Should Auld Acquantance Be Forgot

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

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.

My daughter 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? 

The Wayback Machine

"Auld Lang Syne"

The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin

"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish song. In the English-speaking world it is traditionally sung to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. It is also often heard at funerals and graduations and as a farewell or ending to other occasions; for instance, many branches of the Scouting movement use it to close jamborees and other functions.

The song begins by posing a rhetorical question: Is it right for old times to be forgotten? The answer is generally interpreted as a call to remember long-standing friendships.

The text is a Scots-language poem written by Robert Burns in 1788, but based on an older Scottish folk song. In 1799 it was set to a traditional pentatonic tune, which has since become standard. "Auld Lang Syne" is listed as numbers 6294 and 13892 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

Its Scots title may be translated into standard English as "old long since" or, less literally, "long long ago", "days gone by", "times long past" or "old times". Consequently, "For auld lang syne", as it appears in the first line of the chorus, might be loosely translated as "for the sake of old times". 

I open my heart to you this week as many would never do. In remembering the snowfall of  New Year's Eve of 1963, I show a side of myself which many of you might never have seen. I was an amazingly shy kid, but I had dreams. Many of the friends with which I shared my nights at Carter's Skateland are no long with us, but some precious few still remain. To them and the rest of you I wish a Happy New Year for 2026 with a prayer that we are all still here to celebrate 2027 as well.

Bus Trips

Craig Bannecke

LHS '65

Enjoyed reading your letter of the years activity.  Could not help but note the "Bus Trip" to New York. Back in 2016 we took a bus trip with Ionosphere Bus Tours by Kelly. They are out of Greenville, SC and are a wonderful family owned buisness, that is now owned by Kelly Tours. 

Our Trip to New York was just as you said. The bus had a bathroom, internet service and even showed movies. We went to all the same places and thoroughly enjoyed the trip. We then took a Christmas Trip to Nashville with them and stayed at the Gaylord Plaza an awesome place. WE spent a day on the Riverboat General Jackson which provided a wonderful dinner and show. That evening we went to the old Ryman Auditorium and saw a Christmas show by Vince Gill and his wife. 

Recently to celebrate Christmas we took an overnight Ionosphere Tour trip to Chatanooga to ride the Christmas dinner train. Wonderful experience as well. We have decided we need to start traveling with these folks again as they go to some great places. They are Christian based company with wonderful tour guide staff and they do everything for you. 

This year will be our 25th Anniversary !  And we have decided to celebrate by taking a bus tour with them again. They have one that goes up in the Fall to the New England area and we spoke to folks on the bus who have made that trip and they said it was awesome and beautiful.  

There is another that will take us to Brandson Missouri for a 6 day trip and we will see several shows and areas of interest going out and coming back. Since I don't see well enough to drive at night and the highways are so crowded this seems to be the best way for us to travel and we look forward to getting back on board. The people who take these trips are great folks and once you travel with them a few times you get to meet and know some regulars. On the Chattanooga trip there was a couple that had made 80 trips with Ionosphere !  

Don't think we will try and break their record but we plan to start making some of the trips in the future begining with our Anniversary Trip.  Take care and hope you and Sue have a wonderful 2026 and "250th Anniversary of our Nation."

God Bless, Craig & Jennifer

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

Dennis Overcash , LHS ‘66, "Folk music was my favorite in the 60s.

While in Massachusetts, I volunteered at the Museum of Science in downtown Boston and after my shift on Friday or Saturday, I and a couple of others would go to a nearby Boston Coffeehouse (a beatnick hangout) called "The Turks Head" and have expresso and hear the live folk music.  I was in the 14 to 16 year old range then. 

No one played there that was internationally famous but they were established individuals in the folk music scene.

 Of course the MTA song was among my favorites as the MTA was my main source of transport until moving to Alabama.  The two stations mentioned in the song were on my route to the museum.  They renamed Scollay Square to Government Center about 2 years after the song came out when they completely razed the Scollay Square area.

This came up on my phone in the comments section so I guess I never sent it in a timely manner and was saved by my system  "Thank you for keeping this newsletter going.  I'll share the where and when as I remember it now.  I was in homeroom before dismissal. If the announcement that he was dead came about 1:30 Dallas time we were hearing it at 2:30.  As I was in 10th grade in Waltham, Massachusetts (a Boston suberb) at the time it struck us all pretty hard since he was also from Massachusetts.  It just left us 15-16 year olds stunned.   A little later we were given an assignment to write about it. I wrote a 3 or 4 stanza poem.  That was my first and last attempt at poetry. The junior high I went to was renamed the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Junior High. "   

Dianne Hughey McClure, LHS ‘64, "Merry Christmas; hope all are well."

Delores McBride Kilgore, LHS '66 , "Thank you."