Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Last Week's Mystery Photo

Rick Edmonds, Class of '65

Of course it is the Whitesburg Drive-In, located at what is now the corner of Whitesburg Drive and Airport Road. Man, I saw many a movie at that place (or at least I PAID to see the movie - I don't remember actually seeing that many).

Whitesburg Drive-In had a very special advantage for me - I used to double date with Mason Quillen some during my senior year and his father was the projectionist at Whitesburg. One of the perks of his Dad's job was that he got the apartment which was built into the bottom of the screen - yes, there was an apartment there and Mason and I actually got to use it once when we were double dating. I don't remember who Mason was dating at the time and I won't mention my date's name, but we had a nice night and of course never saw the movie which was playing right above our heads. Mason used to drive a 1947 Plymouth 4-door sedan with "suicide" rear doors - the back seat in that thing was huge - almost like a limosine - you could stretch your legs out all the way and still not touch the front seat. Boy, does that picture bring back a flood of memories -

thanks.

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Alice A. Brigman

Tommy, I'm sure it must be the Whitesburg Drive-In Theater you are featuring this week.

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Nancy Hill Watts, Class of '72

The drive in was the Whitesburg Drive. It was at the intersection of Airport and Whitesburg.

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Butch Cryder, Class of '64

I think this weeks photo is '" Whitesburg Drive In " I was the projectionist there { When not at the Lyric} during the summer of 1962. Mr. Ross was the manager and it was owned and operated by Mr. Charles Crute and Mrs. Martha Fleming .They also owned the 72 Drive In and the Lyric.

I remember being on the back row one night and my date had me so excited that I forgot to hang the speaker back up and pulled the back passenger window out of my car

I also remember during intermission one night that I thought an airplane was going to fly right through the screen because the airport was just West of the drive in.

After that FAA demanded that we not use the top two lights on the screen tower.

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Dianna May Stephenson, Class of '64

This photo looks very much like the Whitesburg Drive-In, and if your eyes are good enough,which mine are not without my bifocals, you can make out the name on the sign in front. It was, in my memory, the elite of drive-ins in Huntsville. As everyone else of my age, I spent some very pleasant and memorable hours at this and other of the drive-ins here in Huntsville. Thanks for sparking some of those memorable times.

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Terry Davis, Class of '64

That's Woodys Drive in.

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Beverly Taylor Swaim, Class of '66

Got this one also....Whitesburg Drive In. Does anyone remember the house located below the screen?

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Tommy Towery, Class of '64

It is Whitesburg Drive-In.

Not every memory I have of dates to the drive-in are good ones. I have a bad memory about the last time I saw a movie at the Whitesburg Drive-In. It is one that I have not only harbored for many years; it is also one that I wish I could erase from my memory bank.

After I graduated and moved to Memphis, I spent the summer at a YMCA camp, no girls - only boys. As the end of that sentence was about over, I found out that the girl that I had dated most of my life had gotten married. I really did not have anyone waiting in the wings. When school started at Memphis State, I found that I needed to study harder than I had ever had to do at Lee. That meant a very dull social life for a still teenage boy.

One day I was surprised to receive a letter from an old acquaintance in Huntsville. She was a Lee girl that had always been the girlfriend of one of my close buddies. They had spilt up and he was out of her life, and she wondered if I was going with anyone, so she wrote me. This was a bold move back in 1964. She told me that she had always thought I was nice and had been thinking of me and that if I was ever back in Huntsville and had nothing to do, perhaps we could go out on a date. It did not take me long to schedule a trip back to Huntsville where I had nothing to do, and so I wrote and arranged to take her to a movie.

By the time I picked her up at her door, it had been almost five months since I had dated a girl, and much longer since I had spent a “real” date with one with any type of hugs and kisses.

I took her to Whitesburg Drive-In to see "Raintree County" and when we got the speaker placed in the window and settled in for the movie, she touched my hand and I slid over to her side in the front seat – steering wheel you remember? Perhaps I read her wrong, or perhaps I was starved for attention from the opposite sex. I’ll never know. I was more aggressive with her that night than I had ever been on a first date. She had always seen the shy side of me, which was my normal persona. She responded to me in the beginning, and we never got really carried away, but I was not the Boy Scout that I had always been.

Again, nothing serious happened nor was anything serious suggested or attempted. But, we didn’t see much of he movie. When I dropped her off at her door that night – I knew that I had not been the nice little guy that she had me pictured. I have never seen her since that night to even try to apologize as an adult for the kid I was.

It is one of my bad memories. I know she doesn’t read the Traveller, but perhaps someday she will and might find this and see my apology. I wish that I could live that night all over again and make up for the mistakes that I made.

