Est. March 31, 2000 32,196 Previous Hits December 9, 2002 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 Cherri Polly Massey, Paula Spencer Kephart Staff Photographers: Fred & Lynn Sanders Contributers: The Members of Lee High School Classes of 64-65-66 |
Memories of Christmas Past by Joy Rubins Morris Class of 1964 When we were growing up, my mother was a stay-at-home mom and my dad was the breadwinner. Money was budgeted very carefully and although we always had gifts under the tree, my parents were careful about where and what they bought for us. One Christmas one of the gifts I got was a doll with blond hair, She had on a red rain coat and matching red boots and I was so excited. One of the first things I did was take her outside and "walk" her in a puddle. The matching red boots were not as water proof as I had thought. Lesson--don't assume things work the way you think they will especially when you are a ten year old.. Other Christmas years saw a set of colored bells along with a book of instruction on how ringing certain colored bells create a song, a punching bag (I think my parents were hoping my sister and I would hit the punching bag instead of each other--didn't work), and a bike which was shared between Judy and me . Then when I was twelve, I got a black poodle skirt and a fuzzy pink sweater which I wore the first day back to school from Christmas break. I nearly wore out that skirt and the fuzz off the sweater. Later when I was approaching high school graduation, that Christmas one of the gifts I received was a "hope" chest. I was never so disappointed in all my life. Of all things I did not want, could not even imagine wanting and would never have asked for was one of the gifts I got. Another lesson--what your parents think you should want and what you really want aren't necessarily the same thing. Looking back, they did remarkably well considering how little money they had. We always had a wonderful holiday meal, a beautiful tree, presents to include family oriented games (which we would play in the evenings), and we had each other. I miss those special times of long ago. Sometimes I wish I could go back like Peggy in the movie "Peggy Sue Got Married". I would even be happy to get that old hope chest--a very small price to pay for another chance to say I love you Mom and Dad. _______________________________________________ |
Musical Memories This week's song was a big Christmas hit when we were youngsters in Huntsville. Click on the record player below to continue. The music should play automatically so if you are at work, you might want to turn down your speakers a little. When you get to the song, record your comments for your other classmates. __________________________________________ |
Still Crazy After All These Years |
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Est. March 31, 2000 32,196 Previous Hits December 9, 2002 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 Cherri Polly Massey, Paula Spencer Kephart Staff Photographers: Fred & Lynn Sanders Contributers: The Members of Lee High School Classes of 64-65-66 |
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Click on the record player to hear the song. |
Classmates Share Their Own Toy Stories Harold Shepard Class of '67 The year was 1959 and I, like so many other 11year old boys, would dream of owning a 6 transistor radio. The one I wanted was a Motorola and it had to be red, have its own leather case, and miniture ear phone. Well as fate would have it I got lucky that year and got it. Of all the toys I ever owned, that had to be the best. I must have went through at least 25 (9 volt) batteries before it finally died. I used to carry it to school, run the ear phone cord up my sleeve and listen to all those great old rock & roll songs and you could always draw a crowd when the World Series was played in the daylight hours. (The way god intended it to be) I cant remember whatever led to its demise but even today from time to time I'll check the E-bay listings to see if someone out there might have another one that needs a new home. ____________________________________________________ Linda Beal Walker Class of '66 The last Christmas at "Uncle" Sam Horton's house here in Milan, TN, before we moved to Huntsville, I think I was 7. I had saved my dimes in a dime bank shaped like a cash register, and I bought myself a ballerina doll. Her feet actually moved so I could stand her on her toes. She was beautiful, and my mother made all kinds of clothes for her. I still have her, minus one foot and not so beautiful, but she's still with me. Also, Cherri's letter to Santa requesting a train reminded me of another favorite. I had a set of 100 Army soldiers, tanks, jeeps, cannons, everything necessary to go to war. I was older than 7, quite a bit, but I had so much fun playing with those guys. (And Cherri, I wanted an electric train, too, but never got one. I did have a Starsky & Hutch car, though.) __________________________________________ |
