The Age of Aquarius

I attended college in Crunchybong, Arizona, more commonly known as Flagstaff. Flagstaff is famous for Northern Arizona University, the San Francisco Peaks, and hippies.

Another unique aspect of my alma mater is that it is very close to the Navajo Indian Reservation. I took classes with honest-to-Pete medicine men, and the people of the Navajo Nation shared their heritage with pride.

Additionally, thanks to the Navajo Nation, I was able to frolic in numerous drinking establishments of the greater Flagstaff area, because I had Veronica Yazzie's sister's ID.

This is me:

Joel was being naughty. Do you see that pout?

This is an approximation of the picture on the ID.

Nobody in Flagstaff ever gave me a hard time. Since we both had brown eyes, and I knew that she was an Aquarius (just ask me!) the ID MUST have been legit.

I happily used this ID for most of my undergrad, until I got cocky. It was New Year's Eve, and I decided to go to a Phunk Junkeez show in Phoenix. (The Phunk Junkeez are one of those terrible rap-metal hybrids so popular in the mid-Nineties. Before you judge too harshly, keep in mind that this was Phoenix, AZ. The only other band to come out of AZ? The Gin Blossoms. We're not exactly Seattle...)

So, I waited in the beer line, holding Veronica Yazzie's sister's ID, confident. After all, I knew that she was an Aquarius. I handed the ID to the juiced-up bouncer. He looked at the ID, glanced at me, grunted, and said, "This is the biggest pile of horseshit I have ever seen." He then cut up my golden ticket to Zima and Midori Sours with a pair of scissors the size of my head.

Oh, snap!

I suffered through the remaining seven months of my twentieth year, drinking the occasional Natural Light in the confines of my dorm room, until I finally turned twenty-one.

On that glorious day, my friend Sunshine and I went to a local Mexican restaurant for lunch. She wasn't twenty-one yet, but since she is Sunshine, the rules don't apply to her. They asked for my ID, which I brandished with glee. When they asked her for hers, she said, "C'mon now. You know I'm good. Please bring my friend a pitcher of your finest margaritas."

That lunch lasted about three hours, and involved much discussion of Neil Diamond and the time she partied with the Vandals. We returned to her dorm room and listened to NWA until we passed out took refreshing afternoon naps.

I woke up in time to lurch to my afternoon class: Creative Writing of Poetry. We were doing one of those poems where everybody writes a line and passes the paper on...a poetic form of "telephone" if you will. In my tipsy stupor, I wrote the same line every time: "And then the kitty-cat smoked a doobie."

Just call me Maya Angelou.

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Interested in reading other memoirs? Stop by Travis's site, I Like to Fish, and take a gander...