Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

I'll "State" My Case -

The Unstable States of America

and Shrinking Food Groups

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

From Kodachrome

by Paul Simon

"When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school.

It's a wonder I can think at all.

And my lack of education hasn't hurt none

I can read the writing on the wall..."

I’ve been thinking lately about our school days and thought I'd share an observation with you. I think school was harder for our classes than for our parents. I also think school was harder for us than for our kids. I know there are lots of things that can be argued either way here, so I offer the following two instances to support my theory.

I wrote a little tidbit a couple of weeks ago about why the educators thought it was important for us to know the capital of Montana. That concept was what started me to thinking. Unless we’re a contestant on Jeopardy does it really matter in today’s life if we know the states and the capitals of those states or not? No, but we still had to learn them. We were taught them and tested on them. We drew them, colored them, and put stars on them. At East Clinton Elementary School, my classmates and I had to put together puzzles of the 48 states and even made salt maps of those states to show the mountains, rivers, and stuff like that. I remember how hard it was to carry my salt map up the hill from my house to East Clinton without causing an earthquake that split the country in half. Okay, I'll admit it. The puzzles were fun. And I suppose that our parents before us also had to put together puzzles and name the capitols of the 48 states. There were 48 states the whole time our parents were in school.

So what does that have to do with making school harder for us than for them? Well, just about the time we finally learned those 48 states they went and added a 49th state. Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959, and we had one more state and a new capital city to have to memorize. I was attending Huntsville Junior High at the time, but I am sure that the news of the new state made it to Lee Junior High as well. It was the first state added to the union since 1912. It screwed up the whole fun puzzle thing, because Alaska didn’t even border the other states. Our famous red and white stripped flag with the blue corner with six rows of eight white stars was replaced with a new flag with seven rows of seven stars. I remember buying a new one for our scout troop.

Just about the time we were happy with that, what did they do? On August 21, 1959, Hawaii was admitted to the union and added to the list of things to memorize and brought us up to 50 states.

Another new state added, another new capital city, and an even bigger mess when it came to putting together state puzzles. Hawaii’s puzzle piece was just a glob with a bunch of islands drawn on it. It just sat out in the middle of nowhere. And that new flag that I was so proud of was less than a year old and was already obsolete. I bet we hadn’t taken it camping a half-dozen times. We adopted the newest flag, the one we currently use, with six rows of five stars and five rows of six – 50 stars. Another flag order for the scout trips.

Okay, our parents didn’t have to know 50 states and capitals, but our kids did. So why was it harder for us to get through school than for them? How many basic food groups are there? Seven you say? Wrong! Not any more. We had to learn seven. It took the fingers of two hands to even count them. We had to know what food was in each group. We had to know how many servings of each of those seven groups we should eat each day. I guess that was too hard for our children. They only had to learn five. And guess what! That was too much for them today. They only have to learn four. They could count them all on one hand, if they had to count on their fingers - which they did not. They had calculators. We had seven groups and they have four – and still chocolate is not recognized as one of them. What’s the deal? Who voted on these groups?

Get a pencil and paper and write the seven basic food groups – I dare you. Now tell me what happened to three of them to make only four food groups today. It’s just a way to make school easier. Life’s not fair.

For fun you can go to the following website and put together a puzzle of the map of the United States. When you get through you can have recess.

http://www.mistupid.com/geography/uspuzzle.htm

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Skip Cook, Class of '64 - Those little plastic frogmen were one of the wonderful “prizes” that used to be found in cereal boxes. This is a swag but they may have been in Frosted Flakes or Rice Crispies which were the only cereals my mother ever purchased. To “operate” these tiny divers, a small scoop of baking soda was placed in the frogman’s foot under the metal cap. It was then dropped in a container of water (a Mason Jar worked fine) and he bubbled up to the surface and then descended back to the bottom. This was repeated several times until the baking soda ran out. I seem to recall that there were also little submarines found in cereal boxes that did the same thing.

