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ORLANDO, FL. - By the time you read this, Sue and I will be staying in the Saratoga Springs Spa and Resort at Walt Disney World. This week's edition will be created earlier because we will be much too busy on our vacation for me to have time to spend building the site. This week we will continue talking about our cars. I'll try to feature one Classmate's car each week as long as you continue to send the stories in.Please include your class year with your e-mails.
BLACKBERRY - The BlackBerry is a wireless handheld device that was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager (pictured above). The more commonly known smartphone BlackBerry was released In 2002 and supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, internet faxing, web browsing and other wireless information services. It is primarily known for its ability to send and receive e-mail wherever it can access a wireless network of certain cellular phone carriers. It has a built-in QWERTY keyboard, optimized for "thumbing", the use of only the thumbs to type. It got it's name from a naming expert who thought the miniature buttons on it looked "like the tiny seeds in a strawberry," A linguist at the firm thought straw was too slow sounding. Someone else suggested blackberry and the name stuck.
No actual pictures of my ‘57 VW survived, but I found this on the net that’s a dead ringer, right down to the nondescript grayish blue paint. I bought it in 1967 from Newman Wilkerson at his Gulf gas station at 5 Points for $300.00. The 1957 VW was as devoid of amenities as cars could get. The only gauge on the dash was a speedometer. No ammeter, oil pressure, temperature, or even gas gauges. Like a motorcycle, it had a so-called “reserve” that you activated when the gas ran out. Like a lot of VW owners of that era, I flipped the wheels around. It was kind of a stupid thing to do as it wreaked havoc on the transaxle. But, it looked cool -- and at 18, cool trumped common sense every time. Cold?Lee DemolitionCarsRetirementNew Puppy
I've been meaning to drop you a note since the article on school trips appeared in the Traveller several months ago. Now that I am into retirement, the time is available. I was behind a typical yellow school bus the other day and observed the students sitting calmly and chatting. In general, a pretty well behaved group that was obviously operating under a different code of conduct than what we had on the Huntsville city bus that made the rounds through Lakewood during my time. Until driver's licenses became the norm among my group (and parents would part with a car during the week), I was heavily into public transportation. I wish I had kept a diary of the daily events that occured on the ride to and from LHS. One story that vividly sticks in my memory however involved Jim Harris and his dislike of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When he got seated, Jim opened his brown bag to determine what his sainted momma had packed him for the noon day meal in the cafeteria. Jim must have been having a bad day because he became a little upset at the PB&J and began to stew, finally vowing that he wasn't going to eat that sandwich. Unlike the school buses of today, the Huntsville city buses that we rode on had windows that would slide fore and aft. Jim peeled apart the sandwich and held on the peanut buttered slice of bread. He then pushed the window forward, stuck about one-third of his body out the left side of the bus, and hurled the "half sandwich" directly onto the window of an oncoming car. It was a perfect throw...the peanut butter made a direct hit in on the driver's side of the windshield. The driver attempted to "clear" his windshield by turning on the wipers...bad move. Windshield wipers just weren't designed to work on peanut butter. We had a great laugh when we saw the car slow down and pull over to the side of the road. The rest of the trip to school that day was uneventful.As Paul Harvey would say "Now, for the rest of the story." The next day, same bus, same Jim Harris, and another PB&J sandwich. You've guessed by now that Jim made another stellar throw and once again nailed the windshield of an oncoming car. What are the chances of hitting the same car/driver 2 days in a row? Well, old Jim did it! The only thing different from day one was that the driver to great exception to the event. Instead of pulling over to the side of the road he did a U-turn, ran us down, pulled in front of the bus, got out of his car and demanded to get on the bus. The bus driver let him on and he proceeded to the back of the bus looking for the culprit. I have seen some angry folks in my life and this guy ranks in the top 10, maybe even the top 5. Based on the fact that he was wearing a pocket protector full of pencils/pens, my guess is he was an engineer on his way to work at Redstone. Fortunately, he didn't get a good look at who threw the sandwich...and nobody on the bus broke the code of silence. After a minute of screaming threats, he got off the bus and removed the sandwich from his windshield. When the doors closed and the bus started to move, laughter filled the bus. To my knowledge, this ended the sandwich tossing from the Lakewood bus at least through 1964. 
