Est. March 31, 2000 16,959 Previous Hits October 22, 2001 Editor:Tommy Towery http://www.leealumni.com Class of 1964 Page Hits This Issue e-mail ttowery@memphis.edu |
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Est. March 31, 2000 16,959 Previous Hits October 22, 2001 Editor:Tommy Towery http://www.leealumni.com Class of 1964 Page Hits This Issue e-mail ttowery@memphis.edu |
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E-mail us your memories about: For Next Week's Edition |
Do You Remember... "Woody's Drive-In Theater"? by Tommy Towery On one of my nostalgic trips back to Huntsville I was visiting all the old hangouts and drove over to Woody's. It had long since been closed, but the marquee and billboard were still out front so I stopped to take a photo of it. When I walked up to get a better view, I saw all these red things on the ground. Further investigation showed that they were the letters that had made up the name of the movie on probably the last movie shown at the drive-in. I found two "T" letters and made them my own personal souvenir of a long, lost era. I still have them. My most vivid personal memory of Woody's Drive-In would have to be the event noted in my book about taking my first love to a movie there in the middle of December, 1963. Our date was to Woody's Drive-In to see a movie. Later on, the Four Seasons came out with a song entitled "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)," and it has always reminded me of that night. Oh, What a night Late December back in '63 What a very special night to me, I remember what a night. The night was really not that special but it was that unforgettable, and the song always takes my thoughts back to my own night, late December, back in '63. First of all, December is not a good month to go to a drivein movie, not even in the deep South state of Alabama. It still gets cold and I think that night was one of the coldest in history. Heaters in drivein's were unheard of in Alabama and the longer we sat there the colder it got. To make it worse, of all movies we could have picked to see, we selected "Lawrence of Arabia." The memory survives so well because of the stark contrast between the heat and sand on the screen and the cold and frost on the car. To sit there and watch the men sweating and getting sunburned while I could see my breath and was almost getting frostbite was such a contrast. Thinking back about it, it was a wonder we survived the night at all. We really didn't have to worry about the cold but there was another, more silent, threat awaiting us that night. I came upon a great idea of how to keep warm at the drive-in in the winter. I had a can of Sterno left over from one of my camping trips. I decided that I could sit it in the floorboard of the car and light it and it would keep us warm. The idea of suffocation never entered my mind. Fortunately for us the Ford was in such bad shape that there was a big gaping hole in the floor through which you could see the street below. I tried to cover it in the winter to keep the cold air from coming through, but couldn't. So, thanks to the hole, we probably had enough fresh air to keep the Sterno from burning up all the oxygen in the car and suffocating us. We could have ended up in a lifeless lump in the back seat for the owners of the drivein to come by and find after the movie was over. What a story that would have made: "Teenagers Die in Drive-In." We sat watching Lawrence on the screen, as we cuddled in a blanket to try to stay warm in the car. Starting the engine to warm up the car and use the heater was out of the question. I didn't know if I had enough gas to do that, and besides the heater never worked that well anyway. So, in the back seat, snuggled under a blanket, the two of us sat and watched the movie. Of all the movies that were released that year, we had to pick an epic. It went for hours and hours of men and sand on the big screen. The Ford was one of about ten cars sitting in the theater lot. With freezing hands and freezing feet, intimate contact is not one of the prime thoughts in a person's head. Survival comes first. There would be other times to snuggle up in a blanket for fun, but only if we could survive the elements of that night. It's a wonder the blanket didn't catch fire from the can of Sterno that was burning in the floorboard. It was an experience that will always be remembered, usually in thanks for not becoming a tragic statistic. We missed our chance of being the only two people ever to freeze in a theater while watching "Lawrence of Arabia." It would make a great Trivial Pursuit question when the game was finally invented two decades later. "Who were the only two people ever to freeze in a DriveIn while watching an Oscar-winning spectacular?" It would become a famous question, one that everyone would memorize the answer to so that newcomers to the game would say in astonishment "How did you know that?" Fame escaped us that night. The fogged-up windows, the blanket, the Sterno, and the hole in the floor prevented us from taking our place in history. The real historical fact about the night, was that on that night, my last formal date with Connie took place. We would go out together alone a few more times, but we would never have another real date when we went somewhere special together again. That night brought to a close a romance that had survived many trying times in the previous years. The romance went cold, as cold as the night of the drivein. I decided that it was too risky to continue seeing her and that her plans for the future and my plans for the future could never coexist. The last date took place. Other Classmates Share Their Memories Subject: Woody's Drive-In Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 13:23:55 EDT From: Barbdonn13@aol.com Well, I have more memories of Woody's than I could ever begin to write down here! Two stand out, however. One was rather comical. I was driving and 3 other friends were with me when we saw that the movie "Blood Feast" was showing. We decided to go and just happened (!) to park next to a carload of boys from Butler High School! They were shouting all kinds of cute comments about how "You can come over here if you get scared. Heh!Heh!Heh!" You get the picture. Anyway, we got hungry and went to the concession stand to get fries. We were all eating these great fries loaded down with ketchup when the movie started to get just a liiiiiitle bit gross. So the fries started coming