Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

Last week's Band's Orange Bowl Trip stories mentioned the snow that fell on Huntsville over the 1963-64 New Year's holiday. It was actually a snowfall to remember and is still talked about these days by those who lived through it. The New Year's Eve 1963 snowstorm was a significant winter storm occurring from December 31, 1963 to January 1, 1964 over most of the Southern United States. The storm began when a surface low-pressure system moved northward through the eastern Gulf of Mexico and up the Fall Line east of the Appalachians, leading to a snowstorm from the central Gulf coast northward into Tennessee. From 15 to 17 inches of snow fell across portions of Mississippi, northwest Alabama, and into Tennessee, with lesser amounts falling on either side of this axis. Tree branches and power lines were downed as over a foot of snow fell in a band across eastern Mississippi. Huntsville recorded 17.1 inches of snow, setting a new record for daily, weekly, and monthly snowfall. It was the worst snow storm for the area since 1899.

I started the day in Memphis where my mother had moved after marrying my stepfather the year before. I wrote about the day in my journal (shown below in italics), and then reflected back upon the events in 1988 (25 years later) when I wrote my book "A Million Tomorrows...Memories of the Class of 1964." 

I now take you back to those days 58 years ago, and to the thoughts and actions of the 17-year-old kid I was at the time and my later memories of those days.

December 31, 1963

Dec. 31 - Last day of 1963.  Had to get up and take my stepfather to work.  Mother took me to the Memphis bus station at 9:00 A.M. to catch the bus for home.  I slept on and off all the way home.  Ran into snow about Athens and stayed in it.

Got home and there was already one inch of snow. Caught a bus to Bob's house.  Stayed there and up Mullin's until 5:30 when his Dad brought me home.

Checked on the dance at Bradley's.  It was still on.  -Three inches.- Grandmother didn't want me to go but I finally talked her into it.  Watched the Lee High Band in the Orange Bowl Parade at 9:00 P.M.  Made some snow cream.  Put on my new suit. -Five inches.- 

Bob's car ran out of gas and broke down.  We didn't get to go. OH.  Instead watched "Operation Mad Ball" with Grandmother.  Made more snow cream. -?? inches-  Listened to old records on the radio.  1964 sneaked in on me.  It's 2:00 A.M. now.  Happy New Year!

Reflected upon on December 31, 1987

New Year's Eve has always been the primary party night of the year in my mind.  That's the one night everyone likes to go out and have a good time.  They celebrate it with hats, noise makers, confetti, loud music, and singing.  I dreamed of being part of a big crowd, counting down the seconds to the new year, and kissing all the girls in the crowd at the stroke of midnight.

It was my dream.  Up to then I had never really lived it, but it was the thing dreams were made of.  It was spurred on by the movies, and by the TV coverage of Times Square and all the other places where the crowds of beautiful people get together and have a good time.  Therefore, it was important for me to make the bus trip back to Huntsville on that day.  I had to be in my hometown, with the people I knew and to party with them on that special night.  I had all the fun I could have in Memphis where I didn't really know anyone my own age I could run around with.  There were a couple of people I met at the bowling alley, but they were not real friends, not people I wanted to see the new year in with, not the people with whom to celebrate.  I felt an animalistic need to be in the comfort of my own crowd.

My New Year's Eves of the past were not all that great.  When I was a child, New Year's Eve didn't mean that much to me.  It was just a night when I got to stay up late.  When I discovered girls, the night became much more important.  It was a great opportunity to be on the receiving end of New Year's kisses.  That year was supposed to be my year.  I was due a special one.  All I wanted was one special night when things went my way.

I remember the first New Year's Eve I spent with a crowd of people my own age and with someone I had special feelings for.  It was at the skating rink, and there was a special New Year's party after the normal skating session.  They furnished hats and noise makers, and in the crowd were all the girls I had ever dreamed of.  It was a special night, with a live band instead of the normal 45-rpm records spinning.  As the midnight hour rolled near, we all stopped skating and huddled in a large group by the band.  I was with my best friend, the girl I liked, her friend, and a whole crowd of other nameless faces.

I planned my actions well.  As the clock struck midnight, I would take my girl in my arms and kiss her, right on the lips.  It would be a first.  I had never had a real date with her.  I had just been with her at the skating rink and we skated most of the couples skates together.  I knew she felt the same way about me that I did about her, but that she was just as shy as I was.  That night, we had the perfect excuse to elevate our relationship.  Anticipation built up inside of me as the countdown to midnight and the new year started.  I positioned myself near her.

