The way I’ve spent my college career isn’t really different than a lot of people. I showed up to a brand new place and proceeded to get wasted. A lot. I’m not saying it was the most mature or intelligent way to spend my time but this was part of the elusive college experience that I had seen, heard, and dreamed about. It was new, exciting, and very, very illegal.  I was, of course, only 18 years old. I had to convince the old guys in college ([wow] I’m one of those now) to go to the store and get me booze and in those days I was convinced I needed my own 30 rack for every single night. I needed a middleman to enjoy myself and that made it all the more rebellious.

Of course I eventually matured a little (just a little), and figured out that there was more to being in college then blacking out every weekend but I still drank. Obtaining alcohol became easier and easier as my friends turned 21 around me but there was still one taboo that was really left, going to the bar. I would look at these establishments of spirit and spirits and realize that this is a place I couldn’t simply walk into and purchase my beverage of choice. The door always had the bartender that asked the one question I couldn’t really get around, “Do you have an ID?”. Sure I got in to a few bars here and there after figuring out how the system worked and which bars were vulnerable but those occasions were few and far between.

So in June of 2010 I turned 21 in Honolulu. It was a world apart from my drinking home of Marquette but going to the bar carried the same feeling. I walked up and the bouncer checked my ID, which I was all too eager to give to him. I went straight to the bar and ordered my first drink and realized that this was no longer forbidden to me. There was no longer any magical force blocking me from entering an establishment of my choice. The feeling was [quite] electric for someone who had wanted it for so long.  So I went about and enjoyed my night, charged a little higher and smiling a little wider.

Turning 21 is a pretty exciting time because you’re opened up to a new section of the social world. It’s not as much about the alcohol as the places you can go and the people you can meet. The bar culture that exists is a place for fun and celebration. The people are real and you loosen up and become yourself in a place packed with strangers. I’m sure these feelings will mellow and fade away in the years to come but I do hope that every once in a while I’ll feel a little jolt in my spine and remember the anticipation and the excitement of my 21^st birthday and when I broke into the world of the bar.

-The Texan