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Valadius Feb 10 2008 11:47 AM

I turned 21 yesterday! I spent the weekend with my brother up in Boston, and I had a great time!

themetfairy Feb 10 2008 11:50 AM

Happy Birthday Val :)

Rockin' Doc Feb 10 2008 01:48 PM

Since reading this, I have tried and tried to recall my 21st birthday. Ffor the life of me nothing stands out in my memory or comes to mind. I guess it was just too long ago. I can only surmise that I either did nothing special to celebrate the occasion or I was too drunk for me to remember it now. BNoth are legitimate possibilities. Either way, I hope you had a wonderful and memorable 21st birthday!

themetfairy Feb 10 2008 02:00 PM

Back in the day, 18 was the big birthday. I had a party with friends in my dorm room. I remember being very excited about buying the (disgustingly cheap) wine for the celebration. D-Dad (who at that time was my fiance) and friends threw me a surprise party for my 21st, which was also at college.

soupcan Feb 10 2008 02:07 PM

21 shots on my 21st is why I have no recollection of it. Congrats Val, have a (legal) drink on me.

Nymr83 Feb 10 2008 02:29 PM

[quote="soupcan":3pmdsf52]21 shots on my 21st is why I have no recollection of it. [/quote:3pmdsf52] oh I recollect that part, its the next morning I want to forget.

MFS62 Feb 10 2008 03:26 PM

Happy Birthday, Val. I'm pretty sure the details of what happened on my 21st birthday are inscribed on a stone tablet somewhere. Later

Frayed Knot Feb 10 2008 06:53 PM

The sweatshirt I'm currently wearing is more than 21 y/o.

metirish Feb 10 2008 07:03 PM

Happy happy Val.......

Valadius Feb 10 2008 07:18 PM

Thanks everybody!

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 10 2008 07:37 PM

When I turned 21 I went to the store and bought -- please forgive me -- a 4-pack of wine coolers. They were very big back then. I remember being disappointed I wasn't IDed! Happy bday Val.

SteveJRogers Feb 10 2008 08:00 PM

There is a bar on the campus of Fairfield University, and for the first few years I was up there I'd frequent the place and kidded with the bartenders about serving the underage me since they all knew me. I'd just ask for a beer jokingly and say something silly like "Awwwww come on, its me and it's just one." Like I said, they knew me and knew I was goofing around. Well I headed down there around midnight on 2/12/1998 and asked for one Samuel Adams. Handed them my drivers license and made sure they realized that I wasn't joking since I was asking for a specific beverage. I then consumed that beverage, the first of many over the course of the next year and 3 months, and went back to my dorm room for some sleep. Either that or it was onto the old, old, old MOFO or the Mets Mailing Listserv on AOL to chat about how Al Leiter was going to help the ballclub.

metsmarathon Feb 10 2008 08:09 PM

were they bartles and jaymes? do they still make them? i was too young to try them back in th eday, and never think of them when i shop for alcohol anymore...

SteveJRogers Feb 10 2008 08:10 PM

Oh yeah, and welcome to the 21 and older club! And lets hope the lefty the Mets acquired a few days ago does better than the lefty the Mets "gave" me for an early 21st birthday "present!" =;)

soupcan Feb 10 2008 08:12 PM

[quote="John Cougar Lunchbucket":mrccofp1]When I turned 21 I went to the store and bought -- please forgive me -- a 4-pack of wine coolers. They were very big back then. I remember being disappointed I wasn't IDed! Happy bday Val.[/quote:mrccofp1] A little Bartles & James action Lunchbucket?

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 10 2008 08:16 PM

It prolly was Bartles & Jaymes. Maybe it's time that stuff made a comeback. It's weird but wine coolers occupy a dwelling in the same neighborhood of my brain where the 86 Mets live. They're like, neighbors.

AG/DC Feb 10 2008 08:18 PM

Johnny Bucket would have been more of a Seagram's man:

Benjamin Grimm Feb 11 2008 07:41 AM

Happy Birthday Val! My 21st birthday was way back in 1984. I don't think I celebrated it in any way at all. I think the last birthday I cared about was my 16th, which is when I got my learner's permit.

AG/DC Feb 11 2008 07:53 AM

My 20th birthday I met James Brown and saw a man kidnapped in broad daylight on Central Park South.

Benjamin Grimm Feb 11 2008 07:59 AM

[quote="AG/DC":2yb0nz2z]My 20th birthday I met James Brown and saw a man kidnapped in broad daylight on Central Park South.[/quote:2yb0nz2z] I'm afraid that's going to require some elaboration.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 11 2008 08:03 AM

Holy crap, Bruce Willis singing about wine coolers.

