Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Graduation Presents

The photo above is of some of the greeting cards I received from some very special classmates as part of a growing up ritual I suppose. For many of us it was the first time we ever got personal cards with our names and we included them in the graduation announcements we sent out.

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Dianne Hughey McClure, Class of '64 - I remember a charm for my charm bracelet. It was gold and in the shape of the state of Alabama. I still have it on my bracelet. Tommy do you remember who gave it to me? You know him very well and he is still the editor of the Lee High Traveller. If you have not figured it out yet it was from my friend Tommy Towery. I also have a gold necklace that I will always treasure because it was given to me by Carolyn McCutcheon it means more now that it did then. I still have my Hamilton watch that my family gave me. Ronnie had it cleaned and reworked a fews years ago as a surprise for me. It is still working today and has double sentimental value.

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Cecilia (Sis) Watson - The gift I remember is coat hangers. It had a note in the box that they were to hang my tongs on them.

Who in their right mind gives a teen wooden coat hangers? One sweet gift was from Mrs. Kennemer my 1st grade teacher from Rison. She gave me a little figurine that I have had for years.

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OPEN Topics

Do you have any memories of a special something that you were given, but may not still have? Send in any graduation present memories you would like to share with your classmates.

Do you have a story about the first big thing you bought with money earned from your first real job, either during or after Lee?

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My First Purchase

by Linda Beal Walker

Class of '66

My first important purchase, after clothes that were not made by my mother, was contact lens. It was so wonderful to get out of the cat-eye frames that I had.

I am legally blind so you can imagine how thick the lens were on the glasses, and to get contact lens was more than wonderful, plus I could see better and people could see my big brown eyes and long eyelashes. haha I was able to wear contact lens until the year before I moved back to Tennessee, so that would be about 15 years ago. I developed an infection from the daily wear lens and it would not go away enough to wear contacts again. So once again I am back in glasses, but thanks to the changes made over many years, the lens are plastic, not heavy and not as thick. I can't believe some of the "new" frames I have seen! Just like the ones that I wore plus the small wire rimmed glasses. As Mother always said, what goes around, come around.

If you ever want to write an article on the typewriter and want feedback on that, I will be glad to tell you all the "type"writers I went through before the computer as we know it today.

(Editor's Note: Do you remember how the "World Stood Still" when contact lens ffirst became popular? No matter what was going on, when someone yelled "Contact!" everyone stopped and did not move. It didn't matter if it was a dance, a fight, or a sporting event. And everyone pitched in to help find it. No one asked, it was just routine to drop to your hands and knees and start looking for them - another social interaction of our past that is lost in today's changing world.)

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Linda Beal Walker, Class of '66 - This is a photo of a coin purse. You could hold it in one hand and squeeze each end at the same time and the "mouth" would open and you dropped in or took out the coins. As you said, they were made of plastic but not always that soft.

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Bruce Fowler - I believe the object is a plastic coin purse that was distributed by a preppy/yuppy men's (?) clothes store run by a gentleman by the name of "Chief" Waters. The logic was that although trousers were sewn in those days with organic thread, the sharp edges of coins would eventually rub through the pocket and necessitate replacement to avoid loss of money.

My memory is that the store was located in Five Points and that I got outfitted for college there with, among other things, blue oxford cloth, button down collar shirts. Those things lasted forever until one eroded away the collar fold from starching or the elbows from perching. I recall wearing those shirts through undergrad school and part way through grad school until Bruce Foley (Jim Foley's son who ran the Bauregard's clothing store in the building where Shaver's Books is now?) convinced me to but new ones from him.

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Rodney Vandiver, Class of '65 - Plastic squeeze Coin purse.

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Barb Biggs Knott, Class of '66 - This week’s mystery item is a coin purse. I had so many of those things, but they were always empty!

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Cecilia (Sis) Watson -The mystery item is a coin holder. My Mom would put my lunch money in it and tuck it in my coat pocket for safe keeping. It was sometimes hard to squeeze that money out if it wasn't broken in yet.

Thanks for bring up all those nice memories!

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Jo Scholter - The photo for this week’s mystery is a coin (or change) container. You just squeezed each end and it opened to enable one to either put change in or take it out. Hopefully this is correct, because I feel rather stupid on the last one (numchucks???) Oh well I never had seen the window things.

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Mary Ardrey Aukerman, Class of '66 - That is a change "purse" that held loose coins. They were usually give aways from vendors trying to do a bit of advertising. I didn't use them but know they were popular with men/boys.

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Sally Stroud, Class of '65 - This week's mystery item is a plastic coin purse that you squeeze together and it opens to gain access to the coins. I have a red one in my jewelry box that belonged to my dad. When he died it was on his dresser filled with coins. I took it to remember him. He always carried it in his pocket. He hated loose coins clinking in his pocket. Thanks for the memory!!

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Alice Brigman, Class of '64 - Tommy I believe these were used for your loose change. My daddy had one that he used.

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Jennifer White Bannecke, Class of '66 - The mystery item is a coin purse. I still see them around occasionally with advertisements on them. I loved them when I was a kid. You just squeezed the pointed ends and it opened.

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Thomas Hunt - I believe the object in this mystery photo is a coin purse. It was designed to keep small coins readily available. When you squeeze the longest sides, the slit opens for easy access to the coins. It was kinda neat and cheap to make. A blue gillion was around for a few years.