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Walk Like A Man,

Fast As You Can

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

I am a walker, a hiker, a person who enjoys putting one foot in front of the other for long spans of time and great distances. I always have been and I hope that I always will be. Sue and I walk about a mile and a half every night that gives us the opportunity. In my pre-Lee days I would walk all over Huntsville to get to the places that I wanted to go. Oh, I liked bicycles too, but I never owned a bike in Huntsville that wasn't stolen. That may be why I just walked everywhere.

Today, I took my wife’s car to get some electrical work done on it, and since she was out of town, my daughter was working, and my best friend was playing golf, I elected to walk home after dropping it off. It was a seven-mile walk, and I did it in a little over two hours and am still alive to talk about it. Yes, I know that I am 57.

One thing that I like about walking is that it gives me a lot of time to think, and this time while I was walking I was thinking about walking.I thought about the days I spent as a Boy Scout and how I had earned my hiking merit badge. Bob and Jim Ramsey, Don Cornelius, Ronnie Hornbuckle and Johnny Carter and I put in a lot of time on the trails together. Later as an Explorer Bobby Cochran and I did the same. I had to make five 10-mile hikes, and one 20-mile hike to earn that merit badge. I remember that at least one of the 10-mile hikes was up Bankhead Parkway and the 20-mile was from Madison to Huntsville. But those were required hikes to earn a merit badge. Most of the time that I walked, it was for transportation.

I guess my first treks alone were from the house on Clinton Street to the movies downtown. I was in the second grade then. And, of course, I always walked to the Big Spring swimming pool. When I went over to West Huntsville I rode the bus, but in my memories, it seems that I walked almost everywhere when I lived on Clinton Street. I walked to church at Central Presbyterian. Walking to East Clinton Elementary School was no problem, since it was only a block away. Ah! Neighborhood schools. And Five Points was only a few blocks further. I stated in an earlier article that my grandmother and I would walk to the National Guard Armory to go watch wrestling. Switching to Huntsville Junior High only required about three blocks more to reach. I would walk to my friend David Sutton’s house when he lived up by Maple Hill Cemetery, which was further than the school. When Pete Goodwin and I became friends, first at church and then in the Scouts, I’d walk to his house on Locus Avenue.

When I started going skating at Carter’s Skateland, Mike Thompson and I would walk there many nights from East Clinton. I told in my book about the trail that we had, down Clinton to the street just before we got to the Parkway. We would cut north on that street and walk toward Carter’s. Pin Hook Creek gave us a little challenge, and we had to jump the creek, or try to walk across some wooden pillars or rocks in the stream if the water level allowed, and then cut through the weeds in the back of the building to finally come up on the side of the building. Later we came up with a new route that we took and would walk down the Southern Railroad tracks from Traylor Island to Washington Street and then get off the tracks and walk the road then. I remember a few bridges along the route scared me because I always worried about a train coming while we were crossing them. That thought did not scare me as much as seeing the fellow railroad track travelers and the neighborhoods we passed through did. We quickly decided that was not a good route.

I moved from East Clinton to McCullough Avenue and rode during the move, but started back walking once I was settled in. On the days that I missed the bus that stopped in front of Ray Walker’s house, I would walk to Lee. Then came the summer of the co-ed parties and the kissing games. I would walk to them. Heck, I would run to them most of the time just to get there earlier. Sometimes the parties were up near Maple Hill at Randy Duck’s house. Others were over at Dianne Hughey’s house on Grove Avenue. I did stray from my walking habit once, when I made the bad mistake of becoming friends with Benny Phillips. Benny lived next door to Randy Duck and when we first met I was about 15. I was stupid enough to tell him about all about my girlfriend and then even stupider to let him talk me into riding our bicycles over to let him meet her. We peddled those bikes from the Maple Hill area to Rose Drive over in the Governor’s Drive and Jordan Lane vicinity. It was that introduction that lost my best girl to my new best friend. I knew I should have walked, because I know he would have never made it.

As a matter of fact, later on after I won her heart back for the umteenth time, I did walk to her house one day. By that time I lived on Webster Drive and she lived on Shamrock Drive. It was a Saturday morning and she was home alone and asked me over. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?) I put a few record albums under my arm and started off by foot. I don’t know how long it took me, but about five minutes after I got there, her dad showed up, so we sat and listened to records to my disappointment. The records were supposed to be a cover story. Later when I got a car I measured the distance. It was 5.3 miles.

I walked to Lee from Webster Drive many days when my ’53 Ford, the “Red Bomb,” wouldn’t start. Then Dianne Hughey, Tommy Thompson, Bob Walker, or Lewis Brewer took turns coming by and picking me up so I did not get to walk as much.

