Ed Grisamore — Daily Gris

Last dance

2007-06-15T06:32:00.000-04:00

I’m approaching my one-year anniversary. On Father’s Day (June 19, 2006), I wrote my first blog for The Telegraph.

I had already written just about every other kind of story for the newspaper – sports, features, editorials and even taken a few photographs. Just last week, I celebrated my ninth anniversary as metro columnist. By this time next year, I will have written my 2,000th column for the Local/State page.

But blogging began as a venture into this brave, new world wide web.

I’m still finding a lot of folks don’t know what a "blog" is or what it’s all about. I find myself explaining it even to those who have computers. While the blogosphere has become its own culture of sharing thoughts and information, not everyone is tuned it. Not yet, anyway.

There aren’t a lot of rules when it comes to blogging, so anything goes. It’s a medium that appears to be defining itself as it goes along. And I don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing. But I will say this: It is changing the face of journalism.

Anyway, I made a verbal agreement to blog for a period of one year. Now, that time has reached the end of the line. And I’m going to move on to other writing projects.

Four columns and five blogs a week has been quite a load for me – more than 200 columns and 265 blogs. As many of you know, I also do between 75 and 100 speaking engagements a year, so I stay pretty busy.

I tried to make my blogs read like mini-columns. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn’t. But with a blog to write every day – they don’t call it “Daily Gris” for nothing – we had a joke around my house: If anything happened, no matter how obscure or trivial, we all chimed: “It’s a blog!”

It has been a lot of work. For the most part, it has been fun, too.

Thanks for being loyal readers. You can still read my columns at www.macon.com

A father's greatest gift

2007-06-14T06:06:00.000-04:00

Ed, Jake and Grant at St. George Island, summer 2006

In honor of Father’s Day this Sunday, here is a column I published on June 20, 2004. It is called “A Father’s Greatest Gift Is His Children.’’

Dear Ed, Grant and Jake:

No, this isn't going to be another lecture. I'm not glaring at you over the top of my glasses.

I'm not going to ride your tail and remind you it's time for a haircut or to tuck in your shirt.

This is a thank-you note from a father to his three sons.

Thanks, guys.

Last week, another writer asked me to describe how I felt when I published my first book in 1997.

"I picked it up, held it in my arms and cried,'' I said. "It was likebecoming a father for the first time.''

Of all my life experiences, there has been no greater joy than my children.

I don't expect you to fully understand that now. One day, when you become fathers, I hope you will.

I remember each of those trips to the hospital to bring you into the world. Once, our car raced through the dark streets at 2 a.m. with your mother's contractions getting closer together. In the delivery room, I realized it's possible to be exhilarated and terrified at the same time.

In Lamaze classes, we had learned how expectant mothers should breathe.

Fathers could use some breathing lessons, too.

Those childbirth classes also emphasized the importance of having a "focal point" during the delivery.

Since the moment each of you arrived, you have been our focal point.

You've probably heard other men talking about the day they became fathers. The stork showed up. Cigars were passed around. Tears were dabbed at the windows of the hospital nursery.

But birth is only the opening act on the stage of happiness. "Proud father" is a permanent badge.

Fatherhood does not come with an instruction manual. There is no toll-free number to call for technical support, as there is with computers and lawn mowers.

Much of it is trial and error. OK, I'll admit sometimes it has been your trial and my error. But, for the most part, father knows best.

Don't ever forget it.

Parenting brings its share of splinters. There have been days when you got on my last nerve. You have sent my blood pressure higher than the Dow Jones average. At times, I've wanted to pull out my hair with one hand and wring your neck with the other.

But the rewards have been a trip to bountiful. I've popped so many buttons, I should keep a needle and thread with me at all times.

On a wall at home there are three framed sets of footprints. I can no longer keep pace with those feet. They won't stay still. You're off to theater camp. Or a job. Or a concert in Indiana. Or to Europe with a girlfriend.

I guess my job has become to throw down the anchor and be here when you return to port.

If there has been a character trait that has been constant in your lives, it is that you never forget to tell people you love them. You tell me every time you hang up the phone or walk out the door.

That's why, as my own father says, every day is Father's Day.

You are my greatest gift.

Love, Dad.

Lost in space

2007-06-13T06:02:00.000-04:00

We had people to make us things

We had people to sell us those things

We didn't have enough room for those things

We build lots of self storage.

-- Jimmy Buffett, from "If It All Falls Down"

Five years ago, we bought a house with a three-car garage. Above the garage was a huge attic.

In the third garage, which we cleverly began calling the “Third Garage,” there was more shelf space than in all the other houses we’ve owned combined.

“We’ve got all the space we’ll ever need,’’ we said, gleefully. (We love to say things gleefully.)

And then. …

The stuff piled up.

It filled the rafters across the attic.

It filled every shelf in the Third Garage.

It piled up on the floor and spread across the double-car garage like diabolical kudzu vines.

And then it got into the house. First the closets, then in available rooms.

It all proves my theory that the amount of stuff you own will expand to fill up the space you have.

In April, we had to rent space in a storage shed.

The creatures from out-of-space.

They got us. Don't let them get you.

Prayerdrops

2007-06-12T05:35:00.000-04:00

“It is better to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain.’’ – Mark Twain

Our governor, Sonny Perdue, was in Macon on Monday and stopped by the Georgia Farm Bureau. He joined together with about 250 people and “prayed for rain.’’

Well, it worked. We got some during the night. I woke up to the sound of thunderclap and the soothing patter of raindrops.

The rain prayer reminded me of the first time I drove down on a Saturday morning in August a few years ago to attend Jack Lowery’s men’s prayer breakfast at the Midway United Methodist Church.

Men from nearby towns and rural communities gathered for the food and fellowship. I heard some heartfelt prayers that morning, and I’ve been back several times since. (They tell you once you eat breakfast you become a "full" member.)

Several of the men told me a story about how several years earlier, competing prayers showed up at the same breakfast table.

In the middle of a drought much like this one, one man stood up and prayed for rain.

That prompted another farmer to issue an alternate request when it was his turn to bow his head.

“Please God,’’ he pleaded, “hold off on the rain until I can get my hay bailed.’’

Big fish

2007-06-11T06:15:00.000-04:00

I thought about George Perry the other day.

Maybe it was because I passed through his old stomping ground in Telfair County, crossing the Ocmulgee River in Lumber City, not far from where he pulled his legendary catch out of the dark waters.

