Lee High School Class of 1962

Mike Hoyt

Mike Hoyt was presented a "You Make A Difference Award" at our 60th Reunion in recognition of his development of the concept of the Lee High Shop on our Class of '62 website. His innumerable contributions--more than anyone else--of comments on subjects ranging from the passing of a classmate, to patriotic observances, to self-effacing old-age humor and countless subjects in between have enriched all of our lives. For making all of us richer by sharing the unselfish gift of his insights, he was designated "Wit & Wisdom of the Sages."

~ ~ ~

Mike Hoyt
May 28. 2023

I’m far from being a big fan of Oprah’s, but recently she gave the commencement address at her alma mater Tennessee State University that resonated with a theme I have embraced in recent years...

"I’ve been guided by the light of God’s grace my entire life. People ask, what’s the secret to my success? It’s because I lean into his grace. Because life is always talking to us. This is what I do know. When you tap into what it’s trying to tell you, when you can get yourself quiet enough to listen—really listen—you can begin to distill the still, small voice, which is always representing the truth of you, from the noise of the world. You can start to recognize when it comes your way. You can learn to make distinctions, to connect, to dig a little deeper. You’ll be able to find your own voice within the still, small voice—you’ll begin to know your own heart and figure out what matters most when you can listen to the still, small voice. Every right move I’ve made has come from listening deeply and following that still, small voice, aligning myself with its power."

* * * *

The Big Goodbye
Mike Hoyt

Well, sure enough, the Lee High School class of 1962 gathered again by the river on April 14th. And what a gathering it was.

This time it was different. Amidst all the hugs and broad smiles, there was the realization that this was probably the last time we’d be together. So, as much as it was a reunion, it was also a big, warm goodbye to each other.

It’s not that we won’t ever see each other again, but that the remnants of the 554 of us who parted six decades ago will probably not gather anymore. As you inch up on turning 80 years old, change and loss and farewells are things you get used to. These are mostly never happy occasions, but this time it was.

More than a hundred of us dressed up, changed our hearing aid batteries and filled a room with reminiscences, rekindled memories, and stories retold. There were hugs, a few tears, and awards for those who came the fartherest and with the most grandkids. Mostly, there were wistful wonderings about where the time had gone and what we’d become. We thought about those who’d left us. About lost loves. About teachers who’d changed our lives. About happy moments now long past.

For some it was clearly a struggle to be there, but we all came nonetheless and seemed somehow younger for it. The bar was lower this time. Our main hope was that we could make it through the evening without falling headfirst into our key lime pie or calling an old boyfriend by the wrong name.

It was fun to see how we’ve aged. Most of us have done remarkably well. Some were only suggestions of their Lee High selves. Some of us were larger. Some had less hair. Most of us were considerably shorter. Our name tags sported tiny pictures of us “back then” from the high school annual that helped, but which required staring awkwardly at each others' chests.

It was amazing to learn what we’d accomplished over these many years apart. We found ourselves among authors and artists, those with soaring careers in business, law, philanthropy, medicine, in classrooms, politics. We’ve raised families, survived terrible wars and disasters and even enjoy great grandchildren.

Outside, the great river still flowed. The sun set again, just as it has for almost 22,000 times since we said goodbye to Lee High School. It cast golden light on aging, smiling faces which, though changed, brought forth tales from long ago.

Tom Brokaw has written about the “Greatest Generation,” Americans who lived and shined during our parents’ time. I’d argue, though, that we lived in the best of times that nurtured an energetic and creative spirit that led us to our own kind of greatness.

It was a spirit that found its beginnings in the halls and playing fields of our school. It was a spirit shaped by watershed events such as the Cuban missile crisis, John Glenn’s trip around the world in space, by songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” the writings of John Steinbeck, the first color TV series “The Jetsons,” and the appearance of Nike running shoes.

Our world on McDuff Avenue was shaped by sports, Hi-Ys and Y-Teens, marching bands, cheerleaders, the Lee Traveler, performances, clubs, societies, and the most laudable teachers ever assembled. It was another time. Another place where a new and more enlightened world was being born. This was our launchpad. Our foundation. And, look what we’ve done with it!

So, here’s to the class of 1962, now much older and considerably wiser than we once were. The past weekend, we were reminded again of our greatness, what we’ve done, and what’s left for us to do. But we also sensed it was finally time for us to say so long and revel in how good it’s been.

The theme of our reunion was “It Was a Very Good Year.” And it was.

But now the days are short
I'm in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
It poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

* * * *

Along the Great River
Mike Hoyt
April 24, 2022

“I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched... Eventually the watcher joined the river, and there was only one of us. I believe it was the river.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through it and Other Stories

I grew up beside the Great River, the St. John’s, that flows north from its headwaters at Blue Cypress Lake through a corner of Florida. After 310 miles, the Great River finally empties into the Atlantic Ocean east of Jacksonville. There, she connects a cradle of ancient civilizations through farmlands and forests to the sea that brought the explorers and settlers to the New World.

The St.Johns began 100,000 years ago when a part of the ocean was trapped by rising land along our coast. One hundred centuries ago, it was called Welaka, “river of lakes” by the ancient native peoples who lived along its banks. They hunted and gathered and fished these waters. Later came the Timuqua and the Seminole and eventually the Spanish missionaries.

Growing up in Jacksonville, the Great River was home. It was the place where we fished, and sailed, water skied and occasionally kissed a girlfriend as the moon rose in the east. The river framed our lives and later the lives of our children as it had for thousands of years.

Back then, we bought into the story that the St. Johns was one of only two rivers in the world that flowed north. The other was the Nile. But now we know there are dozens, at least 48 in America in 16 states that flow north. According to some, South America has the highest number of northward-flowing rivers. It doesn’t matter and does nothing to tarnish the dream.

On a recent visit to my hometown for a final high school reunion, we gathered in a country club by the Great River. It was still there, as always, its brown waters lapping at docks and bulkheads and tied up sailboats by the hundreds. There is a quiet power in these waters and the gentle reassurance that they will, as always, be there.

The Great River is home to many of God’s most alluring, and sometimes feared, creatures. Alligators live in these dark waters. The gentle manatees call the St. John’s home, as do the giant tarpon, bass, catfish, speckled trout, perch and others. The ibis, herons, gulls and osprey grace the skies above. The winds blow gently most days and howl on occasion, to the delight of sailors.

I have always had this feeling that growing up near the Great River delivered a kind of spell on those who do. Its presence is both reassuring and challenging. These waters can delight and kill, on occasion. They are a promise that our mother, Nature, ååis always in charge and worthy of our undivided respect.

Every time I come back to the Great River, now a much older version of the boy who spent countless afternoons on her waters, I am thankful for what she gave me and what she still gives to us all. She reminds me now of the friends, now gone, and the joys now fading she has offered. But she also whispers of the future of our children who, like us, will be forever shaped and changed and made better by simply being at her side.

I also now have the sense that the Great River will always be there even though we will, at last, be gone from her. She changed us in good and wholesome ways we may never understand, but which I think set us apart from those who have never enjoyed what she gave.

The Great River offers a gentle reminder that we came from these waters and to them we must always return.

* * * *

Mike Hoyt
March 9, 2022

A Fragile Truth
(Reprinted with permission from March 9, 2022 issue of LastGaffe)

It’s in the faces of the little children clutching a soiled stuffed toy. The grief stricken father embracing the body of his infant son. The tears of a mother holding a child and dragging a battered rolling suitcase. An old woman helped through the rubble to a waiting bus to Poland.

These are the truths of the world tragedy in Ukraine, a small country we didn’t know much or care about a few months ago. Ukraine’s rapid descent into war was lost in the mists of more immediate problems-turned-breaking news. Covid. Mask mandates. Gas prices. Inflation. Build Back Better. January 6. Nightly shootings in our own streets.

