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.
It seems to shake their little psyches' like an earthquake seeing the people they've been told they were supposed to look up to and respect having too much fun. Especially if it involves music and all the other party accoutrements that go with a rock concert.
It also gives them a serious wake-up call when they see how stupid they're going to look in a few years, when they are so-called grown-ups.
That's why I try to avoid the little punks when I want to have a good time. Life is too short to associate with lightweights with issues.
LOL. I guess we have the boomers to thank for the very idea that gross over-partying is for college kids...no one wants to grow up to be the creepy old dude at the club! Sadly, many of my old friends have become just that.
I struggle with the whole "do I live it up still or set myself out to pasture" issue, and I'm "only" 34. I use scare quotes because when I was in my 20's that was totally over the hill. ;) I mean, you're older and wiser but still love the same things, what to do? I recently saw the English Beat, at the time five months pregnant, I felt like an ass! (yes I stayed far away from smoke and speakers - they don't draw a real party-hard crowd anyway)
In college I didn't think shutting down your brain with alcohol amounted to living life to the fullest, and I still don't. Drugs are stupid, too. Pursue knowledge, meet people, learn about life in college. Self-sedation is a nasty fashion promoted by corporate advertising.
Here's the answer: Rising BACs feel good. Real good. Falling BACs, not so much.
Gas. Grass. Ass. Nobody rides for free.
Reminds me of an interview I saw with Nugent:
Nuge: I never drank, never took drugs
Interviewer: What about your album 'Journey to the Center of Your Mind'?
Nuge: I was like, 'yeah, introspection's good...'
So, are you younger or older than he is? Just trying to see which side the jealousy is coming from. :)
Best frickin line of the day award.
Dear ichabod1,
From my own personal experience, when my BAC got high enough that I could feel it, I didn't like it.
I enjoy a drink or two, but I've never enjoyed drunkenness.
A chacun son goût, I guess.
sitetest
I'm older, my daughter is younger; we both dislike loud bass line thumping and low tone vibration from which there is no escape; neither of us jealous. Guess your neighbors don't mind your outdoor mega bass speakers, huh?
whew, that's a good thing!
LOL, I don't have them. I hate them as well. If they were outdoors, and too loud, if a conversation, then cops didn't solve the problem, i would.
There are over 50,000 Search and Rescue operations a year in the USA. Mostly for lost hikers and snowmobilers. Males age 20-25 are the group most often in need of rescue, followed by males ages 50-60.
It's those 25 years between 25 and 50 that seem to confront college grads immediately after the graduation.
Yeah. You're lucky. Enjoying being high isn't all its cracked up to be. I had to straighten up the hard way.
"I had to straighten up the hard way."
Glad you made it.
:-)
That's interesting. I wondered what he thought about that album now. I like Ted Nugent. Unlike so many leftist and "counter culture" conformists in non-conformist clothing from that time, he truly does think independently.
Amen. It's just not worth it. It's like driving a fast car down an exciting street you've never been on before, but it's a one-way dead end street. I took that ride for two years many years ago and jumped out of the car just in time.
I'm 34 and a full time college student. Personally I'm appalled at the amount of alcohol. It was bad my first time around in college, but it always available. Now -- it's not so available and it's much "naughtier" to do. The kids -- the freshman, 18 and away from home for the first time -- drink *a lot*
Not all of them mind you, but enough that it is a little scary. There are a couple of girls in one of the groups I'm involved in -- both gorgeous 19 year olds. They are going to drink themselves into trouble though, I know it.
I also very rarely go to any events at which alcohol will be provided (read that as "parties at people's houses/apts/wherever") because as a 34 year old woman I will be the one getting questioned if an officer shows up, if someone underage is drinking. Kind of irks me but I understand -- it's funny because members of the biggest group I'm in call me "momma" :) But they all know that when it comes down to it I'll kick their butts.
*shrug*
I say, drop the legal drink age back to 18 because they already drink ANYWAY *laugh* Seriously! When I turned 21 I didn't drink nearly as much as I did BEFORE I turned 21. Now, I rarely drink at all. We have a full liquor cabinet, but mostly it isn't used outside of cooking and an occasional mixed drink.
So many of the kids I see in school are screwing up their lives. I'm not saying by screwing up collge, but by drinking like they do. It is very, very rampant.
And you know what bites? I went out with a group of 20-25 year olds -- a few of us decided to have 'ritas -- *I* got carded. Not them. Me. The old lady. But I can pass for around 25 so I'll cut them some slack. But still! Card the babies! I know I at least look older than them!
OH OH OH -- my final comment -- partying is much more fun when you're grown up and can afford the "good stuff"
~B.
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