Tonight at midnight, I will finally be 21 years of age. After years of waiting, years of thinking about the magical night, it has finally arrived. Powerball, here I come!

Nah, I probably won’t be purchasing any lottery tickets tonight, unless they come stapled to one of those big barrel cans of Foster’s. I’ll be taking part in one of those collegiate rituals that can not be avoided.

I’ve spent two and a half years watching my friends become legal, and now that it’s actually happening to me, I feel like the bridesmaid who’s finally getting hitched herself.

It seems kind of strange, though, that this landmark age brings with it such a strong emotional response from people. In the last week I’ve been telling people that I’m turning 21 soon, and from their reactions you’d think I’d told them I’m in the running for the next papal election.

It’s really not THAT big of deal. It was bound to happen sometime. I mean, eventually you had to figure all those cardinals would get tired of Johns, Pauls and Leos and opt for a Dave.

Turning legal drinking age is, of course, a huge deal to college students. It’s exorcising that last remnant of childhood. It’s jumping one of the final hurdles blocking technical adulthood. It marks the end of having to begin certain sentences with the qualifier, “I’m underage, so it doesn’t affect me any, but … “

Here in Ames, it’s a much bigger deal because it means that you may now join the ranks of the bar-goers. As a friend of mine once put it, “The bar is that party that is always there for you, no matter what.”

I don’t think I’d ever want to get to the point where I think of the bar as a place that is always there for me, like the friend you only use to emotionally bleed on, but I’ve been twitching to get in to one since I was an underdeveloped, lonely freshman.

However, it wouldn’t have to be this way.

Although you’d never know it, there’s no state or federal law that prohibits me from entering a drinking establishment until midnight tonight. It’s a city ordinance, just the same as the ordinance mandating that my car receive a parking ticket at least once per day.

Other college towns allow minors to enter bars, such as Cedar Falls and Iowa City. So why doesn’t Ames?

I’ve written about this before, so I apologize in advance for harping on the same subject, but what is gained by not allowing minors in to at least some of the Campustown bars?

First of all, keeping minors out of taverns and such creates the illusion that something fun must be going on in there, kind of the like the “Growing Pains” episode where Ben walks downstairs after he’s been sent to bed only to find his parents throwing a party in the honor of him being upstairs.

Well, kind of like that, except I doubt the folks at People’s and Dean’s List have been having “Thank God Dave Roepke isn’t in here” shindigs. Well, People’s might be.

Secondly, having exclusively 21-and-over bars drives underage students to unregulated, much more dangerous house parties. Most college students are going to drink alcohol from time to time, whether they are 18 or 25.

Which drinking venue is going to have a higher risk of promoting the scary levels of alcohol consumption that produce the front page stories and the public outcries of concern about college binge drinking: A public business staffed by trained bartenders and regularly patrolled by police officers or that duplex on Stanton Avenue where that one friend of Bob’s old roommate lives?

Thirdly, not allowing underage students into bars creates an atmosphere of complete boredom. Unfortunately, one of the few places where a college student can go to dance, to have a good time, to meet new people or to just “go out” is a bar.

Where is a fine young lass or lad of a mere 18, 19 or 20 years supposed to go on the weekends if they want to have a good time? Sure, there’s bowling, but I mean beyond the fun family sport that’s all the rage.

It sounds terrible, I know, but unless a student happens to have an extreme predilection toward Scrabble, I don’t know what they’re supposed to do. You can only see so many damn movies.

And it’s only getting worse. Boheme, which used to be one of the only places in Ames where a minor could go and dance on the weekends, closed its doors to the underage plebes last semester.

What can be done about this? The only way to really get anything changed is to buy your way into power, so break open the checking account and learn to like Ramen.

If that doesn’t work for you, then get out and vote in the next city council election. If the students got their act together, we would rule this town. Push the candidates to take a stance on this, and promise a vote to their competitor if they won’t. And if none of the candidates shows any interest, run yourself.

As for me, screw that. I’ll be legal in a few hours.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Aurora. He is a news editor at the Daily.