Remember when?

It's been mentioned here before, but it's happened again - working in a high school made me stop, shake my head and do the old, "It wasn't like that when I was kid."

The funny thing is that when I got home, I was flipping through last month's GQ and there's a story about an editor who went back to his high school to hang out for a month. Every few months, something similar appears and I'd link to it here, but of course, it's off the Web site by now. (It's the one with Dwayne Wade on the cover).

The main premise of the piece was that yes, high school is different, but in the grand scheme of things, it's a lot like it'd been even 15 years ago.

There are more things to be afraid of these days and the possibility for violence and more dangerous drugs is a real problem, but just because there are more things to be wary of doesn't mean high school on a day-to-day level is significantly worse than it was.

The thing that stuck out was that the doors are locked on a mandatory basis whenever classes are in session following Columbine. The reason this stuck out was that I was stuck in the middle of a lockdown today.

Granted, it was a lockdown drill but strange in any event.

Seeing new classroom technologies is to be expected, but I can remember the biggest hallway threat being kids sneaking out to smoke in the bathroom. Now, twice a year, this school locks down on a practice basis and teachers snare any student walking in the halls while students get away from the doors and windows.

I remember tornado drills, fire drills and assorted timed exercises to make us safer, but this was pretty jarring. The students didn't bat an eyelash which is a pretty damning commentary in itself.

My folks hid under desks as a way to keep them safe from falling bombs and even in second grade, I didn't feel much safer in the hallway on my hands and knees in case the roof of the school got ripped off.

I'm sure to the indestructible youth of today, it's apples to apples - just another stupid thing they have to do because someone else is telling them to inside the school's walls - which is why they're so nonchalant about it.

Someday when the killer robots are picking off the elderly and stray dogs, I'm sure my kids with roll their eyes, slap a piece of aluminum foil over a lunch tray and wait for the bell to ring with an all clear, but today this was weird.

Today it made me shake my head, walk it off and ask when things got so bad. I never guessed I'd be nostalgic for the good old days in the early 90s.

I never thought I'd see 1996 as a safer time.