Colleton County High School

    I can't decide if this is funny, tragic, weird, or perfectly normal. On Huger St. in Columbia, I was behind two activity buses from Colleton County High School in Walterboro down in the Lowcountry a hundred miles or more from here. Behind them was a car from the Colleton County sheriff's department. As all three turned into the McDonald's together, there's no question that it was not mere coincidence that the deputy was riding behind the buses.
    It sounds like an old Gabe Kaplan routine: my school was so tough they sent sheriff's deputies along on our field trips. Of course, you could think of it as the school asking him to ride along to protect the kids in the big city. Or maybe he's the school's resource officer and he comes along on all field trips. I don't get why he would need to be in a separate car, though I guess you could think of it as analagous with the vehicles that ride ahead of or behind Wide Load trucks. Sort of.
    It just isn't a world I'm familiar with. Back in the day, the buses were driven by other students or recent grads. There was an assistant principal with the job and usually the title of disciplinarian, but there weren't any police officers in the schools. Of course we didn't cause much trouble tired out as we were from walking ten miles to school through the snow uphill both ways. (Guess I screwed that one up by mentioning the bus drivers; oh well.)
    Looking up CCHS online to see if there was a hint what field trip this might be, I found instead that the students are required to wear school uniforms. This, too, is a world we thought we had left behind. Perhaps that's what the deputy was there for: keeping an eagle eye out for uniform violations! Very little would surprise me at this point.