An Old Teenager's Top Ten List For You

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

Editor's Comments: Following up with the computer problems I have had this week, I started looking at some of the things I have backed up on some of the many external drives in my possession. In doing so, I came upon the following text. Based upon where it was stored and the file type in which it was stored, I cannot recall for positive if I ever actually printed it in a previous version of Lee’s Traveller or not. Even if I did it was written in 2015, so this will be like watching an old movie you saw many years ago. I hope you find it interesting.

One feature which keeps popping up on Facebook is someone posts a question about whether or not someone remembers a certain place from their past. A recent posting got me to thinking about just how many places which were major factors in my life no longer exists. 

I could spend many hours elaborating on the places which come to my mind, but I have elected to challenge myself to come up with the top 10 places which meant the most to me in my maturity from a child to a high school graduate.

It is not easy to list them in order, because there are so many reasons some of the places are important in a different way than some of the others. It is also not easy to list only 10, and I will not promise I will not continue this series of memories sometime in the future.

It is very sad to accept the physical absence of these structures of my past life. There is no way to calculate how many hours were spent as a patron of these establishments. It is sadder to know I can never take anyone on a tour of my hometown and show them the historic significance of them in my life. I can picture it now, driving around town and with each stop saying “This is where (fill in the blank) used to be. I used to love coming here.”

I will make only a short statement about each facility at this time, and later when I run out of things to write about some weeks, I might revisit each one with a more in-depth reflection. I have to remember that not all of you have read either my “A Million Tomorrows…Memories of the Class of ‘64” or “When Our Hearts Were Young – 50 Years Ago Today,” in which I gave more information on the historical significance of many places on my list. I also wrote about many of them and included comments from many of you in "The Baby Boomer's Guide to Growing Up in The Rocket City." All of those books are available in print or ebook form from Amazon.

So, here goes:

1. Carter’s Skateland - Carter's holds the number one spot in my heart because it was where I first began interacting with members of the opposite sex. Had it not been for the social protocols of learning to ask girls to skate and physically touching them while doing so, I do not know where I would have learned these social skills.

2. Lee High School (the one on Forrest Circle) - This building had many influences besides the obvious one of education. I became my own person here, made my own friends, and participated in activities that would have major impacts on decisions I made later in my life - such as publishing this web newspaper.

3. Bradley’s Cafeteria - It was not the food that made this place important to me; it was the Friday and Saturday night dances - guaranteed to provide me with alternating bouts of falling in love and getting my heart broken, all to the tunes of Jerry Brewer's drums.

4. The Lyric Theatre - One of the first places I was allowed to exercise a personal freedom, void of supervision by parents and filled with days of popcorn, cheap candy, and six-shooters and vicious monsters.

5. Jerry’s Drive-In - Though I rarely entered the physical structure, I spent many hours sitting in one of their drive-in parking spots watching my many friends drive past me in countless loops of "Cruising the Parkway."

6. Shoney’s Drive-In - The Northern turn spot for the loop connecting #5 above with exactly the same activities as the aforementioned.

7. Woody’s Drive-In - Though Carter's and Bradley's gave me the opportunity to get to know girls, Woody's gave me a place to expand my interaction to levels of memorable moments.

8. Zesto’s - This is one place I miss for gastronomic reasons only. I expanded no social skills eating their Dip Dogs, but cannot say the same about my waistline.

9. Mullin’s Cafe (on Stephens) - Mullin's Cafe was home to good food, and the new place tried to continue that tradition as best as it could. For me, it was not the food they served, but the social interaction of going there after school with friends and with dates when possible. It is also where I interacted with Bob Walker, a carhop there and my best friend from high school.

10. The Grand News Stand - This place took me from candy bars to comic books to model airplanes and Playboy magazines. Although I never bought a Playboy there in my life and my exposure to the airbrushed naked ladies came from pretending to read a comic book and looking over the shoulders of adult readers in the same fashion as one cheats on a history exam by glancing at the answers of the person in the desk beside you.

The Wayback Machine

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

I asked The Wayback Machine to play something from 1958 and this is what came up. 

"Don't" is a song recorded by Elvis Presley and released in 1958. It was Presley's eleventh number-one hit in the United States. "Don't" also peaked at number four on the R&B charts. Billboard ranked the ballad as the No. 3 song for 1958.

Editor's Comments: I am not sure I ever tried to analyze this song as a 12-year-old in 1958.  At the time I had never experienced a situation where a girl would have to say "Don't" to me - at least not in a romantic setting. I was in the seventh grade at Huntsville Junior High and still a few years ahead of a time when I would be involved with girls. I know I had never kissed a girl and the closest I had to a date was going to a movie with one of my cousins named Brenda. We did not even hold hands.