Or may it was because the anniversary of his accomplishment – rolled across the calendar on June 2.

Or maybe it is because we seem so obcessed with such things. In a way, catching a record fish is dwarfed by bagging a big pig like Hogzilla.

On June 2, 1932, an aw-shucks country boy named George Washington Perry pulled a 22-pound, 4-ounce largemouth bass from an oxbow lake off the Ocmulgee River.

He did not throw it back.

According to local lore, it was 31 inches long. It was caught on a $1.33 reel with a $1.35 lure. Perry was fishing for his supper while sharing a single wooden lure with his fishing buddies in a boat built from scrap lumber.

Perry had the fish weighed at the post office the same day he caught it. He then did what anybody else would have done. He took it home to feed his family. After all, it was 1932, the height of the Great Depression.

Perry died in a plane crash 33 years ago. He never made much of a fuss about the fish.

There is a state historic marker along Ga. 117 between Lumber City and Jacksonville commemorating his still-revered world record. It claims Perry "caught what was to become America's most famous fish."

Must see

2007-06-08T05:58:00.000-04:00

I went to the final dress rehearsal of Les Miserables last night at Theatre Macon
and have three words to say:

GO SEE IT!!!!

Opening night is tonight. It runs through June 23.

We have some unbelievable talented young people in Macon and Middle Georgia. You will be very proud.

Thursday thoughts

2007-06-07T06:45:00.000-04:00

Thursday thoughts during an early-morning walk around the block.

If you think the world is a cranky place now, try taking away all the coffee.
Wouldn’t it be nice if computers weren’t the only devices that could be equipped with "spam” filters?
We were much better off when we didn’t have people running around polling a fraction of folks, then making a conclusion about how Americans “feel” about an issue.
I do find I get more emotional as I get older. But not as much as a man I recently interviewed. He got teary-eyed several times while we were talking. When his wife came in the room, she looked over and said: “Don’t worry. He even gets emotional at Wal-Mart grand openings.’’
All my life, I’ve been searching for the “perfect” pen. I’m still looking.
I’ve never met a bad guy named “Ed.” It’s a challenge to keep my end of the deal.
Enough about Paris Hilton.
I miss Kenny B. on the radio in the mornings.
As my friend’s grandfather used to tell him: “Once you step in elephant manure, you’re in the circus forever.’’

Google me tender

2007-06-06T05:11:00.000-04:00

I rank “Google” right up there with the seven wonders of the world.

It blows my mind that I can type ''asteroid" into this nifty search engine and it will take me to 6.29 million web sites in 0.06 seconds.

Or I can type in my own name "Ed Grisamore" in quotation marks and it finds me lurking in 1,140 different places all over the cyberspace map, including a few places I didn’t know I have been or truly never was.

“Google” is now part of our everyday language. Ten years ago, if you had told somebody to “just Google me” you probably would have been slapped with a sexual harassment suit. "Yes, your honor, he was making goo-google eyes at me."

What did “google” even mean when it came on the scene a decade ago?

I pondered this question, in all places, the hardware store. I had gone to look for a replacement for my sprinkler on a recent Saturday afternoon. I met a guy in the aisle who recognized me and began telling me a few interesting stories about himself.

He didn’t have time to tell all of them, and I really didn’t have time to listen to all of them, anyway. So, as I was leaving he told me if I needed more information to “just google me.’’

I would have, but I’m not sure he ever told me his name. He didn't give me his business card. I'm pretty bad with names, too.

When I examine my life, I find I googling some days more than others. I google with my coffee in the morning. I sometimes google late at night when I’m bored. Rainy days are good google days.

But what is even more amazing to me than just plain Google is Google Earth. If you’ve never experienced that, better buckle your seat belts. I can type in my address and it will zoom in to a satellite image of my neighborhood.

I'm looking at the top of my roof right now. ... And, if you will excuse me, I just noticed I haven't taken the trash can down to the road.

Thanks, Google. You have changed my life.

The news you can use

2007-06-05T06:08:00.000-04:00

My oldest son was born in 1983, the same year Canadian songbird Anne Murray topped the charts with a song called “A Little Good News.’’

Well, son Ed is about to graduate from college this year. So much has changed.

Except for the need for a “little good news.”

When I meet readers or speak to groups, the question comes up all the time: Isn't there any good news in the paper any more?

My response is that for every "bad" story you see in the newspaper there are thousands of "good" ones that never get told.

Here's a quick scan of the morning news over the past few days:

Macon police investigating fatal hit-and-run accident

Man robs Warner Robins bank

Frost, high fuel prices, drough: Ga. farmers fear for crops

Murders rise 22 percent in Atlanta in 2006, FBI says

Police find abandoned baby in stolen van

Two killed at party after fight erupts in shootings, stabbings

Police arrest son in connection with father's death

Cases of salmonella sickness linked to peanut butter top 600

Woman arrested for setting fire to home with children inside

CDC looking for 80 passengers, 27 crew from TB flights that led to federal quarantine

If you are wondering about that Anne Murray song, here are the lyrics as written by Charles Black, Rory Bourke, and Thomas Rocco. Although some of the current events have changed, the need for some good news has not.

I rolled out this morning

Kids had the mornin' news show on

Bryant Gumbel was talkin' 'bout the fighting in Lebanon

Some senator was squawkin' 'bout the bad economy

It's gonna get worse you see, we need a change in policy

There's a local paper rolled up in a rubber band

One more sad story's one more than I can stand

Just once how I'd like to see the headline say

"Not much to print today, can't find nothin' bad to say", because

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town

Nobody OD'ed, nobody burned a single buildin' down

Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain

We sure could use a little good news today

I'll come home this evenin'

I'll bet that the news will be the same

Somebody takes a hostage, somebody steals a plane

How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair

And how we cleaned up the air,

how everybody learned to care

Whoa, tell me

Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today

And in the streets of Ireland, all the children had to do was play

And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA

We sure could use a little good news today

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town

Nobody OD'ed, nobody burned a single buildin' down

Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain

We sure could use a little good news today

Thanks, Barry

2007-06-04T06:24:00.000-04:00

Umbrellas.

Windshield wipers.

Puddles.

Green, yellow and red. These are the colors on the Dopplar radar.

The sound of rain on the roof in the middle of the night.

Return of the rain gauge.

