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Thomas "Tommy" Maurice Fisk
LHS '65
April 5, 1947 - December 22, 2014
Thomas Fisk, 67, of Gainesville, Ga., passed away on Dec. 22, 2014, following an extended illness.
Born in Huntsville, Ala., on April 5, 1947, he was the son of the late Walter and Lorene Fiske. Mr. Fisk was retired from Northeast Georgia Medical Center and had lived in Gainesville for the past 26 years. He was a member of Gainesville First United Methodist Church.
In addition to his parents, he is preceded in death by his brother, Benjamin Fiske and sister, Mary Ann Kirkland. Mr. Fisk is survived by his wife Maria Mayfield Fisk of Gainesville; daughters, Anna Katherine Fisk of Gainesville, Jennifer Caldwell and fiancé Colin Sito of Greenwood, S.C.; grandson, Mason Sito of Greenwood, S.C.; mother-in-law, Sylvia Mayfield of Gainesville; and numerous nieces; nephews; great-nieces; and great-nephews.
Funeral Services will be held at First united Methodist Church. Dr. Terry Walton will officiate. Interment will be in Alta Vista Cemetery. Those wishing to leave online condolences may do so at littledavenport.com
Remembering Tommy Fisk
by Dink Hollingsworth
LHS '65
Tommy Fisk and his date Camile Sumner triple dated to the 1965 Senior Prom. In the first picture Tommy and Camile are in the back seat with Marty (Fincher) and me in the front. We met Mike Garrision and Paula Patterson at a restaurant. After the prom the six of us came to my house, changed clothes and stayed together the rest of the night. The second picture is Tommy, Camile and me. The third picture is Marty Fincher and Paula Patterson (Hazel Green) who married Mike Garrison.
Mike, Paula and now Tommy have passed away and are still missed.
The Lost World and Other
Memorial Moments of the Ninth Grade
by Tommy Towery
LHS '65
This week I continue with the next three of my nine memorable moments of the ninth grade at Lee Jr. High School.
4. Disclaimer: Remember, this was seen through the eyes of a 14 year old boy. Some of you might find this inappropriate, but in light of the times it happened and the ages of those involved, I hope you do not find it too offensive.
Incident number four entails a girl named Gloria and her interaction with several boys in a class we shared. Now I remember Gloria’s last name but shall not reveal it for reasons you will soon understand. Gloria was in my science class in the ninth grade, but she moved away the next year and did not graduate from Lee with the r est of us.
I do not know the statute of limitations for juvenile inappropriate deeds , nor do I know if any offence actually occurs if the victim is a somewhat willing participant in an act. I do know the offenders were 14 when this happened and were minors so I do not believe they can be held accountable today for any wrong doing which happened over 50 years ago. Still, I will omit the names of the participants because I am convinced everything was done in fun, though some may disagree.
Even though this was an innocent time in our lives, we were all starting to mature, and Gloria was beginning to mature much faster than many of her fellow junior high female classmates. I do not know the thoughts of a girl, but it appeared to me she was proud of what was happening to her body and began wearing clothes which seemed to emphasize her maturing female qualities. Several of the boys in the class also began taking notice of the maturing of Gloria. The clothing she wore drew attention to the exposed cleavage she sported and said cleavage became the target for wads of paper tossed toward this area of her body. I do not know who started it but eventually several boys began to see how good they could get in hitting said cleavage with the paper balls. These were not spitballs, moistened by putting them in their mouths, but just rolled up wads of paper, and a couple of guys took advantage of multiple opportunities of dead time in the class to practice their marksmanship.
The odd thing of this memory is the notion Gloria never seemed to get mad about the bombardment of her cleavage with these paper missiles, but seemed to teasingly play along in the game, often smiling at the person making the shot with a sheepishly blushing look. She did not alter her daily wardrobe as a way to put an end to the opportunity to continue in their activities. Today, this would be the source of a sexual harassment charge and probably result in the offenders being expelled I am sure, but in those days we had no idea it was really any big deal. Again, if she played along with the game, how would anyone know they were doing anything socially inappropriate? Based upon today’s standards, I find myself trying to remember if my memories of the event are jaded, but I know it happened many times over many days and it was never reported to any higher authority or even brought to Mr. Blackburn’s attention. Based upon that, I have to think my memories are correct.
Again, I am a male and have never been the subject of such sexual advances, but if you are a female who might have been the target at this tender age of similar actions and see no humor in this incident, I fully understand.
It is hard to believe, or to justify, it was all innocent fun, especially in light of the sexual revolution we have all endured since those days.
5. My number five memory also involves a cute girl – actually one I considered a beautiful girl for a ninth grader. Linda Pell was in my English class, but I knew her long before starting at Lee from her being a regular fixture at Carter’s Skateland. At the time I think she dated Gene Bailes, a friend of my brother’s. Linda also did not graduate with our class, but as I said, she was one of the most attractive girls in the whole ninth grade at Lee Jr. High.
