Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

The Line Up

by Don Wynn

Class of ‘67

During the winter of 1965, I went to a basketball game at Lee with my friends, Sam Smith, Robert Brodeur and Richard Dunphy (all Class of ’67). The game was over about 9 pm but we weren’t ready to go home just yet. We decided to go to a drug store that was in the shopping center at the corner of 72 Highway and the Parkway. This drugstore had a luncheon counter and they served ice cream. We were pretty boisterous and probably brought a lot of attention to ourselves. A girl from Lee worked there and we flirted with her as we ate our ice cream. Just before 10 pm, we had had enough fun and headed for home.

During second period the next day, a student aide knocked on Mr. Pate’s classroom door and told him that Mr. Hamilton wanted to see me in his office. Going to the principle’s office might be OK if you’re expecting some kind of award but I hadn’t done anything particularly noteworthy so I started to sweat. I wasn’t guilty of anything but Mr. Hamilton might not know that. I went into the school office immediately behind the aide, just trying to blend into the wallpaper. I was just hoping they were gonna tell me that the aide had gotten the wrong kid. They really wanted that other tall, skinny, crew cut kid with the long neck. No such luck, the secretary motioned for me to come behind the counter. I must not have been moving fast enough for her because she got behind me and just nudged me into Mr. Hamilton’s inner office.

Mr. Hamilton immediately excused himself and left me in his office alone with a stern looking man in a suit. An undertaker couldn’t have looked any less friendly. He must have identified himself but all I remember are his rapid fire questions.

‘Are you Donald Wynn?’

‘Yes sir.’ I always used my best manners when I wasn’t exactly sure who I was talking to

‘What did you do last night?’

‘I went to a basketball game with my friends.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t do anything else?’

‘We went for ice cream.’ I explained while I was wondering just how serious a disturbing the peace charge might be.

‘Who were you with?’

I think I gave up all my friends in a single breath. I figured that I might like some company if they were gonna send me to San Quentin for being too loud on a school night.

‘I could take you downtown right now but I won’t do that if you’ll agree to come to the station with all your friends after school. Can you do that?’ He gave me his card and told me to come to the front desk and ask for him personally, then they had the office aide walk me back to class. I guess they might have figured that I would make my break for Mexico. Boy, my mind was rocking and rolling all day long. I told everybody but am not sure they believed me. I did have the business card from a cop so they didn’t know what to think.

We arrived at the Police Station as instructed and asked for our arresting officer by name. He came out immediately and led us into the little room where suspects are lined up to be identified by victims. In this particular room, there wasn’t any glass wall separating the suspects from the victims. We just stood along a line of tape on the floor. In just a minute, the policeman escorted a big guy into the room. His knuckles seemed to be messed up but otherwise he looked OK. We didn’t know him and we were pretty happy that he didn’t know us either.

The cop explained that this guy was the druggist at the drugstore where we had eaten ice cream just the night before. We left right at closing, making a lot of noise. Immediately after that, the druggist was robbed as he left out the back door. As far as we could tell, all the robbers got was a bruising because the druggist looked fine.

When the Police investigated, the girl we had been flirting with gave them my name. She didn’t know any of the other guys but she knew me. I really make an impression when I’m acting silly.

Despite the circumstances we were innocent and we didn't get arrested and we didn't go to jail. We didn't go to the 'slammer' or to 'the big house'. We didn't 'take the heat'. In fact, I think we all became pretty upstanding citizens in spite of this brush with the law'.

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Subject:What Memories...Thanks.

Jim Pierce

Class of '64

The article by Rainer really brought back memories. My dad was a Warrent Officer and transfered to Huntsville in 1953 (don't know what month).

We initially resided in a huge place on Randolph and quickly moved to Darwin Downs - 12 Polk Drive -which was the corner of Polk and Bide-a-wee. There were six kids and two adults in one of the rectangular homes - 3 bedrooms.

My brother Bob and I once rode down Bide-a-wee in an American Flyer wagon loaded down with bricks we'd "borrowed" from some of the houses being constructed on the hill - the bricks were to make the wagon go faster... and did it ever! We crashed at the point where Stevens crossed Bide-a-wee with two kids and bricks flying everywhere... which may help explain a few things...

We also helped ourselves to pieces of wood and boxes of nails from the houses being constructed as Stevens and Melbourne were being added and had a three-tier tree house above Melbourne and before you got to the "mountain road" above it. I also seem to remember streams throughout the woods and catching Craw-dads a lot. Think we missed out a bit on meeting people since we attended Saint Mary's School through the 8th grade.

