Lee Lunch Bunch History Recalled

Patsy Hughes Oldroyd

LHS ‘65

“We are FamiLee”!

I started the Lee Lunch Bunch (LLB) 16 years ago for the Classes of ’64 -’66, soon after our Lee High School's class reunion in 2010. It was originally just for a group of us girls from those classes and we called it the Lee Ladies Lunch Bunch. I decided to organize the group because it was a long five years between reunions, and we were already losing many former classmates during that span of years. Also, we just enjoyed meeting for lunch and visiting with one another to catch up on what was going on in each other’s lives.

Not very long after our ladies’ group formed, a few of the guys from our classes at Lee inquired about our group and showed an interest in joining us. So, the guys in our same Classes of ’64 -’66 were invited to join us. Their presence did not really change the dynamics of our group since most of the guys sat together and the girls sat together to eat and chat.

Early on Judy Fedrowisch Kincaid started helping me get us together for what had become the Lee Lunch Bunch. She actually was helping me while we were still the Lee Ladies Lunch Bunch. We originally set lunch dates for Spring, Fall, and during the Christmas season. Christmas was a fun time to gather since many were home for the holidays to visit family. After several years though, the Christmas lunch became too difficult for some who needed or wanted to be home during that time - especially the ones who lived out of town. We reluctantly decided to forego that date. Our group has always maintained the Spring and Fall lunches with good attendance. At times our group could be up to around 50 of us. That later became an issue with restaurants willing to welcome us with that many in attendance, especially since we never had to pay for a private space to meet and eat. Through these 16 years, we have met at Mullins, O’Charley’s, Gibson’s, Logan’s Roadhouse, and Carabba’s, all in Huntsville. A few times I was in a bit of a dilemma when the restaurant we had been using would suddenly decide that we had too many people for their available space or that they decided to charge a fee for the use of their space. It was just luck that we always seemed to have a place to gather each time. Of course, I may have given an incorrect number of expected guests of five to ten people a time or two. We still lucked out and had a place for our lunch every Spring and Fall.

We still have very good attendance at these little “mini reunions” of our three classes every time. It is amazing how many come long distances, even from out of state, to join the group for such a short visit. We pick up right where we left off the last time we saw each other. We talk nonstop while together about our family, our grandchildren, our aches and pains, and our losses of dear ones. We are all about to be or are already 80 years old. We are so blessed to still be up and moving around. The Lee Lunch Bunch will go on for as long as we have members of our wonderful Classes of ’64 -’66 who are still able to attend.

To any from our classes that have never gotten to join us, please do try to come. I always get Tommy to put the reminder in The Traveller about one month ahead so everyone can save the date. Lunch is always in April and October and usually the third Thursday of the month. Just call or text Judy or me - Judy ’66 (256) 656-3667, Patsy ’65 (256) 431-3396.

My thanks to Judy Fedrowisch Kincaid for always being available and willing to help get every lunch date organized, reservations made, and helping to keep up with RSVP’s for the restaurant. My thanks to all of our LLB group for joining the Spring and Fall lunches so faithfully. I look forward to this time together and hope you do too.

It has been my privilege and pleasure to keep this group going for our time together to reminisce and also to catch up on what is happening in each other’s present lives. You wouldn’t believe what some in our group are still able to do!

LEE LUNCH BUNCH

Classes of ‘64, ‘65, ‘66

Logan’s Roadhouse

Thursday, April 23, 2026

11:00 am

Thanks to the efforts of Judy Fedrowisch Kincaid and Ken Martz, we now have a reservation at Logan’s Roadhouse, one of our favorite restaurants for this group.

As we begin our sixteenth year of LLB, it has become apparent to most of us just how quickly the years are passing and most painfully as we lose our dear old friends and classmates. With that being said, I urge you all to make every effort to come, have a good lunch, and enjoy a little time with dear old friends. Hope to see you in April.

Patsy Hughes Oldroyd ’65 (256) 431-3396

patsykeith2025@outlook.com   

Judy Fedrowisch Kincaid ’66 (256) 656-3667

The Wayback Machine

"Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots"

The Cheers

1955

(Editor's Note: While we were on the subject of "boots", I remembered a song I used to like way before my Lee days. I'm not sure why, because I was never a motorcycle type person, but I always remember the chorous of this song, and it features boots. It's a theme later followed with The Shangri-Las's "Leader of the Pack.")

"Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" is a song by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded by The Cheers, it went to #6 on Billboard's Best Seller and Jockey charts in the fall of 1955, becoming Leiber and Stoller's first top-ten pop hit. Veteran performer Vaughn Monroe covered the record, going to #38 on the Billboard charts. The song also rose to a top-10 chart appearance on the Cash Box chart (which counted songs, not records, and thus counted all cover versions of a song as one). In 1956, French chanteuse Edith Piaf recorded a French translation of the song titled "L'Homme à la moto," which became one of her biggest selling singles.

The song tells the story of a motorcycle rider, described as "the terror of Highway 101," and his loyal but oft-neglected girlfriend Mary Lou. In the song she pleads with him not to ride one night: "I've got a feeling if you ride tonight I'll grieve" she tells him, but he ignores her and "hit a screamin' diesel that was California bound." When investigators arrive at the scene of the collision, they find no trace of the motorcycle or rider except for his clothes. Featuring a catchy tune and the chorus of "He wore black denim trousers and motorcycle boots and a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back," the song was the second big hit for the Cheers, after "Bazoom (I Need Your Lovin')." It was also the first song to chart about motorcycles and the "new" motorcyclists, earning it the reputation as the first biker song. Its popularity coincided with the death of teen idol James Dean in an automobile crash in the week following the record's release, and the disappearance and presumed death of the song's subject made the song an important forerunner of the teenage tragedy song phenomenon that emerged in the early 1960s.

The sound of a bell warning of an oncoming train at a railroad crossing can be heard in the song's middle and end.

Dennis Overcash, LHS '66, "Tommy you said you didn't have a masthead for the Traveller from '65-'66.   I knew I had one copy of the paper in a box I carried around for years (mostly college and military social related) but when I checked it, it was the last edition for school year 1965-1966 and did not have a masthead. It was 100% the class prophecy with a usually comic prophecy for everyone graduating. However I did find one edition to my surprise that I kept for unknown reasons from November, 1965.  Here is a copy of the '65-'66 staff."

Traveller Boots Article From November 23, 1965

I find it very ironic that the week after we brought up the subject of "boots" it came up again. Dennis Overcash, LHS '66, found a copy of the 1965-66 class's Lee's Traveller and submitted it to show the masthead from that year. When I was looking through the pages, I found this article written by an unknown reporter about "boots" and shoes that were in fashion that year.

The Boots That Walked Through Our Memories

Willard Finkbinder

If you flip back through the old issues of Lee’s Traveller, you’ll notice something funny: every few years, the word boots marches its way into our pages like an old friend showing up at the reunion picnic. Not always the same boots, of course — sometimes they belonged to a classmate, sometimes to a song on the radio, and sometimes to the memories that refuse to stay quiet.

The earliest mention came from a Class of ’65 memory piece about winter mornings on Meridian Street. One writer recalled the sound of combat boots clomping down the hallway — not because anyone was trying to look tough, but because the surplus store sold them cheaper than Keds. “They were heavy,” he wrote, “but they made you feel like you could walk through anything.”

Years later, another issue featured a story from a former majorette who confessed that her white go‑go dance boots were two sizes too small, but she wore them anyway because they made her feel like Nancy Sinatra. She said she could still hear the click‑click‑click of those heels echoing off the gym floor during pep rallies.

Then came the reunion years, when boots took on a different meaning. One classmate wrote about the work boots he wore for 40 years at Redstone Arsenal — scuffed, steel‑toed, and still dusty with the red clay of Huntsville. Another shared a photo of the cowboy boots he bought on a whim during a mid‑life crisis trip to Nashville. “They didn’t fix anything,” he wrote, “but they sure made me feel better for a while.”

And of course, there was the issue where someone joked that the Lee Lunch Bunch should be renamed the Boots Brigade, because half the group showed up wearing orthopedic boots after various surgeries. That one got more laughs than any story that year — mostly because it was true.

Looking back, it’s funny how something as simple as boots can stitch together so many decades of our lives. They carried us through high school hallways, across parade fields, into first jobs, through heartbreaks, and finally back to each other at reunions.

Maybe that’s why they keep showing up in the newsletter.

Maybe boots are just another way of saying: "We’re still walking. We’re still here. And we’re still part of each other’s story."

Barb Biggs Knott, LHS ‘66, sent in this photo back in July of 2020. Back then she wrote, "I am attaching proof of my go-go boots. Photo was taken right after my wedding in December of 1969. John and I celebrated 50 years this past December."

Jim Bannister, LHS '66, "Tommy, attached is a photo of me in my first pair of boots."

We need some more boots photos. Look around and see what you have you can share with your classmates.

I hope some of you will take photos at the Lee Lunch Bunch and share them with your classmates as well.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

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

Sally Stroud, LHS ‘65, "Tommy, I graduated in '65 not '64 as was listed in last week's issue. (Now Corrected.)"