The sound of people squealing with delight over dark clouds and thunderclap.

A chorus of frogs outside my patio door, soothing their parched throats and voices.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Thank you, Barry.

You are my all-time favorite storm.

The “I” of the hurricane.

2007-06-01T06:05:00.000-04:00

OK, hurricane season officially starts today. I would tell it to stay away, except we really need it to rain for about two weeks straight.

In case you missed it, the hurricane names for the 2007 season have been officially released, too. Once again, Ed was left off the list, so I’m poised for a discrimination suit. Know a good lawyer?

Not that I want my name associated with a hurricane. Death. Destruction. Displacement. Maybe its better to just be content to have a rather embarrassing sexual dysfunction named after me.

Here is the list of hurricane names for the season, along with a few editorial comments. There are 21 “named” hurricanes.

If there happens to be more – and let’s hope and pray there aren’t – the extra storms will assume the names of the Greek alphabet – Alpha, Beta, Gamma. So they’ll start sounding like fraternity row.

The Hurricanes of ‘07

Andrea – We are in the process of buying a house from a nice lady named Andrea, who happens to be pregnant with her first child.

Barry – I know a nice guy at my church named Barry. Let's see. There's Barry Bonds, too. Has the potential to be a performance-enhanced hurricane.

Chantal – Sounds like a bottle of wine.

Dean – I’ve known a few a few Deans in my life, and not one of them has been mean enough to generate any high winds.

Erin – Mmmmm. Is it a boy hurricane or a girl hurricane?

Felix – Can’t help but think of Felix the Cat, probably the first major star in the world of cartoon characters.

Gabrielle -- Is it the first hurricane to be named after one of the characters in “Desperate Housewives” – the character of “Gabby” played by Eva Longoria?

Humberto -- ¿Habla usted inglés?

Ingrid – “Here’s looking at you, kid.’’ Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca,’’ one of the most memorable lines in cinema history.

Jerry – We have a dog named Jerry. He was on the cover of my book, “Smack Dab in Dog Crossing.’’ Now he’ll have a hurricane named after him. Way to go, Jerry.

Karen – I know a bunch of Karens. I like every one of them. They’re way too nice to have hurricanes named after them.

Lorenzo – Hey, dude, I’m not a big fan.

Melissa – “Sweet Melissa’’ was the name of Duane Allman’s motorcycle. It is one of my favorite Allman Brothers songs. It is so much a part of local lore one of our three downtown trolleys is named “Sweet Melissa.’’

Noel – The oldest of my sisters once got a Chihuahua for Christmas, and she named him “Noel.” My brother made “Noel” a name tag, but put it on backward, so the letters were in reverse order. So we started calling the little dog “Leon.’’

Olga – I’ve only heard of one “Olga” in my life, and that was Olga Korbut. The was a Russian gymnast and could fly through the air, too.

Pablo -- ¿Habla usted inglés? Et tu.

Rebekah – The biblical spelling of Rebecca, and I think one of the prettiest female names.

Sebastien – For some reason, I can’t get the image of an English butler out of my head.

Tanya – Ever know a woman over the age of 65 named Tanya? I didn’t think so.

Van – If we make it to Hurricane Van, and he is downgraded to a tropical storm, I guess we’ll have to call him a mini-Van.

Wendy -- I’ll have a Bacon Swiss Double Melt with a large order of fries, a medium Coke and a small Frosty. To go, please.

Enjoy the journey

2007-05-31T06:06:00.000-04:00

A country road requires a country song, and I found myself scanning the south Georgia radio dial on Wednesday.

A DJ somewhere over the tall pines was urging listeners to call in suggestions for the names of the two whales out in the San Francisco Bay. He wasn't satisfied with “Delta” and “Dawn.’’

One listener suggested Bill and Hillary. But my favorite was “Saya” and “Nora.’’
When the dial slammed the brakes on a new Brad Paisley song, I couldn't stop laughing at the lyrics.

'Cause I'd like to see you out in the moonlight
I'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks
I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
And I'd like to check you for ticks.

I love the backroads. Give me the backroads over the interstate any day.
Here’s what you can find out there:

A bargain store by the name of “Honest Al.’’
A Dairy Queen marqee that reads: ‘’Jesus Loves You. Single Burgers 89 cents.’’
Old dogs in trashy yards.
Mailboxes designed in the shape of a tractor.
People who will wave to you, even if they don’t know you and very few out-of-state license plates.
Trailer parks.
Swing sets.
Water towers telling you what town you just stepped in.
Logging trucks and pulpwood plants.
Streets with names like Knotting Pine Drive and Power Line Road.
A man who will give you these directions to get to where you're going: Go around this curve, go across the highway over yonder and keep going about 2 miles until you go over a bridge. It's the first house on the right after you go across the creek.

Forget me not

2007-05-30T06:08:00.000-04:00

I’ve got a great memory. I can remember at least two of the items my mother packed in my lunch box in the fifth grade.

I’ve got a terrible memory. I walk into a room to get something, and I can’t remember what I went to get.

I’ve got a great memory. Play a one-hit wonder song from Three Dog Night from the 1970s and I’ll remember every word.

I’ve got a terrible memory. I lose track of passwords. I forget the names of people I met last week.

I’ve got a great memory. I can remember Hank Aaron’s home run records and the year Pete Rose was rookie of the year in the National League.

I’ve got a terrible memory. I have to look up the correct way to use “lie” and “lay” in the stylebook every time.

My 500-pound son

2007-05-29T06:04:00.000-04:00

I always hesitate to call attention to typographical errors.

Especially in my business, where one slip of the finger or two seconds of carelessness can lead to a blunder thousands of people will see.

I write 2,200 words a week in my columns and probably twice that in the blogs. There is bound to be a consonant or vowel out of place somewhere.
So, me to judge on something like that is like living in a glass house and throwing stones.

Perhaps my most infamous typo came when I was a sports writer and was writing a weekly golf column. A local church was sponsoring a tournament and asked if I would mention it in my column. I guess I had typed the word “golf” so much that the “Napier Avenue Church of God” came out in the paper as the “Napier Avenue Church of Golf.’’

We all make mistakes. No one is perfect.

I did, however, get a chuckle out of son Grant’s new driver’s license. He recently celebrated his 20th birthday, and it was time to get it renewed.

On the renewal application, he listed his height at 5-foot-11 and weight at 160.
On his license, it came back 6-foot-1 and 500 pounds.

