From "Surviving The Smoke Hole"

Last year, I had an e-book published called Surviving The Smoke Hole.  It made millions of dollars.  Since my class reunion a couple of weeks ago, I've had many people (two) ask me about it. Here's an excerpt.

Most books written by my generation mention “change” and how quickly thing changed in our lifetime. The difference between 2005 and 2015 seems like ten years. The difference between 1963 and 1973 seems like one hundred years.

Looking at it from a historian’s eyes-ok, through the eyes of a person who majored in history in college and has watched the History Channel, a lot of events happened between 1963 and 1973. Mainly: Vietnam, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and various political/inspirational leaders being killed in public for no reason.

These topics have been written about ad nauseam, which according to my high school Latin teacher, Noel Jenks, means “a lot". I don’t want to review them here except to say The Beatles were great, I’m glad I didn’t go to Vietnam, and Lee Harvey Oswald shot John Kennedy.

I must be the only person my age that never watched The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I am pretty sure my parents thought Ed Sullivan was a mentally ill. At least my mother did. She didn’t like that Ed Sullivan wouldn’t show Elvis and his hips but would show those old long haired boys from Liverpool. It didn’t make sense to her that Sullivan wanted to spare the world from Elvis’ hot smoldering Elvis shakes but didn’t have a problem with The Beatles saying they wanted to hold hands and you know where that would lead. (Up the arm, on the shoulder, then down to the Promised Land.)

She thought it was all about what today we would call “Southern Phobia” (i.e.: Sullivan was prejudice against Southerners). If Twitter was around, she probably would have tweeted: Sullivan stop hatin’ us. #Southernphobic.

What The Beatles did besides holding your hand was have long hair and this started a trend which was in full force by the time I got to high school. All the boys had their hair long in the seventies and the eighties.  This caused most parents, especially the dads, to remark how much the boys looked like girls with “that old long hair”.

The whole point of the above History Lesson is just to acknowledge that times were a’changin and they began a’changin big time in Cobb County in 1973.

Companies from the North began moving to the Atlanta area in 1973. Atlanta had developed a reputation as being a pearl in a sea of grits. Despite Lester Maddox’s best intentions, we didn’t have bad racial hostilities like Alabama and Mississippi. Basically, Atlanta cared only about one color: Green.  Atlanta was interested in business and running around beating people due to their skin color was bad for business, so Atlanta told the bigots and racists to shut up so the Northerners could move down here and bring their money.

East Cobb was close to Interstate 75, which when it wasn’t being “improved” could theoretically allow a person to leave his house in East Cobb at 7:30 and arrive at his office in downtown Atlanta at 8:00.  In reality, I-75 allowed a person to leave his house in East Cobb at 7:30 and arrive at his office in downtown Atlanta at 7:30 the next day.

In a classic bait and switch, the leaders of Cobb County touted their access to Atlanta as a plus and began to build high-class subdivisions in the Eastern part of the county. Now the subdivision I grew up in, Beverly Hills (really) was pretty snazzy before all of the Northerners moved down. Nice houses and a Home Owners Association, which Inez refused to belong to (we were not required to join since we moved in before the HOA was started) because she had this quaint notion that nobody had the right to tell anyone what to do with their property. Because she refused to join, she didn’t pay the fees for the subdivision’s pool therefore, we couldn’t go swimming there. This really became an issue for me when one of my friends saw a hot female classmate’s bosoms due to a swimsuit malfunction at the pool. I would have paid to see this malfunction. Thanks, Mom.

However, a new subdivision was soon built. This subdivision had a golf course. It was called Indian Hills.

I don’t think I ever met a native Southerner that lived in Indian Hills. It was always families from the North. The families whose dads were doctors, lawyers, or accountants; Big Shot Dads. Not like Old Man Manis, who in fairness was a foreman at Lockheed.  These Dads were hip and the Moms looked like they actually cared about their appearance. All of the kids in Indian Hills were above average and pretty nice looking, too.

All of those kids attended Wheeler.

Soon, other subdivisions were built and those houses were filled with the transplants from the North. Soon, another subdivision eclipsed Indian Hills: The Atlanta Country Club. 

The kids from The Atlanta Country Club made all of the rest of us seem like we were raised in a Philippines trash heap.

 All of those kids attended Wheeler.

