We raise our glasses HIGH to the Scheming Committee who so diligently and deliberately put all the pieces of the Class of '70 puzzle together culminating in a xxxxx Reunion xxxxx Weekend xxxxx that xxxxx was xxxxx truly STUPENDOUS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(Yes, there are 70 exclamation marks!) Those who sweated gin, scotch, bourbon, wine and beer in order for the rest of us to have a fabulous time included Becky Cathey Landreth, Linda Gail Burris Brinkley, Sharon Haigwood Fellows, Margaret Ann Gillihan Snow, Mary Lou Sullins Howard, Jamie Hopkins Block, Billie Jean Smart Barber, Betty Smart Walker (those "smart" girls), Marion Mullins, Edward Beard, Buddy Rutledge, Mickey Doyle, Michael Willhite, Mike Brand, John Brownd, Rickey Harris a-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-d the Mother of Invention, the Wizard of Wonder, the Queen of Scheme - Cherry Lou Smith Simmons! If I left someone off this most important acknowledgement, I offer a humble apology and attribute it to short term memory loss resulting from a slight over indulgence in the "fruit" of a most able Scottish distillery. So just shoot me!
Wow! What can one say about our 30th Anniversary of the Escape from Remmel Park. You had to be there! For those who could not make it (excused or unexcused), you need only listen to the words of those who made the journey back to the "hallowed ground" on which we walked as children and teens. An exuberant love filled the entire weekend. Half our Class (what a Classy Class it is) attended the festivities. A record for a reunion of any kind for Newport High! Again, the Scheming Committee deserves a standing ovation!!!
Michael Willhite was a great emcee despite a hostile (enthusiastic) crowd. Dinny Bullard put us in the right frame of mind to enjoy a bountiful meal. Rickey Harris acknowledged some fun accomplishments of classmates. And Clay Wright expressed appreciation on behalf of all to the Scheming (Planning) Committee with an analogy to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". What really brought us all back to this place (Newport) at this time (30th Reunion) was a "close encounter" with Cherry Lou! She didn't beg and plead, she just tugged on your heartstrings as only she knows how.
Now eight of those who "left the building" with us in the spring of 1970, are no longer walking among us. But they were with us as eight candles flickered their enthusiasm and danced to the music throughout the Reunion evening. Mike Brand and Mickey Doyle reverently remembered these eight friends in prayer and verse and the lighting of a candle for each. The revelry lasted well into the next morning. We said our goodbyes and retreated back into the present. Through my eyes and in my heart, this Reunion weekend could not have been more perfect.
My propensity to make "short stories" long still exists. Friday night of The Weekend is kind of like the 1960s for me. "If you can remember it, you were not there." I must have "been there" because so many have told me what a fantastic time I had. I must express my thanks to Cherry Lou and to Bobbye Ellen Davis Gibbs and her husband, Gray, for the unique "after midnight" tour of parts of Newport I have not seen in decades. They eventually "delivered" me to my mother's house where I was not staying. After another "joyride" through town I stumbled into my wife, Kathi, at our motel room door about 3am or so. She did let me in! (It's a quarter to three, there's no one in the place except you and me. So set'em up Joe .....)
Daylight came early Saturday morning (Surprise!). David Sibley, John Sink, John Brownd, Mike Brand and yours truly met at the golf course for a little merriment. I was accompanied by Kathi to assure that I did not get lost as I did on Friday night. We had a great time telling stories and lies (and played a little golf as well). Despite what they told me, I believe these four "young men" play a lot of golf. My handicap is the empty scotch bottle. Anyway this golf game proved that none of us has sense enough to get in out of the rain (all you girls already knew that) since it did "sprinkle" throughout the morning. But what fun!!!