For weeks, Russian troops by the tens of thousands surrounded Ukraine. Vladimir Putin made threats. President Biden and others made counter-threats. Pundits opined. The world shrugged. Until suddenly, Ukraine was being blown to pieces and its people rose to heights seen only rarely in human history.

They huddled in subway stations, made molotov cocktails in town squares, boarded overflowing trains to nearby countries. Men, young and old, many who had never held a weapon, took up guns and missile launchers and took to the streets. Ukrainian men from other countries are pouring back to their home country. To fight. To die, if needed.

Those in Ukraine watched, afraid, as Russian artillery and jets pounded their cities and destroyed their homes and their kindergartens. They saw tanks firing on the world’s largest nuclear plant, risking global disaster. They have seen families and friends slaughtered by the thousands, while a cruel Russian autocrat threatens nuclear war. He is aiming for them and at them.

Led by a short, unassuming 44-year-old former TV comic, Ukraine has become a profile in courage. He addresses the world using selfies. “When you are attacking us,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said to the Russians, “you will see out faces, not our backs.” What they’re seeing are brave, determined, faces. Tear-stained faces. The faces of children, faces of the old, faces filled with resolve. Faces with eyes that have seen too much. Faces staring into the hooded eyes of a godless tyrant.

Nations of the world have responded with a clenched fist. They’ve supplied weapons and supplies are pouring in from almost everywhere. Americans by the hundreds of thousands are reaching deep into their wallets and sending help.

Nations and companies and banks are putting the clamps on the Russian economy, closing its securities markets, smacking its banks and causing the ruble to tumble. The skittish Russian economy is on life support and protesting Russians are taking to the streets, risking arrest, adding a small voice to the world’s outrage.

It is unlikely that Ukraine will win this war, which is of course a war for the world. But, they are doing their best because they are courageous, resolved to prevail. They are in the right and they know it. As one commentator put it: “You won’t always win with courage, but you’ll have a helluva lot better chance”

Is there any good news in this? Perhaps.

Americans have been profoundly inspired by the bravery of the Ukrainian people and its diminutive leader who, by the way, deserves the very next Nobel Peace Prize, if even posthumously. And, so we have begun to forget how divided we’ve become.

We’ve watched the Western World begin to come together, reuniting against a common enemy but, more importantly, in support of a people who don’t deserve the horror being heaped on them. Ukraine has helped us coalesce. Maybe not forever, but at least for now.

Maybe there’s a lesson in this. Life is good America, maybe too good for our own good. Instead of grousing over rising gas prices and having to pay more for tomatoes, complaining about school children having to wear masks, about nagging dysfunction in Washington, about wealthy ballplayers going on strike, maybe, just maybe we could focus on helping the people in a small Slavic country who inspire us.

They have helped us realize, once more, that people in our world are more alike than we are different. We Americans learn lessons the hard way, but we can learn from Ukraine. By doing that, maybe we can begin to repair our own damaged, divided and angry nation.

We’re trying.

* * * *

And this brings us to Thanksgiving

Mike Hoyt

November 25, 2021

I emerged from the fog of anesthesia in, well, a fog. As before, there was a sense of being someplace else. A sort of out-of-body experience that seemed to last only a few minutes, but actually lasted a couple hours.

A smiling nurse in a colorful bandana welcomed me back to reality and I think I asked her out on a date and then fell back asleep.

I’ve never ceased to be astounded that they can put an entirely new hip joint in place in about an hour and you don’t feel a thing. And thanks to modern "druggery," you can legally get by with some serious substance abuse in the interest of being pain free while they saw your femur in two.

And this brings us to Thanksgiving.

When you get beyond the candied yams and the pumpkin pie, there’s a lot more at the groaning table to be grateful for. At the top of the list of course is the chance to surround ourselves with friends and family again, and we can thank medical science for that. Think: mRNA vaccines that actually teach our cells how to trigger an immune response. There’s a kind of cellular prep school going on inside our bodies.

The fact that we’re here at all is a blessing, especially following a raging worldwide epidemic. Many of our parents, just one generation before us, were gone by their late seventies. Again, a tip of the hat to science mostly and what it’s done for health, nutrition, wellness and, of course, hair coloring. It’s a fact that people our age with nice hair live longer. Look it up. It explains the sign I saw in a shop: “All you need is love. And great hair.”

And while we’re being thankful, let’s not forget that we live arguably in the best country on planet Earth. Oh, we’ve got a plateful of problems, but on the whole we’re better off, by far, than anybody else. I mean we’ve got Tesla, NetFlix, Oprah and Taco Bell. We can say what we want, travel to wherever we dare, drive with no hands, order from Amazon and enjoy a Happy Meal with the grandkids whenever the mood strikes us. Notice that I’m not including Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest in my thank you list.

Let’s also take a moment and be thankful for each other, the Lee High School Class of 1962. With our 60th reunion right around the corner we’ve still got one last hoorah left in us; I just hope they have walker parking available and AEDs in the lobby.

(I’ve heard each attendee with be given a thoughtful bag of goodies containing such useful items as a Depends three-pack, a wireless “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” caregiver pager, a combo toilet seat riser and seat cushion, nasal hair trimmer, a small bottle of stool softeners, a handy leg lifter strap, and a pair of extra large wrap around sunglasses. We should be thankful to the committee for these indispensable items.)

In the end, we have so many things to be grateful for, we’ll never get to them all. You know what they are and they’re different for each of us. So maybe it’s not a bad idea to simply focus on the fact that we’re still around, that we have such rich memories of all those who’ve walked these paths at our side, and that we still have hopes for whatever lies ahead.

In the end, we should be thankful for each other, for life and for the gift of laughter. These are the best of all.

* * * *

And so it begins
Mike Hoyt
May 14, 2021

Exactly one year from today, the Lee High School Generals, class of 1962, will celebrate a moment we never anticipated: A 60th reunion. It is both a milestone and a beginning.

In these many years now gone, each of us has walked our own way on a path that’s led from a yellow brick building on McDuff Avenue and taken us to careers and families, to successes and failures, to wars, to far off places, to trials and adventures we could never have imagined back then.

And what a send-off, what a gift was given to us by our school. We could never have known it then, but when we left behind those loud and crowded hallways and wooden desks and well-worn playing fields, we were being offered the world. And what a world it’s been.

In a sense, it’s been as though our teachers and coachers and mentors at Lee were packing life’s suitcase for us. Everything we’d need for the journey that lay beyond the walls of a grand old building that stood tall and proud then, as she does still.

But our alma mater is not a building. It is not a name. It is for us now, a memory. A time and place where we felt as though we knew everything and actually knew very little. And as the years have passed slowly at first and more quickly now, we have faced triumphs and tragedies of every description, wins and losses, everything life could throw at us.

This past year has been especially brutal and one we could never have dreamed of. As America and the world re-emerge from the unthinkable with a renewed spirit and hope for a better life, our class remains unified and connected in ways we could have only wished for.

Our re-energized class website has helped hold us together. It’s been a place where we’ve shared our stories, humor, insights and inspiration. Our virtual Lee High Shop remains a popular gathering spot, a place to talk, a place to listen. It’s a place where we can again have a conversation with friends at a time when we need it, and them, most.

And so it begins, this reboot, a countdown to our time to gather and to celebrate our 60 years together, our time to hug each other, to remember those who are no longer with us, to share stories and remembrances. We are marching bravely into our last years, now, but in so many ways they can be our best ones.

Next May, we will be a sea of much older faces, with white hair or little at all. Some of us will be stooped and frail, and our minds perhaps diminished by the age. But, we are the long haulers: Inside we will stand tall and proud and unchanged from those days at the school we loved, where it all began.

