If I had a nickel for every drunk person I saw this weekend … hey, wait!

I guess that’s what the Ames Recycling Center is for.

If the university could have somehow gotten a monopoly on taking back all the cans generated from the tornado of tailgaters that hit town this Saturday, I think we could’ve avoided another tuition increase for at least a year.

As I walked back from the stadium after the game I ran into a lot of friends and old acquaintances from high school.

Almost every one of them had been drinking or were currently involved in Operation Intoxication. There were many deep, meaningful conversations, as you can probably imagine.

I started thinking about how exciting it was to have such a plethora of people in town living it up — filling our bars, our streets and our bathrooms.

Yay, fresh people! Implementing out-of-towners into the regular hum-drum crowd never fails to make an evening a little more fun.

The crowd was kind of comparable to a smaller, fall version of Veishea without the parade or the open house displays.

I pretended for a while that Ames was a “party town” and chock full of wild get-togethers and crazy people every weekend. (This took quite a lot of imagination, but I managed.)

At first I thought it sounded like a great idea, but after a couple days of pondering I decided Ames was lucky not to be a regular party town, if only based on the reasoning that the result of more people is longer lines.

Boo to exasperating waits for the bathroom and crowding in a line to get into an even more crowded bar is no fun.

In the midst of the drinking and merriment, I finally forced myself to think about the Big Veishea Debate.

It’s a 75-year-old tradition that I would hate to see go.

I adore celebrations.

Somehow it evolved from a light-hearted celebration of our academics and activities and Bing Crosby crowning the Veishea Queen to a light-headed weekend of beer-slinging and shot-pouring.

Part of me wants to say to the university, “You’re not my boss. You can’t tell me I’m not allowed to crack open a brew on the most-anticipated three days in the month of April.”

However, the other side of me thinks it’s pretty pathetic that we would let a tradition that has lasted 75 years die just because we want to drink.

The fact that alcohol is that all-important to people makes me sick enough to want to join the lightweight freshman in his or her porcelain worship.

We’ve let alcohol become a social crutch, and even in the face of losing one of the nation’s largest student-run celebrations we can’t give it up.

Before I become Joanne, the one-person Committee on Lectures, I’d better slip in a disclaimer.

I’m not condemning having drinks and having fun.

I know that changing to a nonalcoholic Veishea would be tough for people.

I also know that every single student on this campus won’t buy into the idea.

In fact, I’d almost hate to see any kind of a party involving a dance held Veishea weekend if it goes dry.

Most people I know wouldn’t be caught dead on the dance floor without beer in hand and a good two or three in stomach.

It would definitely be different, but it isn’t impossible.

It seems alcohol has been a big issue lately, and not just with Veishea.

Diana’s driver was suspected of it, a student at a Louisiana fraternity died from it and from the looks of the DPS log Monday morning, several of our friends and classmates have gotten arrested for it.

Alcohol can cause problems.

And while it’s no secret, we choose to let the troubles continue rather than stop filling our glasses.

Maybe it was seeing the obscene number of empty beer cans littering the ground and sidewalk near the stadium, or the guy who had so many beers during the game it was drooling out of his mouth when I spoke to him afterwards or the story of the young man who died in Louisiana.

Together they made me have sobering thoughts.

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Joanne Roepke is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Aurora.