Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

It's My Party

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

How many of you remember that song by Leslie Gore?

I've got an even harder question. When was the last time you went to a real party that was a lot of fun to attend? I went to a rare “party” here in Memphis this last weekend. It’s rare because there just doesn’t seem to be that many held around here these days. They called it a party, but it was not a party in my definition of the word, it was more like a social gathering. Although I had fun socializing with everyone, I could not help but think how this event was wrongly classified as a party, based upon my education about parties that I received at Lee High School.

As I stood there at the table holding the finger-foods (which, I might add, did not include even one finger from any known species on Earth) I looked around the room at the people standing there with me. I found it interesting to start classifying those people. In this somewhat small group of individuals there was a Pulitzer Prize winner, a former pro-baseball player, and a former nightly news anchorman from the Denver area television world. Also, I “partied” with a former photographer for National Geographic, a local TV news-feature personality, and a professional dancer (no Lehman…not that kind – there was not a brass pole in sight!). There was also a coach for Miss America contestants who traveled the country teaching want-to-be beauty contestants how to walk and talk and dress. Besides these folks there were the somewhat normal people with whom I work with on a regular basis. I suppose if one of them were to be writing this story they would have to mention the 59-year-old odd duck who still claims to be an editor for a high school newspaper.

All the time I was there, I kept thinking how great it would be to be with my “real” friends. I realized that in the next month I would be back in the office and talking about the crowd that was at my high school reunion, and how I would enjoy explaining the reunion crowd and the party we had to the work group.

I hope that when I return, I can sit around and say some interesting things about the reunion crowd. Here are some of the things and people that I would like to be able to brag about.

I want to be able to say that at the reunion I partied with a bunch of girls that I used to party with when I was entering puberty. I’d like to tell about remembering with them the times we spent playing kissing games at the early parties and how fun and innocent all that seems today. Now those were real parties. In those parties we’d sit around and drink Cokes and listen to songs like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” and “I’m Sorry,” and dance to the Beatles' records. Instead of smoked salmon and finger food we ate popcorn and potato chips. Sometimes we’d turn the lights real low and just sit and talk or dance in the dark until someone’s parents found out what we were doing. Sometimes we’d sneak outside for a private session or to look at the stars.

I’d like to tell that at the reunion there was one girl there who had thrown her knee out doing the Twist back in the Sixties. Or about the several girls that would always join me in dancing to Rufus Thomas’s “The Dog” in the age when we created our own Huntsville version of “Dirty Dancing.” Most of the folks at the reunion will be the ones who would also join me in singing “Louie, Louie,” when we’d sing the dirty version and slur it so bad that neither the teachers nor the chaperons would ever be able to understand what we were saying no matter how hard they tried.

Perhaps I’ll be able to say that there were people there who helped me graduate from high school by coming by and picking me up and giving me a ride to classes on the days that “The Bomb” would not start. I know there will be girls there with whom I put thousands of miles on my skates when we skated together at Carter’s Skateland. There will also be guys with whom I would get in trouble at the same skating rink. We’ll remember when we raced too fast around the skating rink floor or weaved in and out of the traffic and knocked each other down or skated the wrong direction on purpose, until the whistle would blow and we’d be stopped. Some of the guys there will be the ones with whom I also spent time at Goldsmith-Shiffman Field sitting in the stadium watching the Lee football games and sometime enjoying a different view from under the bleachers, in shades of John Belushi and “Animal House.”

She may not make it, but invited is one special girlfriend in which I confided to with all my soul and who would sit and talk to me for hours on end in time of sorrows when my love life was in a nose dive. I expect to see the teacher who taught me to type and gave me one of the greatest skills I ever learned and the confidence to use that skill to its greatest potential.

I hope to say that I saw the group of boys with whom I used massive amounts of toilet paper to cover the yards and trees of those that we both liked and disliked. Also I want to be able to brag about my best friend who would go on a bombing run with me from the top of Monte Sano to the bottom, throwing Cherry Bombs at the cars parked in the lookouts and scaring the crap out of the couples that were making out in those same cars.

I want to be able to brag about the classmates that I did not run around with in my high school days, but now feel like we were always buddies thanks to the e-mails that we have swapped over the last few years. I’ll have to name the newspaper staff crowd that stayed up all night with me in a couple of motel rooms having fun on a trip to the Alabama High School Press Association trip to the University of Alabama, and the stories that have been suppressed for all these years about some of the things that went on during that trip.