So, draw a big blue circle on your calendar around May 14, 2022. It is our day. It is your day. It is a new beginning for us all.

In the words of the 1970’s classic by The Carpenters:

"And when the evenin' comes, we smile
So much of life ahead
We'll find a place where there's room to grow
(And yes, we've just begun)"

* * * *

Mike Hoyt
February 25, 2021

The Way We Were

This week, last night in fact, the Lee High School auditorium was the scene of the first of five community meetings to decide what the name of our school will be going forward.

Like most bureaucracy-laden public issues, the process is complicated. After the community meetings, it then goes to the school superintendent, then to the school board and que sera, sera. Somewhere along the line, alumni, students and teachers will get to vote. On April 7, we will know the result.

This has been a long time coming and follows in the wake of cataclysmic upheavals in the social order as America struggles to address all sorts of possible past wrongs when it comes to race. Whether we aging Lee alumni support or oppose a change in the name of our school, it is a painful and sometimes divisive process.

Speaking with a few other classmates, I believe many conclude that what really counts is not the place, or the name, but the time we were together. It was another time, a gilded time made brighter and more fragile as the years pass. The name can change and the memories fade, but we will forever be the Lee Generals of 1962.

So whatever happens in the weeks ahead, whatever may play out, no matter what is said, whatever Lee High School is called later in the spring, we’ll always have our memories of happier times.

As the 1974 Barbara Streisand song, tells us, “…it's the laughter we will remember. Whenever we remember the way we were.”

Mem’ries light the corners of my mind

Misty water-colored mem'ries of the way we were

Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind

Smiles we gave to one another for the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then

Or has time rewritten every line

If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, would we, could we

Mem'ries may be beautiful and yet

What's too painful to remember

We simply choose to forget

So it's the laughter we will remember

Whenever we remember the way we were

The way we were.

* * * *

Mike Hoyt
May 15, 2020

FROM A FRIEND
Born in 1900 Perspective

For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. On your 14th birthday, World War I starts, and ends when you are 18. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday. On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. Unemployjent hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren't even over the hill yet. And don't try to catch your breath. On your 41st birthday, the United States is fully pulled into WW II until you are 45. At 50, the Korean War starts. At 55, the Vietnam War begins. When you are 62, the Cuban Missle Crisis threatens to end life on our planet as we know it. When you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends.

Perspective is amazing. Yes, we are in a challenging time nowadays. Try to remember that those born in 1900 endured and accomplished, and have faith that we will endure as well. Let's be smart and help each other out--we will get through all of this.

* * * *

Mike Hoyt
May 20, 2020

For better, for worse

Like a balloon mortgage payment, we are entering that time in our lives when we must begin to pay off that vow that we married people all made so long ago in a magnificently decorated church: “For better, for worse; in sickness and in health…”

Little did we realize standing at the front of that crowd half a century ago what those words, what that commitment really meant. What it entailed. What it would eventually demand of us. Now, it’s time for many of us to begin to pay off on the promise.

In a movie we watched recently, there was a line that resonates: “We will walk into the fire together.” Think about that for a moment. Walking into the fire together, hand in hand, maybe afraid, but undeterred.

I know couples who, these days, are walking into the fire together. Some for years now. Spouses become ill. Spouses pass away. Spouses lose abilities that require them to seek special care. Some are running into economic crises. Others seem to have sadly lost their way.

We all know people like these.

Hardly ever, in my experience, does one abandon the other for the sake of expediency. Most, to their credit, grow closer together. They fill in the gaps and blanks.They become a team of the afflicted. They become nurses and caregivers. Husbands become cooks. Wives become drivers. They become an exceptionally effective, symbiotic team. They become a means for mutual support as they walk hand in hand into the fire.

They have grown beyond a husband and wife that swore an oath “for better or for worse.” If it works, they bond more than ever. In fact, they almost become one.

And because of this new willing dependency, when one of them departs the loss is so much greater, the chasm so much deeper, the sadness so much more profound. Many never quite regain their footing.

My wife is convinced for some reason that if she goes first I’ll find some floozy to marry who’ll take her stuff, her antiques, her memories. I will never convince her, but this is only not going to happen, it’s impossible and sad to even contemplate. Love, I believe, is forever.

Who knows how many more “good years” each of us has left these days. “Good years” are hard to define, but it basically the term means being able to do stuff on our own. When we need “assisted living” to handle daily tasks, the end is clearly in sight. And maybe there is some solace in that.

But this leads me to believe that a man or a woman we have lived with for half a century or more, or even less than that, is irreplaceable. And when there’s an empty space in the king size bed, or in the second chair in the TV room, or at the breakfast table, it’s damn hard, if not impossible, to fill it. Even if we could, do we really want to?

So, these are important times for us in this morbid end game we’re each playing. It is a time when we need those we love more than ever and they need us, regardless of and more importantly because of what we signed on for all those many years ago at an altar in front of our family and friends.

To be blunt, it’s put up or shut up time. It’s time to pay the debt. It’s time to honor our pledge to hang in there “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health…”

Until, death us do part.

* * * *

You Can't Go Home Again

by Mike Hoyt
March 15, 2020

“Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same. Lean down your ear upon the earth and listen.” Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

I’d driven along St. John’s Avenue more times than I can count. Past the mammoth oaks dripping Spanish moss, the parks where children still shriek with delight, past Fishweir Creek and the library and St. Vincent’s Hospital and St Mark’s Church, past tiny coves and across small bridges.

Past the condos where the Penny Burger drive-in once stood at the corner of Herschel and St. John’s. There was once a Winn-Dixie across the way and a Skinner’s Dairy store. Past the storefront where my dad owned a record store with his brother and a cousin. And Monty’s bar where I first learned to use a fake ID.

Five Points, now given over mostly to newly-arrived Millennials with its brew pubs and kitchy eateries and a movie theater where the floors are still sticky and popcorn is served in large metal bowls. The place appears older and more tired than I remember, but it still has a strange vibrancy all its own. It’s like an old girlfriend in a new dress.

In the near distance, the St. John’s River still glistens in the early morning sunshine and music plays on a car radio turned up way too loud. I’d walked these streets and sidewalks so often, I’d almost memorized the unique hexagonal paving stones.

Memorial Park, with its much photographed bronze sculpture “Life,” still manages to honor the 1,200 Floridians who died in World War I. The park was engulfed by the waters of the St. John’s during Hurricane Irma in 2017 which also caused massive destruction all along the river clear down to the Naval Air Station and beyond to Green Cove Springs.

Nearby is the worn storefront that once housed the restaurant where our football team enjoyed a Thanksgiving pre-game meal before we boarded busses for the Gator Bowl for the annual grudge match with the hated Andrew Jackson High School tigers. They were in the inner city kids. We were from the ‘burbs: Lakeshore, Murray Hill, Riverside and Ortega.

Out to the east, across the bridge, lies what used to be the Beach Road Chicken Dinner where the Fighting Generals would hold our annual season-ending banquet of mounds of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green peas and the best dinner rolls ever baked. Once the longest-running Jacksonville restaurant for more than 80 years, it closed down last year ending an era of marginally-mediocre, but cheap, dining for generations. Seeing a closed sign on the place is heart-wrenching.

There was, and is, Lou Bono’s Barbecue also out Beach Boulevard. It’s still pretty much the same as it was, with wooden tables and a smokey open pit along one wall. Gone are the affable waiters in white coats, though, who’d serve sweet tea and an “outside cut” if you asked for it.

Over on McDuff Avenue is Robert E. Lee High School, still stately and much bigger than before, yet smaller than I remember. It’s 92 years old now. It burned in 1986 but, now, fully restored and greatly expanded, the old yellow brick facade brings back visions of madras shirts and circle pins that magically appear as if on cue.

