I went home for the summer. Unlike a few of my friends, I don’t have the money to travel around the world every week for three months.

There’s not much to do in town, sure there are five golf courses and a mini golf course. And sure that mini golf course has a big elephant you hit your ball off the top of. But after the 15th time teeing off of Edgar the Elephant, your hometown can seem bland.

But wait, you have friends and memories at home. No, not with people you used to be friends with and graduated high school with. You’re not friends with them anymore because — well, they go to a different school and both of you are too lazy to keep your friendship alive. Those people are basically dead to you. But, you can pass the time and relive your high school glory days with a quick visit to “Insert High School Name Here.”

Visiting your high school is a national pastime for college students, especially freshmen. Everyone wants to visit the place that lied to them and gave them hope that they can go off and accomplish anything. Even though we’ve begun to discover the harsh truths of life, that “limitless possibilities” nostalgia is like heroin to the repeatedly battered-down young mind.

The first obstacle of visiting high school is being let in. Security is heightened nowadays. Some high schools are more difficult to get in than a frat house.

Last week, my mother and I had to pick up my little brother early from my high school. When we walked in, the lady who signs visitors into the school let my mom get him. I had to sit on a bench and wait.

Really? I’m an adult. I graduated two years ago from this high school, and this lady is telling me what to do? What was she going to do, give me detention?

Well, she gave me detention, and I sat in my high school’s cafeteria for an hour and a half after school in silence. Still not sure why I served that.

If you get past the security team — usually a locked door or a 90-year-old lady taking a break and filling her time in between crossing guard duties — visiting your high school can be great. I visited all the teachers whose classes I interrupted back in high school. So, for old times sake, I barged in my sophomore year English teacher’s classroom while the students were taking a test and blurted out the answer for numbers 1-5. In retrospect, I haven’t taken that test in like four years, so my answers were probably wrong. Also, my answers were probably wrong four years ago.

Visiting teachers is always nice. I love to have frank discussions with them now that they’re not in a position of power. I love to know things like:

1. “What did you think of me as a student?”
2. “Who was your favorite/least favorite student? Was I both of them?”
3. “Which student were you most attracted to?”

If you don’t want to visit specific people or you’re too lazy to ask teachers when their off periods are, then visit toward the end of the day or right after school. It’s the period of time when school is basically over and students are not paying attention anymore and the teachers have to contractually stay for another few hours even though they’re exhausted. That’s the most ripe time to add another surprise component into everyone’s day.

Visiting my high school was actually really nice. Going to a place with some awesome teachers and not having the pressure of being trapped there was far superior to the institutionalized regiments previously forced on me. All the problems and worries that I remembered and that I got to see still happening while roaming the halls were put into context for me. Who really cared that Arianna stole Sarah’s boyfriend? What was the point of worrying about how difficult a final was?

But, I learned that life goes on. As I walked past the senior parking lot filled with sunny disposition, loud music, and tongues in mouths, I just chuckled about the safety of those beige tiled floors, and how life is about to run those seniors over next year.

Josh Feinblatt is a junior television, radio and film major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached by email at jfeinbla@syr.edu or on Twitter @joshfeinblatt.

Published on June 19, 2017 at 11:47 am