O sweet times when it was imaginable to have a combustion engine weighing 32 kg in your check-in luggage. I sincerely wonder if this wasn't hazmat back then?
Pre-2001 was... different. I was stopped by the metal detector at an airport. I didn't know why. Then the guy in the lane next to me said, "Oh, I'm wearing steel-toed boots." I said, "Oh, I am too." (True) Without any further questions or checking, they let us both through. "That? It's just a giant, red, spherical Christmas ornament, with a string to hang it by, that happens to smell of gunpowder... and the monogram…
My first time flying myself was a school trip in January 2002, so a lot of the security theater hadn't started yet. There was more security, and I had to remove my jacket and belt, but it was still just a metal detector, and potentially a pat down (saw someone getting pat down).
By the time I was flying a lot for work (2006-2012), it was the full shebang (shoes off, using 3 different bins per person - and waiting for more bins, no jackets, no belts, no hats, no facial expressions as TSA looked at your ID).
Now when I fly it seems like the security takes no time anymore. When I last flew in October, I didn't even give the agent my ticket. Just my passport that they scanned and handed back to me without even looking at me. Same with Customs in the UK and US, scanned my OWN passport, and a gate opened for me to pass through, no border agent or anything.