Behind the school, the old football stadium and field house still stand, God knows how. The voices of the players who sweated on this hallowed ground for almost a hundred seasons linger. You can hear them, if you listen closely. There is blood in this soil. And tears, too.

We drove past Ortega Point where we’d take our dates to “watch the submarine races” on Friday evenings after the J Notes dances at the Women’s Club in Riverside. We saw the small piers where we’d watch the manatees cavort in the brown river water hoping for a quick full-body hug.

It’s better now along the river. The fish have come back and so have the fishermen and the crabbers. Downtown is a maze of lights and glass. Gone are Jake’s News stand and the topless shoeshine parlor on East Bay and Sears and Furchgott’s Department Store, now a museum. It is eerily quiet there now and I am told it is a dangerous place.

Along Ortega Boulevard that runs the length of a small, lush island, the stately homes still stand guard, bastions of generations of old and new wealth. Ortega is the epicenter of tradition and power in Jacksonville and there is something comforting in this place. Little changes there, nor is likely to. There is gravity along these river banks and, like many similar neighborhoods in large southern cities, you can feel its weight.

Roosevelt Mall, where I worked summers in a local men’s store named “Rosenblum’s” or in my dad’s other record store nearby, is but a suggestion of what it used to be. There once was a pancake house on the corner. May-Cohen’s department store anchored the place. The drug store served the best hot dog in town. Morrison’s Cafeteria with the shouts of “serve you?” is now just a memory. It’s now called “Roosevelt Square” and its charmed existence seems questionable.

To the southwest, thousands of pleasure craft dot the St. Johns and Ortega Rivers. Sailing, skiing and power boating remain mainstays of local leisure time. Despite changes along its banks, the river quietly meanders through the heart of this great city. It is its life’s blood and a boundary separating two Jacksonvilles, one west and north, the other to the south each with its own distinctive style, culture and heritage.

It is always a sort of treat and a revelation to revisit these places. Like old friends, despite the outward changes, deep down there is still the same underlayment, the same pulse, the same sweetness to this place. It is no longer the city I knew more than fifty years ago. And yet, it is.

Jacksonville, like an aging aunt, is today very part of the fabric of my past. Today, though, we live in the present and longingly look toward whatever lies ahead. I feel like a character in Thomas Wolfe’s autobiographical “Look Homeward Angel” about a young man from the mountains who made his way to college in Chapel Hill:

“...he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he had left, yet does not say 'The town is near,' but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.”

And, so, we let it be. And we move on, occasionally looking homeward.

* * * *

Kenneth Voelker
March 16, 2020
Mike, I read a shorter but very similar article in The Saturday Evening Post, titled "No Way Out," penned January/February 2020. ...Having traveled and worked internationally for years, it's refreshing to hear our common past relived.

Susan SEAWARD Cravey
March 15, 2020
Mike, I really enjoyed that...talk about a walk down memory lane. I loved the line "...like an old girlfriend in a new dress." Thanks for sharing.

They just locked Puerto Rico down for two weeks. I'm glad they're getting out ahead of this thing!

Sandra ATKINS McDowell
March 15, 2020
Thanks afain for the wonderful "reads." Amazing.

Libby GIRLINGHOUSE Bernard
March 15, 2020
Mike, I feel like I was walking beside you, visiting familiar haunts. A good place to grow up.

* * * *

Game Over: Remembering Corky Rogers

by Mike Hoyt
February 27, 2020

When a quarterback goes down, football players know that the heart of their team is missing. When the world, and especially the game of football, lost Corky Rogers this week, we lost a quarterback for all time.

As we all know, even if you don’t live in Jacksonville anymore, Corky wasn’t just a talented Lee High General in the early 1960’s who led our team to a state championship and more wins than we deserved, he became the most successful football coach in Florida history at Lee and then at Bolles.

It’s hard to know how many young men Corky taught and influenced during his career. Dozens of Corky’s players went on not only to successful athletic careers in college and the National Football League, they became successes in life. And the exponential effect on scores of families and fans can never be measured.

When you touch this many lives, you count for something.

Corky cast a long, gentle shadow on all who knew him. Those of us who were lucky enough to play alongside Corky in the Lee blue and gray will never forget his deceptively calm, composed manner in a huddle that masked an infectious competitive spirit. He’d lick his fingers, call a play, clap his hands, smile, and work his magic.

He knew how to inspire players. He knew how to teach kids. He knew how to win, on the football field and in life. Despite serious health issues in his later years, Corky kept on playing. And he played hard until the end, until the clock ran out.

So, coach, all of us say goodbye and thank you for all that you did for our alma mater on McDuff Avenue and far beyond.

And as the cliche goes, it’s not about winning and losing, but how you played. And how you did play.

* * *

Was it Worth It?

A Memorial Day Salute
by Mike Hoyt
May 27, 2019

The other afternoon as I pulled into the parking lot of a Harris Teeter supermarket near us, I headed, as usual for the two spaces marked “For Military Veterans.” I always like to park there. First because it’s near the front door and second, well, I do take some pride in having served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

In recent years, those of us who live in these United States seem to have begun paying a little more attention to veterans. I have a sense that perhaps, in some perverse way, we’re overcompensating for the way people treated the men and women returning from Vietnam about a half century ago.

Back then, soldiers and sailors were ridiculed and even spit upon when they returned to the U.S. from their overseas deployments. Many resorted to ditching their uniforms and wearing civilian clothes as they slipped quietly into airports.

There were no bands or parades or banners or yellow ribbons tied around trees to welcome them. Instead, there was mostly disdain and hatred for the “baby killers” who were returning home after a year of horrors that many can’t bear to talk about, even to this day.

58,220 Americans were killed in action in 20 years of fighting in Vietnam. Among them was our classmate, Gary Sikes. More than 303,000 of us were wounded in Vietnam. Almost a third subsequently died from their wounds and many remain confined to VA hospitals to this day. Almost 1,600 are still missing.

These are staggering figures, but they barely hold a candle to the nearly 500,000 killed during the Civil War. Seven thousand died in the Battle of Gettysburg alone. That’s almost half of all Americans who’ve died during wartime and about 100 times more than were killed in the American Revolution. Some 405,000 Americans died in World War II and about 116,000 in World War I. About 8,400 U.S. soldiers have died in Middle East fighting these past few years.

More than a million Americans are dead and gone before their time because of war. In a few days, most of us will take a minute to remember our fallen countrymen and others will hopefully thank a veteran for his or her service.

But while we, as a country, appear to have embraced our servicemen lately, we keep the armed services at arm’s length. Most people’s connection to the military these days seems remote and vague.

It’s partly because few of us know people serving in uniform any more. The ranks of those who served in the “Great War” are growing thinner and even those from the Korean and Vietnam eras are beginning to leave us now.

During World War II, about 12% of the total U.S. population served in the armed forces. Seems like most everybody knew someone who’d gone off to war. The number was far smaller during the Vietnam era, but the draft scooped large numbers from across American society, so most people seemed to know someone who’d served.

Today, though, less than one percent of us are in uniform. Out of a nation of 320 million, 2.3 million Americans are on active duty or in the reserves. The nightly news reminds us there’s a war going on someplace, but we appear content to watch from a distance without having much skin in the military game.

Add to this detachment a feeling that America’s military doesn’t seem to win much any more. Author James Fallows, interviewed on PBS, once referred to this as an “era of defeat, rather than victory” for American armed forces. He says it’s mostly due to the fact that with protracted wars going on there’s been a kind of disconnect with the military.

“We are always at war,” says Fallows. “[with] the longest period of open-ended combat in our nation’s history…the country as a whole is barely affected… And as a result, in my view, we have embarked on a series of unwinnable wars. We call people heroes and then send them to do things they can’t do.”

