Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

The Blue Wonder Getaway

by Jim Ballard

Class of '67

With an escape velocity of about 60 mph tops, we didn't have great hopes of getting away with some of our more ambitious master plans, but we did get...away. The blue Studebaker "Land Cruiser" above was very much like the one belonging to two Lee High brothers, whose names I'll withhold to protect the innocent. The two brothers and I, and a friend who went by the name of "Joe", a true original, and at times about three, maybe four other innocents, bored out of our skulls, what with all the challenges presented us at Lee, plundered the primal Huntsville nocturnal landscape at will, with unbridled impunity! If you're wondr'n what I'm carry 'in on about, I'll lay out a couple illustrations for "y'ere own eddy-fye-kay-shen", as they say in Cockney East, and with adequate leave so as not to impugn liability upon any one particular soul.

Monte Sano was as much a revered landmark then as now, and one cool night we found it only fitting to pay tribute...a tribute from the mountain's highest point. That would be nothing less than the new channel 19 TV transmission tower, which succeeded in dwarfing the revered channel 31 tower. Parking the Blue Wonder at a discreet distance (not so far that we couldn't seek refuge in a hurry), we rushed over to the base of the tower. One of us had the brainstorm that we could (A) climb the tower to the very top, (B) fuse three cherry bombs on the ends of lit cigarettes and (C) scramble back down the tower and get clean away, BEFORE the cherry bombs went off. There were only four of us at the time; the only fear we had was stumbling over each other on the way down...

Of course it was a brilliant plan, and we made it to the top. But first I must share something with those of you who consider yourselves "high culture". It so happened that night we were handed a most beautiful payoff which none of us had anticipated. For the uninitiated, when it comes to climbing TV transmission towers, if the wind is just right, as you climb the steel ladder higher and higher, you'll hear the most beautiful, ethereal organ-like music ever, as the night mountain winds pass through the tower's elaborate trestles...You get to the top platform, sit back and gaze out at the city lights below while the cool winds play that unearthly "music of the spheres"...no single word could explain it.

But we had to move on, quicker than we wanted. To add a touch of dignity, we streamed out into the wind about four rolls of toilette paper. White flags for the black of night. Then we lit the fuses. Nobody fell off the tower that night. We got down quick. We got down with plenty of time to spare, before three loud pops paid proper tribute to the night. We were standing in the middle of a dimly lit street, looking up at those beautiful white streamers, still awestruck by the memory of the tower's music... then finally...POW !! POW !! POW !! The night was finished. The Blue Wonder took us home. Or to Shoney's Big Boy. Or wherever.

Then there was the night we lit a similar fuse near a local radio station...and I swear, as we drove away in the Blue Wonder, listening to a song on that station, the damn station suddenly went off the air in the middle of the song ! A couple minutes of dead silence...And the piece dah resistance that night was...I kid you not, I ain't ly'in...the DJ gets on the air and announces, "...Well kids, we were just play 'in the 'Bomb of the Week' and darn if we just didn't have a bomb go off in the back...we're try 'in ta get to the bottom of it right now so hang in everybody...!!" Once again, the Blue Wonder carried us away, but I don't know how we got home; we were all laugh' in so hard ! To this day we have little doubt the station engineers figured it was an "inside job"; "how else could the pranksters know we were going to play 'The Bomb of the Week'...?!"

If you'll indulge me once more, I'll entertain you with another little episodic watershed event. It was The Night of the Commando Raid on Lee High. Again I will protect the innocent and tell you what I know. How I came by this knowledge is...not really a matter we need to explore. Just accept that the Blue Wonder once again came to the rescue.

The parties involved, there was about seven of us...them...had four walkie-talkies; two on the ground, one in the Blue Wonder and one on top of Lee High...and I mean on top...the roof of the auditorium...It was night of course, another cool breeze for the two fearless souls atop Lee's auditorium.

I can say that it was fearless Joe the Original who was on the ground with his walkie-talkie, hiding behind a bush off Lee High Drive. He was lying stomach down in the dirt, with his walkie-talkie antenna stretched out on to the road; Woodys Drive Inn Theater not far behind.

Suddenly there was a squawk that came out of the walkie-talkie on the auditorium roof. It was fearless Joe in a brief moment of panic : a police cruiser had just driven OVER Joe's antenna !! Sure enough, one look over the roof and one could see the cruiser com'in down Lee High drive. But the panic ended as the cruiser drove on without a blink; completely oblivious to fearless Joe's still functional walkie-talkie.

I'll end here, sparing the reader too much detail. I will say the parties concerned did not leave Lee High that night until the entire space...I said the entire space of Chrome-Dome-Hamilton's office was buried in untold rolls of unraveled toilet paper...and stretched out into the ancillary offices...and further on into yon hallowed hallways. It was the best TP party to date, and all parties left proud over a fine mission accomplished.

One more night for the Blue Wonder to carry us home. And whether you like it or not, each and every member of the foregoing parties became, in their time, fearless upstanding members of one community or another, whose name and locations we need not bother to elucidate for...well, for purposes now in hand.

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Jeff Fussell, Class of '66 - Before the more notable compatibility dustups such as Beta vs. VHS and HD-DVD vs. BluRay, there was the ink cartridge shootout – one of which is the subject of this week’s mystery photo.

The iron-fisted law of Palmer Method handwriting declared the fountain pen an article of faith and the only true penmanship tool. The ballpoint was heresy. Refilling a student-grade fountain pen was messy at best. Once full, they often leaked like a British sports car. But, it didn’t matter what brand of ink mom brought home from the grocery. As long as it was blue-black, ink was ink.

