It’s been a while for most of us, but here in the US, turning 21 is a major milestone of life - mostly because it’s the legal drinking age. So, in honor of the new year being 21, let’s wander down Memory Lane to when we hit that magical age!
For me, the biggie was that I got my pilot’s license on the 21st. I didn’t care about drinking and I didn’t own anything yet, but being able to take friends up in a plane was a big deal. Unfortunately, less than 4 years later, I quit flying - mostly for financial reasons. But it was fun while it lasted.
And referencing the last MMP and the comments about the size of my freezer - you do realize that in addition to shoving stuff in there, I do remove things almost daily. You know - to eat. In fact, I’ll probably yank a hunk of cow out for tonight’s supper as well as a small poke roast to thaw for tomorrow.
And, FYI, in addition to the freezer that’s part of the fridge, I have one similar to this. Neither one is huge, but there are just 2 of us, and it gives me space and flexibility. Hope this clears things up…
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up anc caffeinatin’. YAWN 'Tis 35 Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 62 and N.O.S. for the day. Today is spiff da cave day. Woo and Hoo. Sup shall be the promised pancakes 'n snausages. That is the extent of activities for the day 'round here.
Turnin’ 21 was not a deal to me. At the time legal drinkin’ age in Jawja was 18. Matter of fact it became 18 the year I turned 18. Anywho, when I turned 21 I was a senior in kolledge, livin’ in an apartment, and irkin’ part time. So I was a livin’ it up kolledge stoodint.
I have two big upright freezers, a small chest freezer, and two freezers on both fridges. Do I win?
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah,
Here in the Yoo Kay, 21 isn’t such a big deal- it’s traditionally a pretty big party, but there’s nothing much you can really do that day that you couldn’t do the day before, as we can get all legally boozed up at 18.
My 21st wasn’t the best- it was my aunt’s funeral. I didn’t really know her, and I didn’t actually go to it, but most of the relatives did, so I sort of sat in and felt awkward. We had a nice dinner out with the extended family the following weekend though.
Speaking of sitting in and feeling awkward, that appears to be today’s plan. I’m supposed to be remote working this week. The college gave out laptops to all staff doing over 8 hours of teaching a month or so back, which is fine, except I didn’t get one, as I didn’t do enough teaching, and they appear to have disabled the remote access system they used to have, presumably on the grounds that everyone has one of the laptops now…
This means I can’t get at any of the files I need in order to prep for whoever’s taking over the class I was teaching.
I’m trying to find out if I can get on to the site sometime this week to acquire what I need, because I really can’t do anything useful right now without doing so, but everyone’s in meetings, so not replying. Hence the being a Bad Person and messing around on here, but hey- what they gonna do, fire me?
over here in the UK, 21 has no significance. It used to be a “coming of age” landmark but that’s ancient history.
At 10 you can be arrested.
You can get a job at 14 (subject to some rules).
At 16 you can drive a small motorcycle and drink (but not buy) beer or wine in a restaurant.
At 16 you can legally have sex and get married.
At 17 you can take a test to drive a car.
At 18 you legally become an adult with all that that implies.
When I was 18, the drinking age was 18. When I was 19, the drinking age changed to 19. When I was 20, the drinking age changed to 21.
My roommate in college had a birthday that was close to mine. We stocked up on beer so that we could get through the few months where we would no longer be able to purchase alcohol. No biggie.
So that was my memory of 21. We were running low on beer but now we could finally buy it again.
Good morning everyone. Up, breakfasted, and mostly coffee-ed.
Today’s chore is prepping the RV for a trip this week, and the big task is sanitizing the water system following months in storage. I’ll also clean/vacuum/spritz inside and out (Hey, even guys clean their man-caves sometimes).
Turning 21 had no significance for me, I already had an apartment, a car and a truck, and had been on my own for years, so nothing really changed. I’d been buying liquor by the (literal) truckload* for my fraternity for three years by that point, so I was known at the local store and unlikely to be asked for ID.
*Back in da-seventies, pickup trucks weren’t fashion statements, but were useful. So owning one meant you were pre-selected for a lot of hauling tasks. In my case that meant kegs and cases for parties.
The drinking age changed here from 21 to 19 and with the stroke of a pen I was legal as were most of my friends. Our initial bar binge lasted four or five days.
21 was not a big milestone for me because, though the legal drinking age in Michigan was 21 and had been for the whole time between my 18th and 21st birthdays, I had many means of obtaining alcohol less than legally, and took advantage of them.
Also, living in SE Michigan, Canada, with its legal drinking age of 19, was just across the river from Detroit. So if I and my under-21 buddies wanted to go to a bar, or take a date to a nice restaurant and eat and drink like real grown-ups, we could just visit our friendly neighbors in Canada. My 19th birthday was more of a milestone, because I went over to Windsor with a couple friends and enjoyed some Canadian table ballet.
