Never watch the kids eat.

My journalism career has lately taken me into a couple of local schools. Every kid seems to drive a car to high school these days: the parking lots are huge, and full, with shiny little trucks with vanity plates. I park in one of the favored 'vistors' spots.

WELCOME.

ALL VISITORS MUST REGISTER AT THE OFFICE

YOU PERVERT

says the sign pasted to the glass front door.

Schools are big, with long hallways. I guess the idea was to avoid the crowded stairwells of the old multi-floor brick schools I grew up in; everything is on one story.

The office has a small sign: OFFICE, usually hand-made, presumably in the wood shop. Maybe it was an extra-credit project from a kid found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Outside, the cafeteria is rollicking with kids. There's a little table, gaily covered in green paper, set up in the hallway, where some girls are selling something that looks like glittery pencils to other girls. "Now, what's your room number?" commands one of the sellers to her customer. Here's where bureaucracy is born.

I have to go through the cafeteria for some reason, and as I do my old lunch-duty instincts rise, sharp despite years of layoff. I see a flicker of a hand out of the corner of my eye: a kid's hands were headed toward another's face, but he puts them down, fast as I turn my head.

Mainly, though, I feel but one overwhelming, nostalgic emotion when I'm in a school, and that is that I'd better shape up already, or I'll flunk life. The Cleveland Heights Public Schools did not concern themselves with self-esteem; which was the responsibility of the student and his parents and was only to be conferred, grudgingly, upon completion of his first violin performance before a major symphony orchestra, and not before.

What am I doing here? Oh, yeah. Hi, I'm Mark Kinsler and I write for the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette (Surely you've read my acclaimed column. Well, perhaps not.) and I have an appointment with, uh...

I do like to watch the kids. If nothing else, they're just funny, and so energetic that I would challenge anyone in the NBA's television division to match the entertainment value of a junior high-school lunch period.

M Kinsler