As earlier noted, my home room teacher was Mrs. Parks. I do not know why she took to me as much as she did, but I found myself in a position where I was as close to being a teacher’s pet as I had ever been. I believe the first thing she liked about me was my poetry and my sense of humor. Not only was she my homeroom and typing teacher, she was also my English teacher. When our assignment was to write a parody of a poem, I came up with “I Must Go Down to the Pond Again” as my version of “Sea Fever” by John Masefield. Mrs. Parks took great delight in my creative work and from that moment on I felt as if I was her favorite student, and I know she became my favorite teacher.
I cannot recall the name of the play, but during one part of the English curriculum near the end of the ninth grade year our English literature class assignment was to study this play. Mrs. Parks picked out who would read which parts of the play and I was selected for the lead male role and she picked Linda for the lead female role. I don’t remember the plot even, but my role was a fairy tale prince type character. It was going to take several class periods for us to do the complete play, and we only did it in the classroom for our one class. There were no costumes or props, and we did not have to memorize any of the lines, but read them as we acted out the scenes while we read along.
The night I was assigned my role I sat up late reading the play to see what lay ahead of me. My mouth dropped open when I got to the end and read that the prince kissed the leading lady. What? Me kiss Linda Pell? In front of the whole class! I think I worried about what I was going to do for a week, trying to decide how I was going to accomplish that. I was a late bloomer and a very, very shy person and the idea of kissing a girl, especially her, kept me awake at night. As we worked through the scenes of the play I was barely conscious of the present moment and my mind was focused on the upcoming scene where I had to kiss Linda. Now Linda and I never rehearsed or even spoke of the kissing scene, but I did seek advice from Mrs. Parks about whether or not I was really supposed to kiss her. Seeing how uncomfortable I was with the situation she only made it worse by saying “Of course you kiss her.”
Up to the final second of the scene I had no idea what I was going to do, kiss her a real kiss on the lips or what. My problem was solved by Linda as I moved in to kiss her and she turned her head to allow me to kiss her on the cheek. My disappointment of not getting to kiss a beautiful girl was over powered by the relief of the final solution being made by her and not by me. It was truly a memorable moment for me in the ninth year of my education.
6. My number six moment also took place in my English class, only I was only an observer for this one. We all remember the requirements of reading books and doing book reports in our English studies. I think the book I selected for my report that year was “The Lost World” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The plot of the book was Professor Challenger leading an expedition of scientists and adventurers to a remote plateau deep in the Amazonian jungle to verify his claim dinosaurs still live there. The copy of the book I read was printed soon after the 1925 movie version of it had premiered and featured several black and white photos from the early black and white movie, including shots of the clay-motion dinosaurs fighting. A newer version of the movie was released in 1960 starring Michael Rennie and Jill St. John and prompted me to read the book even before I knew I had to do a book report.
There were probably 25-30 students in the class and each of us had to make an oral report on the book we read. Another classmate, who I remember being Jerry Schultz, also selected “The Lost World” as the subject of his presentation, but rather than speaking about the book version which he had not read, his report was based solely upon the movie’s plot, which was nowhere near the plot in the book. It was obvious to me what he was doing and I could not believe Mrs. Parks was so naive she did not know herself. It was all I could do to keep from speaking up myself, but I kept quiet while his report continued, following the movie plot scene by scene. I remember one point where he told how one of the dinosaurs stepped on a man trying to run away from it. When Mrs. Parks asked Jerry if the man died when he was stepped on by the dinosaur, he replied “slightly.” We all laughed at his response. He got a passing grade for his report, and it took me a long time to realize he did so because of his creative effort rather than for actually reading a book. I was starting to see why Mrs. Parks was so well liked by most of her students.
If you want to see the entire 1925 version of The Lost World, click on this link: https://archive.org/details/lost_world_ACM
Next Week, the final three moments.
7. A Night to Remember.
8. Lima Beans.
9. Being choked to unconsciousness by a classmate.
To Be Continued
Memphis, TN - It is regrettable we lost another classmate over the holidays. Next issue will feature a tribute to all the classmates we have lost during 2014.
As for me, it has been a good year and I am once again enjoying sharing my memories with the rest of you with a renewed excitement and hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do recalling and writing them.
I hope all of you will be careful and enjoy the rest of the holidays so you can be with us when the Class of '65 sponsors their 50th reunion later in 2015.
From Our Mailbox
Subject: Memories
Polly Gurley Redd
LHS '66
Thanks for all you do for the Fami-Lee. Your journals and willingness to share from them has stood us all in good stead. Most recently I was reminded of the trip into the back of T.T.Terry’s for books which I had totally forgotten, and by the girls’ “deportment” class in the Auditorium that showed us all how to sit properly. I hadn’t thought about Mr. Jones or Mr. Fain until this past issue. Thank you, and blessings for a great 2015.
Subject: Bobby Hoppes
Tim Lull
I was looking through some of my OLD pictures and thought you might be able to do something with this.
I was a freshman in the fall of 1967 at Mississippi State. I was hitchhiking from Starkville to Huntsville. My trip took me through downtown Birmingham. As I was passing the old bus station I ran into former Lee classmate, Bobby Hoppes. I have no memory of his 'story' about why he was there sorry.
I have not seen or heard from him since. I hope this pic will work into something for you.
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