Top Ten Huntsville Memories
Andrea Gray Roberson
Class of '66
1. Lots of us were born and spent part of our youth at Redstone Park (Behind Farley School).
2. Family driving on Sunday afternoon over the Whitesburg Bridge to buy gas at Gasoline Alley and then going by the Zesto and eat.
3. Family reunions at Big Spring Park or at Monte Sano State Park.
4. Shopping at Hills Grocery on Green Street for groceries (Mr.& Mrs. Milton Pitts ran it).
5. Knowing all your neighbors and knowing that everyone took care of each other.
6. Mullins Drive-In at the corner of Andrew Jackson (5th Street) and Stevens where you would drive up, honk your horn and they would bring your food to your car (Like Arnold's on Happy Days).
7. Football games at Goldsmith-Schiffman before Lee was a high school between Butler and Huntsville High(you had to get there about two hours before the game to get a parking place and seat).
8. Whitesburg Drive-In with the long drive way from the street with the tall hedges.
9. LHS baseball games at Optimist Park and a bunch of people walking together through the neighborhood from Lee to go to them.
10. Homecoming Parade through downtown Huntsville(I drove my 1959 Rambler Station Wagon with about 15 people in it in the parade).
(Editor's Note: I lived in Redstone and was a Farley School kid in the first grade - at least the first half year of the first grade then I went to Rison. I also remember getting out of school that year for "Cotton Picking." Tell you grandkids about that one and see how they react.)
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Don Stroud
Class of '65
Here are my ten favorite places in Huntsville:
1. Old Madison County Courthouse
2. Mullins Drive In
3. Krystal downtown
4. Big Springs Pool
5. Monte Sano Lookout
6. Russel Erskine Hotel
7. YMCA Central
8. Starmarket
9. Bus trips downtown
10. Goldsmith Schiffman Park
Once again, thank you for all your hardwork. Hope you are enjoying retirement and having bunches of fun!
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Cheryl Massey
1. The varied yellow and orange hues of Monte Sano in the fall that almost looked like the mountain was on fire.
2. Church youth group devotionals on Monte Sano on Tuesday evenings in the summer.
3. The fragance of real mums permeating Lee High on homecoming day -as opposed to the fake flower and gaudy-as-you-can-get-it mums today.
4. My first car date when I was 14 and so nervous that I couldn't enjoy it.
5. Having our front yard toilet papered and my mother calling Harry Renfroe's house to see if it was a papering business that she could hire---the phone was quickly hung up at the other end.
6. The first week at Lee for Paulette Reddick---I heard boys yelling nasty things at her after school and not knowing what to do. I wondered how she was going to handle it. I'm sure her parents were worried all day if their child was going to get home alright.
7. November 22, 1963 in 4th period class when the school intercom came on and we heard that President Kennedy had been shot and the hushed voices as hundreds of teenagers changed classes the next two periods.
8. Girls having to wear dresses or skirts and blouses to school and having a restriction on how short they could be.
9. Boys wearing high water pants and white socks and others getting into trouble if they didn't have on socks.
10. Dennis Faber, my steady boyfriend my senior year (who became my husband), putting 50 cents worth of gasoline into his car for our night out. 50 cents won't even get you out of the driveway now.
11. Wrapping yarn around Dennis's class ring to make it fit --- looked like a blue caterpillar on the underside of my finger.
12. My family of displaced Texans getting actual TexMex food at El Palacio.
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Patsy Hughes Oldroyd
Class of ‘65
Deciding my favorite places in Huntsville when I was growing up there was not really that difficult. These places almost instantly popped into my head when I started thinking about that topic. Not that these are the only favorite places, but they do rank right up there in my top 10. Thanks for another fun and pleasant walk down memory lane. You bring it all back to life and freshen our memories. Thanks for your wonderful and interesting articles each week.
1. My schools – East Clinton Elementary, Lee Jr. High School, and Lee High School
2. Old downtown Huntsville as it was back in the day with the old courthouse and department stores
3. Monte Sano Mountain – the park and the overlook!
4. Rocket City Roller Rink ( later called Carter’s Skateland when it relocated)
5. Big Springs Park
6. Woody’s and Whitesburg Drive In Theaters
7. Lyric and Martin Theaters downtown
8. Goldsmith Schiffman Field
9. Zesto
10. Mullins
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Jim McBride
Class of '65
Things I remember about growing up in Huntsville. I was born April 28, 1947 at Huntsville hospital (don’t remember it) but I do remember these things.
The late fall, early winter smell of cotton seed oil in the air.
Big Spring Park, playing my first little league game there. The Sertoma Club train, the lagoon, fishing there on kid’s day every summer. Don’t know what I would have done with one of those big carp if I had caught it.
Beirne Avenue playground and Goldsmith Schiffman Field. Too many memories to count.
The snowy TV images from Birmingham and Nashville before WAAY-tv came to town.
The old courthouse on Saturdays with the preachers and politicians on the steps. The white and colored water fountains and restrooms. Didn’t understand it then and still don’t.
J.C. Penny, Montgomery Ward, the army navy surplus store, Kress, Woolworth, Grants and all the locally owned stores like Fowler’s, Becker’s and Dunnavant’s all waiting for you downtown. Harrison Brothers was still a working hardware store and not a museum. Twickenham, Dark’s and Crystal drug stores too.
Optimist Park. Little league, Babe Ruth, junior high and high school baseball. The grown up fast pitch softball league in the ‘50’s. Suicide Cokes at the snackbar. The cold concrete seats of the grandstand even on a hot day. Where I first met a gabby, gum chewing shortstop named Terry Preston and a lot of other friends.
Cotton Row. Kinda hard to describe. You had to be there.
Upside Down Hill. Entertainment was in short supply in the early years.
Before the sound of rocket engines, Huntsville was known as the “Watercress Capital of the World” according to a sign at a watercress pond off Church Street. One of at least three local bootleggers lived nearby right off Church Street. Huntsville was so small people who were teetotalers knew who the bootleggers were. Oh, yeah, Talluhah Bankhead and Gabby Street were born in Huntsville. Look it up. You’ve never done anything sinful in your life that Tallulah didn’t do first.
There was a giant goldfish pond on the Madison Street side of Huntsville Hospital and beautiful magnolia trees made for climbing.
The public library, the one and only firehouse, the sherrif’s office and the police department were all pretty much on one corner. Madison and Gates.
All the car dealerships were on Meridian Street including Ray-Bradford Lincoln/Mercury which Larry Ray’s dad co-owned. I didn’t get that wrong. Before it was Ray-Pearman it was Ray-Bradford.
Andrew Jackson way was two-laned 5th Street and Governors Drive was two-laned 5th Avenue and Oakwood Avenue was said to be the longest avenue in the USA and at the end of Oakwood Avenue was Oakwood College and that’s where “Little Richard” Penniman went to college in the 1950s and that’s the truth. Amen.
Monte Sano rocks. Great place to picnic. Great parking too.
Dallas Mill Village. Lower middle class heaven. Inhabited by some of the sweetest people on earth. What a great place to grow up. I hope you feel the same way about where you were raised. I’ll let the Lincoln kids brag about their mill village.
The Sesquicentennial celebration in 1955. What a party. Once again, you had to be there.
Getting to meet John Hunt, the first settler for whom the town was named. Just kidding. We are not that old.
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