of the county seat? Gurnee Days will have a "Scoop the Loop" car show from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 10 at Viking Park, thanks to North Shore Rods, which was savvy enough to copyright "Scoop the Loop".

Remember that the city of Waukegan took over the annual cruise in the downtown a couple of years ago from North Shore Rods and renamed it " Scoopin' Genesee". Nice try, but no cigar. Folks still call it "The Scoop".

So now Gurnee is having a "Scoop the Loop" car show and it isn't that far a leap from holding a full-blown "Scoop the Loop" in the village. The Gurnee Mills McDonald's already hosts cruise nights on Fridays during the summer.

Now, if Gurnee only had a downtown to scoop. Work on that, would you?