Someone Call the Law!

Tim Hudson of the Oakland A's was in town tonight. He's from Phenix City, Alabama (about 5 miles from here), and the Phenix City Girls' Club invited him to be the guest of a "Celebrity Roast" fundraiser. I have to say, he's a class act. He comes back to Phenix City, does this fundraiser, hangs out, talks to everybody, autographs hats and balls and everything else, and doesn't seem the least bit annoyed or pretentious at any point in the night.

Ok, that really isn't the point to my story, more of a brief introduction.

The roast was at Phenix City Central high school. Central's one of the biggest schools in Alabama. I've been there a few times, usually for basketball games, and the first thing I always notice is the metal detectors at the front entrance.

I graduated from high school 16 years ago, and I guess it must have been the end of the age of innocence. I knew kids who did drugs (mostly weed), and I knew a couple of guys who brought knives to school (one of them used to "tattoo" his arm behind me in psych class). Oh, and I got kicked out of our school's "All Night Party" for getting embarrasingly and illegally drunk. But other than that, most of the "bad" kids were just your everyday burnouts. Metal Detectors just seem so foreign to me.

I haven't been back to my high school since about 1989. Do you think it has metal detectors now? One of my friends teaches in that school district, maybe she could enlighten me.