I have no memory of turning 21. May 1978, the tail end of my junior year of college. Living in an off campus apartment and working part time that summer. I had already learned to drink hard liquor so no big deal there.
Afternoon, mumpers! It’s dark and rather grey out there, the weather app says “It’s fucking overcast and chilly outside. Who approved this shit?” and promises me highs and lows of 4C/39F. I have not ventured outside as I have no need to, but I’ve been an adult and put a load of laundry in the machine.
Being a Brit, 21 is not so much of a milestone for us as 18 would have been. I had left college and was working, I’m pretty sure I was still living at home but planning to move out, I’d passed my test and bought my first car so life was pretty good.
Back at work today, not enjoying it either. One of my team is stuck in Romania (she went home for xmas) and can’t get a flight back until next week, then has to isolate for 10 days. One colleague’s father passed away on Saturday (in Italy) so she has to deal with her grief at a distance and can’t go to his funeral. Another one has a parent sent home from hospital for palliative cancer care so she’s moved back in with her family and can’t come to work. Adding in the two who left in December on a voluntary severance scheme, that means less than half the team were able to work today. It’s going to be a very busy week for the rest of us, but we’ll get through it, we need our other guys to take the time they need to deal with what’s in front of them.
Our illustrious captain of the rudderless ship, A B de Pfeffel, is set to address the nation at 8pm tonight. I swear he gets more time “addressing the nation” than Lizzie, wife of Phil the Greek, ever did. My biggest concern is that I will not be able to comply with his new restrictions as I have no mince pies, and the recent snow has sent the squirrels back in to hibernation. The goat hasn’t been seen lately either, I may well have to just find myself a bell and declare myself “unclean”.
Cold and foggy and misty today. A perfect day for a nap that I will not get. Do you ever have that feeling like your thoughts are rolling about in your head like marbles and you can’t quite catch them? That’s what my brain feels like today. I think it’s a combination of burnout, sadness and exhaustion. Burnout because I’ve worked 20 days straight. Sadness because we lost a family friend on New Year’s Eve to a heart attack and I was just informed that two more of my acquaintances have passed due to various cancers, also on New Year’s Eve. And exhaustion because of the previous two. Also, it doesn’t help that I couldn’t fall asleep last night.
Anyway, hopefully today will get better. And tomorrow will be yet better. There’s got to be something in the water here in Missouri. I don’t know if it’s Coldwater Creek infecting everyone around us or what, but two of those close to me have been diagnosed with cancer in the last month, we’ve lost two to cancer in the past week.
Welp, back to work. I finally forced myself to write down my kids’ school schedules for the coming month. I just now finished. I’d been avoiding it because it changes so often thanks to the pandemic. One of overlygirl’s friends has COVID. Everyone else in her family has it except the girl’s dad. Even the damn dog has it. What are the odds the dog gets it but the dad doesn’t? Something to ponder.
Morning all. Not a lot of time for Doping and Mumping last week with the VSW off work; she kept us busy. I tried reading it all, but my, you people do go on. So, sorry I missed you last week. It’s a fresh start on this grey and drizzly Moanday morning.
I have yet to set foot outside my house in 2021. Not complaining. If this rain keeps up I might not today either. I do have a condolence card for my friend who lost his wife on Christmas Eve that needs to be mailed. It can wait one more day, though. The sun is scheduled to appear tomorrow, so I’ll probably grace the outdoors with my presence then.
Speaking of my friend’s wife, I heard a few more details. She apparently had been privately struggling with depression for some time, and made an attempt on her life two weeks before Christmas. (I don’t know how and don’t need to.) She was hospitalized and appeared to be recovering, but her organs were too severely damaged and she succumbed on the 24th. All the more heartbreaking if she realized she really wanted to live, as many failed suicides do.
Anyway, on turning 21, it wasn’t exactly a stellar point in my life. I had dropped out of college, was working in a steel foundry and paying rent to live in my parents’ house, with no direction or plan for my life. I do recall making a point of going to a liquor store on my 21st birthday to buy a case of beer - and not getting carded.
Afternoon all. Slept until about 8am then got involved in reading a on-line web-comic that I heard about in another thread (If your curious, it’s called Digger about a very practical Wombat lost in a very unpractical land and her adventures therein–nicely written and characters that sound real…IMHO) When I get on a comic binge I tend to lose track of time, so did get my usual morning post. Have done the routine shopping (bananas, bread, tomatoes and salad bag) and am currently assimilating the Jersey Mike’s #3 with chips.
I know I was in college when I turned 21, but the two times I was drunk in my life came before that day (dorm room parties and beer drunk), and I don’t drink much (a beer or two at social times, few and far between). For me, 60 was the one I remember as being most introspective about my age.
