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Bar pitfalls greater than perks
Ever since my 21st birthday,
I’ve been scared to death of
the bars.
I had what most people would call
a successful bar crawl — successful
meaning that a lot of people came, I
made it to every bar on the list and,
appropriately enough, I had to drag
my drunk butt to the last few stops.
But the fun didn’t end there. In
fact, the fun didn’t end until about
5:30 the next afternoon. Every 12
minutes, for 16 hours, I was reminded
how much fun I’d had.
Almost a year later, the scars have
not completely healed. Just the smell
of hard liquor makes me nauseous,
and the mere sight of a shot glass
brings blurry memories clearly into
focus. -
But lately I’ve been braving
Lincoln’s bar scene again. I can’t
decide if I’ve finally recovered from
my bout with alcohol poisoning or if
I’m just afraid of passing up the mys
tical age of 21.
The drinking days of my youth,
spent in fraternity rooms and off
campus parties, didn ’ t prepare me for
the bars. I remember sitting home
with my friends and thinking, “If we
were 21, we’d never be bored.” I
imagined us surrounded by admirers,
accepting drinks right and left.
When I was a minor, one of my
biggest dreams involved walking into
a bar and hearing my name sung out
like a chorus. I would bask in the
warmth of welcome, completely at
peace in my alcoholic surroundings.
The dream is over. In a few weeks
I’ll be 22, and I still haven’t found a
bar I can call home. They all look
about the same to me — dark, smoky
holes filled with drunk, smoking
people.
You wait in line to get in, you wait
in line to get a drink, you wait in line
to go to the bathroom. I’ll admit I’ve
had fun, but it’s sort of like Disney
'f
When I was a minor,
one of my biggest
dreams involved
walking into a bar
and hearing my
name sung out like a
chorus.
World. The lines detract from the
entertainment.
I miss the drinking games from my
pre-major days. Who could forget
Friday-night favorites like quarters,
beer dork and beer-a-raid? I became
an expert. No one shoots off the nose
like I do.
Butat the bars, I’m anovice.Ican’t
play darts to save my life. The last
time I played, I nearly poked the eye
out of a man whose only crime was
that he chose the unfortunate seat next
to the board. Sorry buddy, I shoot
better with my eyes closed... most of
the time. And I’ve discovered that
foosball players get downright pissy
when you spin the little guys around
as fast as you can the entire time a ball
is in play. Touchy.
These games just add to my fear.
Not only do I face the possibility of
getting so drunk I sleep on O Street,
but I could do serious bodily harm to
an innocent bystander.
I didn’t expect to be spending $20
to cop a buzz. Some may say thalYs my
own fault, but 1 cannot, in good con
science, accept drinks from guys I
don’t know or want to know. It’s a
discredit to barflies around the world,
and to them I offer an abject apology.
To the beermongers who rely on
the generosity of strangers for their
inebriation—Isaluteyou. if’satalent
I most likely will never acquire, but
will always admire.
Maybe I’m not being fair to the
bars. In recent months I’ve been hang
ing out mostly with my guy friends. I
love them to death, but I began to
wonder if I was becoming gender
inspecific. Maybe by losing contact
with the feminine side of myself, I
was shortchanging the drinking expe
rience.
My female friends, especially the
single ones, certainly seem to think
so.
“Come to the bars, Mott. You’re
missing out,” they cry, mocking my
inexperience and deriding me for not
spending enough time with “the girls.”
Far be it from me to miss out on
bonding time. So I tried hanging out
with the girls, making the nightly
journey as ©ne of a flock of perfumed,
big-haired bombshells wearing black
boots and blazers. But I quickly found
that girls’ night out wasn’t all group
hugs and gossip. _
For them, the bar ritual begins no
earlier than 9:30 p.m. The group goes
to the bar, maybe shares a Fishbowl,
then the members scatter. It’s every
girl for herself. From what I’ve seen,
if aguy hits on you, you’re having fun.
If nobody hits on you, that bar sucks,
and it’s time to move on.
Sorry girls, no can do. I don’t have
the clothes, the hair or the makeup for
it. But any time you want to order a
pizza and rent “Beaches,” give me a
call.
Mott is a senior news-editorial and En
glish major, an associate news editor and a
Daily Nebraskan columnist.
’60s generation should grow up
The banality of life within TV
America was readily appar
ent at the most recent Emmy
awards. Left with little quality televi
sion to speak of, one by one the
speeches were reduced to moralizing
pot shots at Dan Quayle about his
infamous Murphy Brown comments.
One or two remarks might have
been fanny. But it soon became ap
parent that nearly everyone who ap
peared on stage had beat losing sleep
thinking of how they were going to
get in their gibe. Yawn.
In their spiteful overreaction, they
of course owned Quayle’s simple
point: Images are powerful. Equivo
cating on what type of family unit is
ideal will have social costs. The ques
tion was not, “Are single mothers
necessarily unfit?” Rather, anyone
fair-minded knew his question was:
“What ideals should we encourage
our children to aspire to?” Reason
able enough.
Hollywood retorted that Ozzie and
Harriet never really existed. Ameri
can nostalgia for the 1950s was based
on a lie. There was no ideal family
unit then. Current families are no less
traditional than those of thepre- 1960s.
Of course, a quick glance at the
family before the 1960s and the fam
ily of today straws that Dan Quayle
was not far off the mark.
Since 1960, the divorce rate has
. tripled. The percentage of children
living >yith only one parent has fol
lowed suit More than 80 percent of
white children born in the 1950s lived
their entire childhood through high
school with both parents still married.
