This past Thursday on October 1, the English department held their second annual October Happy Hour. The party was a lively way to enjoy the afternoon, according to students.  Professor Debra Rienstra commented, “We do a lot of serious work in the English department, but we also think it’s important to have a little silly fun together once in awhile and enjoy one another’s company. And we need to exercise our pun muscles occasionally. It’s good for the soul.”

Live cocktail-hour music was provided along with donuts, coffee and cider — the perfect food for transitioning into fall. There were a variety of pumpkin donuts: pumpkin with cream cheese frosting, plain pumpkin, chocolate covered pumpkin and cinnamon-sugar covered pumpkin.

The party had a specifically ‘60s “Mad Men” theme. While some people dressed for the part, others didn’t and everyone was enjoying themselves, whether they were wearing normal clothes or not.

During the party, there was also a “literary mocktail” competition. Students were to create the best mock cocktail they could, and the drink would be judged on the name, how it tasted and its presentation, with a prize in each category. Some examples of the four drinks submitted were “A Midsummer’s Night Daiquiri” and “Paradise Sloshed.” These drinks were judged by English department co-chair Chad Engbers, chaplain Mary Hulst and Andrea Le Roy, wife of Calvin College president Michael Le Roy. The prizes for category winners were boxes of chocolates and signed copies of books from previous years’ Festival of Faith and Writing authors.

Engbers commented, “The drink competition was brand new this year, and I think it would have been fun even if I hadn’t had the chance to sample all of the entries. It’s always fun to see people being creative. We see this in our students’ writing all the time, but the drinks students came up with tended to look great and taste great in addition to the fact that they had witty names.”