I used to bandy about the idea that the Mississippi drownings in La Crosse might be the work of a serial killer, but more and more I'm leaning toward the reality that these deaths are probably simply the work of the inexorable force of natural selection. Anyone who has visited La Crosse's downtown will know that our drinking culture is designed to do one thing, and one thing only: get young people as wasted as possible, as quickly as possible. That's why we have $5 all-you-can-drink specials, for example. Our downtown sits right on the edge of the river, so I can see how young men, blacked out after a night of binge drinking, might conceivably wander out onto the water and fall in. On the other hand, if the cousin's story is to be believed, Craig Meyers was dropped off almost three-fourths of a mile away from the river. In each of the previous fatalities, the young men left their friends after bar time, which helped to give some feet to the serial-killer conspiracy theory. In my opinion, it gives more weight to the simple concept of don't leave drunk friends alone until they're safely at home, particularly if they don't handle their liquor well. And let's be honest, everyone knows who those individuals are -- they're the ones everyone laughs and tells crazy stories about on Monday morning.
Still, I don't understand the problems so many college students have with alcohol consumption. I have been drunk to the point of blacking out before, and I've
never done anything drunk I wouldn't have done sober; hell, there are many things, like getting laid, that I'm much more likely to do
sober than drunk. La Crosse is a tiny town arranged on almost a perfect north-south-east-west grid, with unmistakable east-west markers (the bluffs) visible no matter where you stand; it's virtually impossible to get lost, no matter how intoxicated you are. In my younger and more foolish days, after a night of hard drinking, I used to run the five miles back to my house; I never got lost, even if I was falling-down drunk.
Obviously, we don't know if the footprints in the snow belong to this guy, but if he is later found in the water, I will be forced to suspect suicidal ideations. It would be practically impossible to "accidentally" walk out onto the ice in the area where these footprints were found. You have to climb over a bar fence and down a steep bank of rocks. A very different situation from some of the other deaths, in which the guys apparently fell into the marsh and drifted down to the river. (Incidentally, the area marked by the tape is a fabulous makeout spot.)
I also can't get over my sneaking suspicion that any guy who'd go to a wedding reception so underdressed must have been something of a tool.