Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

You know I wouldn't make it as simple as identifying the object pictured in the Mystery Photo. I know some of you are getting senile, but that would still be too easy. I got to thinking about this early this week when I was watching a student on campus doing a text message to a friend on her cell phone. I got to thinking about how impossible that would have been using the phones we had when we were teenagers. With that in mind, think back to those phones and see if you can answer these simple questions about the dial:

(1) There was a name associated with these phones. They were not just called dial phones, they were called _________ dial phones.

(2) To which number hole were the letters "DEF" assigned?

(3) Which letter was left out of the phone's alphabet?

(4) Which hole was assigned the symbol "# " ?

(5) Which way did you move the dial - clockwise or counter-clockwise?

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(Click on map for larger image)

More Map Reading

Collins (CE) Wynn

Class of ‘64

This week I moved the map down a little to show the portion involving most of RisonDallas and Five Points down to Maple Hill Cemetery. I failed to mention in the earlier article but the US Army command involved was the Fourth Army Corps and the dates described in the map legend state “Fall of 1898” which means some of the units would have spent the Christmas holidays here and departed in the spring of 1899 based on some of the dates listed near the units.

This week’s portion of the map shows the Corps Headquarters to be in the mansion, “Bide-A-Wee”?, on the east side of Maysville Road a little north of McCullough Avenue (I once knew the building to house a church and have talked about playing football on the grounds as a young boy). Also a number of units appear as being housed in the Five Points area when there were only four points in that California street had not yet been extended to add the 5th point to the intersection.

Two things caught my eye when looking at this section. 1) Maple Hill Cemetery is only a fraction of the size it is today (which is not surprising, I suppose); and , 2) the public school designation looks to me to be East Clinton School since this was 10 years before the birth of Huntsville High School nearby which would make East Clinton the oldest public school in Huntsville.

What do you think about all of the commotion that must have occurred during this time. An Army Corps is large by any standard and it would have had many men, many more horses and pack animals along with tons of supplies and equipment. Since they would have moved by rail at the time it must have really been a sight to the community. It would have certainly brought life to a sleepy southern town.

I wonder what would have prompted someone to select Huntsville for this “Military Encampment”? Would anyone know if this event was connected to the Spanish-American War?

(Editor's Note: Would one of you still in Huntsville drop by the East Clinton Elementary School and either copy down the verbage or take a picture of the marker and email it to me? Thanks.)

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Aaron Potts, Beaumont battleground, First Class of Lee - The two triangles were the emergency stations and they were 640 & 1240 to turn to in the event we were being attacked by a foreign power, primarly the Russians. The exercise was to "DUCK AND COVER" and we had many exercises to practice this action. We only had th AM dial so there was no FM dial to consider until later. Thanks for keeping us up to date.

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Chip Smoak, Class of '66 - The two triangles were the positions on the radio dials of cars to which we would be directed to tune in the event of an emergency, particularly in the event of a military emergency. To the best of my knowledge they were never needed.

I never have any reluctance about complimenting and thanking you for a job well done.

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Jeff Fussell, Class of '66 - Most of us cold war era geezers will remember the triangle symbols on the AM radio dial as the CONELRAD emergency frequencies of 640 and 1240. That’s where we would tune our radio if “this had been an actual emergency”. The TV had them as well, but I can’t recall the channels.

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Subject:Metal Cooking Kits

Polly Gurley Redd

Class of '66

It was great to read all the memories of the nesting cook kits. Jeff Fussell’s scouting story brought back a mental image of how he looked at school in his scout uniform. I am sure that the old mess kit that Don found on eBay didn’t have a cup because it had been melted in some campfire somewhere. Didn’t the earliest mess kits have a metal cup that you couldn’t hold when you put anything hot in it? I know the one I had had a white plastic cup. Thanks to all for those memories.

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Subject:Hurricane Ike

Aaron Potts

First Class of Lee

For the ones that haven't seen the dammage here in the Southeast part of Texas, here is a WEB site to visit. Not all of the pictures have been sent to the news agencies. In some places here you can see where large concrete slabs were move completely off their foundation. These will toally amaze you!!

(CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS)

It appears that everyone is having a garage sale but nothing is worth salvageing after the salt water has soaked everything so they just move it to the street as trash. On the causway, I parked my truck and got up in the bed and I still could not reach the highest water level on the utility poles, and I'm a little over six feet tall.

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Subject:Ice Rink

Jim Beck

Class of 68, almost

My British sister-in-law and her German husband are visiting Vicky and me here in Portugal and in a discussion about meeting people, they have said they met at the ice rink in Huntsville in the '60s.

Although all of us used the rink in the '60s, none of us can remember the name.

Can anybody help us? Many thanks in advance.

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"Duck and Cover"

Learing to Survive in the Fifties

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

Last week's Mystery Photo about Civil Defense made me track town a cute little cartoon about a little turtle named Bert who walked around smelling flowers. We got to watch him in school. What a treat it was back then to see a movie in class instead of reading out of text books. But what a cartoon it was! I'm only going to write a brief comment on the video clip above. I would like for you to click on the picture above and watch the short video which you may have seen early in your school days. I would like for you to wach it again now, as an adult, and send me your comments about its content and any memories you have about it or those days. There's got to be some irony in the fact that we were once threatened atomic bomb blasts that never happened and yet today kids are in more danger of a classmate coming to school with a gun than of the bomb we were taught to fear.

Help me out and send me your comments.

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