Prom Night

Last weekend Central Patti and I were out on the town and it was hard to miss that it was prom season. All the young adults were out in all their full dress glory riding around in the Limos and eating at some of the finer establishments in Kansas City

I could not help but comment that for one, when I was that age I could not have afforded to rent a Limo or to eat in any of the establishments that we watched the kids go in and out of. I seem to remember that working part time in high school I made something like a dollar and a quarter an hour.

Secondly, while I did not have a lot of spending money the one difference between me at that age and these kids was I could drink in bars! I know most of you are saying what the hell? But that is how different the times were when I was a senor in high school I turned 18 in October of my senior year and I could legally enter and drink in bars in the state of Iowa.

I know you may not believe this as do most of the younger bar flies and colleagues I tell it to, but it is true. I even remember going to parties when I was in eighth and ninth grade where there were full well stocked bars.

What is interesting here is there are no statistics to prove that raising the drinking age has done anything useful. DUI arrests have gone up since that time and that is for a variety of reasons not just the drinking age

None of the friends that used to throw house parties when we were all underage have a drinking problem (at least the ones I have kept in touch with)

I have always believed that education and not prohibition is the best method to resolve underage drinking. People should teach their kids about drinking and the consequences of drinking no matter what age they are. I always advocated that drinking was not wrong and that alcohol was not a taboo. Alcohol in my house was simply an adult beverage just the same as using flavorful language was “adult language” not good and not bad.

After several rounds and lots of fun discussion with others at MySideOfTheBar we all wished the kids a good night and were all in agreement that they probably, while not legal drinking age, had some alcohol (and maybe other) types of refreshments.

Cheers
The Professor

Comments

  1. edbellmcseApril 27, 2011 at 10:34 AM

    I too never understand where the kids get the money for these Prom Events. My personal speculation is that the parents (always wanting to upstage their own upbringing) are footing the bill.

    I also totally agree that teaching responsible drinking is the way to go. When I was younger, living in Europe, kids knew how to handle thier liquor. Now they (the UK and EU) have tried putting restrictions on it, and it has lead to kids binge drinking more. Rather than restricting, teach them the correct way to drink...responsibly.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Riding the Rails, Clickety Clack

Image
A few weeks back we took the Amtrak from K.C. to Naperville Ill. and as usual we had a great time. If you have never taken the opportunity to travel by train you do not know what you are missing. I recommend for your first trip nothing over four hours just in case you may not enjoy train travel. Also this will keep the price at a minimum and I recommend choosing your travel dates that are not during the peek seasons. (From around June 15th to August 15th.) to avoid high ticket prices You will be pleasantly surprised by the size of the train cars and the size of the seats. The cars are two levels with the lower level where you put your luggage when boarding, handicap seating and the rest room/changing rooms. We generally sit in the club car (now called the observation car) where they have many booths and seats and then entire care is plexieglass so you can see the beautiful sites as you travel. You can even carry on your own food and drinks and yes this means you can carry on your own...
Read more

The Key West Cocktail Challenge

Image
Recently we were on the road with MySideOfTheBar in Key West with a couple of "Unusual Suspect" friends of ours. As you might expect we were in a bar when A.S. found a brochure for the Key West Cocktail Challenge. Also as you might expect we took up the challenge. The premise was easy, visit 6 participating bars, enjoy their signature cocktail and you get a T-Shirt. You can visit them in any order and take as long as you need to. (you could even do it in 6 days, but...) I am not going to try to describe each bar as you can follow the links to see and learn more. The first stop was The Green Parrot Bar . The Green Parrot is an open air old school bar that I absolutely loved. Their signature drink was Root Beer Barrel and at least two of us liked it ;) Stop two took us to Charlie Mac's and beside the great Signature Drink, it is also a BBQ joint. We only had the chicken wings, however they were awesome. The drink here was the Huckleberry Lemonade and I have to ...
Read more

A Spittoon and a Blanket

Yes, what I really meant was a chamber pot; however at one in the morning staging down the long dim hallway with the creaky wooden floors and facing the long stairway down to the bathroom spittoon was all I could think of. The evening started innocent enough as we were traversing the interstate from K.C. MO to NW Iowa for a visit. I did not have a drink until after 5:00 and I was not driving, but as usually I never went anywhere without my trusty ten shot flask. That day it was loaded with Buffalo Trace Bourbon. By the way it had been awhile since I had imbibed in Buffalo Trace and I had forgotten how good it was. We arrived at the farm and continued happy hour. As the night progressed I opened the new bottle of Four Roses (the official Bourbon of MySideOfTheBar) that Central Patti had purchased as part of a case and kept drinking throughout the night. As the night progressed and the bottle emptied we headed up the afore mentioned stairs and to bed. I woke a couple of hours later a...
Read more