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Memphis, TN - You can just read my article to the right this week to see what is going on in my life. However, I must mention one thing. June 12th was the birthday of one of my earliest friends, Buddy Crabtree. Buddy didn't go to Lee but was my neighbor when I went to East Clinton. Buddy died over 10 years ago, but I still think of him on his birthday.Please include your class year with your e-mails.
I can remember the “snow cones” because on Sunday after church, we would always walk over to my grandmothers that lived in Lincoln village. We would walk down Stevens Avenue to Dallas street (where the fire station is/was) there was a big house on the left that was two stories and there was a HUGE Magnolia tree in front of the house that always reminded me of New Orleans. Like I knew what New Orleans looked like at the age 12 or 13? We would walk down this path to the bridge where there was a stream of water and there was a bridge for the train to cross this stream. It was like a ladder on the ground as we walked up the side of the bridge to cross over the railroad. Once we crossed the railroad, there was a street that ran in front of the Lincoln Village Houses (I thought it was Front Street) that intersected with Meridian Street. If you turned left and walked to the corner of Meridian Street and Abington Avenue. There was the Dr. Pepper plant on the corner across the street from Lincoln School, but just to the north of that was a place similar to “Zesto” but had a much different appearance, where we could get our choice of a “SAMBO” or a “snow cone”. My Grandmother lived on Kildare Street and the stop at this place was right on the way to her house.Later, I worked at Woody’s and Parkway drive in theater and they had snow cones but Whitesburg had snow cones but had a lot of different flavors than we did. A funny story about snow cones: One night we wanted to have some fun and we decided to put someone in the trunk of the car and drive across the river to a friend’s dad’s place of business. (service station). The joke was to put some DUMMY in the trunk, hold the trunk lid down and have the other arm hanging out the trunk with ketchup smeared all over it. Drive into the service station and ask if we could borrow a shovel because we just hit a dog and wanted to go back and bury it. This was supposed to get some big laughs!! So we tried it and the person at the service station on “gasoline alley” across the river at the Whitesburg Bridge. As we pulled out to go across the street to do the same trick, the owner of the service station saw the arm hanging out the trunk and called the police. We asked the next service station the same thing and of course they didn’t so we drove out and started to drive back across the bridge toward Huntsville. The first thought was, there must have been one heck of an accident on the bridge with all of the police “red lights” and there were more coming in behind us from the Morgan County direction. No, it was a road block. The police were looking for some DUMMIES that had ran over a pedestrian and wanted to bury them by looking for a shovel at the different service stations. The charge was “disorderly conduct’ and parents had to come get us. It all started over a strawberry “snow cone” and one got splattered with it and that lead to the idea of since the shirts were already stained with the red food coloring, it would be a good time to play a joke on some people. The ketchup was some leftover from some French fries purchased at Mullins. Well, it was not such a good idea. If my mother was alive she’d tell you there was no humor involved with this little trick. I was the DUMMY in the trunk. I sent you a note last week about the ”snow cones” and I tried to think of the name of the place I first saw a snow cone. I described the place on Meridian Street across the street from Lincoln School and I sent the same information to a friend of mine with the Rison-Dallas Association and thankfully they remembered the place and the name. They said the name of the place was “Condra’s”. 
It started getting dark. Wait! What a great place to start out with "It was a dark and stormy night...." But it wasn't night yet, so I'll go on with the story. I was riding my electric bicycle back from the market where I had just picked up some veggies for supper. It was obvious that a storm was moving in and I was wishing that my bike had a little more power to go just a little faster. I made it home, put away the groceries and then went to check on some emails on the computer. As the storm started and the lights began to flicker, I knew that power failure was just a gust of wind away so I shut it down and bucked up to ride out the storm.We were hit with 70-80 mph straight line winds that finally took out our Bradford Pear tree. I was proud of that tree, for it was probably the last original one standing in our subdivision. I've been watching Mother Nature take them for the last few years, but each time the storms subsided our's was still standing. Not this time. It went with a double crack as two major branches gave way. We were lucky that it fell away from the house - much luckier than many in the surrounding area. The photo above shows the branch that fell to the street, but you can's see the one just as large that fell behind it completely covering our sidewalk.In my most Jane Parks-inspired journalistic manner, I looked for a story to gleam from this simple event so that I could make my readers relate similar stories.The story turned to my early days in Huntsville and the differences between the modern storms and the ones we had back then. There is not much difference, but there is a difference in our reactions and the consequences of the storms. First thing that comes to mind is the d@mn blinking "12:00" on all the time related electronic systems in our house. When the power finally came back on, we had to reset the time on two clock radios, one weather radio, the stove, the microwave, and the coffee pot. Thank goodness we no longer have the VCRs that once were so hard to reset. Also our cable TV box resets its time without assistance, as does the programmable thermostat and the cell phones.I had a hand-crank generator weather radio which I was able to crank enough to check on the weather, and that was good. Back then, we trusted the sounds of bugs and our neighbor's gout for our weather information.When I lived on East Clinton Street, if we ever lost power, which I remember as being rare, time did not stand still. All we had was a wind up West Bend alarm clock. We didn't even have a battery powered one - which would have seemed