Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

My First Purchase

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

I am constantly on guard for ideas about things to write about in future issues of Lee’s Traveller. A few weeks ago as I sat having lunch with the members of the Journalism Department one of the faculty accidentally gave me an idea that I thought would be a fun series for us to work with for a few weeks. I say series, because I would like for some of you to follow up this story with your own.

As we sat eating, somehow the subject of what we bought when we got our first job came up. The idea was offered that most people either immediately went out and bought something they really wanted or started saving for something special, soon after they started getting their first real paychecks. Now this concept shows our age I am sure, but back in those days credit cards were not offered to anyone who could breathe and write their name, so we did not always get what we wanted when we wanted it. We had to work and save to buy special things, or we could put it on layaway, but not get use of the item until it was paid for.

I remember that one of the first frivolous things I ever did with money I earned for myself happened back when I was going to East Clinton Street Elementary School. One of my East Clinton classmates, Mike Thompson, another unknown soul, and I sat up a Kool Aid stand near the school one day. There was some yard work going on over at the school and it was a hot summer day. The workers made our small enterprise flourish and we made about fifty cents each. We decided to celebrate in a special way and for some reason we all went home and, even though it was a weekday, we put on our Sunday suits to go to the show. I do remember that my grandmother thought I was crazy, and in looking back, we must have really looked stupid, but we all three went to the movie that day, in our suits and not the blue jeans we normally wore, and paid our own way in with the money we had made selling Kool Aid.

It was many years after that before I got a real job with a real paycheck coming in, but that memory came to me while I was thinking about this. I had to sit and think for a long time to come up with some special thing that I bought for myself that was paid for with money I earned myself. Things that I bought with money I was given for Christmas or the dollar bill my grandmother always slipped into my birthday card did not count.

My first real job was at a YMCA summer camp, and I did not make a lot of money at that job. The money I did make went to college tuition and books. But when summer was over I started a real job at the downtown Memphis YMCA. I was only making fifty cents an hour – I swear! My first paycheck was about $13.50 for a whole week of after school work. The idea of buying a car was not even in my mind with that type of income.

But, I remember that the one thing that I did buy for myself and even had to buy it on credit cost about $100. I could get it with credit since I had a real job and because I was going to college. I went out one afternoon after classes and went to an office supply store and bought myself a used typewriter. It was a real full sized, manual office typewriter and not a portable. It was almost like the ones we had in the typing classes at Lee and I ended up buying it and paying $10 a month until it was all paid for. That probably doesn't surprise many of you, knowing now my love for writing.

I wanted my very own typewriter to write all the papers that I knew that I would be writing for college, and in the back of my mind, the write the Great American Novel that I knew I was destined to write. I had to use the kitchen table to hold the typewriter while I wrote the stories, and then when I was finished each night I had to put it away in my closet or in the corner of my room.

There was something special about having a “real” typewriter of my own. I was the envy of many of my classmates. Needless to say this was before anyone ever dreamed of personal computers and word processing programs. I think I also made a little now and then by typing other people’s papers for them, but not enough to even think about today.

But that was my first big purchase after I got my first real job – a $100 “real” typewriter. I went onto the web and found an inflation calculator and found out that $100 in 1964 money would be the equitant of $603.56 in 2005, which is the last year that could be used in calculating the cost. I would have to say that I really feel that I got my money’s worth out of that typewriter in the next four years I spent in college.

So, here’s the question for the rest of you. What do you remember being your big purchase when you started getting your first real paycheck after graduating from Lee High School? What did you buy that you always wanted or just caught your eye and you had money coming in so you could buy it? We’ll be printing the answers in the next couple of issues.

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Subject:Jim McBride Article

Linda Ragland Dykes

Class of '64

Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your article today. I, too, am a new country music fan. The Alabama group has been my favorite for a long time since I am originally from Fort Payne. Randy Owen and his family worked for my Aunt Ida in her hosiery mill many years ago. He paid special tribute to her in one of their early Christmas specials.

A Road Not Taken by Robert Frost has alwasy been one of my favorite poems - thanks for introducing a new version to me in the song - That Road Not Taken - both have so much meaning.

Tommy, thanks again, for keeping us connected to our "roots".

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Subject:Seeking Pam Goatley

Kathy Reiter Taylor

I am looking for Pam Goatley. I don’t know if she went to this school or Butler. And not sure of grad. year. I graduated in 1966 and I’m thinking she’s a year or two older than I am. We were friends in grade/middle school and I moved since my family was at Redstone Arsenal. If you know of her I would appreciate a location if possible.I think you all have a great web page for alumni. I know everyone enjoys going back in time. What memories!

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Memories of Early Lee Years

by Sonny Turner

I recall setting in class on the north side of what we called wing “D” at that time, can not for the life of me now remember whose class it was. The memory is looking out the window and seeing the workers building wing “E”. Back in those days the ways of getting concrete or cement from the trucks to the tops of what ever you were building was to used a big pot or bucket and then to use a crane to lift it up and pour it.

I can still see the picture in my mind of the day that a worker was knocked from the top of the building to the ground as the bucket was swung around via the crane. I must have been the only one in my class looking out at them.

I jumped up and yelled “Oh Shit Look “. For that remark I would pay dearly at the end of C.O. Jones paddle a little time later.