Musical Memories of "Only The Lonely" 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Though my love is gone to a better life in Heaven, I will always have the wonderful memories left to me. Time takes away the intensity of the pain, but not ever the love! ________________________________ I was crazy about a young man (Tommy) whom I met the fall after high school. We dated for several weeks and then after one Sunday afternoon date, he took me home, kissed me goodbye and drove away. I never heard from him again. I saw him months later at my new job. He never said why he didn't call or explain what happend between us. I found out later he also had a girl friend in Tennessee and I suppose she won his heart. I shed many, many tears and it took a long time to get over him. ___________________________________ My first memories of this song is that it was one that I loved to skate the "two-step" to at Carter's. The two- step songs were normally faster songs, but this one seemed to have the beat needed for that dance, and the beat was sometimes more important than the tempo. I also remember that long before the days of Wierd Al, I liked to write parodies of songs, and "Only Baloney, is all that I have to eat...Only Baloney, it's made of really, really wierd meat" was an early hit of mine. If only I had known there was a market for that type of song, I could have been a contender. I loved The Big "O" and his songs seemed to capture the feelings inside my teenage soul. ______________________________________ |
From Our Mailbox Subject: Greetings Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 20:09:36 -0500 From: "E.M. Beck" <wbeck@arches.uga.edu> Organization: University of Georgia I spent an ungodly amount of time reading the latest edition of Lee's Traveller and many of the back issues too. Its absolutely amazing that after almost 40 years, seeing the names of so many people I recognized brought back so many memories. Mostly good memories and thankfully the painful ones have been dulled by the years. I'm looking forward to reading many future issues. Take care and very best wishes. Woody Beck Class of '64 ___________________________________________ |
Can You Name This Week's Mystery Classmate? _________________________________ |
Click on The Christmas Book to share your own Toy Story. |
There was a little problem with the Homestead sever last week and the update didn't take the first time - which sent many of you to the site looking for the new issue and only found the old one. It was even scarier for me the next day when I logged in to once again publish the new issue only to be met with an announcement that there were no pages on the Leealumni web site. They corrected the problems an hour later, but it was a scare for a while thinking that all the back issues were lost. As a reminder to the new folks, you can view all the past issues by clicking on PAST ISSUES above. This week's issue was published early since the editor should be in Denver as you read this. Sue and I are taking a late vacation and headed to see some very close friends up there, so we needed to publish earlier than usual this week. The Toy Stories are starting to come in, and we welcome any that you have to share with us. We will feature them for all the issues before Christmas. Just click on the little catalog icon in the right column to go to the page to enter your own story. T. Tommy ___________________________ |
Petula Clark Last Week's Web Poll Only one out of 17 of you got the right answer to Petula Clark's age. The truth is, Petula Clark was born in 1932. She entertained WWII troops when she was nine and was actually 32 years old in 1964 when she recorded Downtown, and is 70 years old today. ______________________________________ |
Life After Lee High or "J.R.'s Career or My Butt" (Editor's Note: In response to last week's article which told about J.R. Brooks, Class of '64, threatening to put one of our classmates in jail because he would not testify in a bribery case, I received the following response from the individual, who wishes to remain anonymous and who also stated "That was a time in my life that I am not very proud of, but the money was just too good to resist. I wish I had it to do all over again.") There was a hearing and J.R. wanted me to testify against someone and I did not want to. J.R. said "I am giving you complete immunity. We are friends. We went to school together. I visited you when you were in the Navy. I am going to ask you some questions and if you fail to answer them or are untruthful, you are going to jail....I thought boy I am glad we are so tight.) QUESTION Did you ever pay a law enforcement official in Madison County any money? ANSWER I plead the Fifth. J.R.'s reply: "You can't do that. You have immunity from everything including the Flu - now answer the question!" ANSWER (Silence) Then