When I was a freshman at PSU in 1964, a bunch of us (on a tip from a physics major) walked into the reactor building - the doors were open - about 11:00 PM one evening. We wondered about for ten minutes before one of the white-coated denisons discovered us and gave us a tour of the building. I remember the blue glow of Chrenkov radiation surrounding the pile in the pool. That, apparently, was a more innocent time, before concerns about terrorists and maniacs run amok.

The last time I was at Penn State, for a seminar on tax accounting, the reactor was behind cyclon fence with a roll of razor wire on top. There was nothing identifying the building as a "nuclear reactor."

So much for the 'Good Old Days.'