At breakfast the other day at Chick-fil-A, I overheard the young men about to start their Bible study talk about prom season.

They discussed the venues for their big nights: the Classic Center, Fernbank Museum of Natural History, the Fox Theatre and even SunTrust Park.

All of these sound like fantastic sites for the night that’s supposed to be a highlight of your teenage years, and they are not a bit like my high school experience.

Of course, I went to school way back in the dark ages of the late 20th century, and not in a metro area like Atlanta. My senior prom was in the beautiful, scenic and historic Albertville Coliseum.

It’s every bit as romantic as it sounds. This lovely 1959-built brick box, without air conditioning, had the bleachers pushed in to maximize the space on the dance floor.

It was the same building where my parents had the Coronation Ball, the big event of their days at dear ol’ AHS. The only thing different in there between their generation and mine was they added a 3-point line when the rules of basketball changed.

And did I mention there was no air conditioning? It was brutal for late April. If I had the ability to dance in my rental tuxedo and those plastic shoes that come with it, as opposed to just standing and swaying, I’m sure it would have been a real scorcher.

Prom venues weren’t the only thing that have changed, I figured as I continued my stroll down memory lane.

I recalled going after dinner to the home of one of the people in our group — a house kind of out in the country, a fact that will make sense in a minute. There, someone put together the fact we were in tuxedoes and formal gowns, and you know who else wore clothes like that? The people in the James Bond posters. And you know what else they had in those posters? Guns! And you know what we have in this home out in the country?

Yeah. So this group of 17- and 18-year-olds pretended to be secret agents on some case in her majesty’s service while holding deadly weapons. It was cute, I guess, but now I’m a little horrified.

As a good Southerner, I don’t shake my head at holding guns just for the sake of doing so, even though it was quite dangerous. It’s that I feel certain not everyone in the group had been trained in their use and safe handling.

Also, I consider how much times have changed. If a group of students did that today, someone would post the picture immediately to social media and by the time they arrived at prom, be greeted by a tactical team and spent the night at the Marshall County Jail, never getting the chance to dance like idiots to the Rednex version of “Cotton Eyed Joe.” (You forgot for a minute there I’m from Alabama, didn’t you?)

Oh, and did I mention my prom was three days after the tragedy at Columbine High School? Clearly my classmates and I were lacking in the sensitivity department.

“We would have been in sooooooooooo much trouble for those photos this day and age,” my prom date, Mandy, wrote when I asked her about it this week on Facebook. “Goodness, I don't even want to think about how much.”

(Speaking of Mandy and how proms are different between now and then: My “promposal” for her involved calling her on a landline telephone and overcoming my nerves to ask, “Um, I was wondering, um, would you like to, uh, go to prom?” This is so much better than what students have to do now, when everything must be a spectacle and I’d have been forced to rewrite the words to the Barry Manilow classic and sing them in the student lounge.)

Upon further review, I think we were just naïve, living in a bubble of our time. Children today don’t get that luxury, but they’re also more socially aware, and active, which is good too. They’re better for it.

So no, this isn’t an old-man-yells-at-clouds column. If you want to go have prom at the Georgia Aquarium, by all means, dance with the fish. There were advantages to when we grew up, and advantages to when you’re growing up. The goal is to enjoy it, and if you can still be friends with your prom date nearly 20 years later, you’re probably ahead of the curve.

David Clemons is the editor and publisher of The Covington News. His email address is dclemons@covnews.com. Twitter: @scoopclemons.