Oh yeah...in the 7th & 8th grades we delivered newspapers throughout the neighborhood - Birmingham Post-Herald - and I'd ride my bike downtown to serve Mass at the Church of the Visitation before going to school at 8am. Does anyone remember the donut shop which I think was right across from the church?

For the record, when I first started at Lee it was overwhelming - so much so that I failed the 9th grade - which made it possible for me to be a part of the class of 1964.

I too would like to express appreciation for "most" of our teachers...and would love to hear more stories about them from the bunch of you.

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Subject:Darwin Downs

Skip Cook

Class of '64

Rainer did an outstanding job with the research and writing of his article on Darwin Downs.

The car in the photo was a Kaiser-Frazier.

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Subject:Rainer's Article

Angela Neeley Wright

Class of `90

Rainer,

I wanted to write you a note letting you know how much I enjoyed your story on 1924 Bide-a-wee. My mother, Sandra Parks Bozeman (Lee High Class of `67) sent me the link.

My mother and I lived at 1924 for quite a while - from about 1989 -2000. I moved away in 1996, but my mother stayed there preparing the house for its later purchase by two physicians. They later sold it (not sure to whom), but the mysterious new inhabitants have breathed new life into 1924. It looks lovely.

I graduated from Lee High in 1990 and remember occasionally (*still*) receiving mail for the Klaus family. Mail obviously intended for YOUR family! Wow!

Anyway, I truly enjoyed seeing the photos and reading about the history of a place that was so often a haven for me in my late-teens. Being an avid local history buff, I often wondered how Bide-A-Wee originated. I still wonder where on earth they came up with the name

Bide-A-Wee! As an aside, I always became frustrated with delivery drivers when I tried to order pizza in those days..."Bide-Ah-Wha?"

Anyway, thank you for sharing your early photos and your story. I still think of 1924 with fondness when I drive by on my way to my grandmother's (Jean Reeves) on Stevens Drive. Sometimes, it seems like such a small world!

(Editor's Note: For those of you interested, a little research shows that Bide-A-Wee is Scottish for "Stay a while". Now why they named a street in Darwin Downs that is still in question.)

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Subject:School Websites

Ann Schrimsher Franklin

Visitor

Hello,

I'm a member of the Rison-Dallas Association and we have just put our website on line. The address is:

http://www.bellsouthpwp.net/r/i/risondallas/

After work had begun on our website, the webmaster suggested that I take a look at your site. Well, I have to say that if I had looked at your site before I began work on ours I think that I would've been too intimidated to start! It's a great site and you have done a great job.

Our motivation for creating the site was threefold - first, to let the Internet be our "museum," second, to allow those of our alumni who can no longer travel and attend our annual Rison-Dallas Reunions to "pay a visit," and third, encourage us to remember to celebrate our heritage. Our goal was to make the website folksy, friendly, fun and very easy to navigate.

The Rison-Dallas Association website is in its infancy and we have a long way to go to get it where it needs to be. So much of our historical documents are either lost or misplaced but it's our hope that the website will stimulate both interest and generosity in the sharing of other peoples' treasures. Our webmaster said that a good website is NEVER completed.

We are very interested in your website because we share some of the same memories, have traveled many of the same roads, as well as probably share some relatives! I plan to include your website address on our Links page.

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Kwik Chek Commandos

by Skip Cook

Class of '64

(With editing by Craig Bannecke and Bob Cochran)

I think it all started with a Key Club party to be held at the pool on the mountain. As with many of my fellow males, I was very apprehensive about hearing the word "no" from a female when asking for a date. There was a certain young lady that I had admired for a long time that lived on North Parkway in the Mount Charon subdivision. Her family had moved out of Lakewood a couple of years earlier but she had continued at Lee. A significant portion of my life, and close friends lives as well, revolved around being a bag boy at the Kwik Chek located in the shopping center at the corner of the Parkway and Hwy 72. Between bagging groceries for customers and carrying them out to their cars, there were moments to discuss social opportunities. These conversations were normally summed up in two brief questions "You going to the party?" and "Who ya taking". "Yes" and "don't know yet" were my answers. Somewhere deep inside that little voice cried out to me "Call her up and ask her out you wimp!" I made the call and got my first "Yes, but...." answer from a female. Several relationships and 2 marriages have allowed me to hear that response many times and I now know how to negotiate my way through it......but not in 1964.