AG/DC Feb 11 2008 08:58 AM

[quote="Benjamin Grimm":fitzus7m][quote="AG/DC":fitzus7m]My 20th birthday I met James Brown and saw a man kidnapped in broad daylight on Central Park South.[/quote:fitzus7m] I'm afraid that's going to require some elaboration.[/quote:fitzus7m] I'm pretty sure James wasn't behind the kidnapping.

metsguyinmichigan Feb 11 2008 09:19 PM

Happy birthday, Val! I actually had to become legal three times. The drinking age in New York was 18 when I turned 18, then they went and raised to 20 a year later without grandfathering, so I was "unlegal" again from Jan. 1, when the law went into effect, to April 3, when I turned legal again. And that was the year I transferred out to Missouri, where the drinking age was 21. Got pretty old. I was always the designated driver even then, but we liked being legal so we could go see Twisted Sister at Hammerheads! Of course, New York at the time had those cardboard drivers licenses without photos, so there was a lot of borrowing going on. Bouncers would quiz you in your address and other info on there!

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 12 2008 05:07 AM

I had the same issue in New York as Michigan. I was legal for only 6 months, then illegal for 18, then legal again. I remember the night they set the clocks forward again-- I was at a bowling alley in Huntington and sure enough they stopped serving us at midnight.

soupcan Feb 12 2008 07:10 AM

My memory must be bad then. In New York I turned 18 in 1982. I recall being legal. Then the drinking age turned 19 after I turned 19 in 1983. The drinking age, I think, became 21 before I turned 21 but I'm pretty sure I was grandfathered in. Am I remembering wrong?

Kong76 Feb 12 2008 07:20 AM

That's kind of along the lines of my memory too. I was 20 I think when it turned 21 in 1982 (a google search says that the national law didn't take effect until 1984) in New York and I was grandfathered in because it was kind of dumb to say to people who were legal for two years they weren't for another year. We've had this discussion at work and everyone's memory is shot. We did find something a year or two ago that settled it, but I don't remember where. Happy birthday, Valad.

AG/DC Feb 12 2008 07:26 AM

I've always been bemused by celebrating legality when procuring booze was never that difficult under any circumstances. Either you had fake ID, had a friend with fake ID, had older friends, or had careless parents or had indifferent parents, or had friends with careless or indifferent parents, or brothers or sisters..." "Woo hoo! I'm legal! Twenty-one, Dude!" "Haven't you been drunk every weekend since you were sixteen?"

Benjamin Grimm Feb 12 2008 07:45 AM

I did more drinking before I turned 21 than I have after. I haven't been drunk since I was 19. By the time I turned 21 I had pretty much lost interest!

Centerfield Feb 12 2008 12:05 PM

Happy Birthday Val.

Chad Ochoseis Feb 13 2008 01:24 PM

My memory is pretty much in line with Michigan's. I don't think NY grandfathered when NY raised the drinking age to 21. Gov. Cuomo was a huge advocate of the increased drinking age, and probably unwilling to allow any kind of loopholes. I spent the summer when I was 20 on campus (in Pennsylvania), so I probably wouldn't have noticed. [quote="metsguyinmichigan":3bjdhcca]Of course, New York at the time had those cardboard drivers licenses without photos, so there was a lot of borrowing going on. Bouncers would quiz you in your address and other info on there![/quote:3bjdhcca] What was nice about those cardboard licenses was that it was easy to erase the 1 from the month of birth and make yourself ten months older if you were a November or December birthday. So I changed my birthday from 12/5 to 2/5 with the help of a pencil eraser (and got myself a replacement license with my real birthdate, just in case I ever got pulled over). Thanks to the increases in the drinking age in the early 1980s, I got plenty of mileage out of the 2/5 birthdate. [quote="KC":3bjdhcca]We've had this discussion at work and everyone's memory is shot.[/quote:3bjdhcca] Must've been all that underage drinking. Happy birthday, Val (and Steve).

sharpie Feb 13 2008 03:28 PM

Happy belated birthday, Val. When I turned 21 in, gulp, 1978, I was living in San Francisco and the Cliff House would give you a drink on your birthday. So I went in there on October 22, 1978 and they carded me so I gleefully took out my driver's license and they proceeded to insist that today was October 21, not 22. I said that I should know that it was the 22nd since it my damned birthday -- finally I saw a newspaper sitting around and showed them. Kind of ruined the fun getting into an arguement with the door guy.