The Memorable Graduation Party

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

I sometimes feel that perhaps I am the only one who remembers some events which happened in high school. I attribute that to the fact that I kept a journal for the last half of my senior year. I wrote down the little things which happened and so it seemed more memorable to me. This is the story of a party which happened on Saturday, May 16, 1964 - 58 years ago. It was a strange night to me, especially because I was not accustomed to attending parties where kids were drinking. There was only a select crowd of my classmates who did drink and none of them were people I normally ran around with. So here is the story as I recalled it in "A Million Tomorrows...Memories of the Class of '64".

The idea of graduation was growing with each passing weekend.  With each weekend, the celebrations of the coming event seemed to get bigger and wilder.  The high school party held that night was an example.  It was held at a fancy house.  The girl's parents paid for the food and soft drinks and wanted everyone to have a good time.  They got their wish.  Everyone had a good time.  They had too good a time, it seemed.  Shortly after the party started, some of the participants began sneaking out to their cars and doctoring their Cokes.  Then they wandered back to the house and mixed with the crowd.  After a while the trips to the cars stopped and the bottles were brought into the party.

Those who participated in the drinking thought they were being cool.  Not everyone was as understanding about teenage drinking.  It was too open, too risky, and too blatant for the milder members of the crowd.  Finally, the girl's parents could turn their eyes no more, and the guests, drinkers and non-drinkers alike, were asked to leave.  The party was over.    

The girl's house where the party was held was on the edge of Monte Sano.  Even though that party was over, the crowd was not ready to quit partying.  They decided to move the activities to another house.  It seemed like a good idea to most of the crowd.  It must have struck fear into the heart of the boy whose house was selected to receive the party goers.

Sixty carloads of teenagers, even with only two per car, would be 120 kids.  Many cars were full.  The lucky recipient of the party-on-wheels made a frantic wave-off in his driveway, explaining that his parents were on their way home.  His story worked and he succeeded in detouring the crowd to search for another spot.

The caravan of party goers moved across Monte Sano Mountain.  It roamed snakelike up and down the roads looking for a spot to make camp.  From the air, it must have made an eerie sight, to see the long trail of lights moving in and out of the tree-covered roads across the darkness of the mountain.  Another memory of the night was that the caravan ruled the road.  For it, there were no red lights, no stop signs, no speed limits.  To keep the integrity of the group, those things had to be bypassed.  If you dared not keep up with the crowd, not only your car but all the cars behind you would be lost from the party.  Therefore, the lead driver, whoever it was, set the pace, and the rest of the cars in the group had to follow.

Stopping at stop signs might have been okay.  It never would work if you stopped at a red light.  Therefore, it was "mob rule" so that the snake could keep moving.  People not with the party had to stop.  It's a wonder that the police weren't called in to break up the mob.  Even though they were peaceful, as peaceful as 60 carloads of teenagers could be, they were still an event waiting to happen.

The final meeting place for the group of party goers was the swimming pool on the mountain.  It was unused and unlighted, but it had a parking lot big enough to hold all the cars.  The transistor technology of the boom box had not arrived, and the car radios just couldn't put out the sounds good enough for the party to dance.  The unlighted parking lot almost made a great place to party.  Except that it was completely unlighted, and the car batteries just would not hold up to provide both music and light.  That left the crowd little to do besides stand around and try to decide where to move to next.

We partied as long as we could.  Common sense or boredom finally overcame the situation and the crowd disbanded.  We knew the party really was over.  We didn't have to "turn out the lights."  We didn't have any.  Slowly, one by one, the cars began disappearing off the mountain, heading for one last pass through the strip to see if anything else could be salvaged from the night.

The group was growing up.  At least we thought we were.  One of the benefits of growing up was being able to drink, even though it was still illegal.  Some looked old enough or knew enough to be able to obtain booze.  The sight of the group of drunks bothered some of the rest of the crowd.  Only time would tell how and why the drinking at the party affected certain other members of my own close group.

LEE LUNCH BUNCH

CLASSES OF ’64, ’65, ‘66

Thursday, May 26, 2022

11:00 AM

Logan’s Roadhouse

Balmoral Dr.  Huntsville, AL

We’re back!!!

Hello friends!

Well, it has been a long couple of years since we were last together for one of our fun lunches. Bad old Covid just messed up lots of plans for all of us these last couple of years, but now it is time for us to get out and get together. I know that this is a month later than our usual spring lunch and also very short notice, but it is the best that I could do for this time. I really do hope that many of you will be free to come and join us in a couple of weeks so we can catch up on what has been happening in your lives these last couple of years while we were in confinement eating junk food, watching Netflix, eating junk food, getting to know those in our immediate household REALLY well, eating junk food, etc.

Please do let us know if you plan to come as I will need to let Logan’s know by the day before. As usual, we will meet in the fireplace room/garage room. See you!

Patsy Hughes Oldroyd ’65   C (256)431-3396 call, text, or FB

Judy Fedrowisch Kincaid ’66  C (256)656-3667 call, text, or FB

We only had four classmates who responded to my survey of who married their senior prom date.

Jimmy Troupe, LHS '66 married Sandra Jerone Escue, his senior prom date.

Gary W Hatcher, LHS '66 married Sharon Pickett and are still together after 54 years.

(No Name Given), LHS '65 attended the '65 prom with Ed Cattadoris who she later married.

Joyce Whitlock Reiling, LHS '66, attended the prom with Tim Reiling and they were married for six years, divorced for 16 and then remarried and have been married for  34 years this New Year's Eve.

I hope you can make plans to attend this week's Lee Lunch Bunch. I would love to attend but some family graduation plans will prevent me from doing so.

This Week's Questions, Answers, Comments

Brooks F. Glover, Jr.,  LHS ‘64, "I plan to attend the luncheon."

Photographic Memories - Who Are They?

Each week I plan to 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.

The Kingsmen - Louie Louie

Once it was released, this song became a regular at most parties in1963-64. During a survey done 20 or so years ago, it was found that most members of the Class of '64 thought of it as their class song. Many copies of the perceived "dirty" lyrics were passed around in the classrooms of Lee, as I remember.

The Kingsmen is a 1960s garage rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States. They are best known for their 1963 recording of R&B singer Richard Berry's "Louie Louie", which held the No. 2 spot on the Billboard charts for six weeks and has become an enduring classic. In total, the Kingsmen charted 13 singles from 1963 to 1968 and five consecutive albums from 1963 to 1966. 

For "Louie Louie" Jack Ely was forced to lean back and sing to a microphone suspended from the ceiling. "It was more yelling than singing", Ely said, "'cause I was trying to be heard over all the instruments." In addition, he was wearing braces at the time of the performance, further compounding his infamously slurred words. Ely sang the beginning of the third verse two bars too early but realized his mistake and waited for the rest of the band to catch up. 

The band attracted nationwide attention when "Louie Louie" was banned by the governor of Indiana, Matthew E. Welsh, also attracting the attention of the FBI because of alleged indecent lyrics in their version of the song. The lyrics were, in fact, innocent, but Ely's baffling enunciation permitted teenage fans and concerned parents alike to imagine the most scandalous obscenities. (Ironically, the FBI totally missed Lynn Easton yelling "Fuck!" at 0:54 after fumbling a drum fill.) All of this attention only made the song more popular.