Schaeffer and Scripto changed all that with their relatively cheap cartridge fountain pens. My choice was a Schaeffer. It used a “Skrip” (not “Scripto”, mom!) cartridge that worked just fine no matter which end was inserted into the pen. The competing Scripto model (in the picture) was longer and had a metal seating ring that only went one way. Both did exactly the same thing -- one no better than the other. The hair in the butter was that they were completely incompatible. Thankfully, the ballpoint gained some well-deserved respectability and… wait a minute – this isn’t a Cross refill!

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Bruce W. Fowler, Class of '66 - Most Illustrious Editor ORF, the object pictured is a fountain pen ink cartridge. During our formative years the sagging market in fountain pens moved the Parker and Schaeffer pen companies to introduce lines of inexpensive fountain pens with steel nibs that used these cartridges in lieu of the then conventional bladder and lever system. This innovation not only substantially reduced the cost of the pens but made them much neater for the gracefulness challenged to use since the standard of inks in those days was closer to archival quality rather than washable.

The fad had a measure of permanence. I can recall my relativity professor in graduate school using a Schaeffer cartridge fountain pen as his maths pen into the late '70's. This pen was identical to the ones we used and still sold for some nominal amount. Indeed, economically these pens were rather like the Gillette safety razor in that the money to be made was in selling cartridges. I recall that those of us who used them regularly scrounged a hypodermic syringe and needle to top off the cartridges several times before the gripping flange became too large to stay on the pen's nipple. That, of course, was in a simpler day although I do recall my relativity professor doing the same thing.

Such cartridges are around still and come in two sizes, small or international, the standard in Europe, and the larger size popularized by the Parker company. The problem with the cartridges in the educational environment was that one had to carry an extra cartridge which had to be intact to keep ink from seeping out - again, this was in the days when inks were neither washable nor archival.

The alternative to this was the refillable pen, using a rubber or latex bladder and a lever or later and common today, a piston feed system developed in Germany. That was what I settled on once I had a "real" job halfway through graduate school and today my maths pen is a Pelikan M-800 with an oblique medium nib that I use either Noodler's archival grade or Private Reserve Fast Drying inks in.

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Growing Up In Huntsville -

A Request For My Readers

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

I have a favor to ask of you this week. I hope each of you will think of this as a personal one-friend-to-another request. Of course you are not required to grant my request, and that is the reason that I ask it as part of this issue of Lee’s Traveller and not in a personal email. Another reason that I’m seeking your participation is that this is not just a request of my Lee Classmates of ’64-’65-’66. I would really love to have some of your Huntsville High and Butler (yes I know you’re out there) reply as well. I would especially enjoy that, because you have knowledge of your environment that I do not possess.

I would really love it if you would take just a few minutes and email me a short email. If there are two of you in the family that read this, then I would like for each of you to answer for yourselves, without any influence by the other member.

I would like you for to make a list numbered from 1 to 10 and take a moment to think about the top 10 places or activities that come to your mind when you think about growing up in Huntsville, Alabama. If you are not a native, then list the things that you remember from the time your came to Huntsville. I am looking for these things that you remember from the time of your first memories until you graduated from high school.

The answers should be simple right now. I am looking for places you went or activities you did that still come to your mind today when you think back about growing up in "The Rocket City."

The most obvious thing this list will give me is some idea of things that we might cover in future issues of Lee’s Traveller. I have a much bigger project in mind for the final use, but that will come later if my plans work out.

Many of you could probably fill out the list of places and events that come to my mind, since I’ve written books and web articles about them for many years. I hesitate to give my list now, but will print it in the future along with some of your lists. To put things in prospective, please include the year you first arrived in Huntsville (either by birth or move) and the year and school from which you graduated.

I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to help me out with this project.

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Subject:Request

Steve Craig

Class of '71

Hi Tommy, thanks very much for your work on the site. I love the old stories and photos. I was class of '71 and my sister, Janice was class of '68. I recognize so many names from the classes of 64,65,66. Back then it was safe as a kid to roam the neighborhood all day and we knew everybody. A lot of your classmates had younger brothers and sisters that were my age. Can you help me contact Don Stroud. We lived next door to the Strouds in westlawn and then both families moved to Chapman Avenue in 1961. Give him my email address and/or phone number(256-527-8852) and see if he remembers me. Thanks.

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Subject:Dances

Glenn James

Class of '65

There was a teen dance club in 5 Points when we were in high school, but I can not remember the name of it. Also my Dad and some of the men from the D.A.V. started a dance for us at their club on Governors Drive, but it never did catch on. They only advertised by trying to get the teenagers to tell their friends. I think the Hi-Boys played there some.

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Subject: Armory

Eddie Burton

Class of 66

I saw the great Jerry Lee Lewis at the Armory. He had a swinging little four piece band. Guitar, Bass, Drums and Hammond B-3 organ plus the Killer on piano. He was outragous and the crowd wasn't very big so we could walk right up to the edge of the stage and watch the action close up. In later years I got to swap sets in a big Texas dance hall in Houston with Jerry Lee and I got to meet him. Then years later I was playing in Printer's Alley in Nashville and he came in the club one night and we got him up on stage with us. We had no piano but he sang anyway and the crowd loved it. Another show I saw at the Armory was Ronny Dove. The "IN" opened the show and backed him. Ronny had the big hit, "One Kiss For Old Times Sake".

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