Fraters Libertas

Integration Now!

Last night I attended a work outing in downtown Minneapolis at GameWorks in Block E. Block E is a new entertainment complex which now includes among other businesses a hotel, a Hard Rock Cafe, Snyder's drug store, Starbucks, a Borders book store, and an Applebee's. Essentially the kind of places you could easily find in your average suburban shopping mall but it's DOWNTOWN and therefore special.

Plenty has already been written about the ghastly architectural design of Block E by folks with far more insight on the matter but permit me one simple complaint about the utility of the design. If you approach the complex from the North, as I did last night, there is not a readily apparent entrance. Oh I'm sure there is some method for accessing Block E from that direction but I'll be damned if I could figure it out. I walked halfway 'round the block before finally finding an entrance on the East side. You have a building. You want people to come inside. Make it simple and obvious where you go in.

Once inside I was once again left without direction. How do I get to GameWorks? I wandered up to the second level and came across my destination but it was purely by chance. Here's a novel suggestion: signs with arrows. Makes things so much easier.

GameWorks itself was fairly impressive and cool. Two floors loaded with a variety of games, two bars, and a restaurant. While I waited for my work companions to arrive I hunkered down at one of the bars. I don't drink alone a lot but when I drink alone I drink a lot. By the time my compatriots showed up, about fifteen minutes later, I had already downed one gin and tonic and was two thirds of the way through my second. Had they been delayed any longer they likely would have found me doing my best Ted Kennedy impersonation and delivering a heavily slurred oration on what's wrong with our country to the four other customers in the bar. "Let me tells you a 'nother thing...."

One of best things about Game Works is that you can pick up a beer from the bar and wander anywhere in the joint. This means you are often drinking in the midst of the little childrens running about. That's right DRINKING NEXT TO THE CHILDREN. While some folks probably find the idea abhorrent I thought it was wonderfully refreshing. In too many venues the alcohol serving areas have been cordoned off, those who wish to drink segregated and in some cases even branded (think wrist bands), and alcohol free zones established as if merely being in the vicinity of someone enjoying an alcoholic drink would somehow lead to your kids living under a bridge, sipping on a bottle of Mogen David for the rest of their lives.

But aren't you encouraging drinking by exposing children to these environments? Yes it is encouraging drinking. Reasonable, moderate drinking. Daddy can have a couple of beers without checking in to Hazelden the next morning. Rather than hiding alcohol from kids, which serves to increase it's mystery and allure (the forbidden fruit and all that), why not teach and show them how to drink in moderation? Why not an example of the middle ground that exists for millions between the teetotaler and the drunk?

Perhaps if children saw more examples of wise and moderate use of alcohol by adults they would not feel the need at fifteen to furtively down a twelve pack of 3.2 Old Mil (a Minnesota thing-if you don't know what 3.2 beer is consider yourself lucky) at the local park sitting in their friend's Pacer before throwing up all over the driveway at home. Right Atomizer?