Despite the ambivalence and detachment associated with the military, one day a year we seem to shake ourselves out of this stupor and at least begin again to remember those who have fallen and even those who have served. This year, we’ll celebrate the 151st day of military remembrance which had its start right after the Civil War when citizens decorated the graves of Union and Confederate war dead.

Perhaps, once again, we can begin to embrace the idea that this country has been, and still is, worth fighting and even dying for. More than a million lives attest to this truth. It’s also worth remembering that soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are people just like you and me who’ve been willing to put everything on the line for this purpose. Sometimes, we forget that.

I leave you this Memorial Day with a few lyrics from a song by Buffy Saint-Marie first sung in 1964 entitled “The Universal Soldier.”

He's five foot-two and he's six feet-four

He fights with missiles and with spears

He's all of thirty-one and he's only seventeen

He's been a soldier for a thousand years…

And he's fighting for Democracy

He's fighting for the Reds

He says it's for the peace of all

He's the one who must decide

Who's to live and who's to die

And he never sees the writing on the wall…

So, maybe we should each write on that invisible wall come May 27th. A simple “thank you” should do.

* * * *

Staring into the Near Future

Mike Hoyt
March 20, 2019

It happened again yesterday. That’s why I’m going to stop reading the obituaries.

There, staring back at me from the page, was another friend who’d passed on. We weren’t close mind you, but knew each well enough to carry on short conversations at parties about UNC basketball, the weather, and a few other filler topics. I don’t talk politics anymore with anybody.

Point is, seems like we spend more time going to burials and visitations and bothering sick friends in the hospital than we do binging on the latest Netflix series. As somebody said the other day, “if it weren’t for funerals, I wouldn’t have a social life.”

My friend died of peripheral artery disease or PAD, a medical train-wreck where the blood supply to various body parts like your legs is shut off because your arteries get clogged up. There are temporary fixes that sometimes involve amputating affected blood-starved limbs that basically die. Genetics play in big role in getting this disease and so does smoking.

In any case, PAD is like so many maladies of old age that afflict people we know. Perhaps you’ve got one of these yourself. Heart conditions, cancers, dementia, they’re all out there waiting to happen. We’re each playing a game of genetic Russian roulette in most cases or; because we smoked or were exposed to asbestos, Agent Orange, some garden pesticide, or other vengeful carcinogen; we can end up with something bad that can end life.

Let’s face it, growing older is insidious. Various health troubles nibble away at us, slowly, taking small bites. We die a little piece at a time. Sometimes we don’t even know it until it’s too late.

At our age, how you “go” is important. For some unlucky enough to get one of the grimmest diagnoses, it may take years for your time to come. For others, the grim reaper comes quickly, painlessly, late at night when he’s least expected. Some people just “wake up dead,” or simply “up and die,” as we say here in the South. They’re the lucky ones, I suppose.

Others of us will linger and endure, sometimes for years, painful and debilitating diseases and dreadful treatments intended to save or at least prolong life. It’s not uncommon to have friends vow that they would not submit to these measures. “I won’t have chemo,” they proclaim. Talk’s cheap when you’re not sick.

But after seeing so many friends our age pass on lately in various ways, you naturally begin to weigh the odds. You begin to ask yourself, “how many ‘good’ years do I have left?” I’m not sure any more what a “good” year is, but I’d say it’s roughly defined as having most of our senses, some control over bodily functions, putting on shoes of the same color, and being reasonably independent.

My kids define it differently and it mostly has to do with appearances. For example, if any of the following occurs, then they have permission to shoot me: Large, wrap around sunglasses; a bolo tie; black, knee-high socks worn with plaid shorts; a tie-dyed T-shirt; neglecting to shave for three or more days in a row; anything made from Rayon. I am hoping neither one of my grown children owns a gun.

Not to be morbid about it, but isn’t growing older the objective when you reach 75? Life expectancy in the U.S. these days is 79. For males, it’s 77, and ladies, you’ll outlive us on average by four years reaching age 81. But wait, a recent study suggested a decline in life expectancy in America: The new number is 78.6 years. But females are still projected to live longer than men, to 81.1 years.

So for the Lee High School Class of 1962, guys you’ve got four more years, on average. Gals, hey, you’ve got about six. Go party!

Anyone who’s engaged in any financial planning has been told that the new “norm” for determining if you’re going to outlive your money is to base everything on living to age 100. So, for us, 2044 seems to be the target year for, well, checking out. It’s a lottery. It’s a crap shoot. Besides, it seems doubtful that by around 2035 or so “good years” will be a fond memory, if you have memory at that age.

So where does this leave us? Unless you’ve had some kind of adverse diagnosis of some kind —- and many of us have — we’ll continue to tiptoe into the darkening near future, fingers crossed and whistling, without a clue about our longevity or about what these years in the third act of our lives might hold.

Probably, given this uncertainty, the best advice I’ve gotten is to try to live each day to its fullest, like it might be your last. If I knew that it was my last, I’d throw a party like no other. So, maybe it’s best to moderate this advice to enjoy what you’ve got while you’ve still got it and do so every day.

On the other hand, it seems heathy to glance backwards when you can to remember the good times, too. One of the most vivid chapters certainly are those wondrous Lee High School years kept alive in our fading memories and through our copious reunions organized, thankfully, by a group of dedicated classmates. These awesome organizers never get enough credit for relighting the warm fires of those vital teenage years.

It’s not productive or even healthy to dwell on those times of course, but it is confirming and heartwarming. For so many of us, it’ll never get better than that, but it’s also good to appreciate that our later “golden” years are pretty good too.

It’s rewarding, resting on the soft cushion of accumulated wisdom, to see children grow into middle age, to see grandkids perform in a school play or head off to college, and to delight in where we are and what we have become, often by the sheer grace of God.

As we enter these latter years, it seems best to dig deep to appreciate, to love, life even more than ever. We have each been given a great gift which is akin to an inheritance. It’s how we spend it is what counts mostly.

Looking at life as a tangible asset may hold clues as to how we make use of it now whether we have many or just a few years left.

Enjoy, no, embrace your day, hug those you love, and push on.

(Let’s make this a conversation. Please submit your ideas and observations and let’s hold hands, as classmates, as we tiptoe into the near future.)

* * * *

On Being Thankful

Mike Hoyt
November 19, 2018

I’m not enough of an historian to really know how Thanksgiving got started. I’ve read someplace that it all began around 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, when English settlers and their former Native American enemies got together for a meal to celebrate an abundant harvest.

It was the native peoples who taught the then hapless English to cultivate corn, or maize, making the first multicultural feast possible in the first place. When I emailed a Cherokee friend, “Happy Thanksgiving” last year, she replied “happy ‘you’re welcome’ day.”

Some say it began a century earlier in St. Augustine of all places with Spanish explorers. Betcha you never knew that. Just think what Thanksgiving would be like with paella instead of turkey and dressing.

In any case, Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving official in 1863 when he declared it a national holiday. FDR moved the annual feast to the fourth Thursday in November. So there.

But Thanksgiving is, or should be, more than a chance to sit down and eat humongous amounts of food: It is an occasion to really give thanks. That requires some introspection.

Sometimes it’s not easy to be thankful. Me? I’m mostly thankful for the new hip I got a month ago. Oh, and for Medicare.

But these days when there’s so much trouble, strife and anger in the world, it’s a little hard to give thanks. You could fill up this page with scary, infuriating words that describe the state we’re in and we’d all get mad at the people responsible. When you strip away as much of the angst as you can, heck, there’s a lot of good stuff we probably take for granted. We all have our own personal blessings to count, but collectively there are plenty of reasons to be thankful these days if you think about it.

I’m going to kickstart a thankful list in the hope that each of you, using the Lee High School eMail Bag, will add to it. Okay, here goes.