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Dianne Hughey McClure, Class of '64 - The mystery picture is a coin purse when you squeezed on the ends it opened up like a gaping mouth. I still have one of these.

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Jeff Fussell - Class of '66 - Most of us will immediately recognize the coin purse. It's the kind that Brother Dave Gardner said was "one of those little 'pop-open' kind -- looked like a little ol' (long pause)... coin purse". It was an innocent age, Tommy. It was a few years before it dawned on me what he was talking about. Subtlety like that is a lost art.

Seeing the picture brought back some good memories for me. I remember when "Chief" Waters opened up his shop in Five Points. He had a keen eye for what his loyal "bucks" wanted in clothing. Bill's Menswear was OK, but usually sensed some snobbery on the part of the sales people. Bill's London Transit tried too hard to be Carnaby Street and came off more goofy than cool. Chief's had all the "right stuff" and his friendly customer service kept a lot of us coming back. The big box chain stores are a poor substitute for the neighborhood men's wear store. I miss him.

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Woody Beck, Class of '65 -That's a coin purse although we had a more anatomically descriptive term that was widely used. By the way, it's interesting that it came from Chief Water's mens store. I worked for him when he was an assistant manager at Belks downtown. Later he left Belk's and opened his own shop first in Five Points where it floundered - not much walk in traffic - and then to Heart of Huntsville Mall, I believe. He got his nickname when he played football at Huntsville High in the 1950's: he had a noticeably large nose. All-in-all, I very nice guy.

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Subject:Memories of Lee, '70-'71

Shirley Latta Gomez

Class of 71

I graduated in 1971. I remember a group of us skipping school to go to Guntersville, I think most were band members. Some went out of the parking lot in the trunks of cars, others rode in the cars hunkered down. When we came back the next day with our "excuses from home" to Mr. Jenkins and our sunburns, Mr. Jenkins had news for us. Apparently Mr. Foley had seen us and turned us in. Mr. Jenkins said he was sending notes home to our parents. I watched that mailbox for weeks, but I don't think he sent anything. Whew!

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Subject:Rainer's Article

Tommy Towery

Class of '64

It was an odd feeling of Déjà Vu when I first saw the photo that Rainer sent in with his article. I know I was there and I even looked closely to see if I could spot myself in the crowd. As a matter of fact, I could have easily written it myself because I shared the same feelings as he did about the missiles around the court house on that Saturday morning. I got up early, which I rarely did on Saturdays, and rushed downtown to see it all. I collected every pamplet and handout that was available on military and missiles. I had built all of the Revelle models of them, and knew the names of all of them. My favorite was the Nike Hurcules, and I never realized how much a Nike Ajax looked like the Russian SA-2 Guideline until I studied them before the B-52s went to bomb Hanoi. Thanks for a great article Rainer, it was a good trip down Memory Lane.

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All I Have To Say On The Subject

by Linda Beal Walker

Class of '66

It sometimes seems that the long, wordy, newsy, articles you receive are from the same popular people that were the in-crowd in high school - the ones that some wanted to be part of, to be accepted by. This little country girl may not have the vocabulary nor the ability to write in such a way as to paint pictures of the way things were then (or to write a book), but the article about Armed Forces Day that was written by Rainer Klauss brought back mememories to me, too, although I don't know if I ever knew what brought Armed Forces Day into being.

I have a picture almost like the one shown above his article. My younger cousin and my 10-year-old, skinny, birdlegged self are standing in front of one of those missles or whatever it was. We only knew we were there to see all the wonderful things on display around the courthouse (can you imagine anything being displayed around a courthouse today? I think not.), being part of the crowd, with Mother of course, and to watch the big parade. The parade where we would see our men in uniform and to see the different school bands. Remember the band from A&M? They were different from all the other bands, their music seemed different and, boy howdy!!, could they do some high-stepping and strutting. (Do the bands today think they invented it??!!!)

We were part of all that. Can you remember those very loud booms we heard frequently and we were told that it was "just" a rocket being tested at Redstone Arsenal. How many of you knew what that "testing" would eventually mean?? I didn't. I only knew it was part of living in Huntsville and being glad that I did.

At that time, OUR flag could be displayed proudly not like some people have been displaying it recently with the flag of their country displayed above OUR flag with OUR flag displayed upside down below theirs and they say they have the right to show their feelings for our country and we let them. Phooey!!

Then there were OUR men in uniform, the men we were proud of and that kept us safe. We knew that was true because of the big one, WW II, that we learned about in history books and from our parents and grandparents. Not like OUR boys were treated and greeted when they returned from Vietnam, whether we should have been there or not, protesting or not, they were OUR soldiers and the majority of them did what they were told to do, represent our country in defending what was considered a wrong. Some came home all in one piece, some not, some in a box, and some with memories that would haunt them all the rest of their lives.

More recently, we had Desert Storm which we watched on TV like a mini-series, with the scud stud, who made the womens' heart throb and whose name I cannot even remember, reporting what was happening there. Now we have Iraq, once again whether we should be there or not. Does history sometimes repeat itself??!!

Yep, that article brought back memories of a more innocent time, a time when we really, really did not know what would be in our future?

And that's all I have to say on the subject.

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