The warm, brown gunstocks of the rifles contrasted starkly with their cold, blued steel barrels in a surreal visage of juxtaposition. In the school gymnasium, the students opened the actions of these rifles, loaded, locked their bolts into place, and prepared to fire.

The story you are about to read is true. It happened here in Lakewood, and it happened again, and again, and again. Only, during those times, the shooting was under supervision...and the skills learned by the students would serve them well later, in places like the Korean battles of Pork Chop Hill and Heartbreak Ridge...and later still, in places like Hue and the Ashau Valley in Vietnam.

And in places like the old ice house, where Winterhurst sits today, adults of various local gun clubs regularly met to hone their marksmanship skills. The first World War caught Americans unprepared for defense. Soldiers trained with sticks instead of guns, and old jalopies with the word "TANK" scrawled on flapping bedsheets rumbled across the parade grounds of our diminished peacetime army.

It was decided by the higher-ups, and by many regular Americans, that something had to be done to prepare the youth of our nation for its defense. Accordingly, Physical Education was mandated across the country, and in many of our schools, including Lakewood's. Firearms awareness and training became routine. Gun clubs began to flourish.

In fact, the National Rifle Association was chartered by an Act of Congress. The same was true of the Boy Scouts of America, although the founders of the Scouting movement bitterly argued about the extent to which their youth organization should be militarized.

By no means was this march to militarize our nation universally accepted. As was true in the Civil War, thousands of Americans resisted the draft and participated in other forms of anti-war resistance throughout our country. Some religious groups also bitterly opposed what they felt was an effort to turn their children into cannon fodder.

Still, when American participation in hostilities began, most of the country went along with the march to victory. Their well-trained children became American fighting men and women: the best equipped and trained military force in the world.

We can say that because we won. Again and again. Of course, we left a great many of those young men and women over there too, under grassy fields of honor.

After World War I, once again, Americans turned to peacetime pursuits. Military and civilian preparedness for future conflicts subsided until Pearl Harbor, when a new generation of Americans was again asked to take up arms.

At the end of the Second World War, confronted by realities of atomic bombs and Communist expansion, Americans continued with their attempts to prepare youths for the future. At that time, children's education was looked at as a unified whole: mind, body, and spiritual development were all at the forefront of America's priorities. And particularly in the Lakewood Schools.

The key focus for the Lakewood Schools in October, 1950 was in building citizenship. Citizenship was the building block upon which all other successes depended. I have an October, 1950 report from the Lakewood Schools stressing citizenship, and the cooperation of all, for the good of the community. The report begins as follows: "We believe that the foundation of our democratic government is based on the training and the inspiration received by the child in his home, his church, and his school."

Yes, back then schools were unafraid to mention and even support religious activities in the schools. In a section titled "My Religious Interests Are Encouraged," the 1950 school report boasts of nine "Y" related Christian groups at Lakewood High School alone, with eight groups in the elementary buildings, and eight in the junior highs. Even back then, the report also encouraged students to learn more about the various denominations, religions and cultures. Of course, these were the days before religious lawsuits and Supreme Court rulings put up walls between the public schools and faith-based values.

Along with many of the report's photos of academic, artistic, and religious activities transpiring in the schools, there is a photo on page 16 of students on the firing line with their rifles, along with the caption: "A good citizen learns to use firearms safely and effectively."

You see, back then, I doubt whether anyone thought about shooting up a school or gunning down fellow classmates. Yes, there were bad guys. We knew that; but Lakewood and so many other communities taught the greater importance of being a part of the community itself. Academic achievement, judged so important now, was, of course, mentioned in the report (on page 5) but the many other pages talked about social responsibility, health, safety, the adventure of learning, and the importance of cooperating with others. And yes, even the importance of religion.

Were things better back then, in those (mostly) pre-TV days of the mid-20th century? I don't know. All times have their problems. I was a teacher for thirty-one years. By the time I started, the guns and the prayers were gone from the schools, at least the supervised guns and prayers. Citizenship as well seemed to give way to comparative humanities studies, and absolute community values seemed to dissolve into relativism. Meaningful dress codes also seemed to fade into history at about the same time that guns and prayers went away.

To be fair, times were not all that good back then for religious and ethnic minorities either. The same might be said for persons having physical or other challenges. Many things are, indeed, better today.

These days, many administrators, parents, and politicians seem to think that a retreat into pure academics will rescue the schools. The problem is that no one can agree about what exactly should be academic: What is "good English" exactly? Should we teach evolution or creation? Was it the Civil War or The War for Southern Independence? What were the real roots of World Wars I and II, as well as Vietnam? What really happened to Ohio's Native Americans? What are good values?

Good luck with the answers. I don't think you'll find them on those fancy new tests being given these days.

As far as the guns went? Well, I'm an old Pennsylvania boy and I liked guns. I discovered, however, that I took no joy in hunting. I was pretty good at target shooting. I looked at it no differently than pitching horseshoes or bowling.

Unfortunately, I had a young cousin who ended his life with a firearm. That pretty much ended my interest in guns, except for helping Scouts and others to learn about gun safety. It was a tragedy.

So now, I can hardly bear to look at a gun. I know they say it's not the gun, it's the deed. Still, kids today have no idea about gun safety. Time and time again, gun accidents take the lives of our young. And so, many of our nation's gun-free, prayer-free schools have turned into bloodbaths.

Would a course on firearms awareness and gun safety work in our schools today? For that matter, would a return to religion in school help? State legislators are paving the way for the return of Ohio's State Motto--"With God, All Things Are Possible"--to every public school in the state. Will this help to return the best parts of great things lost in our culture? Would these efforts help to restore a greater sense of safety or morality?

I don't know. Perhaps they would, if they were accompanied by many of the well thought out, long forgotten lessons about responsible citizenship.

Some might say that things are better, now that legalized gunfire and prayers no longer ring out through our schools. I might respond, "Maybe... but are we really sure about that?"