Now that’s a growing boy. Must be all that peach ice cream he has been eating working out at Dickey’s Peaches this summer.

Needless to say, he is going to have it corrected Thursday.

Fallen Idol, chew toys and grad advice

2007-05-25T05:59:00.000-04:00

Scattershooting on a Friday:

The ratings took a tumble for Wednesday night’s finale of “American Idol.’’ According to the folks at Nielsen, viewership was victim of a significant fall. Only 30.7 million watched the show, which was a dropoff from the 36.4 million in 2006.

I am proud to say I was not one of the 30.7 million. I am proud to say I was not one of the 36.4 million.

I wouldn’t waste my time watching that show if all I had was a pair of rabbit ears and that was the only station I could get.

* * * * * * * *

After I blogged about one of our dogs, Harper Lee, chewing the remote control for our TV for the second time, I got this rather sympathetic letter from reader Dorcas Jones:

“Just wanted to let you know you do not suffer alone. My terror/terrier angels destroy my husbands glasses every chance they get they especially love to chew the ear pieces. Because he needs his glasses he does not detect the damage until he puts them on. I have of course already discovered the damage before he does and tried to no avail to repair it. The only perk to not having the paper home delivered anymore due to delivery problems is that my angels will not be able to read your column and get ideas from Harper Lee at least not until they figure out how to read it online- if they could figure out "that mouse" they would be home free.''

* * * * * * * * * *

I have been asked to speak at Windsor Academy’s graduation tonight. Here are a few tidbits of advice I plan to tell the graduates.

Show gratitude. You did not make it here today alone. Thank your parents.

Thank your teachers. Thank the friends and classmates who have stuck by you.

Always look people in the eye when you're talking to them.

When you meet a veteran, shake his hand and thank him for his service to our country. And, if you see a man or woman wearing a military uniform, go up and thank them, too. We are here because they are there.

Prayer is the most powerful thing in the universe.

The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

Life may not be all you want, but it's all you've got. So you might as well stick a geranium in your hat and be happy.

Never underestimate the power of words in our lives. They can build up people. Or they can destroy them. Choose the words you read, write and say wisely. Think carefully before you let them go. You never know where those words are going to land. You never know whose heart they are going to find.

Have fun. Be Good. I got this piece of advice from a friend, who is a Baptist minister. He says this to his daughters every time they leave the house. Have Fun. Be Good. And by that he means this. Have fun, but not so much fun that it gets you in trouble. And be good, but don’t be so good that you don’t have fun.

Remember that we make a living out of what we get. We make a life out of what we give.

Shrinking words

2007-05-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

An elderly woman was walking down Broadway a few days ago. She was holding her hat to block the morning sun on her face.

My friend and I were drawn to her. He rolled down the window of the car and struck up a conversation.

He introduced himself, and then me, and she recognized my name and then my face.

“I enjoy reading you in the newspaper,’’ she said.

I thanked her for being a loyal reader. Then I waited. Usually a compliment like that is a preface to some kind of complaint they want to register while they have a captive audience.

I get complaints about delivery of the newspaper. I get complaints about the paper being too liberal. I get complaints about the comic page and the crossword puzzle. I get complaints about not getting the late sports scores in the morning print edition.

Her complaint was different.

“How come the newspaper keeps getting smaller?” she said. “I can’t read the words. They keep getting smaller.’’

Ah, the incredible shrinking newsprint. I hear this from the bifocal crowd all the time.

But while the paper itself has gotten narrower, the size of the typeface has remained the same and, in some cases, is larger. And that a lot of our efforts are in making the transition to on-line newspapers.

You don’t want to tell them they need to have their eyes checked.

I certainly don’t want to tell them newspapers aren't going to go to large-print editions any time soon.

For Sale: One umbrella, barely used

2007-05-23T06:14:00.000-04:00

Since most of us have forgotten what a drop of rain looks like ( how long has it been?) I pulled out a few of my snippets from droughts past.

I’ll post a few of these today and a few later in the week. Plenty of time for that. I don’t see rain clouds anywhere on the long-range forecast.

It’s so dry that:

Three flowers were seen fighting over a sprinkler at Tattnall Square Park.
The end of the work week is no longer known as “Friday.” It’s now officially “Dryday.’’
The Baptists have started “sprinkling’’ instead of “dunking,’’ and the Methodists have started just handing out washcloths.
The Macon Music baseball team has signed a free agent pitcher named Don Drysdale IV.
The Telegraph’s “home and garden” section has been renamed “Drought & About.’’
“Dusty” has become the most popular name for baby boys in local maternity wards.

Swing and miss

2007-05-22T05:50:00.000-04:00

"For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out at the old ball game."

I’ve had bad days before, but I've never struck out five times in one game.

That’s right. In case you didn’t see the box score from the Atlanta Braves’ game with the Boston Red Sox on Sunday, “slugger” Andruw Jones struck out five times.

Five times! Five whiffs! Five K’s! Fifteen swings and misses and/or called strikes. Five trips back to the dugout with your head down and your tail between your legs.

I’m not a hitting coach or swing doctor, just an armchair manager who has been analyzing Andruw’s batting stance all season and still can’t figure it out.

He looks as if he’s trying to straddle a big puddle or trying not to step in something at home plate. He appears to be so off-balance that when he swings his right knee swoops to the ground like he’s falling down.

I don’t know if anything I’ve ever done can equate with striking out five times in one day.

I’ve been caught in the rain without an umbrella, gotten a bad grade on a high school algebra test and hit my thumb with a hammer.

But strike out five times? Nope.

I’ve stepped in an angry mound of fire ants, eaten a bad cheeseburger for lunch (I paid dearly for it) and run over my cell phone with my right front tire at the gas station.

But five whiffs? Nah.

That’s a pretty rotten day.

Kicks from Boot Camp

2007-05-21T05:09:00.000-04:00

“I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.’’ -- E. B. White

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Fourth Annual Book Boot Camp on Saturday at The Telegraph.

It was the largest turnout ever. We had 58 people attend and a panel of 11 writers, editors, publishers and others in the book industry.

Proceeds went to support our Newspapers In Education program, which provides newspapers to local schools.

William Rawlings, a novelist from Sandersville, was the keynote speaker at lunch. Williams has written four novels set in rural Georgia, which he describes as “intelligent Southern thrillers.’'

