Charles Lee:  

Charley is originally from Middlesboro, Kentucky. I was born there in 1953, in Middlesboro, Kentucky, which is around 14 miles outside of Cumberland Gap. I lived across the street from Danny McCormick (a fellow SGHS grad) in 1st grade, and then moved back to Ohio before moving back to the Scotia-Schenectady-Niskayuna-Ballston Lake-Clifton Park-:Porter Corners-Saratoga Springs area for about 20 years, including my high school years at Scotia-Glenville. I still have some of my hair and some of my teeth and some of my mental faculties, though all of them seem to be leaving me, or preparing their departure, daily. My sense of humor, if ever I had one, seems relatively intact. My wife and I live about an hours' drive from New Orleans, and we go there whenever we have an opportunity. It's a great and fun city to visit! From time to time, when my antebellum-era musical trio doesn't have an engagement and we have nothing more urgent to do on a weekend, the trio goes to New Orleans to busk. Busking, if you're not familiar with the term, means that we're street performers; and our compensation comes from the tips folks give us. In case you ever get the urge to busk, here's a word of advice: have a distinctive and unique look, as well as a winning act. The small tips come from the performance; but if you have an interesting or arresting "look", people will pay good money for the privilege of having their photo taken with you. So we dress in garb of the 1850s, play music on instruments reproduced from instruments made in 1790 (violin), 1845 (banjo), and 1856 (reproduced from a CF Martin guitar). My education is variegated, as you might expect. Apparently no one could teach me anything, but I have gym clothes from some of the finest institutions of higher learning I could persuade to let me enroll. Schools from which I received education of one type or another include Scotia-Glenville High School, State University of New York at Albany, Liberty University, Graham Bible College, London Reformed Baptist Seminary, Trinity Ministerial Academy, and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. As of July 2016, I still work at Moore Career College; prior to that, I worked at Ascension College, and prior to that I worked for Medical Training College. I don't really have a lot of high school stories. Most of my real living took place away from the campus, and apart from most folks there. I loved music then, and love the same music today. I wasn't particularly funny or witty - that, at least, hasn't changed - nor was I a good student, or had anything that made me stand out in the crowd, other than bushy, long hair, perhaps. Maybe the only real story I have is when, in 9th grade, I wanted to be in Paul Revere and the Raiders; so I bought some white pants and some nearly knee-high men's boots. I paid $9.99 for the boots - pure plastic - and MAN! did they ever make my calves and feet sweat. Along with the sweat, they stank. They really, really stank. But I thought I looked really hip in them, and one day wore them to school. In one of our classes, Linda Campbell had the misfortune of sitting directly in front of me; and I propped my boot-encased sweaty feet up on the basket underneath her chair. I could smell my feet from where I sat; and poor Linda must have had the fumes from my boot tops coming straight up behind her head. They smelled bad, and they smelled loudly. Before the class was over, she was sick as she could be - and it was all my fault. I never wore the boots to school again (but I didn't throw them away for a while, because they were my "band boots"). My interests include Animals, Architecture, Art. Music that I like includes Le Roux, Roscoe, Lee & Abadie, ZZ Top, The Lefte Bank, Mountain, Beck-Bogert-Appice, Derringer-Bogert-Appice, Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, The Nazz, Steve Miller, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Jimi Hendrix, Uriah Heep, Van Halen, Gene Pitney, and on the list goes. Books I like include a ton of theological works, science fiction, time travel (as a separate category from sci-fi), and Do-It-Yourself books. Also included in that list are the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, The Five Points of Calvinism, John Gill''s Commentary on the whole Bible, and John Bunyan's works. Movies I have been involved in include Country School: One Room - One Nation, Battle of the Bagpipes, The Battle of Algiers. Most recently I was in an episode of the TV series Underground. My band mates and I played white musicians in 1859. If you get a chance to see that episode, I'm the fattest dark blur in the background, aimlessly carrying a guitar as, in the foreground, a "slave" is crying out, "Please doan beat me, Massa! I'se jes' a poah, big, dumb ol' n-----! (I didn't write the script, but was able to memorize those classic lines as the scene was shot 39 times before they decided they had wrenched the best efforts from Toby, the "poah, big...." - well, you know. I have a large store of quotes I enjoy. Among them are "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." "The length of a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on." "Appearing in the flesh, and yet fully clothed: Roscoe, Lee & Abadie!". More about my musical interests: I play in a trio called Roscoe, Lee & Abadie as Elder Lee. We perform antebellum music for any venue. We also recite poetry; hawk elixirs and salves; preach sermons comedic and serious; deliver temperance lectures and poems; and discourse in lyceum formats on historic objects which have come into our possession. When we perform music, I play guitar and sing, and am joined by the fine musicianship and vocals of Squire Robert Roscoe (violinist) and Doctor Vincent Abadie (banjoist). I'm the privileged and proud husband of on...Expand for more