GREAT MILLS — In 1962 on a field trip to the National Theatre by a Montgomery County high school to enjoy the play "Fiorella" the story of the colorful Fiorella La Guardia, mayor of New York, as part of a 8th grade civics class lesson, a student zipped into a bookstore next to the theatre to buy a copy of the banned novel "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller.

The book was written by Miller in 1934 and was the subject of an important federal court ruling in 1961 on obscenity laws, but that issue wasn’t even on the radar screen for the bus load of high school students. Instead it was all about the explicit sex in the book to make the school’s administration fume and bluster over the purchase of the book, which was banned in Boston but available in D.C.

The student who bought the banned book on the field trip was suspended from school, even though the event which displeased the school officials didn’t take place at school, it was on a school sponsored trip.

Its still the same, just different years and different ways of ticking off officials, but in 1962 there weren’t any females posing for nude photos for their boyfriends, at least none that were known.

Who says the good old days were better?

This past week, a student a Great Mills High School took photos of his girlfriend, who apparently willingly posed in the nude and then downloaded the nude photos into the school’s computer system, making them available throughout the "wired" school, in yet another test of the adventures that young people have with both sex and the wonders of the computer age.

Not to be unexpected, the school officials took measures to clean up the computers and may have suspended at least one young man who printed out the nude photos.

One student who viewed the photos told ST. MARY’S TODAY that the photos were of full frontal nudity and that "she wasn’t wearing any panties or a bra", meaning that today’s generation seems to agree with the legal definitions of such nudity which have pretty much been used in reporting of such events in the past. In addition, the girl was described as good looking and apparently worth the trouble that some of those involved in this event will find as repercussions are doled out in coming weeks.

St. Mary’s Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano said, through a spokesman, that appropriate measures are being taken for both removing the inappropriate photos and dealing with those responsible.

In addition, the school’s chief will be addressing the problems of text messaging, bullies and the posting of fight club photos on My Space as the electronic era advances on in leaps and bounds.

At a basketball game last winter, many students were seen failing to stand for the national anthem, maybe they will stand for this show.