My Buddies and Me

Tommy Towery

LHS ‘64

When I started the ninth grade at Lee Junior High, I think I was more excited about being with the girls who went there than the boys. I had spent my seventh and eighth grades at Huntsville Junior High and I honestly cannot remember being interested in any particular girl there, nor had I ever had a real girlfriend at East Clinton Elementary. I was a late bloomer for sure.

The girls at Lee were the ones I knew from skating with at Carter’s Skateland. There was Ginger Cagle, Dianne Hughey, Carolyn McCutcheon, Linda Pell, Barbara Seeley, Sherry Adcock, and Pam Grooms to name a few, but there were more. I knew a small group of boys at Lee which I had been with at East Clinton and from my Boy Scout activities, but I did not have a true friend with which I ran around. As a matter of fact, that did not happen until I got in the tenth grade.

While working on Lee’s Traveller the newspaper staff made a trip to the Alabama High School Press Association meeting at the University of Alabama, and I shared a room with Bob Walker while there. We got to know each other a little and upon our return we ran into each other one night while cruising the strip between Shoney’s and Jerry’s on the Parkway. After that meeting we started running around together more aided by our continued association on the newspaper staff.

Bob work as a car hop at Mullin’s and I started visiting with him when I went there for one or more of their ten-cent hamburgers. Bob had a cousin from Mississippi living with him at the time who also worked as a Mullin’s car hop. His name was Larry Dale Bryant, and he was a year or two behind us in school. Thus, the three of us became buddies and started running around together. Bob also had a friend name Lewis Brewer who was also a car hope, only he worked at the Mug’s Up Root Beer place on North Parkway. Lewis fit in with the crowd so most weekends you would find the four of us running around, often late at night since they did not get off work until 10pm.

Lewis worked with another car hop at Mug’s Up and so through him David France joined in on our merriment. All five of us did not always team up and most of the time there was a combination of four in the group. Bob drove a 1952 Gray Ford he called “The Gray Ghost” and I had my 1953 Ford Custom we called “The Bomb.” I am not sure what car David drove most of the time, but he was often cruising around in his parent’s Cadillac. David had a girlfriend, who he would rather spend time with rather than the guys. Lewis drove a Mercury, but I can’t recall what year it was. Larry never had a car, but he left the group after about a year and went back to Mississippi, narrowing the group back down to four of us.

We spent most weekend nights cruising the strip and did so in whichever car had the most gas. Often it was collecting money from each other to get a dollar’s worth of Kayo gas at the station which was located near Traylor Island, between the North and South points of the cruise strip.

None of us shared all the same pastimes all the time. The three of them worked and I had my Boy Scout activities. A couple of us liked to skate, and a few more liked the dances at the Armory or Bradley’s Cafeteria; but none of us did everything together.

Bob, Lewis, and I really became the three who did most things together. I don’t know how, but in the process of life, my skating girls faded from my group activities and we replaced them with Linda and Cathy Shafer and Joy Wells. We all ran around together but we never really paired up. Most of our activates were centered on cruising, but we did attend a few house parties together and made a few trips to Guntersville Lake for some swimming time. I did take Linda to a Hi-Y dance during our senior year, but we only had that one date. Repeating myself, most of the time it was just cruising between Shoney’s and Jerry’s and even then every once in a while one or more of us would leave the group to jump into someone else’s car for a few laps.

I had a couple of more people I ran around with, only it was a a duo and not a group. Tommy Thompson and I ran around a lot of time together during our senior year. He was dating Judith Keel at the time and she got me a date for the senior prom. Perhaps the oddest couple on the strip was when I cruised with Buddy Kent. Now Buddy and I were as different as cats and dogs, but there was a couple of times when we ended up together riding up and down the Parkway. I have a clue how that happened, but it involves a girl who was going with someone else and I shall not break that confidence.

So, until graduation, Bob, David, Lewis, and I were usually seen together as a group or at least a tag-team. I was the first to leave, moving to Memphis the day after graduation. Bob, David and Lewis all chipped in and bought me one of those nice English Leather Redwood Boxed sets for a going away present. Another memory of my group is when I look back at the original four of us we all served in a different branch of the military. Larry went into the Marines; Lewis, the Navy; Bob, the Army; and I went into the Air Force.

I don’t know if Larry Dale Bryant is still alive, but my buddies David and Bob are no longer with us. It is just Lewis and me left, and with us living in different towns we don’t get to cruise the strip any more the way we used to, but the memories are still there.

‘Round, round, get around…I get around!

Memphis -  This new progam continues to challenge me. I have spent almost two hours trying to save this issue. The program kept replacing last week's issue with this one and I could not figure out how to get both issues to show up. Finally, I think I did, but time will tell.

Fall is starting to arrive at my house. Days are getting shorter and cooler and baseball is about to give way to football as the sport I will spend more time watching. Unfortunately our standard fall trip to Hawaii or a nice cruise is not in the plans again this year. I like fall okay, but I prefer spring and summer to fall and winter - even in the South.

I stumped the band last week and did not have any comments about the last issue to share with you. I hope this week will offer you a better chance to share some of your own memories. My story this week is about how I met the buddies with which I ran around at Lee. I would love to hear your stories about how you did the same. If I get a lot of them I will spread out the results over a few weeks if necessary. Here's your chance to share your memories. Please do.

Slow Song Selections

Blue Velvet by Bobby Vinton

"Blue Velvet" is a popular song written and composed in 1950 by Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris. A top 20 hit for Tony Bennett in its original 1951 version, the song has since been re-recorded many times, with a 1963 version by Bobby Vinton reaching No. 1. Bobby Vinton's version reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 21 September 1963 and remained at No. 1 for the subsequent two weeks.

Comments on Last Week's Issue

NONE

For this week, I am wanting to know who you cruised the strip with, in whose car and how did you met up in the beginning to become buddies who became real well known.

Please send comments and suggestions to tommytowery@gmail.com