Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Another New Year's Story

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

It's probably no secret to most of you readers that I have always considered New Year's Eve one of the most important days of any year, and have spent most of my life looking and waiting for the perfect New Year's party. Most of the time when I write about my New Year's Eve memories, I write about the same ones over and over. I often recall the New Year's Eves I spent at Carter's Skateland with no particular years to assign to those memories. I also write about the New Year's Eve of 1963 and how the unexpected snow storm cancelled my plans for a great party at Bradley's Cafeteria and forced me to see in 1964 sitting home with my grandmother, instead of dancing with all the girls I called my dance partners. There's also the most memorable one I spent seeing in 1972 in the height of the bombing of North Vietnam, while I was alone (with several thousand crew members) in the Officer's Club at Guam. There are others, like the ones I spent at Base Ops at Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth, Texas while I was pulling nuclear alert in a B-52.

This week, I will add to the documentation of my chronicle of stories about seeing in the New Year in a memorable way. This will take my thoughts back to the New Year's Eve of 1964, a year after the snow storm of 1963. Before that night arrived, I had graduated from Lee and moved to Memphis and was finishing up my first semester at Memphis State University. That move had taken me away from my friends and deposited me into the home of my mother and step-father in a section of North Memphis called Raleigh. I didn't make friends easily that first semester of school, and spent most of my evenings, including weekends, studying. I had one date the whole semester and that was with a girl whose name I could not begin to recall. She was the friend of a guy who was in one of my classes who I barely knew and do not remember this day, and he didn't have a car so he befriended me for the purpose of transportation and set me up with a friend of his girlfriend as his part of the deal. We went to a movie and then back to her house and cooked onion rings. This sticks in my memory because I absolutely hated and still hate onions in any form, including rings. But I was trapped in the situation and besides the date turning out to be a complete failure, I also ended up with bad breath and a terrible upset stomach from eating the onion rings.

I believe I documented in my journal the events that followed, so I reserve the right to rewrite this memory some day should I discover that I have made some errors. But as of this moment, with no solid evidence, I believe the following is the truth as I remember it.

Throughout the semester, I had saved some money from the 75 cents an hour job I had at the YMCA and after Christmas drove back to Huntsville to have a good time and see in the New Year with some of my friends. I shall not give the real names of the girls involved for personal reasons, although I don't think either of them would mind, even if they remembered. I joined up with my best friend Bob Walker, Class of '64, for the night. At that time he was dating the sister-in-law of one of our other classmates. I don't remember all the details, but somehow she got me to agree to allow her cousin to be my date for the evening. I was hesitant because I still harbored the memories of taking a girl on a first date to the senior prom, and the more recent memories of the onion ring date in Memphis. I was hesitant in running the risk of a similar outcome on a blind date for an event that was so important to me like New Year's Eve. I was still in the quest for the perfect New Year's Eve experience, and doubted that a blind date could offer a shy boy like me any opportunity for a memorable one. However, I knew that I had a better chance of having a good time with any date than I did by spending the night alone. So I agreed.

Bob had to work at Mullins that night, so the evening did not begin for us until about 10:30 pm when he got off and we got together. We picked up his girl and her cousin and I was shocked to find that she was even cuter than she had been described. Bob had never met her before either so he was equally shocked. I remember saying these words to myself at the time we were introduced, "Now this is what a blind date should look like." I couldn't pick her out of a lineup today, but in my memories, she was a very, very cute girl and a year or two my junior. I think she was impressed being on a date with a "college" guy.

Since we got such a late start, I seem to remember that we drove to Bradley’s but were not willing to pay to get into a dance when we could only have about 30 minutes or so before the New Year rolled in and the dance ended. So, we went parking.

We went either to the old airport area, or to Brahan Springs. The night was warm enough that we could cut off the car's engine and sit there listening to the radio. Bob's car didn't have a built-in radio that worked, so we tuned in WAAY (1550 on the AM dial) on the transistor one he hung from his rear view mirror. Bob and I had always agreed that the ritual of kissing in the New Year was a great way to start the year, but me being shy and with a girl that I had just met - I had early doubts that would be accomplished. Although several of the events of the night are still hazy, the way I have remembered the night over all these years has perhaps turned fiction into fact.

In the dark of the night the cousin and I sat in the front seat and Bob and his girlfriend took the seat of honor in the back. As WAAY counted down the last 10 seconds of 1964, I slid over close to the cousin and as Auld Lang Syne started playing she and I kissed for the first time after being edged on by Bob and his fried. We kissed in 1965 and then went to get something to eat and then took the girls home. I kissed the cousin a goodnight kiss and Bob and I departed, much like we had sneaked into the darkness on our graduation night.

Bob's ex-girlfriend is sometimes a Traveller reader, so she might have a different version of the true facts, or at least the way she remembers the night. Even though we shared the same evening, I am quite sure that we don't share the same memories of how the night really went. But then, she might be as wrong as I am....who’s to say after all these years.

After we dropped off our dates, Bob and I rode around for a while and talked about the things going on in our lives. We had not had much of a chance to catch up. We reminisced about the first New Year's Eve we had spent together following the growth of our friendship that had started on the trip to the Alabama High School Press Association in 1962. Being with Bob in Huntsville made me realize that night how homesick I still was for Huntsville and the friends I left behind. I confided to Bob how miserable I really was in college and especially in Memphis. I told him how much I wished I was back in Huntsville with things the way they used to be and how I knew that could never happen.

