When is it acceptable to feel old?

Yesterday was Memorial Day and a friend and I cruised down to Oak Street Beach like we usually do when the weather breaks. Winter's hibernation is over - it's time to enjoy another summer in Chicago. After a quick lunch at Shake Shack we walked up Michigan Ave.

First bad sign: loads of teenagers standing near the Drake.

Second bad sign: police doing bag checks before the tunnel

Third bad sign: teens as far as the eye could see on the beach

When you're in beach mode there's no turning back. We walked our way past the sand courts, through a few groups of people, and marked our territory near two similarly-aged women (there weren't many of us). I bust out some watermelon, pull out my Grateful Dead book, and put in my headphones. I took a quick look around and saw nothing but teenyboppers.

Here's the problem - I was a teenager once, so I'm not anti-teenager - but when you mix teenagers from different schools with alcohol and the insatiable desire to show off, something stupid is bound to happen.

An upper-20s couple found their way to where the rest of us old farts were relaxing and sat behind us. Soon after they arrived, we all overheard a group of high schoolers to the right of us talk about a fight that was going to happen. One mentioned that he can't get involved because he couldn't get another "battery" on his record. Just a really promising situation.

Music blasting in every direction, Mike's Hard and Smirnoff the drinks of choice, and guys throwing the pigskin around like they're Hall of Famers - ah, high school. Then a fight broke out.

It started with a few guys, then of course it escalated from there and a swarm of people flew in because they HAD to see it and HAD to film it with their phones. What started as a fight turned into a melee and then a brawl. Stupid. The police finally arrived and broke it up and the kids went back to doing whatever it was they were doing prior.

So the question here is, when is it acceptable to feel old? I'm 27. That's not old, but I felt ancient yesterday. The few of us fossils that were there got up and left the beach during the fight because, believe it or not, that's not why we went to the beach. 

Of course we all did stupid things as teenagers, but to be ten years removed from that era and see it unfold in person like it did yesterday, you kind of sit back and think to yourself, "huh, when did I become my parents?"