It was nothing in Junior High School to have three or four new kids a week. All from the North. Everyone’s last name ending in a vowel. I remember one young lady, Lynn when she was introduced to our class in eighth grade. It had to have been a frightening experience for her. All of these eighth-grade eyes staring at you. None of them could have been more than a quarter Italian at best.  When she opened her mouth, the mother of all Boston accents came out. It had to be rough to have someone look at you and say, “Whut? Ah didunt understand a wered you sed” (Translation: “What? I didn’t understand a word you said.”).   

[Note: Shortly after I started this book, I learned Lynn had passed away several years earlier. I don’t ever remember teasing her, but if I did, I hope she forgave me. You have to cut us some slack. Most of us had heard about people from Massachusetts but we had never seen a kid our age from Massachusetts.]

There were kids from Minnesota, Indiana, New York, and Maryland. They were all just a tad bit better than the rest of us. Better hair, teeth, glasses, grades, and personalities. You wanted to dislike them because they would talk about how their Dads would let them drink beer and go to R-rated movies. But you couldn’t because they were so cool.

This population explosion in East Cobb caused two events to occur. One was the building of another new high school, George Walton (Walton) in another part of East Cobb to ease the overcrowding at Wheeler. The second was Split Sessions at Wheeler. The Upper Classmen (Seniors and Juniors) went in the morning because they had “jobs” and “cars”. The Sophomores and Freshman went in the afternoon.

Because of split sessions, my first two years of high school were spent in this weird blur of time. We went to school at Noon and got home after six. The lowly freshman did not even see the seniors, which was probably good for me since I had entered the awkward phase of my life known as the rest my life.

I entered 9^th grade just like I exited 8^th grade: with greasy moppy hair and thick horned rim glasses.  I would have looked like the average hipster today, but back then my look was the King of the Dorks. 

My look was forever captured on film during the “picture day” for the yearbook. Like most school picture days, it was a cattle call, but for some reason, this one was the worst of all picture days in the history of picture days.

First of all, it was one of those September days in Georgia when it is overcast, hot and the humidity was about a billion percent. The air conditioner unit at Wheeler, which apparently was a fan behind a block of ice, was out and the whole school smelled like one gigantic educational funk.

Secondly, you had a team of the worst photographers in the history of photography running the smelly, sweaty kids in and out in record time.  School legend had it that one kid’s school picture featured him with a fly on his nose. I would have chalked it up as an urban legend if I hadn’t seen my picture.

I was wearing my favorite maroon shirt that I thought made me look semi-cool and probably the best looking 9^th grade male on campus.  I had taken special care to WASH my hair the night before to give it the extra bouncy 1973 look. However, since this was at the end of the day, my hair looked like I just got out of the shower. Still, I was convinced I was the coolest looking kid ever, despite my horn-rimmed coke bottle glasses.

I remember the photographer telling me to say “Cheeseburger”, the flash of the bulb and the feeling that this picture was going to be on various mirrors of the comely young ladies of Wheeler.

When the pictures were handed out, it featured a greasy haired kid with horn-rimmed glasses with his lips pooched out like the “duck lips” pictures you see today on Facebook and Instagram. Nobody, I showed the picture to DID NOT laugh and this included several comely young ladies of Wheeler. My mother refused to buy them. She said she didn’t want this picture to be on the news if anything happened to me.  The problem was my eighth-grade picture wasn’t that much better except I wasn’t pooching out my lip but I guess that would have been her only choice.

My Remarks

I was one of the speakers at the Wheeler High School Class of 1977 40 Year Class Reunion.  Here are most of my remarks, with footnotes, added, in italics.

Welcome to the 40 year Reunion of The Class of 1977!  You're here! You've made it! Give yourself a hand!

I’m Alan Manis and I’ll be your fun facilitator for tonight. We’re going to have some fun and there will be some audience participation.

Speaking of audience participation….I want to do a little ice breaker.  Please stand if you have ever Rolled a house  or Rolled a joint.   (I made a little mistake here. Instead of first instructing the class to listen and then let everyone respond at the same time, I said "Rolled a house" and immediately most of the entire room stood up.   Then they sat down.  I went ahead and said "Rolled a joint" and several people-and this is the only way I can describe it-proudly stood up.)  

