Fake

  My brother is almost 8 years older than me.  When I was in elementary school, he went to college at Furman University.  By the time I got to junior high, he was about to graduate.  I got hold of one of his college id's and made a fake id for me.  I cut out a picture of me and taped it over his picture.  Why did I need a fake id?  Because I liked movies.

 I wasn't old enough to get into R rated movies, much less foreign films at the Art Cinema.  Those foreign films showed nudity, which was attractive for a guy going through puberty like me.  Swedish films were the best, although French and German ones were good too.  The R rated films appealed to me mostly for the violence.  Many of them also had sex.  

 Most of the time, I would just flash the id to the box office girl.  She would see "Furman" and would let me in.  Once, I thought I was busted.  I was going to see an "art" film, and the box office girl saw my name (brother's name) and said she knew my mother.  She taught the girl in Sunday School.  The girl let me in, but I never heard anything from my mother.  I guess she didn't tell her.

 There were two times that the id didn't work.  Both were when older men were selling the tickets.  The first was at a theater, where I wanted to see a Frank Sinatra detective movie rated R.  He wouldn't let me in.  I saw the film on TV a few years later.  It was rated R for language.  The other time was at a theater downtown showing the film "Fanny Hill" which was a Swedish "Art" film.  No one under 18 could see it.  I showed the guy at the box office my fake id.  He wanted to see my draft card.  Of course, I didn't have a draft card, because I wasn't 18.  I told him that I left it at home.  He then said that it was the law to keep it on my person at all times, so he didn't let me in.  On a side note, the soundtrack music for "Fanny Hill" sounded remarkably like the music for "Star Wars" which came out later.  I can't say that John Williams copied the music, but it is uncanny how similar the themes are.

 I continued to use my fake id into college, so I could drink liquor at clubs.  When I turned 21, I no longer needed a fake id.  It was kind of anticlimactic to go into a liquor store and not have to use a fake id anymore.  Those were more innocent times.  I don't think my brother ever knew I was using his id.  If he did, he didn't tell on me.