Today is my cousin’s twin girl and boy’s 18th birthday. It got me to thinking about starting this thread to see if most people remember what they did that day and/or night.
For me- it was July of 1986. I had just graduated high school and was still living at home getting ready to go to Eastern Michigan in the fall. During the day, I believe it was a Saturday, I went to see Top Gun at the theater with my half-brother. This was before Tom Cruise got weird, back when people still went to his movies. We were completely baked. The movie was very intense for me because of that- unforgettable, even. I don’t remember what, if anything, I did that night. 'Probably got the munchies.
Bought cigarettes. Probably a scratch off ticket too. It wasn’t that many years ago but I don’t remember much more than that. Besides the fact I bought Checkers cigarettes that day because I could finally pick my own. They were disgusting and I only smoked one then went and bought my normal kind. Probably drank with my friends too, or went to dinner. Same as any other birthday.
October 1, 1963. I was a freshman in college and still a virgin (not for long, though). Kennedy was President (not for long, though). The Beatles were unknown in the U.S. (not for long, though).
I studied for a college final. Maybe second-semester general chemistry, but I don’t remember anymore. I’d declared the previous Sunday ‘Gila’s Birthday Observed,’ although I couldn’t tell you what I did then, either.
A week short of graduating High School, I remember I was just about to move out of my parents’ house (they had just died, and I was moving out of the house I’d grown up in to go to college) and I just had gotten my draft card (this was middle-late Vietnam). I remember walking two blocks to my local liquor store, where I had gotten rebuffed on several occasions, and thought how I would flash my draft card, and buy enough booze to float a boat in, and there must have been something smug about my walk because they didn’t even bother to card me.
I bought a shipload of booze and got silly-drunk, legally, that night, with a few friends.
I got in a minor argument with my parents and went to an unremarkable graduation party at a friend’s house. Not very exciting, but I appear to remember it…
Best birthday ever. I was a freshman in college. My boyfriend and my two best friends took me to the local amusement park, where we got passes and spent the whole day. It was a weekday so we didn’t have to wait in long lines. We rode the roller coaster nine times! Ate junk! Stayed until the place closed! It was great.
Registered for the draft and got drunk legally. I’d lost my license earlier that year so I got blasted and didn’t worry about driving.
Colorado still let 18 year olds drink 3.2 beer in 1986
I did the same thing but I was not, and am not a smoker. I smoked about 3 of them and gave the rest away. I just did it because I liked the “grown-up” feeling of being allowed to buy them.
It was 1981. I was traveling with two friends in Europe. We were in Koblenz, Germany. We went to a restaurant and had a nice meal and a couple of beers. It was weird, because you would think your 18th would be pretty raucous, but instead, it was more what I would expect my in-laws to do on their 43rd anniversary.
December 12, 2003 - I didn’t buy cigarettes, I didn’t buy porn, I didn’t buy lottery tickets, I worked. I didn’t really do anything different until several months later, when I did buy cigarettes for my dad.
Same thing when I turned 21. I didn’t drink. It was almost a month before I actaually bought anything with alcohol in it, and it wasn’t even for me.
July 17, 2003. I was working as an arts and crafts director at a summer camp. I don’t think I even took the day off. Eighteen wasn’t that big of a deal for me except for the fact that it allowed me to count as an adult for ratios at work. We needed x adults around for every y kids, so it was useful.