Saturday evening was way too short a time! The food was wonderful, the music was hoppin', the dance floor was full, and the conversation was lively. Love was in the air (and in the hugs and in the handshakes)! Being surrounded by friends you have not seen in years is a truly awesome feeling. I was privileged by the Scheming Committee (who can say no to Cherry Lou?) to speak to the gathering of friends on behalf of the Class. And I do mean "privileged" (honored). Anyone in our Class could have done much better. Since I am at the keyboard, I am going to reiterate some of what I mentioned on the occasion of our 30th Reunion for those on this mailing list who could not be in attendance. In looking back at our senior year I was somewhat amazed at some of the world events that happened during the time of that "year" (from the late spring of 1969 when we began to anticipate "our year" to the fall of 1970 when we left each other to move in our own directions).
As the Class of '69 vacated their seats in the auditorium, we stepped up to look the future square in the face (just like Lena Baker taught us). What was happening around us? As a seventeen year old, I didn't particularly notice. I was just interested in going to the river, deciding on where to go to college or whether to go at all, who is dating whom, etc. But guess what? The first artificial heart was implanted in a human in the late spring of 1969. Early that summer Walt Disney began construction on Disney World in Florida (Pud Wooldridge works there now); Mario Puzo wrote the "The Godfather"; Judy Garland left for "somwhere over the rainbow" when she died at 47 (our age): Iron Butterfly scored a hit with their 17 minute tune "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"; Mickey Mantle retired from baseball; patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York, clashed with police in the Stonewall Rebellion, considered to be the birth of the homosexual rights movement.
What were we doing then? Dancing to the sounds of the Mystic Blues (Dinny Bullard, John Sink, Eddie Jones, Billy Wayne Matthews, Joey Coe), the Seven Wonders (Drew Stewart, Harry Goodyear, et al), and the Empty Room (Billy Don Summers, Carl Cross, Jimmy Burke). In late summer '69, Apollo 11 delivered Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon; Senator Edward Kennedy drove his car off the Chappaquiddick bridge; the Charles Manson murders were discovered; a small music and arts fair was held in Bethel, NY on Max Yasgur's farm (Woodstock)------Wow!
What was up with us? We were skiing in the cutoff, lounging on Budweiser Beach. I remember riding with Greer Guinn from Jacksonport to Newport in reverse after he had jammed his transmission when driving over a tree stump out near the cutoff. Laughing all the way! In the fall of '69 we entered NHS as seniors! The Brady Bunch premiered on TV, "Sesame Street" made its debut on PBS; the first component of what we know to be the Internet was established as a communications network at UCLA; the first E-mail message was sent by researchers at Stanford as a Dept. of Defense project (some of you are wishing email still did not exist); and the Beatles released their last album "Let It Be" (we didn't know it at the time). We were watching the 10-1 Greyhounds roll over everyone except West Memphis (the only team who scored in double digits against us in a 13-0 loss). What a DEFENSE! We were also enjoying the Junior Classical League slave sale and toga party (Animal House had nothing on us!).
In the winter of '69-'70, the U.S. government held the first draft lottery since 1942 (we were the youngest "men" eligible in this lottery. My number was 248); Apollo 12 landed two more men on the moon (I didn't remember it being this close to the first time); Tiny Tim married Miss Vicky on the Tonight Show; Carlos Santana recorded his first album (this year's Grammy winner); and Bob Guccione brought Penthouse magazine from Britain to the U.S. (about time we got some good reading material over here). I was crusin' the Newport drive-ins in John Brownd's Plymouth Valiant with no floor board making snowballs from within the car and "chunking" them at passing cars on Highway 67.
On January 1, 1970 while Jimi Hendrix and his band of Gypsies were playing four shows at the Fillmore East, John "Rootbeer" Brownd, Freeman Travis, Eddie Crawford and I were in New Orleans watching our Razorbacks lose to Ole Miss and Archie Who? Later that month, Diana Ross and the Supremes performed their last concert together (she is making a "reunion" tour as we speak) and the soap opera "All My Children" premiered. In the spring of 1970, the U.S. Postal Service was paralyzed by the first postal strike; Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television effective January 1, 1971; the first Earth Day was celebrated to protest pollution of our environment; Apollo 13 announced "Houston, we have a problem" on its aborted trip to the moon; and at Kent State, four student protestors lost their lives in a skirmish with the National Guard inspiring the song "Ohio".