On my first real date, I really think the girl I was with would rather have said "Do" rather than "Don't" for the most interaction I had with her was holding hands in the last five minutes of our encounter. I was terribly shy, and although we went parking and sat in the back seat for almost an hour while the couple in front of us was making out heavily, I sat silently in my seat, hugging the door beside me and barely speaking.

Now, as a senior citizen, I listen to the words and wonder exactly what Elvis was trying to do that made his partner want to say "Don't." I can think back to some later days in my dating life when I did hear that word, if not orally at least physically. Kids grow up and try new things, don't they?

Perhaps we need to just enjoy the tune and the melody and not try to analyze the background of the song.

Knowing how much of a problem technology can sometimes be, I have been very serious when it comes to how much I depend upon computers in my life.  I have backups of backups of data I store on my hard drive. I keep valuable data of my military life, my high school life, and the items I create in my hobby jobs. And although I keep my data safe, I still have a vulnerability of something happening to my hardware itself. Such is the case I encountered last Thursday - I plugged a device into my USB port and my computer shut down, never to start up again - at least not yet. 

I have two laptops that still work along with a couple of iPads that I can use to browse the internet check my mail, and create this week's Traveller, but that is not the same as my desktop's power and storage ability.

So, my desktop is in the shop awaiting a diagnostic about whether or not it can be revived, and I sit here with my fingers crossed. I would love to have a faster system since my current one is a few years old, but the idea of having to reinstall all my programs and get back to the state in which I was working scares me to death.

So, until then I will have to work on this slower laptop and wait to see what the future holds for me.

On a different thought, look at my list of Top 10 and see if you have some changes you would make for your own personal list. You can use the Comments form below and let me know. You might say "Drop number 3 and add XXX." It would be fun to compare notes.

You Got Me To Thinking 

Merideth Susan Simms

LHS '65

Here’s a picture from the 6th grade in  East Clinton. It was taken at one of the events at Big Spring Park – most likely it was at the end-of-year picnic, or some such event.  I have no idea who took the picture!!

At one point, I thought it was John Drummond, but he said it wasn’t. I then thought it might be Ronnie Hendrix, but now I just do not know.

(Editor's Comment: Does anyone recognize this photo and know who the boy in it is, and who took the photo:

Last Week's Questions, Answers, 

And Comments

Jim King, LHS ‘67, "Tommy. Thank you for your work on the Traveller. Originally it was for the original three Lee classes, and it has become a blessing for all of us.  Remember, we are all the same age now."

Mary Ann Wallace, LHS ‘64, "Tommy I don't really remember the dance at the Community Center but I was in that swimming pool during my Jr. High & High School.  I took swimming lessons there and competed on the Huntsville swim team (home competition was at this pool).  I could catch the bus for a dime and walk to the park and swimming pool.  Many happy days there.  Thanks for the Memories."

Craig Bannecke, LHS ‘65, "The picture of the Big Spring Park swimming pool brought back a lot of memories I have as a young boy growing up in Huntsville.  

For so many summers Jim Harris and his brother Dean and sisters Nancy and Kay would all pile into the Harris's station wagon and Mrs Harris or one of the other mothers of friends who also would be going to the pool, would deliver us for the day at Big Spring Pool. We would each have a packed lunch and a quarter and would spend the entire summer day at the pool. 

Jim and I would often leave the pool and go over into the park and eat our brown bag lunch under the big trees and sometimes up in the trees.  We would then walk uptown and wander around the square and always go to my favorite store, the Army Navy Surplus store on the South side of the square. Bought many a Case pocket knife there with my grass-cutting money. Wish I now had back half the number of knives I'd bought and lost from that store.  

Mrs. Harris or again one of the other mothers, would always come pick us up around 4:00.  So we would be waiting down by the little train ride that was set up next to the canal from the Big Spring Lake. Often, if we had any money left, we would buy a bag of popcorn and stand along the canal and throw popcorn to the big carp that were ever present in the Big Spring Lake and canal. 

Can you imagine today taking your 8-12 year old children downtown and leaving them all day without any adult supervision? That was a different time and a safer time. 

Tommy, your story was about the Community Center and I can also remember going into the gym to shoot baskets if it was raining or if we didn't feel like hanging out in the pool any longer. However, as a teenager, I don't recall ever going down there for any dances. 

My last time at the Big Spring Pool was in 1968 when I was in college and was hired one summer as a lifeguard. Worked there for almost a month sitting on the hot lifeguard stands waiting to rotate around each hourly shift till I finally got to rotate and work in the cool shade of the Basket room. However, I left that job for one at a Stokley-Van Camp cannery in Columbus, Wisconsin. The pay was better and it sounded like going way up to Wisconsin for the summer to work would be a great adventure. Especially if you were from Alabama and George Wallace was running for President. That made for a very interesting experience and story but I will save that for another time."