Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

2010 Reunion Info

August 20th - 21st

Huntsville Marriott

5 Tranquility Base

Huntsville, Alabama 35805

Phone: 1-256-830-2222

Next committee meeting on

Monday, June 21, at 5:15

The next reunion committe meeting is this Monday, June 21.

We'd like to issue a special welcome to the "lost" classmates that have contacted us and are planning to come to the reunion. We are looking forward to seeing you!

But it seems we may have lost some classmates that had previously been "found" because they have not responded back in any way, shape, or form to the reunion letter that was sent to the last contact address we had on them.

Please remember that even if you are not planning to come to the reunion, we would like to have your current contact info for the handbook. And if you don't want to have your current whereabouts printed in the handbook, let us know that too and we will honor your request to be removed from your class roster.

As the reunion date gets closer and reunion plans progress, we will be posting those details on the website. So be sure to check in every week!!

There are only a limited number of rooms left at the Marriott for August 20 & 21. As stated in an earlier update, hotel rooms & prices are at a premium this summer due to the Star Wars Exhibit that will be at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The rooms at the Marriott are $109.00 per night ($123.20 including tax). When making reservations, be sure to mention that you are attending the Lee High School 64'65'66 reunion and request a poolside room if at all possible - unless you would rather not have a poolside room. The Marriott will do their best to honor requests.

Remember, we want to hear from you even if you are not able to attend so that we will have your current contact information for the handbook that will be given out at the reunion. If you are unable to attend the reunion and would like a handbook, arrangements can be made to send you a copy.

The reunion class contacts are:

Class of ’64 – Linda Taylor

lktaylor731@aol.com

Class of ’65 – Sarajane Steigerwald Tarter

1965lhs2010@gmail.com

Class of ’66 – Judy Fedrowisch Kincaid and Kathy Harris Jones

jfk19662010@hotmail.com

Please send an email to your contact and include: Class year, first name; last name at time of graduation; married name (if applicable); spouse’s name (if applicable); street address; city; state; zip code; home ( H ) or cell ( C ) phone number (which ever you prefer); e-mail address; and occupation.

Even if you do not plan to attend or are not sure if you’ll be able to attend the upcoming reunion, please send in your information. And please encourage other classmates that you may be in contact with to do the same.

And check the Traveller each week for planning updates.

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Remembering My Dad

on Father's Day

by John Turrentine

The attached photo is your's truly (about 65 pounds ago) with my Dad. It was taken in the parking lot behind Nobel & Magnolia dorm where I lived for the 4 years while at Auburn. This photo has special significance to me because it was taken at a particularly bad time for both of us. I entered AU in the College of Engineering in Fall 1965 with high hopes of getting a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. I started out with 21 quarter hours and it was just way way too much. I wasn't a party boy either as I had neither the time or money. After a disastrous quarter I went home for Christmas break but continued to receive encouragement from my parents.

Sometime in mid-January, while home one weekend, I went down to see a Navy recruiter about just enlisting and quitting AU and not wasting any more of my parents money. Luckily for me, the Navy guy told me to get on back and stay in ROTC. I dropped my course hours dramatically and changed my major to Aviation management. I did begin to improve my grades but was still uncertain.

One Saturday morning sometime in mid-February, 1966 I was in my room and got a call from the front desk that I had a visitor. When I got down to the lobby there was my Dad. He had driven all the way down from Huntsville to see how I was doing. It had such an impact on me and really lifted my spirits. Here was a self made man with only an 8th grade education who loved his son enough to come check. My Dad educated himself in radio/TV and electronics and through his determination became the Service Department Manager for Pizitz & Loveman's department stores in Birmingham. In 1960, he got a job with a Space Program sub-contractor (SPACO Inc.) which fabricated cabling used in the Saturn Boosters.in Huntsville. In 1964 he has a serious heart attack and never really was able to return to work. I believe this photo was made about the time he had to retire on a disability.

I continued to improve my GPA and graduated in August 1969 and received my Navy Commission on the same day. Dad, because of his health, could not make the trip. I was and am so proud of him because he helped put the man on the moon and this was something he found pride in.

When I retired from the FBI in January 2003 , the office gave me a nice retirement luncheon. My supervisor had worked on a conspiracy with Jane to get some old photos from my past to show on a slide show and this was one of them.

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Last Week's Questions

Aaron Potts

First Class of Lee

2. What was the salary for a bag boy at a supermarket?

Working at a local store I got about $1.25 cents an hour

4. What was the going rate for cutting yards?

Cutting grass usually depended on the size of the yard. Usually it was about $2.00

5. What other part time jobs did you do and what was the salary?

Working on a local home delivery milk truck from Meadow Gold. The rate was variable on the length of time it took to get through. There was no set amount. He just paid me different amounts.

6. What was the most work you did for the least amount of pay while you were in school?

Working at a local upholstery shop learning to do upholstery taking D.E. (Diversified Education.)

