Leon High School
Tallahassee, Florida
Class of 1959
What do you remember most about November 1955? Below are headlines for the month, followed by memories of the month, followed by links to other websites with November 1955 info.
To view other months/years of the countdown, click here to go back to the Countdown Page.
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November 1955 Headlines
(courtesy of http://dmarie.com/timecap/)
Nov 2 - Clarton-Schwerdt & Schaffer discover polio virus
Nov 6 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Nov 7 - Supreme Court of Baltimore bans segregation in public recreational areas
Nov 9 - UN disapproves of South Africa's apartheid politics
Nov 12 - Date returned to in "Back to the Future" & "Back to the Future II"
Nov 13 - 1st live telecast from non-contiguous foreign country-Havana Cuba
Nov 16 - Johnny Cash made his 1st chart appearance with "Cry Cry Cry"
Nov 18 - Bell X-2 rocket plane taken up for 1st powered flight
Nov 22 - RCA Victor's best investment paying $25,000 to Sun Records & Sam Philips for rights to Elvis Presley, a truck driver from Tupelo Miss
Nov 25 - Race segregation forbidden on trains & buses between US states
Nov 26 - Johnny Cash debuts Top 10 country song "Cry! Cry! Cry!"
Nov 30 - Argentine government disbands Peronistic party
COUNTDOWN TO GRADUATION - NOVEMBER 1955
LINKS TO WEBSITES WITH GOBS OF MORE NOVEMBER 1955 INFO
Top 10 Hits of November 1955
(First week of the month)
(courtesy of
1. Autumn Leaves - Roger Williams
2. Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing - Four Aces
3. Yellow Rose Of Texas - Mitch Miller
4. Moments To Remember - Four Lads
5. Shifting Whispering Sands - Billy Vaughn
6. Black Denim Trousers - Cheers
7. The Bible Tells Me So - Don Cornell
8. Shifting Whispering Sands - Rusty Draper
9. Only You - Platters
10. He - Al Hibbler
US R&B chart toppers this month:
All By Myself - Fats Domino
US Country chart toppers this month:
That Do Make It Nice - Eddy Arnold
Sixteen Tons - Tennessee Ernie Ford
I also notice some integration/segregation-related entries in the headlines again this month. Guess things were continuing to heat up at the Federal level and in a few states. I was reading about Rosa Parks when she passed on last month and noticed that December 1, 1955 is the date that she refused to give her seat to a white man and precipitated the Montgomery bus boycott, a key event in the civil rights movement. But, that takes us into December and we ain't there yet ... so I guess I'll end here.
Looking over the headlines each month, it always amazes me how many earth-shaking activities were going on while I spent my time trying to avoid getting called on in Mrs. Scarborough's Latin class, trying to keep up with Mrs. Rehwinkle's math teachings, and hurrying out of school each afternoon to get to my paper route. I had no idea of the civil rights movement about to happen, the nuclear tests in Russia and the USA, apartheid, broadcasts from Cuba, RCA picking up Elvis, and the X-2 rocket leading us into the space program. Makes you wonder what's happening right now that will profoundly affect our futures. I guess we have much more information from the media now, it's more current, and we're older so pay closer attention, but I can't help wondering what little events, like Rosa Parks on the bus, seem minor now but will turn out to be monumental as we look back on them in 50 years ... or someone looks back ... probably none of us.
But wait! I can't end yet! I just looked over a bunch of links that I collected in my November 1955 research that haven't been listed yet. Some I've mentioned, some not ... here's a bunch of interesting related links: CLICK HERE for photos of Elvis record covers from Aug 1954 – Dec 1959. CLICK HERE to read about the Alaska constitutional convention in November 1955 that initiated their road to statehood in 1959 - they made statehood in the time it took us to get through Leon. CLICK HERE to read about Project Wigwam U.S. nuclear tests. And to see what passed for Science Fiction in 1955, visit this website.
And that's about it for November 1955. FYI - an advanced Yahoo Search on "November 1955" yields 382,000 hits and Google 197,000. I only check through the first 100 in each list, but that seems to be as far as you need to go before the information starts getting redundant. If anybody has any suggestions of other places to look, send them on!
Well, that's it for this month. As usual, PLEASE - if you have any walks down memory lane that you'd like to share, particularly in the December 1955 time frame, by all means email them to me! I really enjoy having something in here written by someone other than me! I
Rockin' Rollin' Diaries
July '55 - '62
The charts in UK and USA, the releases
and other important events
'Shivers down the backbone....'
Something that I found reallyinteresting in the headlines list is the November 12th entry that says that's when Marty McFly returned to 1955 in two of the Back to the Future movies. I love that series! I've got parts 1, 2, and 3 on tape and have several times sat and watched all three in succession while camped in the RV. Click the photo on the left to visit their amazing website! Not sure if I enjoyed the movies so much because of the concept of travelling back in time to 1955 or not ... sounds like a neat thing to do! Every time I watch the series, I see something new and always enjoy them. Guess I'm just a nostalgia bug. That, plus the fact that I find time travel in general an interesting topic, whether it's in Back to the Future, Star Trek, Stargate SG-1, Time Cop, or whatever.