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Jeff Fussell, Class of '66 - This week's Lee-Bay item was a bathtub favorite with the Fussell boys. These are Kellogg's "US Navy Frogmen". A little pinch of baking powder in the left fin and away they went. My personal favorite was the red guy with the knife. As a kid, I couldn't relate to the one carrying the plate.

I don't know if this makes them unique, but I can't recall another cereal box "prize" that became a popular toy in its own right.

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Annette McCraney, Class of '64 - I remember these guys very well. They were Navy frogmen and came in boxes of cereal. You would take the metal cap off the recepticle on their fins and fill it with baking soda, replace the cap and drop them into the bathtub. The soda would propel them back up to the surface. They would go up and down until the soda was all used up. Mine met their untimely demise when the Green River flooded in 1955. I was visiting my grandparents and the only way to get from their house to my aunt and uncle's was by boat. I thought it would be really great to put them in a dangerous situation. That's what they were trained for, wasn't it? At any rate, they performed magniciently, but unfortunately I miscalculated the number of times they would return to the surface, and, alas, they went down and didn't come back up... BoooHooooo. I thought I'd find them when the flood dried up, but I never saw them again.

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Mike Griffith, Class of '66 - These three little guys were supposed to be Navy frogmen. They came in cereal boxes; I'm not exactly sure which cereal, but it was probably either Corn Flakes or Cheerios (Battle Creek, Michigan?). The neatest thing about them was that when baking soda was put into the pod on one of the legs they could propel themselves through the water and "swim" around under their own power.

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Subject:Next Reunion 2005 Meeting

Alice Gullion Preston

Class of '64

The next reunion committee meeting will be February 28. Before this meeting everyone should have any address corrections/additions to me (alicepreston@lfsp.com) for Classes of 1964 and 1965. Address corrections/additions for 1966 should go to Judy Kincaid at njkincaid@hotmail.com. Also, lists for each class year of those classmates who could not be located should also be forwarded to me so that the lists can go forward with the first mail-out. Mailing labels will be generated and we will stuff envelopes for the first mail out. Time is crucial. Please complete your lists. See you on the 28th.

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Subject:Update

Elaine Lucas Hubbard

Class of '66

Elaine Lucas Hubbard (’66) here! I just found out about the reunion this August and have put it on our calendar.

Note my email address, which you may have already Elaine@jehubbard.com

My husband John and I are moving back to Huntsville from the Panama City area at the end of February. I’ll update mailing info, etc., on the website soon.

Thanks for keeping us all in touch. I’ll email brother Vern (’64) and his wife Joan Graybill Lucas (’64) about the website and the reunion !

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Subject:Parkway City

Sharon Dickman

Class Year - Other

I was wondering what Parkway City mall was called before it became Parkway City? It seems to me that it had another name...

(Editor's Note: I only remember it being Parkway City - then came Heart of Huntsville Mall a little farther north on the Parkway. Anyone else know any different?)

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Bad e-Mail

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Class of '66 Class Information

Reunion Update

As of Friday, February 11th, these are the ONLY classmates we have successfully received submissions forms from:

Jimmy Bannister, Linda Beal, Mark Bentley, Lynn Bozeman, Gail Brady, Jane Brewer, Eddie Burton, Dale Cantrell, Mike Cianci, Linda Collinsworth, Nancy Corl, Judy Fedrowisch, Jeff Fussell, Darla Gentry, Randy Goodpasture, Chuck Hancock, Kathy Harris, Bucky Hoffmeyer, Shirley Jones, Linda Kinkle, Linda McCoy, Jimmy Myrick, Tom Provost, Judy Rubins, John ScalesSharron Smith, Eddie Sykes, Pat Torzillo, George Vail, Joyce Whitlock, & Susie Wohlschlaeger.

We have heard from some other classmates that they had submitted early on, but for some reason it did not go through. If your name is not on this list and you submitted your information, please submit it again. And if you're reading this and have not submitted your information yet please do so today.

We'd like to begin putting together the handbook as soon as possible and we need the info from the submission form.

Thanks,

Class of '66 Reunion Committee

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