Others speakers who participated in the seminar were:

Yvonne Stuart, media specialist from Hutchings Career Center in Macon.
Joni Woolf, director of editorial services, Indigo Custom Publishing in Macon.
Marc Jolley, director of Mercer University Press and author of one book and editor of two festschriften.
Mary Robinson, marketing and public relations director, Indigo Custom Publishing in Macon.
Barbara Keene, marketing director, Mercer University Press.
Christopher Paine, assistant manager, Barnes & Noble bookseller in Macon.
Jackie K. Cooper, author of four books and co-host of “Fridays With Jackie” on Georgia Public Radio, who lives in Perry.
Rick Maier, author or two novels both thrillers based in Macon, who is CFO at Wesleyan College.
George Mettler, who has published seven novels and is also an artist. He has had a self-described “eclectic” career as an Army officer, FBI agent, practicing attorney and college professor.
Ed Grisamore, the author of five books and one audiobook, and a columnist/blogger/goodwill ambassador for The Telegraph.

Diamonds are forever

2007-05-18T06:04:00.000-04:00

I drove by the old ballfields Thursday afternoon, and I must admit I got a lump in my throat.

There are five baseball fields at Vine-Ingle, and I coached all three of my sons on every one of them.

There was a time in my family’s life when our second home was the ballpark. There were afternoons and nights in April and May when we should have pitched a tent there. Our sons played and umpired games. I coached and my wife served as team mother. One year, she even ran the concession stand for every game.

The boys are grown now. Two are in college. Jake stopped playing Little League two years ago and has started pursuing other interests.

But I still think about those days. I remember those afternoons when I rushed from work to make a practice over at Hillcrest, sometimes changing clothes in the car. I remember those Saturday mornings in the dugout and the thrill of a night game under the lights. I remember the bubblegum and sunflower seeds.

All of it is that special feeling that only a baseball season can bring.

My mother told me a baseball story a few days ago. I drove her up to Griffin Saturday morning, where we met my brother, Charles, who lives in Peachtree City. She spent Mother’s Day weekend with Charles and his family, which included a trip to the youth baseball fields Saturday afternoon to watch my nephews, Kyle and Ryan, play in their games.

While she was there, she observed a game being played by some children with special needs. I’m not sure if it was a Miracle League game or a program for physically challenged playersthat was established through the recreation department there.

But she said there were children playing with all kinds of physical disabilities. One boy was blind. Many were in wheelchairs. Each had a partner, or “buddy,’’ who helped them at the plate and in the field.

“It would break your heart to watch them,’’ she said.

She told about one child, who was in a wheelchair, who got a hit and was circling the bases.

When he got to home plate, he stopped the wheelchair and got out.

“He slid into home plate, then got back into the wheelchair,’’ she said.
Now got a lump in your throat, too?

I thought so.

Close enough to perfect?

2007-05-17T05:59:00.000-04:00

In a column I wrote Sunday for Mother’s Day, I interviewed a 57-year-old woman who was searching for her birth mother.

She had been adopted and raised by a family in Macon, and had a “stepsister’’ who was 8 years older. Six month ago, she had a DNA test which revealed her stepsister was actually her half-sister. The test concluded the two women had the same father.

She said the test was 99.9 percent positive.

I don’t know if I should ever take 99.9 percent as conclusive. I guess there is always that small fraction of a chance.

But she felt pretty certain about it, and I did, too.

The day after the column was published, I happened to come across something I had saved from several years ago called “If 99.9 Percent Is Good Enough …” I don’t know the source, but I found it pretty interesting.

If 99.9 percent is good enough, then …

12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled every hour.

2 million documents will be lost by the IRS this year.

2.5 million books will be shipped with the wrong covers.

315 entries in Webster's dictionary will be misspelled.

20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written this year.

880,000 credit cards in circulation will turn out to have incorrectcardholder information on their magnetic strips.

103,260 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly during the year.

291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly.

Touched by a Blue Angel II

2007-05-16T06:19:00.000-04:00

Macon model Sabrina Sikora and Blue Angel pilot Kevin Davis

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column about Gordon Scarborough, a Perry man who had a chance meeting with Blue Angels pilot Kevin Davis in Pensacoloa, just two days before Davis was killed in a crash at an air show in South Carolina.

This week, Laurie Sikora, of Macon, sent me a note:

“My father, Edward Sikora, was a 32-year Navy veteran -- eight years in active duty and 24 years in the reserves. I have been enamored with this branch of the military and flying in general, due to the strong influence my father had on me. Dad was a pilot stationed on the USS Kearsarge CV-33. Later, he would fly for 28 years with Eastern Airlines. When my father died in 2003, the only material possession I requested was his 1944 issue leather flight jacket that dad wore on his missions. It is prized to this day and my family knows that if there is ever an emergency in our home, the evacuation instructions are to grab two things -- the dog and the bomber jacket.’’

When Edward Sikora was living, he and his family never missed an opportunity to watch the Blue Angels -- or the Air Force’s Thunderbirds -- perform.

“Aviation was dad's lifeblood and he instilled that love in several of his children,’’ Laurie said. Her brother, Edward A. Sikora, is an aeronautical engineer with NASA and has worked on the space shuttle program since it's inception.

Laurie’s daughter, local model Sabrina Sikora, received an invitation last spring to attend commissioning week ceremonies at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. They were invited by friends Mark and Maggie Ward to watch the Blue Angels perform from the deck of the Ward's yacht anchored in Chesapeake Bay.

“One day of our visit, we went to the Naval Academy to watch the companies march on field during presentation,’’ Laurie said. “It was there that we crossed paths with Lt. Commander Kevin Davis, who flew the No. 7 plane at that time. He was also watching the festivities and meeting the public, so we jumped at the chance to meet him. Lt. Cmdr Davis was open, friendly, personable and seemed truly passionate when talking about his current mission.

“He was more than willing to pose for photos with anyone who asked and took time answering any questions that were asked of him. A true gentleman and a fine representative of both the Navy and the Blue Angels. It was an honor and a privilege to meet him. Kevin asked if we would be watching the Blue Angels perform and we told him that we would be anchored in the bay watching their practice session the next day from the boat. He asked what area of the bay we would be in and asked for a description of our vessel. Mark Ward took over at this point and told him the coordinates we planned to drop anchor in and details of his yacht that would help Kevin pick us out from the air. He said he would tip his wings when he spotted us.’’

