Est. March 31, 2000 19,234 Previous Hits December 31, 2001 Editor:Tommy Towery http://www.leealumni.com Class of 1964 Page Hits This Issue e-mail ttowery@memphis.edu Staff Writers : Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly , Joy Rubins Morris ,Terry "Moses" Preston Staff Photographers: Fred & Lynn Sanders |
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Est. March 31, 2000 19,234 Previous Hits December 31, 2001 Editor:Tommy Towery http://www.leealumni.com Class of 1964 Page Hits This Issue e-mail ttowery@memphis.edu Staff Writers : Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly , Joy Rubins Morris ,Terry "Moses" Preston Staff Photographers: Fred & Lynn Sanders |
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My 1963 New Year's Eve Memories by Tommy Towery Class of 1964 I remember the first New Year's Eve I spent with a crowd of people my own age and with someone I had special feelings for. It was at the skating rink, and there was a special New Year's party after the normal skating session. They furnished hats and noise makers, and in the crowd were all the girls I had ever dreamed of. It was a special night, with a live band instead of the normal 45-rpm records spinning. As the midnight hour rolled near, we all stopped skating and huddled in a large group by the band. I was with my best friend, the girl I liked, her friend, and a whole crowd of other nameless faces. I planned my actions well. As the clock struck midnight, I would take my girl in my arms and kiss her, right on the lips. It would be a first. I had never had a real date with her. I had just been with her at the skating rink and we skated most of the couples skates together. I knew she felt the same way about me that I did about her, but that she was just as shy as I was. That night, we had the perfect excuse to elevate our relationship. Anticipation built up inside of me as the countdown to midnight and the new year started. I positioned myself near her. We all counted: five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year! The shouts went out. I turned. She turned. I prepared myself. She threw herself into the open arms of my best friend standing beside me. I stood in silence. Wait a minute. "Is this a country and western song? What's going on? This isn't really happening. Things like this only happen in movies, not in real life." My best friend stood there kissing my girl. The crushing experience left an impact on my young mind. I felt like a fool, dazed beyond words. I just stood there, with the two of them together. I didn't even get a second-place hug. I was so embarrassed by the event that I didn't stay long enough to see if she would hug me when she finally let go of him. I didn't really want to know. I dropped my head and skated off feeling sorry for myself, as the band played "Should auld acquantance be forgot ...." That event made the necessity of a really good New Year's Eve in the future even more important to me. I needed some real special memories to put that one out of my mind. So far in my life, I hadn't had any. You're supposed to kiss in the new year. That was expected. If you didn't, you were a failure. I was determined not be a failure that night. As I rode along in the bus with the other lost souls, I slipped in and out of sleep, as I dreamed about what could happen that night. I thought about the dance that was to be held at Bradley's. All of my group planned to go. In the crowd would be all the girls I ran around with, but never got the opportunity to kiss. I thought about the hugging, the kissing, the singing, and the dancing. A great time was in store. The impact of the snow did not really hit me initially. What did it matter if we had a little snow? That wouldn't hurt anything. As the bus rolled into Huntsville, with the snow still falling, I still failed to recognize the threat to my plans that the snow held in store. All through the afternoon it continued to fall. A quick telephone call confirmed that the dance was still on. I had the new suit. This party, these friends, this night would make up for all the others in my life that had been so anticlimactic. I started running into difficulties with my grandmother. She was like any good grandmother and didn't want to see her grandson go out in a snowstorm for fear he might get killed in a car accident. I talked and pleaded with her until I finally convinced her, I thought, that I would be safe. Chances are, she was not as convinced as I hoped; nevertheless, she finally consented to let me go. The dance didn't start until ten o'clock so I sat and watched the Lee High School band get the first national recognition for the new high school. I sat and watched with the rest of America as the band from my school performed on live television. Lee High was famous. For once, I wasn't going to let the Bomb fail me. I knew it would not start after having sat up while I was in Memphis, so I already had arranged for transportation. Bob would drive. That would keep me from getting stranded. I never, not once in my life, planned on Bob's car breaking down. Why should it? It never had before. Fate willed that in my seventeenth year I would fail to go out and reclaim the lost New Year's Eve. One more year would end anticlimactically, with nothing special to see me into the new year. Instead of the party and the girls and the hats and the noise makers, I was destined to sit at home and watch television. I welcomed in the new year, with my grandmother. Had I only known that it was the last year I would spend New Year's Eve with her, it might have been a more precious moment. What I would give today to welcome in the New Year with her. I wouldn't even mind sitting and watching television alone with her. What a wonderful time that would be, just the two of us.... My missed excitement for that night was perhaps a joy for my grandmother. There was probably nothing she would rather do than to see in the new year with her grandson, except maybe see in the new year with her whole family, children and grandchildren alike. I did not realize that. I did not treasure the night the way she must have. For me, it was a lost opportunity. For her, perhaps it was an answered prayer. If I had gone to the dance, she would have been left alone and probably gone to bed early. The one night when we seem to face loneliness the most, she would have been left alone. Perhaps she would have remembered all the other nights she was put into the same situation. Perhaps she would try to remember the last good time she had on New Year's Eve. For one last moment, she still had someone with whom to share, someone with whom to see in the new year. A grandmother's kiss does not match one from a beautiful teenage girl. At least it wouldn't to a teenage boy. To a grown man, today, it would. We saw in the new year. Nineteen sixty-four arrived. The year of my coming out was at hand. That was the beginning of the year that would implant itself into my past and become a counting stone by which I could relate to the past. That year I would graduate from high school, a measuring date for all future time-relationships. With the old songs on the radio, I welcomed the future. Today the New Year's Eve of 1963 seems a little nicer, a little more special. It was special with just my grandmother and me, sharing a brief quiet evening together. There were no hats, no noise makers, no band. It was just the two of us changing years together for the last time. Should auld acquantance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquantance be forgot And days o' auld lang syne? From Our Mailbag... Subject: New Years Memories Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2001 23:21:14 -0600 From: "Jim Bannister" <jbann@hotmail.com> The New Years that is most memorable to me was New Year's Eve 1974. I was in the Navy and stationed at a Microwave Communications site in Yokohoma, Japan. Being in charge of the watch section I had given my crew the night off and stood the mid-watch alone. The station was located on Negishi Heights over looking Yokohoma Harbor and Tokyo Bay. As midnight approached I stepped outside and at the turn of the New Year all the ships in the harbor and bay turned on their spotlights and sounded their horns and whistles. At the same time fireworks rose from Chinatown in Yokohoma. This display continued for almost an hour as I stood there alone in amazement. I have seen many New Years since then, some very impressive, but none that compare. It may have been the view or that there were no distractions or more probably that I was cold sober and had made it to shore duty that made the first hour of 1974 so memorable. Happy New Year Jim Bannister Subject: Atlanta Reunion Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 11:56:11 -0500 From: "jscholter" <jscholter@fqsuites.com> I am interested in the Atlanta reunion. Anymore info i.e. time you can provide will help. thanks Betty Jo Key Class of 65 ________________________________________ |
_________________ The Atlanta Area Mini-Reunion Saurday, January 12th, 2002 6pm at The Main Varsity Is Taking Shape E-Mail if you are interested! _______________ |
Zesto Update Subject: Update pix on Zesto Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 From: "Fred Sanders" <fsanders@hiwaay.net> I took these pictures and meant to send them your way before I headed out of town to visit over the Thanksgiving holiday. I was out in the Seattle area for a couple of weeks. It's been a game of catch up ever since I returned home, so these are really "out of date" pix. I'll go by and get some current pictures this afternoon on my way out to the mall. :-) Lynn |
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