Wheelie, {{{ }}} for your friend. That has to be a horrible feeling, even if there was nothing he could have done.
talky, sorry to hear about your friends and hope you get a little time off in the near future.
boo fae, remember not to kill yourselves and do everything, or the powers-that-be may think they can get buy with half a staff… And I had to look up A B de Pfeffel and Phil the Greek, you folks are nearly as imaginative as we with our soon to be departing President.
Nut, hope the bureaucrats can help you sort out the problem…but don’t bet on it…
I know I had a 21st birthday, but don’t remember much about it. I was sharing a house with a couple friends from church, and had just started working at the bakery a week or two before. I did go to a bar for a drink or two, but that was it for celebration; I’d started buying booze by the bottle from a liquor store when I was 17 (at which point 21 was legal where I lived, and 18 was legal where I was buying), so that part of turning 21 wasn’t particularly important. Main thing about my 21st was that it was the last birthday I really paid attention to before my 50th, which Lady SCAdian thought was a big enough deal that we should all go out to dinner. (I picked a Greek place a couple towns over from where we live.)
We have the freezer atop our fridge, plus a 5cuft chest freezer. Both are fairly well stuffed at the moment, though we’re working on emptying them.
43 (wind chill 37) and partly cloudy, which I suppose means mostly NOS; high today 40 (ha!), low 31. Plans for the day involve the dishwasher, laundry, and a book.
When I turned 21 I was in the Navy, stationed in California. Nobody made any fuss about it and neither did I. I’d been drinking alcohol for a couple-three years by that time, anyway. Somewhere in there I made an attempt at being a drunk, which lasted about a month, until I decided against it. I wasn’t all that good at it anyway, and it cost too much.
We have a side by side fridge/freezer plus another big freezer at the big house in the valley but just a regular fridge with a freezer across the top here. We’re talking about getting a little chest freezer for here though. It’s 40+ miles to the nearest big grocery store and we need to buy in bulk so that we don’t have to make the trip too often. The little store here in town sells lots of stuff, but it’s spendy.
We’re going back to the big house today though. Doctors appointments and such.
I almost forgot - my 21st birthday. I was in college then. My friends made me dress up really nicely, then put a pillowcase over my head and kidnapped me. They wound up taking me to the symphony downtown and feeding me tons if greasy diner food. Interestingly, I don’t think I actually drank anything alcoholic. It was nice. I would’ve preferred not to go to the symphony because I don’t really love classical music even though my then-boyfriend was a music major who insisted I had to know all the composers by sound.
Anyway, it was really nice of my friends to do that for me.
Just finishing the bottle of Glen Moray that’s been open for the last month.
The day before my 21st birthday, my dad was in the area for work, so I went to dinner with him and a half dozen of his coworkers. I was away at college and my closest friends, including my boyfriend, had graduated the year before. Saw the boyfriend (now hubby) that weekend. Couldn’t tell you when I had my first legal drink in a restaurant. Wasn’t very interested then.
Weather for the week will be just above and just below freezing with lots of gray in the lower elevations. Not very exciting.
Dad’s still in the hospital and hoping to get answers today about what could be done to kickstart his small intestine. Not sure what the options are, or if waiting is the best answer. At least he doesn’t have pain, and he’s back on his normal schedule of getting up at o’ dark thirty.
Had today off so tomorrow will be my first working day of 2021. Going to be a long year.
Hey, me too! I don’t remember seeing you! NAS North Island, Aug '74 - May '76.
And I never got carded till after I was 21 - probably because when I was younger, I dressed nicer and servers assumed I was older. Not that I was ever much of a drinker - even then, alcohol made me sleepy.
RoxStar slept for almost 2 hours, and now her Mama is on the way. I’ve got a couple of steaks marinating for supper, and I’ll toss a couple of russets in the oven to bake. Cauliflower will round out the menu.
The end table/crate I ordered for Higgs was delivered, and the dang thing has a crack in the trim around the top. I’m not going to mess with returning it, but I did send and email and some photos to the seller. A couple of drops of super glue should make an invisible repair. Plus it’ll be in a corner so the chances of anyone seeing it are pretty teensy.
Back to watching the inanity that is Cocomelon. Rah.
I turned 21 in Vietnam (doing life without parole). The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Today is a red letter day. After 11 years of nagging, the Ms agreed to begin getting rid of all the useless crap in the basement: papers from every job she’s ever held; papers from every seminar she ever attended; schedule books going back 30 years or so; crap that should have been in a garage sale before we ever left Anchorage; LPs; CDs; VHS tapes; bags full of bags that she couldn’t part with. You get the picture. Made a goodly dent in it today.
So, sorry I missed you last week. It’s a fresh start on this grey and drizzly Moanday morning.