1965 HS Graduation
Our senior year is a time for changes1965-05-05 Susie's great-grandfather, John Scott Kelly died. She cried and cried. I couldn't understand her emotions. I told her how lucky she was to have known her grandparents and her great-grandparents. My mother's parents died before I was born. By the time Susie's great-grandfather died, I had already attended the funerals of my remaining grandparents, 3 aunts and uncles, and 3 first cousins. I was fast learning not to get too attached to the people I knew and loved.  Dot Little's mother, Gertrude Kelly with Gertrude's father, John Scott Kelly |
| 1965-05-03 My niece Carmen Yvette Vincent was born. My brother Rick joked about her name, "We gave her a sexy middle name and she'll probably grow up looking like a line-backer for the Green Bay Packers!" She was my parents' first grandchild. They had always wanted a little girl and they spoiled her rotten.  Robert Owen kissing baby Carmen while sitting at my mother's kitchen table |
1965-spring I took Susie to my senior prom. Neither of us cared much about dancing so we didn't long. We went to a popular Italian place for dinner called "Carnagios" on the Bessemer Super Highway where we both ordered Chicken Parmigiana. It was the first time either of us had ever eaten at a fancy restaurant. The following year, Susie wanted to attend her junion-senior prom but my band had an engagement to play at another school that night. She never forgave me for it.  Susie and Ronnie - prom night, 1965. My brother Rick always said I looked "swayve" and "de-boner." |
1965-05-28 When I finished high school I was under the impression I had to attend summer school to graduate. It was ill advice from a school counselor who had told me I didn’t have enough credits to graduate. When I went to the office at the end of summer class, I asked our school principal Louis Marty when I could get my diploma. He reached in his desk drawer and said, “I have it right here. Why weren’t you at commencement?” I told him a counselor had advised me I didn’t have enough credits. He scoffed and said, “You didn’t need to do that. You could have joined the rest of us!” I had gone to summer school and missed my commencement exercises for nothing. To make up for my loss, my mother threw a graduation party for me by renting the Hueytown Community Center for the evening. My band and I played for all our family and friends. 1965-07-30 My brother Larry married Carol Anne Jones. I was an usher in their fancy wedding. They handed me a pole with a lighted wick at the end. It was my job to light the candles just prior to their ceremony then put them out with the snuffer opposite the lighted wick when the ceremony ended.  Carol Jones - 1963 (from our high school annual) |
1965-May About May 1965 I convinced my dad to buy a vintage 1960 Gibson ES-335, semi-hollow body electric guitar with a hardshell case. Dad knew I wanted a new, better guitar than the cheap, Japanese electric guitar and amp he had purchsed for me previously. In fact, he had already located a very nice Gibson guitar for sale by someone he'd heard of. He took me to see the guitar but it wasn't what I was looking for. The ES-335 was a beautiful guitar in tobacco sunburst color. The serial number was A-33230. It cost $140.00 (nearly $1,200 in today's dollars). Later, I added a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece for another $40.  Photo taken Christmas Day 1967 in our apartment in Kokomo, IN |
Before Christmas that year, he surprised me when he went to Sears, Roebuck, & Co. and bought me a Silverton twin-twelve (two channel) stack amplifier with reverb, and tremolo. In 1993 I foolishly traded the guitar for a Gretsch Country Gentleman valued at $1,000 which I also traded a few years afterward. Both the Gibson and the Gretsch are now considered vintage collectors guitars and today would be quite valuable.  Photo taken Christmas Day 1967 in our apartment in Kokomo, IN. Notice the Christmas tree on the right, also the ashtray on top of the guitar amplifier. I was still smoking cigarettes at the time of this photo. |
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