I also worked at a woman’s shoe store (BAKERS SHOES) heart of Huntsville mall.

Also working at a DRIVE IN THEATER.

Here’s another set of questions.

1. What do you remember about the trampoline pits – where were they and what was the name of the place and fee?

There was a trampoline place near PUT-PUT golf course. Can’t remember the name but, I can remember one night I was going to do a double backward flip and landed in the springs. I thought someone had just castrated me.

2. How did you get to town to go to the movies on Saturdays?

Got to town via bus.

3. What do you remember about Banham Springs, before it was built up as a sports complex?

Branham Springs had a lot of hills and other stuff that several of us went there to use the hills as a motorcycle jumping sport. A lot of pine trees there we also had to dodge.

5. Does anyone remember anything about Corman’s Doughnuts?

I could have watched them make doughnuts for hours at a time just to smell them cooking.

I also like to visit the COKE-A-COLA and DOUBLE COLA businesses just to see them go through the bottling process. R.C. (Royal Crown) COLA was bottled at a plant on Andrew Jackson Way. (Earlier know as 5th street)

6. Do you remember anything about the bakery across the street from the Lyric Theatre?

Not only was there a bakery across the street from the Lyric Theater there was also a barber shop. One of my first jobs was at the Lyric Theater taking tickets at the door and selling stuff behind the counter.

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Buddy Miller

When I worked at A&P you started at 75 cents per Hr. this was in 1959.

The name of the trampoline pits was Bounce-A-Lot and it was located next to where Boots Restaurant was located I think the price was 25 or 50 cents for 15 min.

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Barb Biggs Knott

Class of 66

Since I didn’t have an after school or weekend job until after I graduated high school, I can’t answer most of your questions. However, I did babysit and during the years 64-66 I think I got .25 to .75 cents an hour depending on the circumstances (New Year’s Eve always paid the higher amount). By today’s standards definitely not a lot but back then it was good enough!

As far as the trampoline pits go, I don’t remember the ones in Huntsville but in the summers when I would go to Pennsylvania to visit my dad they had them at the West Shore Plaza, a local shopping center in Lemoyne. For the cost of .25 cents an hour you could jump to your heart’s content. My friends and I would spend several hours jumping on them. It was marvelous fun.

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Ron Blaise

Class of 65

What was the going rate for cutting yards? I charged two to three bucks a yard, depending on size. Occasionally I would get four bucks for a really big yard. Of course, that was when gas was 17 to 20 cents a gallon too.

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Escoe German Beatty

Class of '65

I remember going to the trampoline pits once and I want to say they were somewhere around Governors and the parkway but I really don't know . We had begged daddy to take us and we only did it once I think he thought it was dangerous and also "pricey". Corman's however I remember very well. He started his bakery on Andrew Jackson next door to daddy's Cloth Basket on the corner of Bierne and Andrew Jackson. Later on daddy moved his business (1965) to north parkway and Corman was already a few stores up the way from him. They were good friends. He was quite a jokester and was always pulling a prank on someone. There was one booth that all the coaches would come in and hang out at they called it the "Liars" corner. The donuts were the best!

The only thing I remember about a fallout shelter was the one that was built and the corner of Airport and Parkway and there was some poor family they had live in it for a week. ugh!

If I went to the movies (the show) it was always on the city bus.

I wish Braham Springs still had the little train and the small scale amusement rides it used to have!

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Eddie Burton

Class of 66

I remember babysitting for .50 per hour and getting paid $5 for mowing a neighbor lady's lawn. I worked at Henry's Hamburgers at 17 but I can't remember the pay. I do remember the first paying gig I played with a band was $8.00 per person for the night.

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John Drummond

Class of '65

A bunch of us worked as bag boys at Winn-Dixie, including Craig Bannecke and Skip Cook. The salary was $1.15/hour, from which taxes were deducted. We bagged groceries, put the bags in a cart, and walked with the customer (almost always a lady) to the car, then loaded the bags into the vehicle. During July and August, one trip to the parking lot was enough to trigger a heavy sweat. Tips were rare; if you were lucky, usually a quarter. The most I ever received was fifty cents. Interestingly, African-American ladies were more likely to offer a tip; perhaps they were more appreciative of manual labor. The least I was ever paid was as a gas jockey at a Texaco filling station on Saturdays: Five dollars for an 8-hour shift; but I was only 14 years old, and five bucks seemed like a lot of money. Living on top of Monte Sano, we got to Saturday matinee movies by hitch-hiking down the mountain, and back up before dark. It was free, and considered safe back then; what a difference from today's world, where you don't let your kids out of your sight for a moment.

MORE REPLIES WILL BE PRINTED NEXT WEEK!

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Subject:Mowing Grass

Craig Bannecke

Class of '65

I gave some more thought to the lawn mowing subject and hitting the metal boundary stake might not have been my worst experience. As you will recall growing up in Alabama we had some pretty hot summers.