"Yes, but...you need to call me back and confirm it". All I heard was "Yes". Saying I was pumped up does not do justice to the feeling I was carrying around. I just couldn't wait until one of my friends asked me who I was taking to the party because this young lady was way past cute on the pretty scale. It was probably Bobby Cochran or Craig Bannecke (fellow bag boys) who saw me puff out my chest and say I'm taking PW to the party. My stature among the bag boys rose immensely because of my "date". All good things come to an end. I called her back a day or two before the party. She told me that because I didn't call back soon enough to confirm, she made other plans! What was I gonna do? The fall from the top of the social scene is painful because now I had to tell my story to the bag boy crew and we had a large contingent from Lee that included Mike Adams, Elbert Balch, David Bess, Brooks Glover, Terry Lee, Brian Pfeiffer, John Ridgeway, Eddie Donnelly, and others whose names escape me. Friday nights and Saturdays were the big days at the Kwik Chek and all the bag boys had to work. It was time to time to face the mockery that would surely come by being dumped because of not calling early enough to confirm the date.

Something miraculous occurred. Rather than give me a hard time, my fellow bag boys banded together and took my rejection for a date as a personal affront against each of them. Rather than give me a hard time, their energies focused on a pay back. The retribution was to roll her yard. If you haven't read Tommy's book, please do. There is a chapter on rolling a yard on Halloween, I believe. No disrespect to Tommy but the Kwik Chek connection was to set the standard for rolling a yard that Saturday night. Tommy was hampered by access to the main ingredient for yard rolling - toilet paper. We had access to the storeroom where the toilet paper was kept in huge boxes. Even the strongest young man could only carry one case of toilet paper because of the size of the box - it was huge.

The planning began in earnest at lunch time over burgers at the Hardee's in the corner of the parking lot. We think somewhere 12 of us participated in the event. We divided into two squads each with a car. Eddie Donnelly's parents had a Chevy Greenbriar van that was an absolute perfect vehicle for the operation. We had 7-8 bag boys in that car and a case of toilet paper. I was given the honor of riding shotgun. In addition to Eddie, Craig, and Terry were in Eddie's van. Bobby, David, Brian and Ridgeway were in another vehicle with yet another case of toilet paper. Someone had come up with the idea of writing PW's first name in the yard with aluminum foil to personalize the event, so we had a case of the long rolls of Reynolds Wrap along as well. After we cleaned the store, we loaded up and headed north on the Parkway.

Mount Charon was ahead of its time. It was a golf course community. There was a short 9 hole, par three golf course built in the little valley that was surrounded by the subdivision and PW's house faced onto the golf course. Her house was on a large lot, sloping toward the street, with big trees in the front yard. It was an ideal site to allow some artistic flair and creativity when throwing spiraling, toilet paper rolls through the tree tops. The two vehicles of Charmin Commandos coasted quietly to a stop in front of her house and didn't make a sound as we approached the yard. There is a certain technique that involves leaving a 3-4 foot length of paper, similar to the tail on a kite, prior to the throw that allow it to unroll with the desired streamer effect. The sound of "thump" in the dark as the rolls fells back to earth can still be heard in the minds of those that participated. Hearts pounded in chests as we uncoiled roll after roll of paper while keeping one eye glued on the front porch light of PWs house. The light was always the sign that you were going to get busted. There were several collisions among team members as we ran around to catch the falling toilet paper without watching where we were going. I remember curses from whoever took responsibility for spelling PWs name on the yard with the Reynolds Wrap in letters that had to be 10 feet tall. "Dammit don't step there!" "Watch out jerk you just stepped on the "P"! We finished, ran to the cars, and headed back to Hardee's to de-brief. We sat around the round, concrete tables out front, drank Cokes, laughed and patted each other on the back. On that spring night at Mount Charon, the standard was set for others to measure against for rolling yards, both in volume of rolls applied and creativity - the Reynolds Wrap was a nice touch.

Someone once said that all criminals return to the scene of the crime and it happened that night. As Craig, Terry, and I headed back home to Lakewood in my dad's Ford Falcon, the decision was made that we were going to drive out to Mount Charon and admire our work. As we approached the entrance to Mount Charon, we saw strange lights panning across the golf course in front of her house. Those strange lights were spot lights from the two police cars that were parked in front of PW's house. We decided to do a U-turn in the Parkway and drive on home.

(Editors' Note: A Kwik Chek Commando's heart was not one to be trifled with as other Lee High ladies would come to know and realize.)

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