Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly, Joy Rubins Morris, Rainer Klauss, Bobby Cochran, Collins (CE) Wynn, Eddie Sykes, Don Wynn, Paula Spencer Kephart, Cherri Polly Massey
Contributors: The Members of Lee High School Classes of 64-65-66 and Others
Merry Christmas to all of you.
Please include your name and class year with your e-mail to me.
T. Tommy
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From Our
Mailbox
Christmas Cookies
Submitted by Gary Kinkle
Class of '64
Jose Cuervo Christmas Cookies:
1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila
Sample the Cuervo to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo
again, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and
drink. Turn on the electric mixer...Beat one cup of butter in a large
fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar.. Beat again. At this point it's best
to make sure the Cuervo is still OK, try another cup, just in case.
Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit, Pick the frigging fruit off floor...
Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry
lloose with a drewscriver. Sample the Cuervo to check for tonsisticity.
Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Who giveshz a sheet. Check the Jose Cuervo. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven.
Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat
off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl out, finish the Jose Juervo and make
sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.
CHERRY MISTMAS!
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Subject:Politically In-Correct
Alice A. Brigman
Tommy, I am with Chip Smoak 100% on his article. I too saw the Auburn University item Dwight Jones talked about also and I responded with an email to let them know that I was an alumni and didn't appreciate the
change. We are seeing too much change this year from a lot of areas.
This is our tradition, not someone else's as he said that comes to our country. Let them adapt, not us change for them.
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Subject: Christmas
Linda Kinkle Cianci
Class of '66
Thanks, Chip Smoak, for your heartfelt honesty and boldness. Mike and I agree with you. I am writing the President, Tennessee senators, and representatives, as well as telling everyone I know to do the same. I have boycotted the stores which have buckled to PC, and am telling them why. We Christians must now work hard and fast to protect our freedom and the foundation of this country, something we should have been doing all along. Look around you. Observe. Take note. Change is sometimes so gradual that we don't even notice until it is almost too late. Don't sit there thinking someone else will take care of this - someone else is, and it's the wrong side.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone! And, as my evangelist uncle used to say, "May the Lord bless you real good!"
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Subject:Christmas
Johnny Sharp
Class of '64
Congratulations and many thanks to all of you for another great issue of Lee's Traveller.
A special "Amen!" to Chip Smoak's article on "political correctness" being carried to extremes all across OUR great nation. The United States was founded on the principles of God and Christianity. WE must insure that OUR descendants inherit the same MORAL principles that our ancestors ENTRUSTED to us! Remember: "In God We Trust" and "JESUS Is The Reason For The Season".
You're all very special, lifetime friends and I wish you a Merry Christmas with loads of joyous times with your families! GOD bless you all.
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Oldest T-Shirt
My oldest T-shirt is a Jimmy Buffett "Rece$$ion Rece$$ Tour" shirt purchased at a Buffett concert in 1992. I remember that there was a lot of "Parrothead" activity and a very large time was had by all. It has a few tatters & stains from working on the boat but still has many more years of service left.
Jim Bannister
Class of '66
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Have You Ever Really Paid
Attention to the Words?
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now
Sure, all the verses rhyme and they are put to a beautiful and memorable melody, but have you ever paid attention to the message? Take a moment and go back and read the words again.
I want you to take one more look at the last verse. "Through the years we all will be together." That is a powerful statement, but the verse that follows it makes it all that more powerful. There's a condition to us all being together..."If the Fates allow."
For many of us, this year the Fates did not allow us to be together with the people we were with last year when we sang this song without paying attention to it.
I first became aware of the meaning of the song in 1972, when I sang it with a couple of thousand airmen for a Bob Hope USO TV special. The taping of that special was done just after we had lost 15 B-52 aircraft during an operation called "Linebacker II." Those 15 aircraft contained over 90 flyers. A total of 10 B-52s went down inside the borders of North Vietnam. 61 total crewmembers. 33 survivors became POWs and were released at end war. 28 of the downed 61 warriors perished. Five other B52s went down outside of North Vietnam.
I sat in the warm tropical sun and sang with Bob Hope and realized for the first time that the Fates would not allow us all to be together. I knew someone on five of those 15 aircraft. I had friends that died and I had friends that became POWs. I know some of the ones that have never been accounted for. The Fates! What else can I say?
On December 19th, 2005, the Fates decided that I would not spend another Christmas with my best friend here in Memphis. I got an early morning call from the police to tell me that my friend, Frank Nelson, had not shown up for work, and when they went to investigate, they found hiim lying across his bed. He had died of a heart attack. He was supposed to come eat with us the next night. Since he has no family in town, he has had Christmas dinner with Sue and I ever since we were married, and with me and my other families every Christmas since 1989.
This year we will not be together...the Fates will not allow it. Many of you will feel the same void this holiday season for the same reason. "Faithful friends who are dear to us" will not "Gather near to us once more."
Frank and I shared a wonderful friendship. I've had many great friends in my life. Some of them are reading this right now. Others are like Friend Frank, who the Fates have not allowed to be near to us.
Folks, I don't have to remind you that we are all getting to an age where we never know who will not be with us one more Christmas. Please, in memory of my friend Frank, and all the other friends that we have all lost this year, let's make a special effort to remember the ones that the Fates have allowed. Let's enjoy those we still have near to us. Let's make up with those who we have grown apart from. Let's forgive and be forgiven in this time of the year. Call your best friend and let him or her know that he or she is special. I told Bob Walker that message in last week's article. Don't you have someone you need to tell?
