I never rode a school bus until I went to Milwaukee with my Sheboygan YMCA to see a Brewers game.     I walked to class, sometimes down a Sheboygan street where there were--gasp--bars!        Actual joints, with beer on tap and hard liquor on the rail.      Dark places, with a jukebox playing songs that we didn't hear in chorus.         And, I can honestly say it had no effect.      I never caught a buzz from the sidewalk.       No contact nicotine high from the cigarette smoke that billowed out those doors.     

        It was a far more simple time.      An era that predated Hooters.

        A Brookfield alderman is worked up about the possibility of a Hooters restaurant coming to his fair suburb.     The issue: location.   He says the proposed spot, in the former Pedro's on Blue Mount Road, is too close to an elementary school.

         Huh?

        I drive past the Hooters on Layton near 76th in Greenfield several times a week.    Never once have I seen anything untoward.    They could maybe trim the shrubs a bit in the front, but not once have I spotted anything even remotely...stimulating, unless you get your jollies looking at guys wiping chicken wing grease on their pant legs in the parking lot.       There are no women in short orange pants and tight t-shirts working the sidewalks, enticing people to come inside and sample the wares.   

        I know, it's all about the kids.     Lord knows how many packs of fourth graders we're going to find inside that Hooters of the future  snarfing burgers and watching ESPN while ogling the restaurant talent.     Yeah, right.    

        A grip, folks: Hooters ain't that bad.     You can find more skin in other area eateries/bars.       Or even at Bradford Beach.     Certainly if you watch women's beach volleyball.

       Which brings me to another point: are the folks so worried about a Hooters being close to an elementary school also going to tell the parents of those kids what they can watch at home, because there's a helluva lot more tawdry stuff on the tube than there is at the beanery that may or may not come to Blue Mound Road.

        Hooters is a...restaurant.     Chicken wings.     Burgers.     Yes, the name is suggestive and the women provocative, but it's nothing lethal or corruptive.     Don't sweat the atmosphere or the proximity to classrooms.     Worry instead about your cholesterol.     

             Folks have a right not to like a Hooters--they may not appreciate the single entente, the outfits, or even the grub.     It's their right, and they can vote with their wallets by going somewhere else.        As for the kids?        They can just walk on by.

           Provided, of course, kids still WALK to school any more.