Some Asides Before I Start
Before you start, jump back to October for a minute to read the "OOPS!" that I added. Not a big deal, just something I forgot to say and that you might have been wondering about. Oh! ... something else I forgot to mention. I noticed in my "October 1955" search that it was then that Princess Margaret of England decided not to marry commoner Peter Townsend, because she didn't want to forfeit her place in the line of succession. I mention this because I thought that happened a loooong time ago .. not as recently as our Freshman year in High School. In 1960, she married photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, in a glittering ceremony, the first "modern" royal wedding thanks to the wider availability of television in the UK. For details, check out the WacklePedia entry on Margaret.
Oops! One more divergence, then on to November. In my Retirement Tips and RV Stuff Newsletter yesterday, I provided a link to a really unusual clock. Just now, when picking up the WacklePedia entry, I found another on their Home Page -- really wierd. When you get there, move your mouse around ... strange!
I'm thinking I might do a little "around the jukebox" section each month, since that's one of the strong memories that I and a few others have about Leon. Look through the list of top 10 hits above and you'll see two that for sure were sung many times in the cafeteria, Yellow Rose of Texas and Sixteen Tons. And, did you notice that the Fats Domino song is under R&B instead of Rock & Roll? ... Wonder why that is ... I guess maybe that Top Ten list is the overall top ten songs, not necessarily Rock & Roll. Even though the list is on the RocknRoll website, I suppose in those days we didn't really have enough Rock & Roll to merit our own list. I guess you really wouldn't put Roger Williams, the Four Aces, Mitch Miller, the Four Lads, and Billy Vaughn in the Rock & Roll category, so there's my answer.
Another musical note (pun intended) - I've noticed a lot of fuss recently about Johnny Cash. The movie is coming out, there's a TV special, what's that all about? I look in the headlines above and notice that he hit the charts for the first time November 16th with his song "Cry, Cry, Cry", then made top ten country on the 26th. Who even remembers him singing "Cry, Cry, Cry"? I vaguely remember Johnny Ray singing that waaay back, but not Johnny Cash. Guess I didn't listen to much country back then.
Personal Memories of November 1955
Now, on to November ... in my "November 1955" search, I came upon some unknown guy who played a part in a Cisco Kid episode in November. That lead me to Cisco-related links and eventually to the Grand Comic Books Database project, whose goal it is to create a database of every comic book ever published. It's amazing! They've got over 100,000 comic book covers on their site now, and it's growing daily. So what's that got to do with November 1955? ... not much! After conferring with some classmates, we've concluded that by this time we had outgrown our comic book collections. HOWEVER, I still had a few hundred in 1955, peeked at them now and then, and my mom didn't discard them until I "left home" in 1962. As much time as I spent reading comics in my younger days, I was sure I'd recognize one of those covers. After perusing Donald Duck, Lone Ranger, Archie, Superman, Cisco Kid, and Scrooge for several hours, I concluded that my memory isn't that good. None looked really that familiar. The only ones that almost rang a bell were the Terry and the Pirates covers - I actually remembered Terry, Hotshot Charlie, and the Dragon Lady! Any of this sound familiar? I put the pictures up there because they raised nostalgic feelings in my soul and just in case some of you out there are interested in wandering through their database. Click any of the photos to see it larger - click the captions to read about the issues, the series, etc. Go to their home page and you can search for any comic book that strikes your fancy.
I don't know if you've noticed, but each month I seem to fall into a "theme." In June, I really had some 1955 reminiscences to chat about, but in July, it was mainly magazines; in August, magazine and cars; in September, out-of-production cars; in October, TV shows and computers; and this month, comics and ... whatever. Last month, after I put out the bit on TV shows, I got an email from Dede Keyes Matthews. She tells me that her remembrance of TV in the 1950's is that her parents would not purchase a tv set until she left for college! She tells us that she had to go next door to Margaret Ausley's to see special shows and that her house was the only one in the neighborhood with no antenna. Sounds like her parents had a censoring method that was even more effective than a V-chip!
Did you know that there are people who watch all changes on all websites on the internet, so they'll know when they get mentioned? Wonder how they do that. Last month, I mentioned The History Of Computers Project (thocp.net) and, within a day or two, I got an email from one of the editors asking if I'd like to join "their little band." How about that? I'm not only amazed, but honored. Looks like a group of international computer experts, cataloging the history little-by-little. I volunteered to help and am in the process of writing about some languages that I remember using - ever heard of HAL/S and HyperText? You soon will on thocp.net!
But, I'm rambling again ... want to read more of my ramblings? Check out RV-BLOG.RV6.ORG! Now, how about some Leon memories ...?