This explains everything, Mr. Hines!  (Marietta Daily Journal columnist Roger Hines who was a teacher at Wheeler in the '70's.)

People don’t realize how big of a thing it was for our class to roll a yard.  One house, I forget which one, had such an awesome roll job that it was featured in The Marietta Daily Journal.  And yes, I know the names of the individuals that did it. (My great, late friend Barry Suttle was involved in this roll job. He told me the names of other kids involved. He also told me about a 9th grade streaking incident. I know those names, too)

It was a status symbol.  I remember seeing one person (who is NOT here tonight) beg a leading “roller” (who I won't name except to say his name rhymes with Terry Tibble) to roll her house.  Yes, it was a status symbol until the rolled person’s dad made them clean up the mess.

Of course, all of us know why we have class reunions.  We want to see how awful and old looking our classmates have become!  And Bill Bergin, what happened?  (The joke here is this guy still looks like a million bucks.)   Just joking.  You still look great.    On top of that, we don’t need class reunions to see how bad people look, we have Facebook. (I'm not sure I actually said this sentence. If I didn't, I should have.)

Your reunion committee worked at the 40-year reunion of the Class of ’76 last year. Let me tell you, they were old looking.  At the check-in table, we gave them their name tag and a Medicare Advantage card. (Just joking)

I’m not saying they were old, but the most commonly heard phrase was "I've fallen and I can't get up!"  The second most commonly heard phrase was "Huh?" "What?"  (Just joking again, '76)

 

I’m not saying they were old, but one guy asked me where he could score a dime bag of Metamucil (Again, just a joke.)

Wow, 40 years.  Can you believe it?  It seems like yesterday I was listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd on my stereo.  Wait, that was yesterday.  Man, I’ve got to update my playlist. (It took three people to write this joke.)

Did you have any concept in 1977 of what you would be like in 2017? Back then, I had a hard time conceiving 40 minutes into the future much less forty years. 

Things were different in 1977. When my son was in high school, his school at Coke machines.   We had THE WATER FOUNTAIN. It came in one flavor: Water!  And we liked it! We loved it!  (I told my son that and he said, “Okay”.)

Our parents had it tough. THEY WALKED TO SCHOOL, THROUGH THE SNOW. It was UPHILL!  BOTH WAYS.  Then when they got to school, they found out the School had moved to….three miles down the road.

Most of our parents had tough lives growing up in the Depression, WWII, and Korea.  They didn’t get toys for Christmas. They got dirt. And it was the best dirt ever!

This is the toughest thing we could tell our kids: We had to GET UP OFF THE COUCH AND TURN A KNOB TO CHANGE CHANNELS ON THE TV SET. You only have four or five channels at best! And there was no DVR. If you missed that episode of “Happy Days”, you know, the one where Mrs. C tells Fonzie to “sit on it”, well, too bad. You had to wait until summer to see it. But we liked, we loved it

If I had a Time Machine, I would definitely go back to 1977.  

 

I would find 1977 Alan and tell him one thing: YES, YOU WILL GET SOME ACTION.

By the way, I was at our 5-year reunion and someone walked up to me and said, “So. Have you gotten laid, yet?”  There must have been some sort of pool about GUYS WHO WOULD NEVER GET ANY.   "I've got Manis, no sooner than Christmas Day, 1989"  (Afterwards, several classmates approached me saying they were happy I got laid.)

Looking back, I think we were an unusual class.  There were those of us who were born on the second floor of Kennestone Hospital. Then, I believe it was in 1972, we had a lot of kids move in from other places, primarily from the North, into the area. We were pretty diverse for a bunch of white kids.

Although a lot of us are not natives of Marietta, we have a lot in common.  We went up the same hill on Holt Road, walked through the same doors, walked the same halls, saw the same people, sat in the same desks and looked out of the same windows and we all knew the same thing.  We all knew where the “lie-berry” was.

Yes, good old Mr. Hipsher.  Incidentally, my son’s fourth grade teacher was Mr. Hipsher’s daughter-in-law.  I spent every parent-teacher conference trying to get her to say “lie-berry”. (Mr. Hipsher had a Southern accent and pronounced "library" as "lie-berry")  “When Ben has a project, you take him to…”  “The Media Center”.   “No, that’s not the word I was thinking of.”