College saw little walking during the school year, but during the summer I worked at a YMCA camp and took the campers to hike the trail as Shiloh National Military Park. It was a 14-mile military trail that I had hiked twice when I was in the Scouts. I hiked it five times in two weeks one summer with the campers. In the Air Force I got out into the woods on some long navigation cross country survival school hikes and went on a few 10k Volksmarches in Germany and England. I also walked to work most days during the four years that I lived in England.

To bring this trend up to date, Sue and I have recently added the sport of Geocaching to our vacation activities. For those who do not know about it, geocaching is a treasure hunt where someone will hide a box of trinkets somewhere and posts the GPS coordinates on a web site. You go to the site, download the coordinates into your own GPS and then take out into the woods and follow your GPS directions to find the treasure. Check it out at http://www.geocaching.com if you want to give it a try.

So, those are the things that came to my mind today as I walked home from the repair shop, in the cool autumn day. Needless to say, I think you will all agree that a lot of you were walking with me, if only in my thoughts.

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Blue Water Springs Park and Drive-Ins

by Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly

Class of '64

After reading Terry D's note re: Blue Water Springs Park, I recalled it with some VERY fond memories. It was just off of Pulaski Pike. Didn't we have some kind of party there? I remember a whole bunch of us being there one night. We started early in the afternoon and shut it down, if memory serves. I remember Terry D., Terry P., Joe B., Don C., Mary Ann B., Marquietta H., David M., Alvin M., and Wayne D., I think.

Enjoyed Eddie's drive-in story!!! We all remember freezing to death at the drive-in, don't we? The mystery photo has me a little stumped. My first thought was that it was Woody's. Then I decided it might be Parkway Drive-In. Then I started thinking about 231 Drive-In. Now I'm not sure 231 existed! I think I ruled out Whitesburg Drive-In, but heck, who knows?

Since you asked for a female slant on the drive-in story, and since I've been such a slacker since this moving thing started, here is a memory for you. One night I went to Woody's with three of my friends from my neighborhood. It was in the summer, and one of the girls was visiting her aunt, who lived next-door to us. I drove (I had a '59 black Buick LeSabre my senior year), and we really didn't know hat was showing -- or even care. It turned out to be Blood Feast, which was truly gross and disgusting. Some dude was killing people and cutting off parts of them, and... well, you get the picture.

Anyway, I had a cast-iron stomach back then. We all went to the concession stand for freedom fries (HA!HA!HA!) with lots of ketchup. The movie got yuckier and yuckier, and the FF's started coming over the seat, etc. I ended up eating all four orders, which, by the way, I could do back then without having to sit on them for the rest of my life! The funniest part of it all was that there was a carload of boys from Butler next to us who were really hitting on us for the first half of the movie. They went to the concession stand as well. About the time I started inheriting FF's, the guys from BHS started tossing cookies! (or Coors -- who knows?) It was hilarious at the time. They definitely stopped trying to get us to come to their car, and soon after, they departed.

I have only fond memories of the drive-ins in Huntsville -- especially Woody's. Saw some really rad movies there. I was totally hooked on werewolf, vampire, and other such drivel back then. (Aw. . I still love that stuff . . . who am I kidding?) The best memory, of course, was the one I shared with all of you already -- Ed and I had our first date on a Sunday night and went to Woody's to see Stagecoach. That was April 30, 1967.

That's about it for me. Thanks to Terry D. and Eddie for the memories.

(Editor's Note: Barbara, I do recall going to a party there. I'm not sure what the occasion was, but I remember the song "Party Lights" was played over and over. "I see those lights, I see those party lights - red and blue and green...etc. " I seem to remember seeing a photo of myself at that party, wearing my Pith Helmet (A real Ramar of the Jungle looking one. That party was the first one I wore it too, but I also wore it to the Senior Picnic on May 8, 1964 so I think it was in the same timeframe. Again for some reason I associate Carolyn McCutcheon with that party as well. Perhaps our combined memories will spark others. - TT)

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A Keeper

Submitted by Gary Metzger

Class of '64

I grew up in the fifties with practical parents -- a mother, God love her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen, before they had a name for it...

A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.

Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress, lawn mower in one hand, dishtowel in the other.

It was the time for fixing things -- a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep. It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, reheating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But then my mother died, and on that clear summer's night,in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any 'more.' Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return. So...while we have it... it's best we love it.....and care for it.....and fix it when it's broken.....and heal it when it's sick.

This is true.....for marriage.....and old cars.....and children with bad report cards..... and dogs with bad hips..... and aging parents.....and grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it. Some things we keep.

Like a best friend that moved away -- or -- a classmate we grew up with. There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special.....and so, we keep them close!