As they worked on the new wing Terry Preston and I would go by there to just look and see what was taking place on our way to Woody’s drive in theater just across the Southern railroad. Sorry, Jimmy McBride you said in a post earlier it was the L&N but that was wrong the L&N came in to Huntsville over by the stock barns by Pin Hook creek. It was the Southern that separated Dallas and Lincoln mill villages at that time. My older brothers had told me in years past that this area was called “No man’s land “ as the rivalry between the two was hard fought.

Well, there was this one night that when Terry and I made our rounds, we found an ice box that was full of all kinds of what we call cold drinks back then. We had a couple there and then carried one with us over the railroad tracks to Woody’s. Terry and I had promised not to tell anyone else of our find. As luck would have it the next night Woody’s had a new movie and again we went by Lee on our way. Yes, there it was, the icebox with Cokes, Doubles, RCs and other drinks. Once again we both feasted and then took one with us on our way. We both joked and carried on about our good luck as we walked over to Woody’s.

Our next trip by Lee we found our same old red icebox where the drinks were that we both loved so much with a log chain around it and locked , there was a sign taped on the side of it and it read “No more ass hole”. As we walked away I said to Terry, oh well it was fun while it lasted.

(Editor's Note: Sounds like a Budweiser Magic Refrigerator commercial idea.)

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Linda Beal Walker, Class of '66 - These look like the pants stretchers that mother used on my father's coveralls, but probably not. I don't think you would come up with something like that. The stretchers were used in the pants legs and when mother hung the coveralls on the clothes line, they looked like a skinny man hanging there.

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Thomas (Jan) Hunt, Class of '66 - I believe these are pairs of pants stretchers which some of us used them to keep our jeans wrinkle free.

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Rodney Vandiver - Those things went in the legs of your pants after they were washed to let them dry neatly.

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Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly, Class of '64 -Those look like pants stretchers. My aunt used to put my cousins' jeans on pants stretchers overnight. Which brings me, of course, to the question: Why did pants need to be stretched back then, but they don't today? In fact, they are usually thrown into a dryer where they shrink. And why is this a "girls' question," T.T.? Don't make me come down there! (That is, if these are, in fact, pants stretchers.) I never stretched pants!!! Well, not with pants stretchers anyway.

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Nancy Watts, Class of ‘72 -The mystery picture are those horrible inserts that were put into wet blue jeans to help them dry as stiff as a board.

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Mary Ardrey Aukerman, Class of '66 - This week's items are pant leg stretchers. You would put them in the legs of your just washed pants, making sure the seams were on the edges of the stretchers, and let them dry. It cut down on ironing time (oh, yes, in those days EVERYTHING was ironed) and, if the pants were starched, it helped to make sure the crease was in the exact spot it needed to be. Hadn't thought of those gadgets in years. Where do you get this stuff?

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Aaron Potts - The mystery photo shows the wash day favorite for the mothers and the ones that washed jeans. They were the metal jean inserts that was placed in the legs of the jeans to keep from having to iron them. They sure got the wrinkles out of the jeans. My mother loved them before she got a clothes dryer.

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Jim Myrick, Class of '66 - The mystery photo is a bunch of what my mom called pants stretchers. You place one down each leg of a pair of jeans and hang them to dry. Instant, perfect creases with no ironing. The stretcher part comes from the spring action you could get by pulling on the top and increasing the size of the waist band slightly. They are still around at flea markets and I have three sets in my laundry room that get used a lot.

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Jerry Dorriety, Class of '70 - Mystery photo? Who could forget those wire blue jeans stretchers. My mother would make my brother, Jim, and I put those in all our bluejeans as they came out of the washing machine, then stand them up in the corner of the garage to dry. Gave the jeans a nice, crisp fold down the front, and no wrinkles. Why did we do that?

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Carolyn Taylor, Class of '64 - The mystery photo is pants stretchers. We use to put them in our blue jeans and I guess other pants. This was suppose to take the wrinkles out. Also the pants were usually starched.

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Gilda Davis, Class of '64 -The mystery is what we called pant strecthers, you would put them on a pair of starched Levis are any other pants and they would come out with a perfect crease down the front,- I have seen my Mom use these for years for my brothers Levis, she would starch them so strong they could stand up by themselves, and all you had to do was take the pant strecthers off the pants, which was not so easy to do sometimes and hang the pants up.

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Lynn Bozeman VanPelt, Class of ’66 - Blue Jeans stretcher thingies....to help get the wrinkles out of jeans after they were washed and dried. They were hard to insert into the pants and I hated them. Thankfully my Mom didn't use them long.

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Betty Jo Key (Scholter) - I do believe these would be Pant’s Stretchers. My mother used these for my Dad’s pants….no ironing….or very little.

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Alice Brigman - Tommy, these were pants stretchers. They were placed in jeans or slacks while wet and then dried with a crease. Probably no ironing after that.

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Dink Hollingsworth, Class of ’65 - The mystery item appears to be pants a device that was slid into the legs of jeans and pants while they were drying, usually with heavy starch. They formed a perfect crease in the pant legs and if the starch was heavy enough, the crease could be used as a cutting device. Side note, they were very uncomfortable if not removed BEFORE putting on the pants or jeans.

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Sherrell McAllister-Cassity (former Lee student) Mary Esther, Florida - Your web site is still so awesome to visit plus it gives me the chance to keep up with the school I use to attend and the people I knew. These items are pants stretchers and I have a pair of them sitting in my Florida cottage on the Gulf. Would you believe many use them as sign hangers now? Keep up the great work and enjoy this beautiful Spring and Summer. In Christ…

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