What were we all about? Many of us were in Little Rock watching our basketball Hounds surprise several teams in the State tournament before losing to Searcy in the semifinals. I remember David Sibley breaking the silence of prayer in Barton Coliseum with a rousing "Beat Mabelvale" during the invocation before the game. In the summer of 1970 President Nixon signed the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 18 (proving we were too immature to vote at that age, we elected him to a second term in our first presidential election ... Of course, we know what happened); Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" debuted on LA radio (I still like WLS and KAAY); James Dickey published his novel "Deliverance" (now a genealogy guide for us in Arkansas); and Germaine Greer published "The Female Eunuch" insisting on women's right to sexual pleasure (I had been insisting on this for some time). We were remembering Senior Day and Rickey Harris' "perfect" swan dive from the Narrows Bridge at Greer's Ferry Lake (and Joe Black almost killing himself trying to duplicate it). We were also cruisin' Jack's, Paul's, Sim's, Dog N Suds, the Tastee Freez and Headlee's Drugstore for the final times.
In the fall of 1970 Jimi Hendrix died at 27; two weeks later Janis Joplin died at 27; the Flip Wilson Show began on TV (the Devil is still making me do "it"); Monday Night Football debuted; Intel Corporation brought out the world's first commercially produced memory chip and launched the personal computer revolution (Wow!); in Mexico work was started on a tourist attraction we know as Cancun; Linda Loveless made a hit in her film "Deep Throat" (a classic!); and Pan Am Airways offered reservations for a flight to the moon and 93,000 people signed up (I still have my ticket). While we had closed the book on our days at NHS by this time, they were recent and our memories vivid. On December 31, 1970 Paul McCartney filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles. The music of our times was changing, just as Dylan still reminds us ... "the times they are a changin'". But while McCartney's lawsuit may have dissolved the Beatles, no one can dissolve our memories of the Class of 1970. What a year that was both in the outside world around us and in our own personal haven of our senior year.
Well, just like our senior year, our 30th Reunion is a memory. Oh, Sweet Memory! I have been advised that the Scheming (Planning) Committee will be gathering again in July (to drink of the spirits we left behind) to assess the Big Shebang we had last weekend. Our Class is in need of financial support to carry on routine activities between Reunions (flowers for deceased classmates, etc.). Once this assessment is made, I will pass on to you, the subscribers of the Miles' Files, the financial condition of the Class of '70. Hopefully we can bolster its coffers with contributions.
The Miles' Files will continue even though the 30th Reunion is history. The content of future editions of this chronicle and how often it is published will be largely determined by the replies I receive from its readers (YOU!). I now have 50 on my mailing list and would love to recruit more. Please stay in touch so that I do not have to solely rely on my memory. When you see a candle flicker, let your mind and heart wander back a bit to 1970 and listen for the laughter of Eddie Crawford, Glenn Gay, Betty Barber, Becky Scroggs, Marsha Bonds, Keith Huey, Frank Simmons and Larry Binning. Oh, those Greyhound Memories!
I will close this edition of the Miles' Files by recalling my favorite inscriptions under the pictures of classmates from the 1970 annual that I mentioned at the Reunion:
· Rickey Harris - "Youth comes but once in a lifetime"
· Phil Lassiter - "The wildest colts make the best horses"
· Candy Campbell - "....perhaps it is because she hears a different drummer"
· Eddie Crawford - "Character is what you are in the dark"
· Joy Stanfield - "Nothing grows again more easily than love"
· Cherry Lou Smith - "Now is the time to live and enjoy yourself" (Amen)
Until next time ... I'm Miles from Nowhere, I guess I'll take my time ...
joe
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