As promised, Davis flew his plane over the boat so low you could actually see him in the cockpit. He made a return pass and tipped his wings at the boat as they waved.

“Then we settled in and watched the show of a lifetime from a vantage point that can never be equaled,’’ she said. “As the jets passed over the boat time and time again in each formation, you could feel the jetwash from the aircraft. It was incredibly exhilarating and the planes were so close, it seemed like you could just reach out and touch them. Sabrina said you couldn't wipe the smile off my face the rest of the day and my only regret is that my father wasn't there to share the experience with us. Or maybe he was.''

Laurie said when she and Sabrina her news that a Blue Angels jet had crashed, her immediate reaction was "God, please don't let it be Kevin Davis.’’

“Sabrina and I were heartsick as reports the next day identified him as the pilot. Like my father, he was a great man who will be missed by many. And like my father, I'm certain that there is nowhere else Kevin would rather have been that fateful day except sitting in that cockpit doing exactly what he loved doing … flying.’’

Going postal

2007-05-15T05:51:00.000-04:00

I went by the post office at the U.S. Federal Courthouse on Monday. I love that old building. It was built in 1908 and renamed 99 years later after one of my favorite people, the late Judge Gus Bootle.

Yes, I love the courthouse, with the old-fashioned post office tucked inside. Even though my post office box is located at the main post office on College Hill, I usually head over to Mulberry Street when I need to mail something.

I go there not only because it’s only a block from my office but because it looks and feels like a post office, complete with high ceilings and marble floors.

Of course, Monday was also the day the new postal rates went into effect. So now it costs more to send a letter. I don’t know which is getting more ridiculous: stamps or gas?

It now costs 41 cents to mail a letter, up from 29 cents. When this courthouse building was built 99 years ago, it costs 2 cents to mail a letter. So you could send 20 letters for what it costs to mail one today.

But I didn’t go to the post office to wax nostalgic. I went to mail one of my books, “Once Upon a Whoopee” – the story of the 1973-74 Macon Whoopees hockey team – to a rabid minor-league hockey fan in Toronto, Ontario.

He had contacted me last week after finding the book on the Internet.

Before Monday, that book would have shipped anywhere in the U.S. for $1.84. I know because I’ve mail books all the time. I usually send them out third class or “media” rate.

I was prepared to pay more for this, though. After all, it was going to Canada.
It costs me a whopping $4.63. What was puzzling is when the postal employee asked me if I would be sending it by boat or plane.

Boat or plane?

Now I didn’t have to think too much about this one.

A commercial plane can make it from Atlanta to Toronto in two hours, and 32 minutes.

But boat? From landlocked Macon?

That was a puzzling choice. I could visualize the book sailing down the Ocmulgee to the Altamaha to the Atlantic Ocean and the port of Savannah. Then up the Eastern Seaboard to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, taking a sharp 90-degree turn to the west, down the St. Lawrence River and into Lake Ontario.

"It will take two weeks to sent it by boat,’’ said the postal employee.

“Put an extra stamp on it,’’ I said. “This one is going to have to fly!”

The crossing of the boy, dog, soft drink and cell phone

2007-05-14T05:55:00.000-04:00

I worry about people.

Of course, I worry about people I know and love. I want them to be happy and safe.

But, sometimes, I worry about people I don’t even know. People I will never meet. People who cross my path for only a few moments.

That was certainly the case on a recent lunch hour. While I was waiting for the light at Spring and Riverside, I observed a young man walking across the street.

It always makes me nervous watching pedestrians trying to get from corner to corner here. It’s probably the busiest downtown intersections with a web of unusual traffic patterns.

It doesn’t really matter which side you’re crossing. You’re taking your life into you hands.

I was very worried about this young man, though. He looked to be about 15 or 16, so I’m not sure what he was doing out of school on a weekday.

But he was holding a puppy in his right hand. It was a precious little dog. He had just a few fingers wrapped the puppy, and I feared the puppy was going to jump out of his hand.

That wasn’t the only treacherous part. In the same hand as the puppy he had a bottle of Mountain Dew. He clasped the top between two fingers. He held a cell phone up to his ear with his other hand. And his saggy, baggy shorts were hanging way below his waist line.

So, when he tried to hurry across the last few lanes to beat the rush of oncoming traffic, he was juggling a dog, a soft drink, a cell phone and trying to find a free hand to pull up his beltless pants as he waddled across.

I really didn’t think he had a chance.

He made it. It was the miracle of my lunch hour.

I don’t know what happened on the next street. Or the next. By then, he was off my radar screen.

I wonder if he knows how much I worried about him. And the dog. And the cell phone. And the Mountain Dew.

My friends (and Elvis) at the ARC

2007-05-11T06:27:00.000-04:00

The annual community banquet for the Advocacy Resource Center in Macon was held Thursday night at Edgar’s Bistro at the Goodwill Conference center.

There were a lot of tables, and most of them were filled. My guess is that about 150 people were there. Please click here to read more about this great agency: the ARC.

These folks do great work, and the banquet is always a chance to recognize it. I was honored to be master of ceremonies again. I have gotten to know many of the staff, families, volunteers and consumers over the years through personal contact and events such as the Special Olympics.

One of the highlights of the evening for me was when Howard Walter, an ARC consumer, did an impersonation of Elvis, a little “you ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” karaoke. It brought the house down.

Howard … excuse me, Elvis … was so fired up he’s already thinking about next year. He going to be wearing some blue suede shoes.

Thanks to Dr. Roy Powell for taking these photos for me.

Pot likker etiquette

2007-05-10T06:35:00.000-04:00

I ate lunch Wednesday at Mary Mac’s Tea Room on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta. If you’ve never been to Mary Mac’s, it’s an institution in Atlanta. The walls are lined with photographs of all the famous people who have dined there.

The friend I was having lunch with is pretty much a celebrity himself. And he eats there so often all the waitresses know him by name. He ordered the meatloaf. I had the fried chicken. (Three drumsticks, of course.)

Without asking they started us off with some “pot likker.’’ It’s not an appetizer. I comes right off the “sides” menu with all the vegetables.

He asked me if I had ever had pot likker. Of course, I had. I grew up in the South, didn’t I?

For those of you who have never sipped this Southern delicacy, the “likker” has nothing to do with sidling up to the bar for happy hour.