I really feel sorry for Mr. Hipsher because being a Vice Principal in the70’s had to be the pits. You were always dealing with the bad kids.

Like the time I was sent to the office.  First of all, it was not my fault, it was Chris Moody’s fault.

    

Secondly, my “crime” was “eating lunch at the wrong time”.  We left class early and went to lunch. 

We got the note to see Mr. Hipsher in 6^th period.  When we got in there, Chris sat directly in front of him and I sat off to the side.  Mr. Hipsher, literally, lit into Chris like a drill instructor or Nick Saban when you miss a block. 

“Kras. Beall tole me what you boys did.  Yew just cain’t make up yer on rools” and this went on for about 10 minutes.  Everything was “skool” and “Yew” and the importance of “followin’ rools”

“Kras. Why yew wanna dew sumpthin like this?  Yew represented the skool  real well in that math tournament”. (Chris was part of the math team which won an tournament bringing great honor to the school).   “Whadda ya think the other skools will thang when they hear about this.”  (I was thinking, “How would they know?”).

He then said, “Kras, Imma ashamed of yew.”  Then he looked at me and said.  “Yew too, boy”.

Now I interrupt this story for a very important footnote.  At that time, you could not have detention after school. It had to be before school.  Chris, being smart, had a class before school started. They wanted to challenge the “smart kids” because it was bad to bore a smart kid.  Us dumb kids had the “window” that we could look out.  And since Chris was in this class, he could not have detention.

Mr. Hipsher was beside himself. “Kras, what would yew dew if yew were me? What punishment dew yew deserve?"

Now, Chris said, in all seriousness, “I think detention would be appropriate”.

I looked at him and almost said a real bad word.  Detention for eating lunch?  How am I going to explain that to Inez?  My mom drummed it into my head,  “Alan I know you’re not smart, but you can at least behave”).

Mr. Hipsher looked at Chris and then looked at the ceiling. And said, “Naw, you boys go back to class, I don’t everwant to see you again”.

Since graduation, I think our class has done some wonderful things. One classmate is considered a leading expert in infant crib death in Europe. Another  won the 1986 PGA Championship. Off the top of my head, we have a couple of lawyers and a Canadian judge. We have three or four pastors. Pam Stone had a successful career in stand-up comedy and was on a TV show. Danny Simpson has written hit songs and some incredible comedy for the late Tim Wilson. We’ve had several teachers and one was Cobb County Teacher of The Year.  One classmate is considered a leading designer of golf courses in the county.  One classmate got his Ph.d before our 5 year reunion. We have several in IT.  We have at least two doctors and a veterinarian. And I have spoken with Eddie Van Halen’s mother in law.

(After this, I introduced Mr. Hines.  I'm including because it was one of the honors of my life to introduce Roger Hines.)

I went to school for 12 years in Cobb County. My four year degree took six years to obtain. Plus, I went back to school for a year one time. So that is 19 years worth of education and I would have to say Roger Hines was the best educator I’ve ever encountered. After we graduated, he made his way up to North Cobb to teach. He’s retired now, but he has served in the Ga House of Representatives. He ran for Congress.  He’s now a columnist for the Marietta Daily Journal.  It is my great pleasure to introduce The Grammar Hammer himself, Roger Hines.

After Mr. Hines spoke (and it was great), I introduced the ladies I served on The Reunion Committee. I 'm including it here because of the great work they did. Plus, I wanted to prove to Terri Sabo that I did include her.

I would like recognize the members of The Reunion Committee.  Denise Dickson Younker (she’s got to do this next year); Cynthia Killingsworth Fortenberry (she did the Power Point); Carol Wright Underwood (who helped with our finances); Meg Pittard Daniels (who has been married, as of last week, for 39 years), Sweet Debi Casto Kelly (who knows just everybody); Terri Sabo (who printed our name tags and got Cobb County to pay for it);  Sandy Dasinger Quarles (whoever does this next time has to have Sandy’s help because she understands Pay Pal) Lori Stanley Manis ( who is not in our class, but is the hottest member of our bunch and I’m not just saying that because lets me sleep with her). The leader of this rag-tag bunch of goofballs was Lisa Eubanks Dorner. If there is anybody who loves you more than I do it is her. Finally, one of our members passed this last April, our buddy, Barry Suttle, who is represented here by his son Eric.