First, we really do live in the greatest country on earth. Sure, we’ve got challenges and problems and our share of ugliness, but, darn it, we’re free. We can live mostly without fear. We can choose who governs us and whom to pick fights with and whom to befriend. We often make poor choices in each of these categories, but at least we are free to try. Be thankful for our land and love it as best you can in these times. Oh, and don’t forget to love one another, regardless.

Second, the Creator has put us on a wonderful planet. We’re not taking very good care of it right now and, in some cases, we’ve done our best to muck it up, but we’ve been gifted a really nice and beautiful place to live that’s been mostly kind and providing. I hope we can do better to protect it and give thanks that we’re here.

Third, if you’re reading this, you’ve been given a long life to be thankful for. For some of us, it’s been cruel and tough lately, and you can chalk that up to bad luck or aging, or both. But, you’re here.

Many of us have enjoyed spouses and children and grandchildren and pets. I’ve buried more unforgettable dogs than I can count. I refuse to outlive another one, and each has been better than me.

When you hang around this long, you’re gonna see and experience a lot of things: Wars, terrible storms, sickness and death, great performances, a great cheeseburger, wondrous art, thousands of marvelous sunsets, starry nights, and, if we’re really lucky, love. We’ve known joy and sorrow. We’ve achieved and failed. We’ve won the prize and missed the mark. We’ve sown and reaped. It’s been quite a ride, at least so far. But, we can be thankful for it.

Fourth, and I’m going to stop here, we should be forever grateful that we were able to attend Lee High School which, I’m convinced, was and is one gem of a school. We had marvelous, unforgettable teachers, coaches and mentors in that venerable building on McDuff Avenue.

They left their mark on us and I’d like to think a little bit of each one of us remains in those halls and playing fields.

We were, and are, lucky enough to be Generals through and through and whether we competed on the football field or marched proudly in the band or sang in the chorus, we told our story to the community and the world in ways that will be remembered.

Whether we went off to college or joined the military or entered the workplace after Lee, we carried with us an envied tradition which we, now, today hold on to with both hands and in our hearts.

So many of our classmates are gone now and even though more than half a century has passed since we saw some of them, they remain with us, thankfully. How lucky we were to have walked together for a time.

We really should be thankful for these things and probably a whole lot more when we bow our heads later this week. Thanksgiving should be about more than just turkey and pumpkin pie and football and naps. It’s about living and being grateful for it.

Now, it’s your turn.

* * * *

Respect: When We Need it Most

Mike Hoyt
August 17, 2018

Aretha Franklin died a couple days ago and despite the expected tidal wave of well-earned praise in the media, I think we can all agree she was special to our generation. She was coming into her own about the time we were finishing up our time together at Lee and heading into real life beyond McDuff Avenue.

Aretha was on almost every juke box we ever came across on our road to adulthood. She won 18 Grammies, but probably none of her achievements was greater than her rendition of the 1964 Ottis Redding song Respect. We can all sing at least part of it. But not like her. Respect became a theme song for us pre-Boomers and it especially resonates today.

Music was a big part of our growing up, of course. And for our generation, music was looming large as a social platform. Our little folk group, the Highlanders, routinely borrowed protest songs from the Hootenanny era, because they sounded good, the harmony was uncomplicated, and the chords were easy.

When Bill Robinson, Tommy Lile and I were rehearsing for our farewell gig at the last Lee High Class of ’62 reunion a year or so ago, we began thinking about the lyrics of some of the songs we used to sing. And while those folk ballads seemed harmless and melodious enough, they usually conveyed some sort of message.

What was more striking though was that the words and the sentiments expressed in those songs were generally hopeful. Most were uplifting. And even though many were critical of the status quo, for the most part they urged change gently and lyrically. The answer, my friend, was always “blowing in the wind” and not in your face.

Not that they were benign, but they didn’t smack you in the mouth with demands, profanity and insults. Despite the fact that many protested war and injustice, there was little anger. There was no meanness. There were no threats. There was no labeling, hatred, accusations or name-calling.

“If I had a hammer, I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land…”

“Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?”

“…how many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see?

The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind.”

“This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”

You just gotta wonder if in today’s volatile, mean and dangerous world, if music like this couldn’t be a better solution than shouting at one another. Or tweeting insults in the dark of night.

Take a minute today to listen again to Respect here or on iTunes and see if it doesn’t make you feel slightly more hopeful.

I think it will.

* * * *

Memorial Day Ruminations: Especially Vietnam

Mike Hoyt

May 17, 2018

For the Lee High School Class of 1962, Vietnam was “our” war. Because of our place in time and history, we owned it, like it or not. Our classmate, Gary Sikes died there. Others we cannot name were wounded there and whether their injuries were physically debilitating or are buried somewhere deep inside, they came home changed forever.

Vietnam was special, of course. It was possibly the most despised and misunderstood war our country’s history. It was instigated and prolonged by politicians and government functionaries, now vilified, who allowed scores of Americans to die for their own political purposes.

But this little treatise isn’t about that. It’s about honor and glory and purpose on the part of young American kids who went, who served, who suffered and were ridiculed when they came home.

In recent years, Americans have pulled a switcharoo when it comes to honoring its warriors. Soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen returning from war are now welcomed with open arms and gratitude. That’s as it should be.

For most of us who served in Vietnam, Memorial Day is a mixed emotional metaphor. When I hear “thank you for your service” I want to say, ”where were you in 1969?” but don’t. We’re thankful for the gratitude and the parades, but then we can’t help but think of those who never came home or those who did and were never recognized for their unspeakable sacrifices.

But Memorial Day is a catalyst for memories of what was and what remains.

For many of us who spent time in Vietnam, these recollections are like a series of snapshots in a fading photo album. Moments in time. A worn mosaic of images and sounds and smells and emotions that shape our past and influence our present.

There are things we remember and things we choose not to. And yet, the tapestry of our time in this far off and frightening place is woven tightly together by threads of vivid recollections. Moments that stand out. Vignettes that recur in dreams and nightmares.

For me, these sometimes play like a jerky, disjointed movie. It is like film with missing parts. There are scenes that are out of focus and there are moments that shine vividly. Some are in color, others in black and white. It is like an interrupted story, both pleasant and horrific, that you cannot tell, yet only remember and ponder for yourself.

That’s because Vietnam, or any wartime experience, never lets go. It is a chapter in your life that is probably the most vivid, the most visceral, of any. It is a time you can never forget because it always with you and, deep down, you know that part of your soul is still there.

Like any war, the story of Vietnam is filled with pride, with fear, with heroes, with comrades, and with those admired and hated. It is about life and death and about sublime character and profound bravery. It is about those killed and horribly wounded, on both sides. It’s about destruction beyond comprehension. About those whose courage defies reason. About being frightened like you’d never believe, yet motivated by a gut-level instinct for survival. About the irony on getting wasted within the enemy’s range, yet being numbed and unafraid.

Vietnam was about living and dying. But most of all, it was about surviving.

In 1968 and 1969 the war had reached a fever pitch and anti-war sentiments back home were running wild. It was a confusing, conflicted, painful period for those serving in-country not knowing whether they’d been abandoned and vilified by America, if the war was winding down or ramping up, or what lay ahead.

Stories about this time are set against a backdrop of fear and uncertainty. While there was no shortage of sheer courage and determination, there was nonetheless a fast moving current of change in Vietnam. Amidst it all, the war raged on. Men died. Men were being blown to pieces. The Vietnamese people continued their centuries old miserable existence in a poor country ravaged by fighting.

I am starting to write a book about my Vietnam experience. Maybe my kids will read it. But in the writing lies healing and it will contain stories that are as factual as my 74-year-old mind allows. I am relying on my memories and letters home as sources. Some bring tears, some a faint smile.