Perhaps I can show pictures of the girl that I took to the senior prom, or that I took to the submarine races on the Tennessee River. How about the guys that I would go to the stock car races with? How about my classmate that took 39 years, but finally earned the degree in nursing that she always wanted?

I know that some in the reunion crowd will be the fellows with whom I went camping with the Scouts and ate Smores with around a campfire. The girl that got her wrap-around skirt caught on a fire extinguisher one day in the hall leading to the lunchroom and succeeded in untying the knot holding it, letting it un-wrap, might also be there. People that studied with me and took tests with me are the ones that I want to be able to talk about as well. How about those in my English class who would laugh at the way the teacher said "Note-ish the board."? In that crowd I know at least once it will come up which class we were in and what we were doing the day Kennedy was shot. There will also be some that have stories about when Gov. George C. Wallace came to Lee High, and perhaps someone will tell me a few more stories about the Orange Bowl Band Trip, events which are still classified as “Top Secret” to most of those who went on that venture.

Sadly to say, I will also have to tell about the ones who did not come. I will have to say that I had hoped that this-one or that-one would have been there because I really wanted to see them again, and how few opportunities we may still have left. And I’ll have to remember those that were at the last reunion back in 2000, but for some reason known only to God, were taken from our group before this one could take place.

I hope to return from the reunion with many new memories, new friends, and new stories and that I can say when I get back that I took every opportunity to visit with and laugh with all of my classmates that have remained more important in my life than most will ever imagine or understand.

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Subject:Tearing Down Lee

Bill Baker, Jr.

Class of '78

I have been to a reunion down here in Huntsville. It was called old school reunion classes 1970-1985. We had a party, ect. The big thing was on that Sat., we toured the school itself. Talk about a blast from the past!.The main talk was about the tearing down and joining of Lee and Johnson. So, that Monday I emailed Ann Moore herself, belive it or not, she repiled back.

She wrote: "The Superintendent nor the Board of Education never discussed combining these two schools. That idea came form another source and not the “you people” you mentioned."

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Subject:Theatres, etc.

Jim Pierce

Class of '64

Hello, all, just a few more thoughts relative to this discussion. The Center Theater was in West Huntsville on 9th Avenue and Triana, I think...and there was a Princess Theater on Church Street that was the black theater...the 231 Drive In was on Meridian Street (which was the main North/South highway into town when we moved to Huntsville in 1953) and shared a projection booth with the Parkway Drive Inn (I guess it was built after Memorial Parkway was dedicated) and you could pay one admission and park to watch either movie. Then there was the Whitesburg Drive In at what is now the intersection of Jones Valley Drive and Whitesburg and I think there was a 72 Drive on Highway 72 toward Athens. And, while I'm reminising does anyone remember the Mugs Up Root Beer stand on the Parkway owned and operated by the father of one of the band members, again, I think - but I'ma gettin' old and may be fantasizing again......

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Subject:Golf and Lunch on Friday

Lehman Williams

Class of '64

I would hope that someone that lives in H'ville will arrange an early tee-time on Sat. ( Craig B.) Lunch with the '65 class sounds good (let me know details 626-347-1469) but selling tickets might not work. I don't think many people even knew who I was, me being so shy, sensitive, such a good student, stayed out of trouble, always got home early, did what my parents told me to do and always dated nice girls. How many people remember that guy? It's all Jerry Brewer's fault anyway, he's the one that showed me how to play drums and called me because the "Tempest" needed a drummer - that's how I got exposed to rock-n-roll devil's music, beer, late nights and bad girls. I already had the muscle car so I can't blame that on him.

Just a thought.

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Subject:Reunion Request

Niles Prestage

Class of '65

Would you post this message on the Traveller in preparation for some fun at the reunion?

For those who will be in attendance on Saturday night, we would like them to answer to one or both of the following questions;

1) "My greatest but least known accomplishment (honor, achievement) since I left LHS is ________________________"

2) "A fact about me (what I have done, who I have met, where I have been) that most of my classmates would probably never guess is __________________"

They may answer either or both of these questions and e-mail them to me napjr@aol.com .

The rules are that the statement or fact must be true and they are to tell no other classmate who will be in attendance their answers. We are really going to have fun with this! The reunion is shaping up to be the best ever, thanks for all of your help to Tommy, we are all closer because of your efforts! I will look forward to visiting with you at the reunion. Thanks!

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