Richard Bruce Greenway

LHS '66

? - October 5, 2021

(Kathy Jones writes, "This is Bruce Greenway from my class of ’66.")

Richard Bruce Greenway, 73, of Toney, Alabama passed away on October 5, 2021.

Survivors include wife of 25 years Carol Greenway; daughter, Amanda Newton (Bryan); son, Richard Bruce Greenway, Jr.; three grandchildren; two great grandchildren; sister, Anita Greenway Camp (David); brothers, Dan Greenway (Kim), Davis Greenway (Sheree). 

No services are planned at this time. Berryhill Funeral Home is assisting the family. 

Larry Dale Bryant

LHS '65

? - April 2, 2019

(Editor's Note: I wrote about Larry a couple of weeks ago and two of our classmates,  Steve Boyer and Marlene Mateuda, sent me links to his obituary. Larry did not graduate from Lee but was a member of the Class of '65 before he moved away. He was living with his cousin Bob Walker when he attended Lee.)

SSgt. Larry Dale Bryant, USAF Retired, age 72, passed away on April 2, 2019 in Biloxi, MS.

He was born in Biloxi, MS to Lawrence Warren Bryant and Winona Walker Bryant, grew up in Long Beach, and was a current resident of Gulfport. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1965 to 1971 in which he served in the Vietnam War. He then enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1979 and retired in 1985.

He is preceded in death by his parents and his son, Lawrence Warren Bryant. He is survived by two daughters, Robin Cottle of Las Vegas, NV and Dixie “Lori” Chadwick; seven grandchildren; twelve great-grandchildren; three brothers, T. Bubba Bechtol, Henry Lee Bryant, Charles Bryant; one sister, Dixie Smith; and many nieces and nephews.

Let Him Who Is Without Sin…

Tommy Towery

LHS ‘64

Ring

"Hello?"

“I’m calling about your car's warranty.”

Hang up!

Ring

"Hello?"

“I’m calling to see if you are interested in selling your house.”

Hang up!

We’ve all received them. They come early in the morning and late at night. They come when you are sitting down to eat a meal or right in the middle of watching a favorite TV show. The same one comes each day…at the same time.

You hang up. You tell them to stop calling. You don’t answer. You try to ignore them. You block their number and the next day you get the same call with a different number. You block it, but it does no good. They still keep calling. Even the phone companys’ spam blocker does not stop them. You finally quit answering the phone if you don’t know the number of who is calling. You miss some important calls because of that.

Spam! We hate it. We even hate the ones which are not trying to get our personal information so they can drain our bank accounts. We hate all of them. Who in the world came up with the idea of these stupid robo spam calls. It certainly wasn’t any of us. We never did such irritating things.

Or did we?

“Hello?”

“Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you better let him out before he suffocates!”

Hang up!

“Hello?”

“Is your refrigerator running?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you better go catch it.”

Hang up!

Yep, as much as we hate the spammers of today, some of us were the spammers of an earlier generation – back when Spam was only the name of a can of lunch meat. When we first started learning how to use the phone we were candidates for such pranks.

“Hello?”

“Can I speak to George?”

“There is no George here.”

Wait a few minutes….

“Hello?”

“Can I speak to George?”

“You have the wrong number, there is no George here.”

Wait a few minutes….

“Hello?”

 “Can I speak to George?”

“I TOLD YOU…there is no George here!”

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is George, has there been any calls for me?”

Phone slams down!

We were lucky. Caller ID did not exist back then.

Those are a few of the top telephone pranks I remember.  Only we did it for fun and not for profit. I mention that because I am sure the statue of limitations has expired on those calls we thought were so funny. Yes, maybe funny on one side, but not on the other. Not at all!

Besides our early attempts at spam, there were other interactions we made with Mr. Edison’s invention which today’s society might not understand.

Like the upside down stamp on a letter idea to symbolize “I Love You”, there were also a few telephone things we did when we were young. Maybe you might remember letting the phone ring just one time and hanging up…to tell someone you were thinking about them. Or maybe calling a boy or a girl, just to hear their voice when they answer, but never really talking to them? Did anyone leave the phone off the hook just to keep someone from calling? Or leaving someone hanging on while you ate dinner?