like rocket science back then. Some of my aunts had eight-day mantle clocks which only had to be wound up every eight days and that seemed like advanced technology to me. If we didn't wind the West Bend every night before we went to sleep there was a great chance it would run down before the alarm sounded. Speaking of that, does anyone else remember the sad sound of a wind up clock's "brinnnng" alarm as the spring tension disappeared and the sound tapered down to a slow "clunk-clu.nk-cl..u...n...k"?As night comes, so does the darkness. And in the modern world we race to find flashlights and hope that the batteries we got at the Dollar Tree are still charged - knowing that you get what you pay for and that cheap batteries are exactly that. I've got about a half-dozen of the small LED flashlights which I have bought over the last two years as their prices came down and as they added more and more LEDs to the lights. I also have a battery powered lantern which takes six D-Cell batteries. Now who keeps six fresh batteries at home these days? I ran out to my shed and found the Coleman lantern from my camping days. Proud of myself I took it out of the box and found that common sight most of my Boy Scout friends remember about those type lanterns. I'm sure Bobby Cochran, Johnny Carter, and many others remember what I am talking about - a cracked mantle. Yes, the little nylon air bag that you put on the lantern, burn to a semi-ash and then carefully protect to keep it from busting entirely. Back in my East Clinton days, the Coleman lantern from my Scout activities was the newest storm technology. It quickly replaced the "coal -oil" lanterns that sat on our mantels. They sat there not for decorations as much as for necessities. It only took a minute to find a match and fire up those babies. Black smoke would initially billow from the wick, but a well trained grandmother could adjust the wick and in no time have a light bright enough to light the room. It was amazing how durable those tall glass globes were back then.When the storms hit back then, we were forced to sit in our house without the aid of air conditioning. But that was no problem like today. We sat without air conditioning back then when there were no storms. I graduated from Lee without ever living in a house with an air conditioner. If I wanted to feel air conditioning, I had to go downtown and look for a building that had a big sign outside that said "Come on it...it's cool inside." Imagine a store today spending money to have a sign made that bragged about being air conditioned. The worst that would happen back then was that the window fan would not work, or the little fan that sat on the floor oscillating back and forth.Well, I couldn't help the air conditioning this time, but I could help keep the food in the freezer from going bad. I ventured back into my backyard shed and rolled out the generator that had been added to my emergency items after Hurricane Elvis a few years ago. I still had a small amount of gas that I keep around for the lawn mower, but had to go out and find some more. Sue and I drove around for about 30 minutes until we finally found a gas station that still had power and I filled up the five-gallon gas can. I have to laugh because back when we got our first gas mower a one-gallon can was all we needed. I've had to fill up the five-gallon can twice during this current storm ordeal. It cost me about $12.25 each time. Back then I cut yards for $1.00 a yard. A guy yesterday offered to cut mine for $40 and that was a low-ball offer. Still, the generator of today fired up and the food was saved.Then the technology withdrawal pains began. No computer, no TV, no Internet. No Internet! Wait! No INTERNET, no email, no web site, no eBay, no Battlefield 1942, no Facebook, no Instant Messenger. Life as we know it had ended. It's the end of the world. What hath God wrought? My mind goes back to old days. Without power then, we went out and sat on the porch and listened to the birds and watched the clouds. We went inside and played board games, or card games, or worked on puzzles. Some even read real books. We ate boloney sandwiches and drank grape Kool-Aid iced down from the ice we would run out and get at the ice houses. We survived as a family.So what did Sue and I do last night? We went down to a little park for a free jazz festival. We sat in our lawn chairs, ate catfish and barbeque purchased from one of the vendors and listened to music. We talked to neighbors that we only wave at during normal times and enjoyed the freedom we so often overlook. We were thankful we only lost a tree.Now the power is back on, and life is back to normal. The worst effect is that I am behind time in getting the Traveller web site published and I have hundreds of friends around the country (and world) wondering what has happened and if I have finally slipped the surly bonds of earth. That I know is true. If someone doesn't get the email on time saying the Traveller is ready, I start getting emails wanting to know what has happened to me. I feel honored for that. I can't answer the most often asked question of "What are we going to do if something happens to you?" The storms will blow over. Life will go on. Someone will step up to the bat when that happens.Oh, and about the tree. Back then we would have cut it up and used it as firewood and saved some money. I just paid someone to haul it off to a landfield. There's something basically wrong about that.For now, life is good. The storm has ended. The Internet is back. My link to my friends and loved ones has been restored. I am content. I have learned the secret to riding out a storm and living a hapy life - "Work Hard - Save Your Work Often!"WrestlingCoach MyhandWebsieLee's TravellerLee VisitI was raised by my sainted Grandmother with "Church" being the only fun and entertainment in my life.I was 13 when this happened at the bowling alley. I was supposed to be at the Men's bible class that evening but I slipped off and went tothe bowling alley with the Moss brothers, my very best friend next door. I had no more gotten in the door and my grandmother came bursting in the door, dragged me out of "that place" and proveeded to tell me once again how satan was going to burn me in hell for going to places like that. Here explanation went was this. That the bowling alley had no windows in it and that anyplace that didn't have window, "there was sin going on in there!I don't remember the name of the place but it was down town somewhere I believe in the basement of a building.I did became an avid bowling fan in High school and college but seldom go bowling now except to entertain grandchildren.