We all counted:  five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year!  The shouts went out.  I turned.  She turned.  I prepared myself.  She threw herself into the open arms of my best friend standing beside me.  I stood in silence.  Wait a minute.  "Is this a country and western song?  What's going on?  This isn't really happening.  Things like this only happen in movies, not in real life."  My best friend stood there kissing my girl.

The crushing experience left an impact on my young mind.  I felt like a fool, dazed beyond words.  I just stood there, with the two of them together.  I didn't even get a second-place hug.  I was so embarrassed by the event that I didn't stay long enough to see if she would hug me when she finally let go of him.  I didn't really want to know.  I dropped my head and skated off feeling sorry for myself, as the band played "Should auld acquantance be forgot ...."

That event made the necessity of a really good New Year's Eve in the future even more important to me.  I needed some real special memories to put that one out of my mind.  So far in my life, I hadn't had any.  You're supposed to kiss in the new year.  That was expected.  If you didn't, you were a failure.  I was determined not be a failure that night.  As I rode along in the bus with the other lost souls, I slipped in and out of sleep, as I dreamed about what could happen that night.

I thought about the dance that was to be held at Bradley's.  All of my group planned to go.  In the crowd would be all the girls I ran around with, but never got the opportunity to kiss.  I thought about the hugging, the kissing, the singing, and the dancing.  A great time was in store.

The impact of the snow did not really hit me initially.  What did it matter if we had a little snow?  That wouldn't hurt anything.  As the bus rolled into Huntsville, with the snow still falling, I still failed to recognize the threat to my plans that the snow held in store.  All through the afternoon it continued to fall.  A quick telephone call confirmed that the dance was still on.  I had the new suit.  This party, these friends, this night would make up for all the others in my life that had been so anticlimactic.

I started running into difficulties with my grandmother.  She was like any good grandmother and didn't want to see her grandson go out in a snowstorm for fear he might get killed in a car accident.  I talked and pleaded with her until I finally convinced her, I thought, that I would be safe.  Chances are, she was not as convinced as I hoped; nevertheless, she finally consented to let me go.

The dance didn't start until ten o'clock so I sat and watched the Lee High School band get the first national recognition for the new high school.  I sat and watched with the rest of America as the band from my school performed on live television.  Lee High was famous.

For once, I wasn't going to let the Bomb fail me.  I knew it would not start after having sat up while I was in Memphis, so I already had arranged for transportation.  Bob would drive.  That would keep me from getting stranded.  I never, not once in my life, planned on Bob's car breaking down.  Why should it?  It never had before.  

Fate willed that in my seventeenth year I would fail to go out and reclaim the lost New Year's Eve.  One more year would end anticlimactically, with nothing special to see me into the new year.  Instead of the party and the girls and the hats and the noise makers, I was destined to sit at home and watch television.  I welcomed in the new year, with my grandmother.

Had I only known that it was the last year I would spend New Year's Eve with her, it might have been a more precious moment.  What I would give today to welcome in the New Year with her.  I wouldn't even mind sitting and watching television alone with her.  What a wonderful time that would be, just the two of us.  How much nicer it would be if she could share it with my wife, our daughter Tiffany, and me.

Tiffany was born one week after Grandmother died.  She never knew the wonderful woman who did so much for her father, who raised me much of my life.  Just as one year gives way to the next, so must one life.

My missed excitement for that night was perhaps a joy for my grandmother.  There was probably nothing she would rather do than to see in the new year with her grandson, except maybe see in the new year with her whole family, children and grandchildren alike.  I did not realize that.  I did not treasure the night the way she must have.  For me, it was a lost opportunity.  For her, perhaps it was an answered prayer.

If I had gone to the dance, she would have been left alone and probably gone to bed early.  The one night when we seem to face loneliness the most, she would have been left alone.   Perhaps she would have remembered all the other nights she was put into the same situation.  Perhaps she would try to remember the last good time she had on New Year's Eve.  For one last moment, she still had someone with whom to share, someone with whom to see in the new year.  A grandmother's kiss does not match one from a beautiful teenage girl.  At least it wouldn't to a teenage boy.  To a grown man, today, it would.

We saw in the new year.  Nineteen sixty-four arrived.  The year of my coming out was at hand.  That was the beginning of the year that would implant itself into my past and become a counting stone by which I could relate to the past.  That year I would graduate from high school, a measuring date for all future time-relationships.  With the old songs on the radio, I welcomed the future.

Today the New Year's Eve of 1963 seems a little nicer, a little more special.  It was special with just my grandmother and me, sharing a brief quiet evening together.  There were no hats, no noise makers, no band.  It was just the two of us changing years together for the last time.

