Posted on 11/29/2006 7:22:19 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666
Students often use the excuse that the best times of their lives are in college so they can use drugs and abuse alcohol, but I recently found out that you can still party well after the convocation ceremony.
While attending the Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band concert in Knoxville, Tenn., with my father, I saw baby boomers doing everything college students do today. I expected the concert to be fun, but watching these 40-, 50- and 60-year-olds partying was truly a learning experience.
While rocking out to tunes like "Still the Same" and "Turn the Page," the older concert-goers were drinking excessively, passing around the sticky-icky, and being utterly loud and obnoxious - just like college students.
A lot of students like to party hard in college because they believe that college is the only time in their lives they are allowed to drink and look stupid doing it. Youngsters have been trained to believe that after college their lives are virtually over. After college comes responsibilities, work, bills, kids and uneventful life experiences. But this isn't true in the slightest.
With this perception of a dismal life after college, students find it completely acceptable to get blackout drunk without any repercussions. This need to "live life" in college pressures students into drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning. Attending the concert made me realize that life after graduation is something to look forward to.
Instead of drinking as much alcohol as you can before you pass out or smoking enough weed to numb your entire body, students need to understand that they can still have a good time after receiving a degree.
These gray rockers proved to me that partying isn't reserved for the young. At the concert, I saw both men and women falling over drunk, getting high, fighting, dancing drunkenly by themselves and urinating in a grimy parking lot.
Everything that typical partying students do in college was being done by their 50-year-old counterparts.
Bob Seger himself proves that even at 61 you can rock a full house of 12,000 screaming fans. This observation of the older rock 'n' rollers made me see that college students don't need to cram a million party experiences in four years because they have the rest of their lives to have fun, whether it be drinking, peeing in parking lots or just meeting new people.
Don't get me wrong, I believe college is a source of a lot of great moments. But we have the next 40, 50 or 60 years to live our lives the way we choose. Using the excuse that college is the "best time of our lives" shouldn't hold up because at 20, we haven't been able to experience a tenth of the moments that await us in the next 40 to 60 years.
Instead of speeding up, we need to slow down our party-hard lifestyles.
Next time you're at the bar taking your eighth shot of Wild Turkey or starting a fight with someone for "smart-eyeing" you, try to remember that nearly all of the things you do now can be done at any age.
Whether or not it is openly accepted is an entirely different column altogether.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
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"Turn the Page", isn't that a Metallica song that he's covering? ;)
Reminds me of the song by Cake
<< Well, your CD collection looks shiny and costly.
How much did you pay for your bad Moto Guzzi?
And how much did you spend on your black leather jacket?
Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?
Now tickets to concerts and drinking at clubs,
Sometimes for music that you haven't even heard of.
And how much did you pay for your rock'n'roll t-shirt
That proves you were there,
That you heard of them first?
How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle? >>
"...drinking as much alcohol as you can before you pass out or smoking enough weed to numb your entire body,..."
I never really understood the appeal.
But I'm really only on this thread for the weed.
I quit drinking because I didn't want my kids to see me drunk.
I'm here for the beer... I ain't leavin' till I'm heavin'
I got my vasectomy for the very same reason.
The problem is that these "greying rockers" that are falling down drunk at the Bob Seger concert are probably in the same income bracket that they were in when they left school, if they even attended college in the first place.
"No mention of Sex while bent over a dumpster"?????
Hmmm. Did he call you the next day?
Doesn't sound any different than your average NFL game.
All throughout history people will let go from time-to-time. I'm all for work, family, and responsibility, but once in a while, letting go, having a good time is great for one's soul.
Some men work on getting "six pack" abs... Me? I've got a pony keg...
Mark
I'm 52. My band is playing at the Red Hen on the 28th. It's a blast but I only have one beer and water throughout the night. Playing the music is the fun part.
You do see a lot of "50 going on 17" men and women though.
-"Students often use the excuse that the best times of their lives are in college..."-
It's because they don't know any better, hence the use of the word "student". And there's nothing more pathetic than watching 40+ folks getting sloppy drunk.
My dad used to play Seger for me when I was a wee lad, and now we have tickets to see him in Boston in January. I can't wait!
Thats because you were in Grand Rapids. Lots of stiff necks in that town. Its a nice place if you like hills and trees, but far too uptight IMO.
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