Originally Posted by
rpenmanparker
Re: the learning to drink alcohol in New Orleans at age 18, I estimate you were only about 5 years behind the locals. At least that is how it was growing up there in the 50s and 60s. Everybody had a fake ID at 13 or 14. Everybody had a buddy who was a a year or two older and therefore was driving at 15. Everyone worked after school and on weekends from 14 on and had plenty of spending money. No one I knew had a curfew. It was wild. Hanging around the Jim's (Famous for Fried Chicken) or Luke's Bar and Grill all night eating, drinking beer, playing the pin ball machines, the real kind with 25 numbered holes, not the sissy kind with just bumpers and flippers. And, of course, they paid off winners with money, not free games. Ah, dem were de days.
It's a hell of a city. I was at Tulane, last class to have a full year in the city before the hurricane. I'm sure my experience as a student was pretty far removed from a local, but I get it. I'd see kids openly drinking in front of cops who were probably in 8th grade during Mardi Gras, and they wouldn't do anything to stop them.
I had a really crappy fake ID for my first 2 years that never once got rejected. Perfect weekend day was taking a bunch of Abita and/or daquiris to the "Fly" (the bit of the levee park by Audobon zoo) and sitting on blankets while someone else boiled crawfish and then shared it with you. Also as a freshman the cliche spots like Pat O'Brien's and whichever place sells that "Hand Grenade" drink were still novel and exciting.