Should auld acquantance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquantance be forgot

And days o' auld lang syne? 

Should Old Acquaintances  - A Little Nostalgia From Our Past

We hope the following little bit of history from the December 20, 1963, Lee's Traveller brings more smiles than tears, but this was the world we lived in during that period. The one-page gossip sheet looked at our lives back then, and a lot of the classmates mentioned are no longer physically with us now, but their memories will not be forgotten and never brought to mind. Do you remember these? If you feel the need to expand or explain these, then please use the form provided below.

This is my Happy New Year 2022 Issue, if you have any doubts. I get very nostalgic about New Year's Eve, and thinking back about the ways I spent my own throughout my life. My first 18 were spent in Huntsville. Even though I had moved to Memphis by the time the 1964 New Year's Eve rolled around, I still found my way back to Huntsville and Bob Walker, LHS '64, and I spent it with the girl he was dating at the time and her very attractive cousin. I have strange feelings about the one I spent in 1972 when I was on Temporary Duty to Guam with the Air Force. We were in the middle of the bombing of Hanoi and were loosing B-52s and their crews - many of which I knew. Still, there was a New Year's Eve party at the Officer's Club that ranks right up there with one of the wildest parties I have ever attended. You've never sang in the New Year until you do it with a Philippine band trying to sing a Scottish folk song on a tropical isle. I still regret not spending one in London at Trafalgar Square when I was living in England. My ex-wife did not like crowds, but it was the best opportunity I would ever have to a Times Square type celebration.

So, forgive me if you must, but when the clock strikes 12 on New Year's Eve, smile a little thought my way and you ladies blow a kiss to me to make up for those lost times of days past. Those days will always remain dear to my heart.

Comments on Last Week's Issue

Janet James Holland, LHS ‘67, "Wow! What great memories of the Orange Bowl trip, far more than I remembered, but a lot did come back, thank you. My main recollections were how tired I was, especially when I returned home and had to walk that long drive way to the house, in tow with suitcase, uniform, bell lyre, only to see a dinner party going on through the dining room windows, Dr. von Braun closest in that view. I think the most fun I had was being crushed into an elevator with the Nebraska football players. As for Wallace, I remember the day and how I promised myself I would not shake his hand, but having been squeezed next to him as I passed, out his hand came, and I reacted, remembering he hardly looked at me. Perhaps it was because I didn't look at him. It was a great trip, being the youngest."

Dianne McClure, LHS ‘64, "What happened to Traveller? It was mentioned he was hurt or maybe died on the Florida band trip? What did happen to him?" (Someone with the answer please let us know!)

Trena Rice Powers, LHS '68, "Outstanding and very interesting history reads on the Orange Bowl trip. Never knew we had a live equine mascot! And, oh how things have changed in 50 years!  High schoolers walking in the darkness of night on treacherous snowy, icy roads to reach a destination and achieve a goal?  What an inspiration for today’s society! Thanks to all!"

Joel Weinbaum, LHS ‘64, "While the band frolicked in the Miami sunshine that trip left at least me to suffer the added hardship of delivering an extra Huntsville Times paper route in near record snow. I still agonize over the experience."

David Mullins, LHS '64, "Tommy, although I have said to you many times, I must again say that your efforts are so very much appreciated. The joy they bring by evoking wonderful times and memories to so many is beautiful. You bring SMILES & GRINS Brother due to your continuing efforts. Thank you my old friend."

Photographic Memories - Who Are They?

Each week I share a group of photos from the 1960 "The General" yearbook without disclosing the names of the individuals. You may stop and try to identify them here, and when you are through you may scroll to the bottom of this page to see the identities of your classmates in the photos.

Slow Song Selections

You Picked in the Past

 I Understand - Herman's Hermits

(Editor's Note: This is one of the songs I personally picked as a last song to get up and slow dance to at a party. It was released after I left Lee, but the Classes of 1965 and later should remember it. If it is not a song to end a night in the arms of a special person, I don't know what is. I hate I missed my opportunity to do so with a few of you.  It is an especially proper way to end a year.")

"I Understand (Just How You Feel)" is a popular song. It was written by Pat Best and was published in 1953. It was included on the US Version of Herman's Hermits the debut album of the band Herman's Hermits and first issued in 1965. As was typical of the time, the album's contents were different on the UK and US releases. UK albums tended not to include singles. The US edition of the album is sometimes called Introducing Herman's Hermits – a title used on the back cover and the record label but not on the front cover.

The Identites of the Classmates in the Pictures Above