Every veteran has these stories to tell. Most won’t because they’re too horrifying or painful or because they believe nobody cares. Those I know need encouragement and validation, because they should tell their stories so that people can know and begin to understand and, in some cases, forgive.

Classmates, these men and women need to heal and you can help them. If you know someone in our class or in our generation who might have served in “our” war, please reach out them this Memorial Day and give them a hug.

They don’t need thanks, they just want to be understood.

* * * *

Finally, Credit Where It’s Due

Mike Hoyt
April 25, 2018

With profuse thanks to Mike, Libby and Rusty for their wake up call, it really is time to acknowledge, no, praise our teachers at Lee.

Come to think about it, probably nobody, aside from our parents, did more to help shape our lives. I can remember only a handful of college professors, but my recollections of our teachers at Lee stand out vividly against the hazy backdrop of our high school days.

Over the years, we’ve managed to turn many our teachers into caricatures. It’s funny, but it’s not fair. As our classmates have reminded us, we should place them once again on the pedestals they rightly deserve.

These days, our teachers seem ageless, frozen in time for the past half century. Somehow, I think they are still there amidst the whisps of chalk dust and that distinctive smell of a dusty classroom.

Isabel Richter still stands in that corner biology classroom framed by glass cases filled with glass jars containing all manner of life floating in formaldehyde. We always worried one would fall from its perch, crashing to the floor releasing its macabre contents that might suddenly spring to life and go skittering across the tile floor.

I will aways be grateful to Ms. Richter for her advice to always drink a glass of warm water each morning. I did that for a while until, in my later years, I figured it was not a great idea to do that any more if you were driving to the mall.

Ms. Goethe, was probably the most wonderful and demanding teacher I ever had. As others have pointed out, memorization and recitation were mainstays of her didactic teaching style. Even today, phrases from Chaucer and Shakespeare and Burns come wafting back in quiet moments. They’re mere snippets now, but back then they were the full literary Monty.

And who can ever forget Dorthy “Dot” Thomas, the bigger-than-life science teacher whose chemistry and physics classes were frightening and tantalizing. I never see a periodic table without thinking of her.

“Big Dot” as she was affectionately known was a giant among teachers, both figuratively and in realty. She towered over us. She loved football players, thank goodness, and hated Jackson High School near where she lived. Just before Thanksgiving each year, she’d admonish us to “beat the hell out of Jackson” and she was always in the Gator Bowl stands cheering.

None of us will ever forget the Lee legends, Ms. Durrance (it scares me to mention her first name), Eldelmira Rivero, Frances Lyon, Luther Bowman, Laura Coxwell, and our sweet aging Spanish teacher, Olive Goodwin, we rudely nicknamed “Senora Pechos Grandes” (Google it).

Who’ll forget the shop teacher whose name now escapes me who turned a blind eye to the belt sander races held in the hallway of the old wooden building next to the track. And heart throb math teacher Linda McClure, who seemed to be about our age. I think I still have a crush on her.

In the end, I guess I’m most indebted to our football coaches who, in their zeal for winning, taught us invaluable lessons that have paid dividends we could never have imagined.

Back then, I was convinced they were sadists trying to kill us. But in retrospect, these men got us ready for life. They made us mentally tougher, built character, and, most of all, taught us the unselfish value of teamwork.

Some life lessons were obtuse, but still useful. I’ll never forget Coach Virgil Dingman’s halftime speech in the 1962 Meninak Game against Lowell High School when he said: “Many of you will never play football again after tonight. But you will have learned many valuable lessons and will be able to walk down the street without falling down and hurting yourself.” That was prophetic.

Coach John Prom was an All-American guard at the University of Alabama at about 150 pounds. He was small, wiry and mean as a water moccasin and he instilled these traits in us linemen in the Mohammed Ali tradition of “dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

He taught to endure pain as well as inflict it. He taught us to fight and scrap until we dropped. And just when you thought you couldn’t take it any more, he’d tell us to “take a knee” and share a joke with the other exhausted players. That’s when we learned that tears and laughter are kindred emotions.

Coach Bob Williams would quietly chide us to endure and to play harder than we ever thought we could. He used to kid me: “Holt (he never used my real name), do your legs swell up like that every fall?” Then, he’d smile and tell you to run more wind sprints. Nausea became our best friend.

Nothing in my life has been tougher and more character building than playing football under these Lee mentors; their lessons got me through fraternity hazing in college, through military training, through combat in Vietnam, through decades in business, and now through the vagaries of advancing age.

So just what did our teachers and coaches at Lee teach us during our years on McDuff Avenue?

To begin with, it was far beyond “book learnin’.” I think we each came away not only with a storehouse of knowledge, but with an intense intellectual curiosity and with a sort of mental toughness that helped us cope in a world that’s grown meaner and more divisive.

Our classroom teachers instilled in us a profound curiosity, the drive to read, a commitment to lifelong learning, problem solving skills, and the pursuit of answers and solutions.

I wish I could see each of them again. I wish I could thank them in person for the gifts they have given us, for the challenges they lay before us, and for the level of care, nurturing, and love they shared.

In the words of our alma mater, thanks to our teachers and coaches, we have truly “gained a noble prize.”

* * * *

“When Irma Came to Town”

Mike Hoyt
September 17, 2017

It was barely a week ago when the people of Jacksonville tried to sleep through a howling storm, believing the worst would soon be over. Irma, once forecast to roar up Florida’s west coast after destroying the Keys, had changed her mind and bolted to the east.

By Monday morning, the floodwaters had come. According to most accounts, Jacksonville was subjected to the worst flooding in 100 years or more. Downtown, Riverside, Ortega, Orange Park, San Marco and a thousand other neighborhoods were inundated in a matter of hours. Gone were houses, cars, docks, boats and who knows what else.

Talking with a few Lee classmates in the aftermath, the damage was far greater than any of us who live elsewhere could begin to appreciate. Many had lost their homes. Their cars had been flooded sitting in presumably safe garages. Flood waters roared through living rooms and dens and offices. Large boats, torn from their moorings along the river, appeared in people’s backyards. Power was gone and stayed gone.

Those who could retreated to second floors to escape the water and moved what they could upstairs in the dark, as the wind howled outside.

Now comes the cruel awakening to what always follows hurricanes: Misery.

I can remember back a few years when Fran clobbered my town. Raleigh lost thousands of trees and we were without power for more than ten days. It was hot, smelly, and downright dismal. There was a stifling, wet, moldy smell made almost unbearable by the heat. We had no ice, no telephones, and no cable TV, which was probably worst of all: Missing “Days of Our Lives” for more than a few days is for some the worst depravation of all.

There, live, was the Weather Channel’s angel of death Jim Cantore standing, wind blown and earnest, in the midst of it all showing our community slowly being engulfed. I’ve always believed that when Jim shows up, it’s time to get out of Dodge. I saw him once in a bar in the Atlanta airport and my instinct was to run like crazy.

After Fran, the constant buzzing of chain saws and the clattering of generators were the only sounds to break the terrible silence that follows a disaster of this sort. It is certain that many of you reading this are suffering the anguish of this cacophony.

Yesterday, Warren Dixon sent along some sobering before-and-after photos of Memorial Park that dramatized it all. The once docile St. John’s River had roared into Riverside and that place where we used to play as children had been turned into an inland sea, complete with whitecaps.

It seems ironic that our beloved river, the namesake of St. John whose career was spent in and near a river baptizing early Christians, had turned suddenly into a cruel, ruthless destructive beast.

I have read that St. John along with his brother St. James was referred to by Jesus as a “son of thunder.” How little we could appreciate the irony in that reference two millennia ago.