he said "Let me put it another way ...on April 15th did you give an envelope containing 15 one hundred dollar bills to anyone on the elevator of the Madison County Courthouse? I remembered that only me and one other individual were on that elevator and I immediately told the Court Steno to get ready because I was about to give him a workout . J.R. had to slap me to make me shut up. Heck I woke up at 3am the next morning and started to call J.R. and tell that I remembered something else. I also told J.R. that three things were important to me concerning this: Number 1: My family - I did not want to embarrass them Number 2: My business - I did not want any adverse publicity Number 3: My reputation in the community was important J.R. said "Don't worry Grand Jury proceedings are secret." I got home and found that my name was on the front page EIGHT times. It's funny now.... but believe me.... not then. As for JR ... I see him often and we both laugh at the incident. ____________________________________ |
Can you name this Toy of Christmas Past? ____________________________________ |
Another Robot Christmas by Tommy Towery Class of '64 When I first started talking to people about E-Bay, I was told that you can find anything there. I don't think I believed them, so I started looking for toys of my youth. If there was one toy that symbolized my childhood in Huntsville, Alabama, it was a toy that I got for Christmas one year. It was one of those toys that I played with forever, and then it simply disappeared. I quit playing with it, it went away from my consciousness, and then one day I remembered it, but I never remembered what happened to it. Most of us remember that we didn't have garage sales back then. I don't think they came into being until the 1970's. At least that's the first time I remember them. We didn't sell things in our yards and driveways back then. We didn't give things to Goodwill. We either threw them away, or we gave them to cousins up in the country. It was that way with just about everything I remember getting rid of. But I don't remember getting rid of that favorite toy. So, late one night I got on the E-Bay web site and in the search block I typed "Robbie Robot." It found no matches. I kept looking every week or so and then one day, boom, a match! The seller had a photo of the box, and instead of being "Robbie Robot" the toy was actually named "Robert The Robot" and was made by Ideal Toy Company. My old pal Robert. He was the neatest toy that I ever had. He had a pistol grip crank with a wire that went to the back of him and when you turned the crank, he would walk. Squeeze the trigger on the handle and he would turn. On the back of him was another handle and if you turned it, there was a little plastic record inside Robert that would play those immortal words: "I am Robert Robot, the mechanical man. Drive me and steer me, wherever you can." As long as you turned the crank, he repeated those words. I don't know how many miles I put on poor Robert, but he walked the house on East Clinton from front to back many times. I kept him in his original box and on the day he was last put away, he was intact - not a thing broken or cracked on him, and all moving parts still moved. On E-Bay, Robert was going for almost $40. I put in a $51 dollar bid and sat back for the next six days with my bid staying the highest. I was teaching a computer class when the final seconds ticked down on the auction. That was when I learned the truth about E-Bay - the only time that is really important is the last two minutes of the auction. I saw my bid depart as the highest, with 53 seconds to go. I typed in another bid for $55 and it stayed high, until the last three seconds. I lost. I told myself that it was stupid to pay that much for a toy anyway, so I was better off not getting the bid. Over the next month I waited for another one. Lost out again at $75. In the next two months I saw Roberts going for over $100. Finally, about three months later, I sat on the computer waiting for the bidding period to tick down to 15 seconds, I entered my bid, and Robert was mine for $73. This one did not have a box, but it still walked. The seller said nothing about the talking, but when I opened up the box it was shipped in, I turned the crank, and my old childhood friend said to me: "I am Robert the Robot, mechanical man." When I contacted the seller to tell her my story about Robert, she told me that she did not know he talked, and was thrilled that I was so happy with the sale. So, here I am with my toy robot. It's silly for a man my age to spend that much money on a toy, but it's my money and it not just a toy. It's my old friend Robert, and he's come to spend Christmas with me again. |
Click on the photo to hear what Robert said when you turned the crank. |
The things dreams were made of - a page from the Sear's Christmas catalog. ______________________________________ |