I think the alarming claims of Global warming are some what like Chicken Little's fearful cries of "The sky is falling the sky is falling". On our part of the Globe in Alabama it has always been hot. I remember now, that one summer I tried to cut three yards in one day. Normally I would cut one, sometimes two. For what ever reason I had obligated myself to three folks and tried to cut all three the same day in 95 + degree heat. Poor decision, as I wound up with heat exhaustion.

I remember I had a couple of friends come by while I was pushing my mower to the third job and they were headed to the pond to go swimming. Had I gone instead of cutting that third yard I probably would have avoided getting very sick. I know I had a slight headache when I started the job and by the time I finished I was feeling weak, with a splitting headache. Of course if I had kept myself hydrated I probably would have avoided the heat exhaustion but remember those were the days when football coaches didn't give you water during those early hot fall practice days. They wanted to make you tough. Were lucky they didn't make a lot of us dead.

Anyway when I got home my mother saw me and I told her how bad I felt and she told me to go get in the bed while she called the Doctor. Those were the days when Doctors still came to the home and Doctor Joe Jordan came to ours. A quick diagnosis by him and he said I was lucky. I had heat exhaustion that could have very easily have become a heat stroke. I was a pretty puny puppy for a few days but bounced back and was back out cutting yards again....... but not three in one day.

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Subject:Fallout Shelter

Linda Kinkle Cianci

We had a fallout shelter under our house...or so that's what Daddy called it whenever things heated up with Castro. Other times, it was a called a cellar, for storing jellies, pickles, and canned things from our summer gardens, and for shelter during tornadoes. Entrance to it was located just outside our back door, with a heavy steel trap door that was slanted to allow head room upon entry, and concrete steps. I'm pretty sure the floor was concrete. We also had water stored down there, in glass containers of course. It had cots and a couple of chairs - the webbed kind, as was on lawn chairs back then, and we five kids all shared two cots. I only remember going into it a couple of times to wait out storms, and to practice going down there during air raid drills, just in case one day one of these was the real thing. How we were supposed to know when one was real, I didn?t know. It was creepy, with lots of spiders and other creepy crawlers. I sat on a cot with my fee t off the floor and tried not to think of what was overhead. I don't remember if there was light down there or if we depended on flashlights. Didn't matter, because Daddy was always prepared with whatever was needed, just in case of invasion. He always told us that if the U.S. were ever invaded by Cuba or anyone else, we would go down there and he'd shoot first and ask questions later if anyone tried to get in. I'm sure he thought this info would bring us great comfort and security. Funny thing, I don't remember there being a latch for locking it from the inside, so I guess he would have to "guard" it with his shotgun. I also always wondered how that basement would protect us from ?fallout? anyway. And, I remember asking the question about what would happen if we survived and there were no other people left when we did surface from the fallout shelter. And how we would know when it was safe to surface again. And what if the food ran out. My, what pleasant memories! I'm ter rified of basements to this day and still go into a closet for tornado shelter instead of our basement (which has no inside entry because I was afraid of having a basement entry inside our house; so that would require going outside and down the hill to the back corner of the house). Sure wish I hadn't been that scared of basements when we built this house, now that I'm much older and a little wiser. As for worrying about fallout protection today, the Lord and I have that one covered!

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Subject:Last Week's Questions

Joy Rubins Morris

Class of 1964

I charged fifty cents an hour to baby sit. I started babysititng when I was fifteen and would walk to my babysititng jobs if they were in the day time. If I sat for more than one family, I usually received a $1.00 an hour plus all the potatoe chips and soft drinks I could eat/drink once the kids were asleep.

When we first moved to Huntsville, we lived in a duplex on Triana Blvd. The duplex was located behind old Butler High School. My sister and I would take the bus in front of Butler High (there was a triangle shaped island where the bus stop was) and we would ride the bus into downtown to see a movie. I loved the smell of fresh pop corn and I always springled popcorn salt on top to add that special flavor. We would also take the bus into town to swim at the Big Spring Park pool. I can remember listening to the Beach Boys' songs while sitting along the fence area working on that tan which I never got. I would always burn, peel, and then freckle--never got that tan that provided validation on how the summer was spent. Every time I go to a pool I remember Big Spring Park and how much fun we had. It cost so little for so much fun, laughter, and summer memories.

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Subject:Questions

Linda Beal Walker

Class of '66

I can only answer two of your questions at this time.

How did I get to town to the movies on Saturdays?

We rode the bus for a fare of 10 cents; however, if the weather was really nice, we saved the bus fare and walked to and from town and used the bus fare to buy popcorn or candy at the movie. We lived in the Five Points area so it wasn't that far to walk.

What do I know or remember about Corman's doughnuts?

They were delicious if you happened to be lucky enough to get them after they were first cooked. Mother and I would sometimes walk the three or four blocks to the bakery, buy a dozen doughnuts and have at least half of them eaten before we got home. Poor Daddy. If we ate all the doughnuts before he got home, we just didn't tell him that we had even been to the bakery.

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