How many coin return slots on pay phones did you check as you walked by? Now that was not spam, but sometimes resulted in a cash return. Did you ever call collect for yourself, just to let someone know you had arrived at a destination safely? Did you ever try talking through a busy signal, to save a dime? Do you miss the ability to slam a phone down in disgust when you got made at someone and wanted to make a point? What’s the cell phone equivalent of that? There should be, I think.

Now it is your turn to share your own phone experiences when you were young and there was only one phone in your house and it was tied to a six-foot cord. Use the comments form to let us know.

I am still working with this new format and learning a little bit each time. I have a disadvantage in that being the editor of the page, I sometimes only see it in the "Creator's Mode" and that is not always how you readers see it. In answer to Glenn Swaim's question about seeing the list of those we have lost. On the sidebar you might see a link to the "Hallway of Memories" and there you will see the names. As I told him, the format is still a mess, but the list of names is there.

I am also going to be working on grouping the montly issues the same way I did in the old format.

If you keep getting taken to the old issues you need to empty the cache on your browser to allow the new links to work.

I would like to ask those of you who want to send me some note to consider using the "Comments on This Week's Issue" form to do so. It allows me to better keep up with your questions and comments and your email doesn't get lost in the midst of all the other emails I receive each day - which is sometime between 25 and 100 emails a day. Thanks.

Comments on Last Week's Issue

Ben McGowan, Would have been LHS "64, but we moved in summer of 1963 to Bossier City, LA, so I finished at Bossier High School in 1964. "Tommy, I enjoy your articles and music clips.  Listening to old music from our era is so enjoyable. Recently I purchased a 1965 Rock-ola Grand Prix II juke box.  Of course it didn’t work, but a friend and I obtained the necessary manuals, studied them and now we have a functioning juke box.  I have searched high and low and obtained 45 RPM records from the 50, 60, 70 and 80’s timelines.  Playing the records brings back fond memories from our high school days.  I’ve said all this to simply say, thank you for keeping the past alive for graduates of Lee High School.  May GOD Bless you!!!"

(Editor's Note: Ben, I also had a juke box in my past. I also collected 45rpm records for it and when I finally decided to let them go I had over 2,300 45rpm records - all Oldie Goldies!)

Lynn Bozeman VanPelt, LHS '66, "To add to my dear friend Darla's description of our 55+ year friendship.  When our grandchildren were younger we had several 3 generational get togethers with our daughters/daughter-in-laws and grandchildren,.  We would rent a house and metfor 3-4 days and had many laughs and memories.  Now the grandchildren have social lives of their own but they too remember those meetings fondly."

Dianne Hughey McClure, LHS '64, "When Ronnie and I married he was in the Navy. I have a lot of "upside down stamp' letters We wrote to each other every day while he was gone. Might just be a couple or so paragraphs but we wrote every day.  We might not mail them daily but we wrote daily.So letters were a big part of my life."

RuthAnn Wikle Dean, LHS '69, "It had to be in '67 or '68. Don’t remember it in '69. Arsenic and old Lace, if I remember correctly, was in '69." 

Glenn Swaim, LHS '65, "I like the new format.  Can we still get to things like those that have passed away?"

(Editor's Reply: In a way yes; but not in the same format as before. Still working on converting it.")

Spencer Thompson, LHS '64, "Great job T. I remember Elbert Balch when he used to visit his grand parents on Virginia Boulevard he and I used to pray a lot of croquet.

Slow Song Selections

Only You - The Platters

"Only You (And You Alone)" (often shortened to "Only You") is a pop song composed by Buck Ram. It was originally recorded by The Platters with lead vocals by Tony Williams in 1955. The song held strong in the number 1 position on the U.S. R & B charts for seven weeks, and hit number five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It remained there for 30 weeks.

Lean back, close your eyes, and let the melody take you back to some wonderful times in the arms of someone special.