It’s the broth that comes from either collards or turnip greens when they are cooked. Basically, you pile a bunch of greens in a big pot with water and add fatback (salt pork) and black pepper.

Don’t throw away that juice!!! It’s the nectar of the kitchen gods.

Even though I have had pot likker many times, the question I mulled over lunch was the correct way to eat/drink it. They brought it in a small bowl, with a spoon, and a piece of cornbread on the side. I had a few sips from the spoon, as if I was eating soup. But I noticed my friend was heaping it on his cornbread until it was completely saturated. I crumbled up some of my cornbread and dipped it in the bowl.

I was totally at a loss for correct pot likker etiquette.

I guess it doesn’t really matter. Like eating those chicken legs with your fingers.

Style isn’t that important. Just so you enjoy it.

And, of course, I did.

Moving on, Gracefully

2007-05-09T06:07:00.000-04:00

I’m not a huge Court TV fan, but I am a big Nancy Grace fan.

Folks who think she is as nasty as a pit bull and eats nails three times a day don’t really know what she’s the off-camera, out-of-the-court room Nancy that I’ve gotten to know since I first met her four years ago this month.

I have spent time with Nancy and her parents, Mac and Elizabeth Grace, in the south Bibb home where she grew up. Mac and Elizabeth are salt-of-the-earth folks. And Nancy has never forgotten her roots, coming home to participate and participate in a number of charitable events in her home town. I was honored when she asked me to sit with her and her family when she spoke at the Executive Forum at Mercer a few years ago.

There is news this week that Grace is leaving Court TV after a decade with the network. She has been there since its salad days.

In 1996, a magazine editor and former attorney named Stephen Brill, the founder of Court TV, took the feisty attorney to dinner and offered her a job. In the post-O.J. Simpson trial days, he "courted" her as a sparring partner with Simpson's lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, on a legal affairs show called "Cochran & Grace."

She left for New York on Jan. 6, 1997. She packed her clothes, a curling iron and $200 in savings.

The rest is history.

Nancy’s show, "Closing Arguments," is being reduced to an hour from two hours in the weekday 3-5 p.m. time slot. That probably contributed to her departure.

Her show on CNN Headline News continues to get solid ratings. I don’t know how she continued to keep the pace to do both shows for as long as she did. I'm sure doing two shows at two networks has stretched her thin.

When my family was in New York on vacation in June 2005, I called Nancy and asked if we could come by her studio to see her.

She graciously – no pun intended – invited us to the studio and arranged for our own personal tour. We got to go onto the set while she was doing her show “live.’’

If I ever have trouble remembering the date, I at least have a frame of reference for the timetable. It was only a few days before the Michael Jackson verdict, and that’s all they were talking about.

At the close of her show that day – Wednesday, June 8, 2005 – she said she had some special guests in the studio: “The Ed Grisamore family from Macon, Ga.’’

I looked over and my son Grant’s jaw had dropped to the floor. “Dad, she just said our name on national TV!”

On the coolness factor, that was about a 10.

Mount Ant

2007-05-08T06:24:00.000-04:00

I’m not sure the best way to get rid of fire ants, but we had better think of something pretty fast because there is a huge mound being built out here in North Macon.

It’s like a mountain. Well, maybe not a mountain but a very large hill.

I pass by there every day. I haven’t seen any ants yet. But, judging from the size of the mound, they’ve got to be whoppers. I bet they're at least as big as one of those ugly city buses. You know, the ones with “Crimestoppers” painted on the side.

Since fire ants became a problem in this region of the country several years ago, I’ve heard several different methods of how to dispose of them.

Among the solutions is pouring everything from grits to gasoline to hot water on the top of the mound. And, of course, there are the various insecticides. Get them to nibble on the poison stuff and take it back to the queen.

I think we’re going to have to drop a bomb on this one, though.

Wait a minute! What?

That’s just a big pile of dirt being used for the grading at the new mall on Riverside Drive? The Shoppes at River Crossing?

Oh.

Never mind.

Take a boy fishing

2007-05-07T06:15:00.000-04:00

Grant Grisamore holds up first fish he ever caught. June 1991.

(Photo taken by one proud father.)

I spent my entire Sunday afternoon at the river. It was a pleasant May day, soft and breezy.

After church, we went up to Jack Caldwell’s place at Dames Ferry and enjoyed lunch with our Sunday School class. Later in the day, we were downstream, where the Ocmulgee bends through the Shirley Hills neighborhood for a churchwide picnic at the home of Don and Norma Banks.

I didn’t do any fishing, although some of my friends did up at Jack's – casting lines into the shallow pools between the rocks. It was a perfect day to wet a hook, and the river wasn’t as low as I thought it would be.

When I got home, I pulled up an e-mail from one of sisters, who reminded me that my maternal grandfather would have been 100 years old on Sunday.

I hadn’t even thought about it until then.

My granddaddy, Mr. William Elmer Richards, died 15 years ago this spring. So he never even lived to see his 90th birthday, either.

But how will I remember him?

He taught me to fish.

It was somehow appropriate that I was hanging around the river on what would have been his 100th birthday.

Here’s a tribute I wrote on May 10, 1992.

What we choose to keep in this world reveals something about our values. The personal inventory we collect is like pages in a book, each forming chapters in a human story.

I’m glad my grandfather never threw away his fishing gear.

His name was W. E. Richards and he was 84 years old when he died last month. Although he had lived in Roswell for the past 15 years, he will be remembered for the many years he was a high school vocational agriculture teacher in Hawkinsville.

He taught countless young people how to plant a tree and fix a clutch on an old truck. On Friday nights, he helped sell tickets to Red Devil football games.

I will remember him for teaching me to fish.

My grandmother now has begun the arduous process of going through his belongings. It is sad because we miss him. Yet there are many happy memories enveloped in his keepsakes.

She wanted me to have his old manual Remington typewriter and a wooden walking cane.

While visiting her a few days ago, I opened my grandfather’s tool shed in the back yard. This was the kind of place where he was always in his element, tinkering with tools and planning his garden.

Wherever he lived, you always could count on his basement or greenhouse being a haven of wire, wood and old parts. He didn’t recycle; he restocked. He figured he could find a use for everything. And he practically could.

In a corner of the shed, I discovered two old fishing poles, his tackle box and a net. I doubt my grandfather had used them in several years. But he had kept them, and just seeing them stirred my senses.

