Lee remembers everything; dates, streets, names, the light in a hallway he walked down forty years ago. He uses it all as he talks effortlessly about his journey so far.
Born January 31, 1926 at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit during a blizzard, he had one sibling, a younger brother who Lee says killed himself by smoking from age 16 until he died in his late 70’s.
(Slow suicide!? A health nut should be so lucky.)
His father was an attorney, his mother a nurse. The family hit the skids in 1929 for obvious historical reasons. They moved to Lansing to stay with Lee’s grandmother on Allegan St. Soon after they paid $3,500 for a house in East Lansing.
(Talk about a buyer’s market…)
He was drafted at age 18 while enrolled at then named Michigan State College. Trying to avoid the Army, where most fatalities in WWII were happening, (plus he hated those tight jodhpur-like pants) he enlisted in the Marines and ended up in the South Pacific from 1944 to 1946.
Based in the Philippines when the war ended, he and his buddies celebrated the thought of finally going home until they learned they were being sent to China to serve in the occupation there. He turned 20 in Beijing.
Finally back in the states a few months later, he was greeted by his parents who took him to Dines Restaurant on Michigan Avenue for a “welcome home” meal which cost all three of them $5.20.
(I told you he remembers everything)
Lee loves football and volunteered in the stands at every school he attended, which included not only MSU, but USC in Southern California, where he got his graduate degree in Sociology.
Traveling by bus back home from the west coast in the fall of 1953, he stopped long enough in Indiana to watch MSU beat Purdue. He says he used to attend Spartan home games for $1. He went the other night for a ticket price of $50, “and that was with a discount.â€
Lee taught special education for over 24 years in small towns around Lansing, among them Holt and Charlotte.
We talked quite awhile for this piece, and he briefly mentioned being married, preferring to spend the bulk of our time discussing his adventures in four different branches of military service, including the Civil Air Patrol during the Vietnam War. When not in uniform, he actively protested to end it.
He signed up to serve during ever major conflict after WWII, even though he considers himself a peace activist. He felt he could help by working in places like the Red Cross or counseling terrified 18 year olds who just wanted to go home.
He recalls the main questions recruiters always asked him:#1 - Do you like girls? #2 - Do you have any social diseases?
He has no living relatives and adores the company of his two cats Goldie, the male, and China, a white female Persian with “the biggest blue eyes in the world.”