The dawning of 1965 was the last year I would see in with my best friend. In the New Year he would move to Mississippi and I would finally find some friends in Memphis. Unlike my friendship with Bob, which would continue over the years, that night was the one and only time I would ever have a date with the cousin, but she still holds a place in my memories. I would never see her again, never write a letter to her, and never talk to her on the phone. I never had a photo of her. I cannot describe her then or today. She spent but a brief moment in my life, but I still can remember that 1965 started with me and her kissing and I guess the fact that I can still remember that after all these years has to put some value on that memory. It seems especially true since I can still recall it after over 40 years have passed since that brief encounter.

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Subject:Change of Address

Phil Rairigh

Class of '64

Tommy,

Just a quick note to tell you my addresses have changed and to keep up the good work.

I retired completely in September and have both a new email and snail mail address. I'd really appreciate it if you could pass it on or change records or whatever it is you do with these:

email- rairegg@juno.com

snail mail Phil Rairigh

28145 Highway 20 East

Bend, OR 97701

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Subject:Our History

Polly Gurley Redd

Class of '66

Thank you to J.R. for the reminder about Council High. Since I left Huntsville in 1966 to attend college and only visited for short periods after that I will admit to not even knowing that Council existed. Since we came to Charlotte in 1984, I have been a strong advocate of knowing the history of all the people of a city and when I was teaching and a principal would often speak to classes about what I remember from growing up in the South. I am humbled to know that there was much I didn’t know about my own city. Thank you for helping me see beyond my own back yard.

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Subject:J.R.'s Comments

Eddie Burton

Class of '66

Once again J.R. reminds us of the inequity in our up bringing. I'm ashamed to say I never heard of the black high school he talked about. I never saw those students. I never knew they were even there. I guess I was so self absorbed with what was going on in my life that just missed it. In 1967 I was asked to play guitar and sing in an all black R and B band. Our first gig was way out in the county somewhere in a small white concrete building. I was the only white person within miles of the place. I was a little nervous before the dance started but my bandmates asured me it would be alright. I closed my eyes and stepped up to the mic and started singing "Knock On Wood" about half way through it, I opened my eyes a little and the whole place was rockin' out with me. To a person they were kind and generous and gracious to me and made me feel at home. Now someone who is 20 years younger than all of us is going to be President of the United States. We've come a long way but we have miles to go before we sleep and miles to go before we sleep.

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Subject:Council

Woody Beck

Class of '65

J.R.'s timely observation on Council High is right on target.

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Subject:Council High School

Tommy Towery

Class of '64

Personally I was aware that Council High School was a school in Huntsville, but I am sad to say that I probably have ignored that fact in more than one story written about the Huntsvill School System in the Fifties and Sixties.

The primary reason that I remember Council was their performances in Christmas and other parades in downtown Huntsville. I remember that the drum major could lean back much father than Larry Andrews, and he could take such big steps that he seemed to go from one side of Washington Street to the other in about three steps. Their marching band was something to watch in the parades. Their rhythm and steps were unmatched by any white band.

The other thing that I remember is that I have a vivid memory of one of their cheers which I either heard personally or was told about so much that it became a fact in my memory even if it was brainwashed there.

Today it is probably not politically correct to even repeat it, but once again I have to claim First Ammendments rights to preserve this bit of history or urban legend - whichever the case. I have always heard that one of their cheers went:

"We is black.

We is blue.

We is Council.

Who is you?"

I would appreciate any verification of this if any of you also have a memory of it.

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Subject:Lee Attendee

Larry Lyon

lhunter43@aol.com

I would have graduated in 1962. I was raised in Lincoln Village and went to Lincoln school through the sixth grade onto Lee in the seventh. I am first cousin to Richard Lyon and Arnie Anderson who recently told me about the web site and I think you have done a great job. I enjoy seeing old classmates then and now. I would like to be informed of reunions and news of my classmates. I've recently been reunited with Linda Travis who also went the first year it was built. You can send emails to me through her. Looking forward to hearing from you!

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Subject:Greetings

Prentice G. Tuck, Jr.

Would have been '64

Greetings and Salutations to all; My name is Prentice G. (NMN) Tuck, Jr. age 62 residing in Virginia Beach, Virginia and all of a sudden with great interest I have began to look back to where it all started for me as a young boy. I was born in middle Tennessee (Lebanon) in 1946 and moved to Huntsville in or around 1949 as best as I can remember, I have school pictures from Lincoln School of myself for 1950-1951 so I suppose the time of the move is close to being correct. I lived at 205 North Plymouth Dr. (Colonial Hills) just off Meridian Pike. I attended Lincoln School for six years and went to Lee Jr. High for grade seven thru nine. As best as my memory will serve me, Donald and Ronald Blaise, The Swaims, Jimmy and Terry Lamb and Dennis Reasor. were some of my closest buddies and remained so until I was relocated in or around 1960-1961 in a domestic settlement . I¿m not sure, however I think my last year at Lee was in the 10th grade for a short while ??? I volunteered for the Army and joined (RA) in Feb of 1963 and served until March of 1967. I was honorably discharged and returned to Virginia Beach and made it my home. A lot has happened since then and I¿m interested in everything I can learn about all my classmates and Lee High School. My Email address is Prentice@CitylightsVa.com and would love to hear from anyone that still may remember me. Thanks Prentice G. Tuck, Jr. Nickname was "Noonie"

From: Virginia Beach, VA

Email: Prentice@Citylightsva.com

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Subject:Friends

June Tuck Giles

Class of '65

Just trying to locate some old friends.

From: Hunstville

Email: juneoldno7@yahoo.com