Today? 30 percent. Blacks have
fared no better. In 1950,52 percent of
black children reached 18 living with
both parents. Today? 6 percent. One
need not be as white-bred as Quayle to
shudder at this profound shift.
" Nonetheless, armchair sociologists
—consider the tiresome Arsenio Hall,
for example — attacked Quayle, ar
guing that this profound shift in the
In their spiteful
overreaction they,
of course, missed
Quayle’s simple
point: Images are
powerful.
family somehow did not matter.
Single-parenting, Arsenio would have
us think, has no social consequences.
Arsenio doesn’t understand the
costs of lives of license because he
doesn’t personally bear its costs. Who
does?
Big surprise: children. Sociologist
David Ellwood reports that 50 per
cent of children in one-parent fami
lies will experience poverty in any
given year, as opposed to 15 percent
of children with two parents. Sev
enty-three percent of children in one
parent families will be impoverished
at some time in their childhood.
Twenty percent of children in two
parent families will. Families headed
by married high-school graduates have
a 9 percent poverty rate. Single-par
ent families? 47 percent.
The data are staggering, and the
message is clear: The traditional fam
ily of mom and dad remaining mar
ried is the best bet to slop poverty.
Whatever Arsenio and the others
sneer, attacks upon the traditional fam
ily have a clear result: Children eat
less. Plain and simple.
One wonders, then: Why all the
clamor over Dan Quayle’s remarks?
It could be that Quayle was a bad
medium for the message. Former Drug
Czar Bill Bennett might have been
better. Let no one be fooled. Tire
problem was not the medium. It was
the message.
This data force American culture
to reckon with an uncomfortable truth.
The cultural changes that manifested
in the 1960s and nave lingered ever
since have resulted in a profound so
cietal breakdown. For some youth of
the '60s, parenting was not a stage
which required maturation in atti
tudes aadiesponsibiliues. Rather, they
thought their parents were stuck in an
outdated model of life.
Though they were in many ways
more thoughtful than than today’s
’60s wannabes like Hall, they too
thought they could avoid adulthood.
Roger Daltrey was indeed a prophet
of his generation: “I hope I die before
I get old.”
as wunam uaiston, ^resident
Clinton's domestic policy adviser, has
conceded: “The 1960s yielded an ethic
of self-realization through incessant
personal experimentation, the triumph
of what has been termed (Repressive
individualism.' An increasingly in
fluential therapeutic vocabulary em
phasized the constraints that relations
could impose on personal growth and
adults to turn inward toward the seifs
struggles for sovereignty, to view
commitments as temporary or end
lessly renegotiate — to behave in
effect, like adolescents."
One challenge of today is that an
entire generation of Americans, in
cluding many of our elites, find them
selves as adults, but pine after adoles
cence. One can only hope that they
will have the good sense to sober to
the truth that they are, in fact, middle
aged. Only then can they accept the
responsibilities — and the blessings
— of it.
Young is a first-year law student and a.
Daily Nebraskan columnist
How shall we spend
your student fees?
Open Forum
Tuesday, March 16
5:30 pm
NE Union (Room Posted)
The Interfratemity Council and
The Panhellenic Association
Recognize and Appreciate the House Parents
for their contributions to
The University of Nebraska - Lincoln
and the Greek System
Margaret Smith, Acacia Holly May, Kappa Alpha Theta
Marjoie Rider, Ag Men Linda Breen, Kappa Delta
Carol Peterson, Alpha Chi Omega Donna Tolen, Kappa Kappa Gamma
Nancy Person, Alpha Delta Pi Donna Keim, Kappa Sigma
Mary Causgrove, Alpha Gamma Rho Melissa Dorssom, Lambda Chi Alpha
Pat Schrader, Alpha Gamma Sigma Connie Pesek, Phi Delta Theta
Betty Soukup, Alpha Omicrcn Pi Marily Worth, Phi Gamma Delta
Kathryn Thome, Alpha Phi Pat Larsen, Phi Kappa Psi
Shirley Wasservurger, Alpha Tau Omega Elaine Heimbouch, Phi Mu
Virgene Dunklau, Alpha Xi Delta Nancy Ryman, Pi Beta Phi
Jack & Pam Smith, Beta Sigma Psi Mark Langren, Pi Kappa Phi
Shirley Crowley, Beta Theta Pi Jo Bomberger, Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Barb Stickels, Chi Omega Judy Kaiser, Sigma Alpha Mu
CJ. Hanson, Chi Phi Loma Ruff, Sigma Chi
Barbara Johnson, Delta Delta Delta Rogene Andreason, Sigma Nu
Jodi Draemel, Delta Gamma Sally Watkins, Sigma Phi Epsilon
Barb Price, Delta Tau Delta Mary Ann Meola, Tau Kappa Epsilon
Linda Halbgewachs, Delta Upsilon Millie Louviere, Theta Chi
Joyce Smith, FarmHouse Ruth McKinstry, Theta Xi
Mary Donahoo, Gamma Phi Beta Gregory Imig, Triangle
WHY RECOGNITION?
Because you have earned it!!
. . .. • v \ „ t* *■ ? *V *' • . ‘ * > »■
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☆
It is time to recognize those "stars"--undergiaduate students
from the College of Business Administration who have
demonstrated outstanding leaders hipand academic achieve
ment during their collegiate career. We want to recognize
your accomplishments A hut to do so we need to hear
from YOU. Please stop^S 7^y the Student Development
Center to pick up an k'K application and retOm it by
Monday, March 29- You may be one of the students selected
to receive recognition for being a shining example of excel
p fence in leadership.
PICK UP YOUR STUART LEADERSHIP
nj AWARD APPLICATIONS TODAY!
Qnmr Readership
(^Development ^Program