My Top 10 “Hangouts” 

From Lee High and Other Times in Huntsville

James Ballard

LHS '67

Tommy...I'm sending you my "top 10" list of places my displaced Yankee friends and I often frequented, mostly out of sheer boredom...but we...uh...made up for it. In spades...J.B.

1) Monte Sano … (Hispanic for “Mountain of Health”…Most apropos for myself and friends…) Several options on the “mountain”, even though good ole Mt. Sano is hardly more than an overrated hill…Monte Sano gave us all the impression that, at least for the moment, we were ESCAPING Huntsville! 

2) “Lyric” & “Martin” theatres…I was always astounded when the Martin theater carried great “worldly” films, like Fellini’s “Spirits of the Dead” and “La Doce Vita”…Although way behind the 8 ball on “La Dolce Vita” (which was released in 1960), I was stunned to see “Spirits of the Dead” when it showed about the same time it was released (Summer of ’69). 

3) Shoney’s…Yep, like hundreds of other high skool fools, we “buzzed” Shoney’s countless times…The food was actually good there too !...Why the restaurant eventually gave up on Huntsville and moved itself to Fayetteville, TN,  I can hardly guess, unless it was purely “political”… They never hurt for business, as I recall.

4) All the “Drive-In” theatres…My friends & I would’ve gone INSANE (…OK, more insane…) without the movies. 

5) Zestos…Frequented in both my early days (and later days) in Huntsville, when I attended East Clinton Elementary…(”Yer awl-rite Rickey, but you shure do tawlk funnee”)…very memorable days, no doubt. We liked the Zestos milkshakes…Real ice cream ! 

6) “The Mall”… (off Memorial/University)…Not Huntsville’s first Mall, but it was the best (completely indoor)  “Mall” we had. And was actually named “The Mall”…sadly gone now, due to mismanagement and poor maintenance. 

7) Peggy Ann Bakery…from the 50s through the 60s…and a bit too frequently now… 

8) Andans Newsstand (at Parkway City Shopping Center) …Everything, almost every major newspaper, magazine…from my early years in Huntsville. 

9) Wooddale Dr. (off Bankhead)…Sorry…too personal… 

10) Lee High Skool…Not a whole lot of choices we had there, as it was compulsory for all of us. Not a whole lot of what teachers called “education” there either, by our own humble estimate!...Right. 

The Wayback Machine

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

This week I took control of The Wayback Machine to get a song which matches the theme of the last couple of issues. Although this was not released while we were at Lee, it is befitting our age today. 

"Times of Your Life" is a popular song and advertising jingle made famous in the 1970s by Canadian singer Paul Anka, who recorded it in 1975 for an album of the same title.

Kodak created an advertising campaign in 1975 that featured Anka singing a jingle entitled "Times of Your Life". While the tune was being heard across the United States in a commercial, Anka decided to record and release it as a single in late 1975. The song became a hit in the U.S., reaching number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1976 and remaining in the Top 40 for 12 weeks.

The previous month, "Times of Your Life" had spent one week atop the Billboard easy listening (adult contemporary) chart, Anka's only recording to do so. It was Anka's twelfth and final Billboard Top Ten hit.

Still on time but released a little later than previously. My primary computer is still down and so I am still working on my laptop. Was gone all weekend on a reunion at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio for those who were assigned to U-Tapao AB, in Thailand. Different group than the Lee Alumni, but still a nice time to catch up with old times.