Our Year in Review

The world changed a lot during our time at Loudon High. I believe that we are able to get through this crazy world today because we cut our teeth on daily body counts, riots, protests, assassinations, and literally "out of this world" headlines from the moon, that sometimes the things that happen today are a walk in the park. I think to try to encapsulate it all would be a huge undertaking, but I am going to try and bring to mind some of the big headlines from our senior year.

First, we'll look back at September 1969, the first month of Senior year.

-- 4th Ho Chi Minh dies.
-- 6th The US formally recognizes Libya.
-- 9th An Israeli task force crossed the Gulf of Suez into Egypt.
-- 12th Nixon orders the resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam
-- 16th Nixon orders the withdrawal of 35,000 troops from Vietnam
-- 19th Nixon cuts the draft call-up by 50,000.
-- 20th The US tennis team retains the Davis Cup.
-- 21st Harvard opened a program of black studies.

Then, to get us back on track, here is October, 1969.

-- 1st The Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
-- 9th The National Guard are called up in Chicago to quell student riots.
-- 10th The New York Mets win the World Series.
-- 11th The heads of 79 colleges ask Nixon to speed up the withdrawal from Vietnam.
-- 13th Nixon vows not to be swayed by anti-war protests
-- 15th Congress votes to mint a new $1 coin to honor Eisenhower.
-- 18th Cyclamates are banned as a sweetner.
-- 21st Jack Kerouac dies.
-- 21st A spokesman for the Beatles says rumors of Paul’s death are “rubbish”, but fans everywhere still look for cryptic signs in songs and on album covers. (We got that carried away. Imagine how we would have been if we had the internet!)
-- 23rd Laboratory tests show that large quantities of monosodium glutamate produces brain damage in mice.
-- 23rd Cartier of New York pays a record $1.05 million for a diamond.
-- 25th 300 are dead as the PLO invades Lebanon.
-- 29th U. S. Supreme Court orders desegregation at once, superseding a previous “with all deliberate speed” ruling.

Never a Dull Moment

According to Mr. Newton, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”; so since last week I covered the gentle souls, this week I’m turning that coin over. The people listed below never let a place get dull. They always seemed to be in a very good mood and wanted everyone else to join in. They had the ability to makes us laugh loud and often.

Doug Adkins
Jennie Bright
Mike Delaney
Darlene Green
Eugene Henley
Barney Herrell
Jean Julian
Steve Knox
Mike Littleton
Pat Lowe
Allen McNabb
Donna Morgan
Becky Poole
Wayne Poole
Sylvia Robinson
Edward Watson
Tony Woody

Kind and Gentle Souls

I have always been a little rambunctious. I have my quiet moments, sometimes when everybody else is wired, but that doesn't happen too long or too often. Like my uncle used to say, if I kept quiet for 5 minutes the seat of my britches would blow out. :)

Anyway, I think everyone is that way. If they are loud and jovial, they are sometimes quiet, and if they are quiet and shy, they can sometimes be just the opposite. I think it's about 80% to 90% the dominant way and 10% to 20% the other way.

I also noticed that if I'm around one of the quiet ones, I'm quiet and little more than usual and they're more boisterous than usual. But I did enjoy being around the quiet ones, and if those of us who are loud can be called rough and rowdy, then the opposite in my view is kind and gentle.

I bet if you thought for a minute you could think of both types of people. Here are my kind and gentle souls.

Jimmy Barr
Janie Barrier
Bonnie Bivens
Kaye Collis
Joe Evans
Larry Faulkner
Kathey Guider
Peggy Hamilton
Beverly McCollough
Brenda McKee
Wayne McNabb
Rhonda Montooth
Brenda Nicholson
Gary Poe
Joe Russell
Carl Schrimpscher
Mike Stafford
Mary Thompson
Joe Watson

Like I said, maybe they weren't all the time, but they were around me.

AM Rock

I've probably already written most of this before but over on Facebook Tony and Daryl have gotten me going again and the memories just keep coming back. I've been listening to satellite radio for the past 6 or 7 years, partly because I hate DJs but mostly because I don't have to put up with the commercials. Anyway, they have entire channels dedicated to the music we listened to in high school and as much as I enjoy it I sometimes really miss the old AM radio stations we listened to.

I know, there was a lot of popping and crackling and static and fading in and out, but I do miss it. And even with all that bad stuff, you could tune them down to a hair's breadth and pull in almost any station you wanted to.

Early in the evening it was WNOX, but as it got later there was a ton of stations you could pull in, from WSM in Nashville to WLS in Chicago to KDKA in Pittsburgh. Baseball games from Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore and Atlanta after the Braves moved there.

Sure we had FM, we just didn't use it, or, at least not until I found the underground station from UT, or was it Maryville College? FM was the music they played in the doctor's office --- easy listening or MOR, (Middle of the Road, remember that term?)

Anyway, the Monkees, Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Who, 3 Dog Night-- and all others sounded so much better in a way when you had to strain just a little bit more to hear the words.

You Really Can't Go Back

Last week my son Christopher came home from college for the first time and couldn’t wait to get back to his old high school. He had only been away from town for 3 weeks, but he was more than a little excited to look the old place over; the center of his social life for the past 4 years. His senior class was about as big as ours, but he was far more popular than I was. Everybody knew and liked Christopher.

I went down to Louisville to pick him up and we no sooner got home than he was in his car and gone. Later that night I saw him at the football game. His shoulders were a little slouched and a lot of the excitement was gone. He wasn’t upset or depressed, just a little low. He saw how quickly things change, how one group moves on and another group takes their place. There were a lot of people who shook his hand and patted him on the back, kids and grownups alike, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it never would be.

I remember when I got home from basic training. I couldn’t wait to catch up on everything and everybody. Heck, I’d only been gone 6 weeks. It wasn’t the same. All the people I knew were gone or working or married and had started making lives of their own; lives that didn’t include me.

One day I went to the school, in uniform of course, and it was a completely different world, one that I was no longer part of. The only thing that made it bearable was running into Jimmy Littlefield who was there doing the same thing.

Adjusting My Sights

It occurred to me recently that over the years, as I’ve gone back to Loudon, I have unconsciously adjusted the age group of the people I look at when trying to find someone I know. I guess that’s natural, but it happened without me being overly aware of it.

I went from looking at 20-somethings to 40-somethings and now to almost 60-somethings. Before, if I looked at an older person I would wonder if I knew their son or daughter, now when I look at someone younger I wonder if I know they parents or grandparents.

I rue the day I am talking with someone and I mention one of you and they say, “Oh, you mean my great grandma(grandpa)!”

Some Things I Don’t Remember. Do You?

How much did lunch cost?

How many classes were in a day? 5? 6?

How much were yearbooks?

How much was the class ring?

How much did it cost to get into a football game? A basketball game?

What time was the first bell?

How much time was between classes? 5 minutes? 10 minutes?

Which buses dropped off in the back of the school? Which ones in front?

What was the name of our Senior play?

Did we have a guest speaker at graduation? Who?