School

I was not the most popular person in high school. In high school I tried to fit in with everyone. I had friends that were party animals. I could hang, even. I had friends that were as pure as the driven snow. Church was really the best place to have the most fun. Crazy, but one church outing I almost got in more trouble than in the back parking lot at school. The back parking lot in the mornings was a happening fun place, also. The smell and smoke looked like a Cheech and Chog movie. Up In SmokeThen there was Reed Springer’s Creek. This is north of Lexington. The water of the creek runs across the bridge. Then there was the Rock Crusher. This was not far from Reed Springer’s in appearance. The bridge was on the dirt road that circled around to an area enclosed by a small bluff. There had been many cars in there, so the grass was mashed flat from cars spinning around. It was a good place for the cars to do round houses. Round houses are not hard to do. I would even do them when I was sure there was nothing in the way for me to hit. What made these boys doing round houses dangerous was the luggage rack on the back. It was not just the rack of a Ford Cougar, but the fact that they rode the rack as Tommy did round houses; just to see if they could stay on. There were the drivers that could be trusted and the one's that could not handle a car enough to keep it between the ditches. Getting a girl to do the luggage rack ride was near impossible, unless she wanted to impress the driver; that and maybe a beer or two. I have seen one girl do it and stay on; the best thing is the driver took it easy on her. She still was considered that day a tough girl. Like it would really matter if she had of fallen off. The cool long haired boys were out there. There was a smell out there many mornings that was sure to smell up your clothes. I was so scared that they were coming to get me, that I learned my lesson that day. Umm, I think that is a line in a song. "I learned my lesson that day."~~~not sure who

Another Quote "That's them Bubba; there right behind us and are going to get us."~~~Paranoid friend of a friend

Peer pressure may be my excuse, for sure if a cute long haired, jean wearing teen-age boy handed it to me. I was afraid it could be smelled on my clothes. Mr. Green would have never believed that I had done such a thing. Oh, well maybe he would have. He was one of my favorite teachers; Never mind what my daddy would have done, OMG. Let's forget that he frequented the local bootleggers; which were not the most legal things in North Alabama. He hated pot, because of a dude that poured concrete with them. In the early seventies, the work for construction was in Nashville. That even ran out as the seventies came to an end. The largest job that my uncle's business, Bama Concrete, could find was swimming pools in Jackson Mississippi. This meant that the crew left on Sunday afternoon and stayed all the week in hotels. His hate of pot came from a younger co-worker coming in one night, taking off his John Travolta high heeled shoe and beating the shit out of Daddy. He wanted to not blame the beating on the younger man being drunk or just mean; he blamed it on a pot trip. Yeah, tripping on marijuana; taking a trip and never leaving the farm. Smoking, cigarettes just a couple of years earlier was accepted for students. This had ended by the time I started circling the halls of the High school building. There was even a smoking alley for students that smoked. The smoking alley was in the center of the old high school building. They were a lot cheaper way back then, too. I would walk to Edgar Newton’s Store and buy them for Mama; they were forty-five cents a pack. The building had a hallway that went in a circle. Walking around the hall at break was where much of the daily socializing took place. Your best friends walked together. Four was usually the number of girls that I walked with. While you were walking if a cute boy slapped your hand, it made your day. The seventh grade was the grade that students experienced the first year of the walking around and around this hall. Seventh grade girls loved it because they finally got to admire the cute boys that were older. Lexington had some hottest. Mike C.and Jeff B. were the cutest, to me. James H, hated my guts, because I liked him. He was really mean to me; when someone gave him a note that I had written to my friend. In the note I said I liked him. He said we dropped the note on purpose. My bested friend had strange taste in her boys. She fell for David Putman. She thought he looked like Starsky of the popular show, Starsky and Hutch. It really does not matter now; or did it matter right after we graduated. I was part of the class of 1979. Lexington High school is considered to be one of the best in the entire, United States. I have recently, via Face book, reconnected with many of my high school classmates. I am intentionally not saying friends, because many of the 1979 class that has reached out were really not my hanging buds. I actually in the sixth grade tried to bribe one of the popular girls to be my friend. I didn't try to bribe her with money; I asked her to be my friend. Years after we graduated, I actually can say she became a good friend of mine. High school really does not define the people we become. I usually did not have three cents to by cookies in Mrs. Owens class. Kim always had extra money and usually bought my chocolate milk and cookies. Maybe I should send her a check now? That would totally surprise her. I could write a note and say this is for all the cookies and milk you bought me in the third grade. My cousin was in the same class as me and always watched everything that I ordered for confections. If I got a coke and chips, he would go home and tell our grandmother that somehow I had money for that. There were not those many times that I did get a coke and chips. It shames me now to admit that I took the money out of Daddy's pockets while he was; for a better word sleeping on the couch. A coke was 10 cents, because the bottles were collected covering the 3 cent redemption of the bottle. Confections and the morning cookies were easily bought with forty cents. Lunch was thirty cents. We could have gotten free lunch because daddy did not work that much. We lived with my grandmother and she bought our lunch tickets. If you were on free lunches the tickets were yellow. If you did not have the white ticket, everyone knew you were getting free lunches. I told Grandmother that I did not want other kids to know, so she just paid for our lunches. This was really a nice thing for her, because she really never did want to spend any money she did not have to. There were times that I know that Daddy could spare a bottle and buy us a three dollar lunch ticket. The seventies were a great time to gather lots of things. The music was the greatest. Boys with long hair were cute then and they are now, since it has come back. The turned up bangs now are great. The clothes are even back. I had a cousin that gave me the best hand-me-downs ever. Tee shirts with butterflies, bell bottom jeans, and short dresses made it better for me to fit in. Thanks, Paula for the great stuff you gave me.

"The wonderful thing about storytelling is you don't have to be perfect," ~~Katherine Tucker Windham

"It's OK if you make a mistake. The audience doesn't mind that a bit."~~Katherine Tucker Windham

Up In Smoke