Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

If Life Deals You Snow...

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

It started late Friday afternoon, and by Saturday morning we had between 3” to 5” of snow on the ground. Saturday morning when I got up I thought “What a waste – snow on the weekend!” I think that feeling goes back to my early Huntsville days when we all wanted it to snow during the week so that we could get out of school. But this time it came on a weekend, and so I didn’t get that thrill of not having to go to school (even if I work at one) but instead used up my on time staying home and not getting a free day off.

Even worse, I had to get up at 4am on a Saturday to drive Sue to work at the hospital, so I didn’t even get to lie around and enjoy the weekend. I decided that it was time to follow one of those old sayings “When life deals you lemons, make lemonade!” But this time life didn’t deal me lemons, it dealt me 5” of snow. So I decided to make “Snow Cream.”

How many of you remember making that treat as a kid? I certainly do. It was one of my favorite things to do when we got those rare snowfalls in Huntsville. I learned the secret from my grandmother, who probably learned it from her grandmother. It is one of those things that has been passed down through the generations. Whenever it would snow when I was a kid, my grandmother would send us out into the yard to find a nice place where the snow was standing thick. We’d use a big spoon and scoop up a big bowl of snow and take it to the kitchen. My grandmother would take the snow, add the magic ingredients and presto – snow cream. We’d eat our fill, or at least until we got the invariable headache from eating cold things too fast. I know we ate, and were allowed to eat, more snow cream at a setting than we ever were allowed to eat ice cream.

I thought about a section I wrote in A Million Tomorrows - Memories of the Class of '64I about snow cream. I got out my copy and looked back into my entry in my journal for December 25, 1963. There I had written

"Today's Christmas. The snow's still on the ground so this is the first white Christmas I've ever seen. ... Set up and watched "Wonderful Life" on the late show. There's approximately 13 inches of snow left here. I made two big bowls of snow cream to eat while I watched TV. It's late now. Time for bed. Sign off." That validated that I have a long history of making snow cream when given the opportunity.

I remember one year in the Fifties when we were told not to eat the snow, but we did anyway. That year they had just tested a nuclear bomb out at White Sands or somewhere, and the urban legend was that the snow was full of radioactive fallout. It may have been, but I didn’t care if I glowed in the dark, it was snow and I wanted snow cream.

I’ve made it for my daughter many times, but even though I was alone this morning, it didn’t stop me from getting out the big bowl, the big spoon, and the special ingredients and performing the magic all by myself.

Now for those of you who do not have the recipe, I’ll share my grandmother’s one with you. Take a large bowl. Add some snow. Add a little milk. Add some sugar. Add some vanilla flavoring. Stir it up. Taste it. Keep adding various amounts of the ingredients until it tastes like snow cream. Eat till you get sick. Repeat as needed until all the snow melts. It is important that you get the snow from a clean place, so just skim it off of the top. Whatever else you do – avoid yellow snow!

So, this morning I took a little trip back in time. I went back to the easy days when snow cream was free and life was easy. I sat in front of the TV and watched the weather channel and consumed large quantities of snow cream. I closed my eyes and said a silent thank you to a grandmother who taught me the secret of making lemonade out of lemons, and snow cream out of God’s gift of snow. As I did that, it didn’t even seem to matter that it was a Saturday morning, and I did not get to stay home from school. Enjoy the simple things in life. It makes the hard things a little easier to swallow.

Subject:Miss Moore

Polly Gurley Redd

Class of '66

I too remember Miss Moore very well. She was the moderator, you couldn’t call it teaching, for the last period study hall I had in 10th grade. We met in a large room down the hall toward the cafeteria that I think must have been the chorus room. I remember it as a large auditorium-type room with a raised stage, but I don’t remember any music or other ways to denote its regular use. She had a carved name-board on her desk and I had never seen the name Penelope anywhere else. I went home and told my mother that my teacher’s name was “Pen – lope – ee” with three distinct syllables and emphasis on the first one. To this day we laugh every time we see the name.

I also had her for English and I particularly remember a writing assignment series where we wrote different types letters and other very specific papers. In my memory, I can still see the one about instructions, where the boys wrote about how to tie a Windsor knot and the girls wrote about how to make something that was food – was it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? – and Miss Moore had us follow each others directions exactly! I had to tie the tie while Bob Crump read his directions and, to this day, can still tie one of those knots. She was indeed an excellent teacher and I loved her class.

I can certainly relate to Greg’s amazement that she was so close to us in age. I recently was at a Christian Educators conference in Indianapolis and saw a person from my home church in Huntsville. She reminded me that she was my youth advisor back in the sixties, and we also realized that she was only 6 years older than I was. She was an advisor fresh out of college at 23 or 24 when I was 17 and 18. Remember how old that seemed when we were in our teens?

Thanks for the great job you do. I love getting the Traveller every week.

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Subject:Greg's Article

Carolyn Burgess Featheringill

Classof '65

A big thanks to Greg Dixon for bringing us up to date on Miss Moore, one of our best teachers. In the course of his article, Greg mentioned Miss Ingram who was another favoite teacher. Did Miss Moore say what Miss Ingram was doing and where she was now? In her Christmas card, Susan Simms '65 included a great picture of our very popular librarian Mrs. Nelson whom Susan had seen during the course of her trip to Huntsville for the reunion. I occasionally see Mrs. Nelson's assisitant Glennice Balch Hiley who was only a very few years older than we were. I know that because she was my counselor at camp before she was one of our librarians! What would Sunday morning coffee be without a new edition of the Traveller! Thanks for keeping us together, Tommy!

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Subject:The Wedding on the Bridge

Escoe German Beatty

Class of '65

That was my sister, Belinda, that got married on the Guntersville Bridge at sunrise in 1970. (My parents had gotten married in that same spot in 1940) Yes, Jimmy Blackburn did play on a boat under the bridge but it was not in Scottsboro but Guntersville. I couldn't figgure out how to get the wedding march played (no such thing as portable CD's etc. then at least as far as I knew of) so I asked Mr. Blackburn to do it and he thoutht it would be fun. Of course we all stayed over night in Guntersville and had to get up EARLY to be ready for the sunrise event. I swore that I would never again have to get up that early and have to dress a 3 year old in a tuxedo...my son was the ring bearer. The bridge was full of people and there were reporters hanging on the bridge supports taking pictures..the bride came up the bridge sitting on the back of a convertiable. It was quite fun...much more elaborate than my parents event. There were many very unhapppy fishermen and others that were stuck in traffic waiting for the wedding to be over but they didn't seem to enjoy it that much at all!!

We really hated to see them tear down the old bridge, as a matter of fact Daddy and Belinda were interviewed by one of the local stations just before the bridge was torn down.

Feel free to edit this any way you want... just thought I would set the record straight. Sure did hate to miss the reunion...had planned to come but was really ill...you know "the best laid plans..."

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Subject:Danny Prady

Dianna (May) Stephenson

Class of '64

Danny Prady did indeed go to school with us at Lee. In fact he and I dated once or twice. This was about the 10th grade time frame. He was in the same grade for a couple of years, but I know he didn't graduate with us. I too would like to know about him.

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Subject:Danny Prady

Collins (CE) Wynn

Class of '64

When I read the name 'Danny Prady' it was immediately familiar to me but I can't say more than that. No help from here, I'm afraid.

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