To those of us forced to watch it all from afar on the Weather Channel, it was heart wrenching. And yet, as detached as we were, and are, none of us can help but agonize over what has happened to our hometown and to people we love, or don’t even know, in these past days.

Our hearts truly go out to each of you and please know that we appreciate, if even in a small, detached way, how bad it was, is and will be for some time to come.

Now that a more benevolent, peaceful St. John’s has returned, rest assured that we care.

Courtesy of Warren Dixon

"The Long Blue and Gray Line"

Mike Hoyt
June 14, 2017

Thanks to Carl Cochran in the Class of 1958 and our own Joanne Griffin Caraway who brought it to our attention, we now have access to Lee High School yearbooks dating back to our high school’s opening in 1928.

In their pages you’ll find decades of Lee history. They’re like a kind of time machine and looking into the faces of these seniors from years gone by, it’s comforting to know that our years at Lee have such a solid and revered foundation.

I found my dad, Herbert Hoyt, in these pages, class of 1930. I was mildly amazed to see that he was both a cheerleader and a football manager. Must have made game times pretty busy for him, alternating between “cheers for the blue and gray” and dishing out water to thirsty players.

And there, too, was Miss Rivero, virtually unchanged in more than 30 years. The Senior Fellows are shown with their rather forlorn, but pretty, mascot Martha Tillman. We had three members of the national high school orchestra. Four Lee girls were prize winners in the local Butterick Dress Making Contest.

The Generals were state basketball champs that year. Lydia Hodges was the state winner in declamation in 1930. Not sure what that it, really.

But, much has changed since Lee’s early years, of course. In fact, when we look at the Lee of today and that of the early 20th century, there are probably few similarities except the walls of the original building that, back then, were freshly painted and awaiting the very first class.

Lee was dedicated in January 1928, on Robert E. Lee’s birthday, and along with sister schools Landon and, of course, Andrew Jackson, replacing the old Duval High School.

1929, when Lee’s second class graduated, marked the end of the era known as the “Roaring 20’s.” On October 29 of that year, on a day that became known as Black Tuesday, the stock market crashed ushering in the global Great Depression. Fascism was taking hold in Italy, Joseph Stalin consolidated his power in the Soviet Union, Palestinians and Jews clashed over control of the Western Wall, Japan was gaining power, and All Quiet on the Western Front,recalling the horrors of WWI was a best seller. Herbert Hoover was sworn in as the 31st president of the United States in March and the first ever Academy Awards were presented a month later.

It was mostly a time of uncertainty and tumult in the United States. Yet, life in Jacksonville went on. The Florida Theatre had been completed in 1927. Ah, the memories that vaunted balcony holds for so many of us.

The theatre in Five Points opened that same year. A year later the Gator Bowl was finished.

About 125,000 people lived in our city then. Now, we have 822,000 residents. Lee’s enrollment was 954 in 1929; today, about 1750 students attend our alma mater, down from the 2000 or so when we were there.

Myriad events have transpired during the almost nine decades of Lee’s existence and we, the class of 1962, have lived, celebrated, and suffered through many of them. But, despite and maybe because of it all, we have remained steadfast and true to our Lee heritage.

Perhaps more than any other class, we have embraced the memories and traditions of our grand old school. And while we mourn our classmates who have gone on before us, we rejoice in our lifelong friends and classmates who love this place as much as each of us do.

We do not do so alone, but as part of a long and proud lineage that’s painted blue and gray. It’s a ribbon of faith and hope and remembrance that winds its way from throughout the country and world all the way back to a special place on McDuff Avenue.

And still, we proudly lift our eyes.

* * * *

Remembering One of Our Own

by Mike Hoyt

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

William Shakespeare

Recently, I stumbled, as I often do these days. Earlier this month, in my semi-monthly blog LastGaffe.com, I presumed to poke a little fun at tuba players on International Tuba Day. It seemed innocent enough, until I was reminded of a forgotten fact.

Gary Sikes, our classmate, was not only a tuba player at Lee and later at Mercer University, but a damned good one. Gary was killed by enemy fire in Vietnam on December 20, 1968, in Quang Ngai Province. He was an Army first lieutenant with C Company, 5 Battalion, 46 Infantry, 198th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. They don’t get much braver than that.

A fellow officer, Bill O’Neill, wrote about that time:

Gary and I hit it off when we discovered that we both had interests in theater, especially musical theater. On warm November and December evenings, Gary and I would climb the stairs to the top of the LZ watchtower and sing every show tune we knew. Gary was a talented tenor trained in opera, but he loved American musicals.

C Company was helicoptered in to a valley just east of the mountains. The area was believed to be a base camp of the NVA… On the 20th Lt Gary Sikes led his platoon on patrol near a heavily traveled trail. Gary and one of his platoon sergeants were stopped along the trail looking at a map when a rifle shot killed the sergeant. Within seconds a command-detonated explosive instantly killed Gary Sikes. He did not suffer.

Gary’s name is inscribed on the long, black somber memorial wall in a Washington park, along with the 58,200 others who never came home again. He is among those we honor and remember on this Memorial Day 2023. Gary’s loss is especially sobering, since he went from being a gifted musical talent to fighting in the muck and grime in a small country 9,000 miles away. As an officer, he was a prime target.

Many of us remember Gary as a cheerful, affable and thoroughly likable friend. He was the president of the Lee High Band, an honor that doesn’t come lightly, and he rose to musical stardom, not just in the band, but as an on-stage performer with a beautiful tenor voice. He later went on to teach at Gordon State College in Barnesville, Ga.

On a Memorial Day 53 years ago, Lt. Thomas Gary Sikes was honored by Mercer University as the school’s ROTC parade ground and intramural field was dedicated to him. It was a Saturday, May 30, 1970, less than two years after his death and 8 years, almost to the day, after he walked with us at the Lee Class of 1962 graduation. Little did he know what lay ahead in his shortened life. Nor did we.

His widow, Judy McGarity Sikes, unveiled a granite marker in his honor on what is now Sikes Field at Mercer. Gary’s class president, S. David Laney, said on that day:

"Gary Sikes died…serving his country, and in fulfillment of his obligations and duties as a soldier and a citizen. It is fitting that his Alma Mater take the occasion of this Memorial Day to honor his memory as well as his act of courage and sacrifice. We remember and honor what he did, and yet, we grieve that a life so young and unfulfilled was taken in its prime from those whom he loved and who loved him. The tragedy of war is the tragedy of young men with promise being taken from our midst before that promise can be fulfilled.

"Those of us who remember Gary remember him for his enjoyment of life, for his zest in acting and singing in the productions here at Mercer. Watching him perform on the stage, we saw him place himself into the character of his role, with full confidence and enjoyment in what he was doing. Because of this remembered zest and vibrancy in his character and personality, those of us who remember Gary know that the gift of life was not taken lightly by him."

Gary now rests in the Hillcrest Cemetery in Elbert County, Georgia, in the rolling green hills near the South Carolina border. He will forever be serenaded by singing birds and gentle breezes, a quiet tribute to his love of music and life.

As we, his classmates in the Lee High School Class of 1962, remember the fallen on this Memorial Day, take a moment to think of Gary and all that he did and all that he gave. In these times, we speak too freely of heroes, but know that Gary was truly one who should, and will be, remembered for all time.

To fallen soldiers let us sing.
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing.
Our broken brothers let us bring,
To the Mansions of the Lord.

No more bleeding, no more fight.
No prayers pleading through the night.
Just divine embrace, eternal light
In the Mansions of the Lord.

Where no mothers cry and no children weep.

We will stand and guard though the angels sleep.

All through the ages safely keep

The Mansions of the Lord.

by Nick Glennie-Smith and Randall Wallace

Remembering One of Our Own

by Mike Hoyt
May 29, 2023