over the seat to me because I had an iron stomach. The BHS guys had also made the concession run, and I knew that they were eating fries, too, because they just so happened to be right behind us every step of the way! So, I started making comments about the scenes and blood and ketchup, etc. The funny part was that 2 of the guys got out of the car and upchucked everywhere. Of course, it's was years later before I realized that perhaps they just might have been drinking some beer(a lot of beer, probably) with those fries! I tell you, nothing gets by me! The second is my most vivid and treasured memory of Woody's. Ed and I (my husband, Eddie Donnelly, class of '65) had our first date on Sunday night at Woody's. "Stagecoach" was showing, but we talked(!) through the entire movie! We had just met on the previous Monday when I went to work at NASA. Ed was a Co-op student from Auburn. He never believes me when I say this, but I'm going on record here before God and everybody to say this is true: I used to see him at LHS and think he was soooo cute, but I never met him because I was going through my shy stage (I know you guys remember my shy stage!), so I told my friend Diane, who was younger than I, about him and said, "You've got to meet that guy and date him!" and then I graduated and left LHS. She didn't meet him, and I'm glad! So, he asked me out for Friday, but I had a date already. He had a date for Saturday, so Sunday was it -- April 30, 1967 (or maybe April 29). We've been together ever since. We were officially engaged on June 24, 1967 (but I knew he was a keeper on our third date) and married March 15, 1969. So good old Woody's holds a very special place in my heart. See, Ed, I told you! Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly Class of '64 Subject: Woody's Drive In Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 22:23:48 -0500 From: "Linda Walker" <lbwalker@usit.net> My one remaining memory of Woody's Drive-In happened after graduation. I was dating a student from Mississippi State. We went to see Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. I told my date that if he tried to scare me, he would regret it. At the point in the movie where the girl looked in the mirror and of course did not see the Count because vampires have no reflection, then she turned and there he stood in all his evil glory, my date reached over and touched me. I beat the crap out of him. He thought it was hilarious, I did not. Linda Beal Walker Subject: Woody's Drive In Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 20:17:12 EDT From: CEB1947@aol.com My memories of Woody's Drive In are of my girl friend Jeannie and me going there to see "The Guns of Navarone". We went to see that same movie 4 times and I never saw the gun. We always managed to fog up the windows of either her daddy's 64, candy apple red Mustang or my 1960 Corvair before the movie got that far. The burgers and hot dogs came wrapped in those little aluminium foil bags. We usually parked so far in the back we had to walk forward to get to the concession stand. Fun, fun, fun. Tommy, these memories things you do every week really take me back. Thanks for the memories, Eddie Burton '66' From Our Mailbag... Subject: Lunchroom comments Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 11:01:42 -0400 From: "jscholter" <jscholter@fqsuites.com> In response to "Moses" regarding the lunchroom, my mother worked in the lunchroom as long as I remember. That way she could keep an eye on what was happening with me and any of my friends. Actually, I did get quite a few favors on the lunchroom end of things. I could go back in the office and eat what they ate, let me tell you it was really a different meal back there. We would have anything from sodas to sweet tea (forget the milk thing). I could never let anyone know that I was sneaking back there to eat. But mother would give me a wink or a nod and off I'd go to some really good food. I also knew when to "brown bag" my lunch, especially if there wasn't going to be any good food in the back. jscholter@fqsuites.com aka "Betty Jo Key" Subject: Person-Food-Event Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 12:04:45 -0500 From: "JOY MORRIS" <MORRIJA@ATHENS.EDU> Person: Mrs. Davis - my 9th grade math teacher. I had her class which fell during one of the lunch periods. She wore her skirts rather long and spoke some of her words with an "ish" sound. She pronounced her name Davish and that class seemed to last forever. She spoke slowly and never attempted to make math interesting--just taught the facts. It was all I could do to stay awake during some of her classes. Food: Pork Chops - I don't know why but I remember someone at our table using pepper on their porkchop and that is when I started using pepper on mine. I remember sometimes taking my lunch and sometimes buying it. But I don't remember purchasing lunch tickets when I did buy my lunches. The consequences of forgetting your lunch money was to go hungry unless you could borrow some money from one of your friends or someone shared their lunch with you. Event: The Prom. Shopping for "the" dress, accessories, hair appointment, etc. and so full of expectations on what a prom should and would be that when we entered the Cafeteria I was disappointed. I thought the room was too well lit, the decorations were okay, but the band was awful. I had thought we would have a band our age with music we could relate to but quickly found out the band was more our parents time then ours. It was hard to dance to the music and the atmosphere (what atmosphere) was wanting. Still it was our Senior Prom and we were the first class to be graduating from Lee High. All in all our senior year was memorable. Joy Rubins Morris (Editor's Note: I too remember Mrs. Davis(h) and especially the way she used to tell us to "Notish the blackboard." She also talked in such a mono-tone that it was very difficult to stay awake in her class after lunch.) ____________________________________________________________________ |
To help out with your memories for next week let's try three words again this week. Okay, lie back on my couch and let's play the word association game. Get a piece of paper and pen or pencil. Number three lines - 1, 2, and 3. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU RELATE THESE ITEMS TO THE AUDITORIUM? 1. PERSON 2. EVENT 3. SONG Then go back and explain why and e-mail me your memories. |
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