Suddenly I was 10 years old and standing on the banks of the small lake in my grandfather’s front yard in Hawkinsville. He was teaching me how to bait a hook and blow gnats on a hot summer’s day.

I almost could hear the crickets chirping from the back room at the store where he would take me to buy bait. I remembered the familiar tug on the 10-pound test line, and the combination of fear and excitement that always rushed through me.

I never was entirely landlocked as a child, growing up around water no matter where my family moved. When we live in LaGrange, my father kept his boat at nearby West Point Lake. We could see the Elizabeth River from our home in Virginia. When we lived in Jacksonville, the St. Johns River was in our backyard.

But, of all the fish I’ve ever caught, the ones I remember most came from my grandfather’s lake in Hawkinsville. And it wasn’t actually a lake. It was a pond, with a tiny island near one end. As a youngster, I imagined the opposite shore as miles away.

Years before artist Butler Brown had his paintings hanging in Jimmy Carter’s White House, he looked out the window of my grandparents’ home and was inspired to do an oil painting of a little boy fishing from the dock.

There is no telling how many bass, bream and catfish my grandfather pulled from lakes and streams across South Georgia. Both rods he left are well-worn steel. On one of them is a South Bend Model 550A casting reel, first manufactured in 1936.

I opened his Sears tackle box and found it stuffed with the usual bobbers and hooks, but not the kind you find today on the shelves of Wal-Mart. There were nylon-braided and catgut fishing lines. Some of the lures were made of wood and hand-painted. But I be they still catch fish.

In one tray, I found a small tin box of split shot. It was the size of a match box, and opened in the same fashion.

On the bottom of the box was the inscription: “Take a Boy Fishing Today.’’

My grandfather live those words and left behind the legacy of those words. After all, he took a boy fishing.

And now, after years of waiting for my young sons to grow old enough to wet a hook somewhere, I expect it’s time for me to do the same.

Whither thou goest in thy chariot?

2007-05-04T05:36:00.000-04:00

I was driving down Bass Road about 8:15 a.m. last Saturday morning. There was a lot of traffic to be that early. But it was a beautiful day, and I guess a lot of folks decided it was just too pretty to stay in bed and sleep late.

Along the way, I got stuck behind a car that was going excruciatingly slow. I don’t mean to generalize or stereotype here, but let’s just say the man and woman in the front seat might have been on their way to an AARP meeting.

It was a Buick. Old model, probably low mileage.

They were wearing big hats.

They were riding the brakes.

They were obviously in no big hurry, their heads turning with each approaching number on the mailboxes.

I started playing a little game. I wondered where they might be going. To visit a friend? To catch an early bird sale at the pharmacy?

Then we rounded a curves and there were cars parked on either side.

I’ll give you one guess where they were headed.

Yep.

You got it.

It was a yard sale.

My friend, Kenny B.

2007-05-03T06:15:00.000-04:00

Kenny Burgamy and Ed Grisamore in WMAC-AM studio in December 2006 (photo by Brother Neal)

I am going to miss my friend, Kenny Burgamy, on the radio every morning.

Even when I was just able to catch him for a few minutes on the commute to work, it was worth it.

Kenny B. and I see eye-to-eye on just about everything. We share many of the same beliefs and philosophies. We have the same passion for what we do.

We have been friends for almost 20 years. One of our earliest associations came when I wrote a story about his father, the late Calvin “Pop” Burgamy, who gained fame on the city’s baseball and softball fields.

I was in the studio with Kenny (and co-host Jim Jones) when they debuted with a sports talk show called “The Locker Room” on WMAZ-AM in 1991. And the three of us made several trips together when the Atlanta Braves started making their way to the playoffs and World Series in the early 1990s.

Kenny always kept his hand in sports programming, but eventually broke away to start doing the early morning talk show – first with the Telegraph’s own Charles E. Richardson and then with Jami Gaudet.

Once, when I interviewed Kenny for a column, I asked if he had always been a staunch Republican. He admitted that during the Presidential election in 1984, in a moment of weakness, he had actually voted for Michael Dukakis. Not too many people know that, but I have never stopped teasing him about it.

Another little known fact about Kenny is that city councilman Ed DeFore is one of his uncles.
Kenny has had me as a guest on his show dozens of times over the years to talk about local events and issues. I’m very grateful he has allowed me to weigh in on the dialogue of the day.

I will never forget the trip Kenny and I took with Jim Jones and Ben Sandifer to Mount Airy, N.C. -- the hometown of Andy Griffith -- for the annual “Mayberry Days” in October 2000. We rode up in an RV and spent two nights in a motor court motel where the proprietor insisted we call her “Aunt Bee.’’

I know leaving the airwaves has not been an easy decision for Kenny. But he believes it’s in the best interest for him and his family, and I’m happy for him.

Weather days with Liz

2007-05-02T09:13:00.000-04:00

When I saw that The Weather Channel is celebrating its 25th anniversary today, I thought of our own Liz Fabian.

Liz is, by far, the most versatile journalist to work for The Telegraph. Some readers may not know that she was with The Weather Channel during its “salad days.’’ Liz spent three and a half years working for the network, which is based in Atlanta.

In fact, she is the answer to a trivia question.

She was on the network's first-ever storm "live" shot when she followed Hurricane Gilbert to Brownsville, Texas, in September 1988.

About 100 people worked for the network when it made its debut back in 1982. Now, there are about 800.

The network could only be seen in about 1.5 million homes when it was launched. Now that figure is about 93 million.

Some folks are downright religious about watching TWC. I know who keep it tuned in all the time, even on a clear, pleasant day when there is no prospect of inclement weather.

Here is what Liz had to say about her days at TWC:

My arrival at The Weather Channel in summer of 1986 coincided with a push to increase ratings by hiring anchors to host morning and evening programming. During the earlier days, the on--camera meteorologists worked four 10-hour days a week, which made continuity an issue Monday through Friday.

They held focus groups across the country and hired two new people and promoted two others on staff already, Dennis Smith and the late Charlie Welsh. Dennis and Charlie alternated hours on the night shift and Dave Nemeth and I took the mornings. It was really unusual because Dave and I knew each other from Macon and we were the only two hired from outside the Channel. Dave was the first anchor at WGXA when it debuted in 1982. He left as I was joining the staff at Channel 24 in 1983 after my first year in Macon at Channel 41.

I learned of the anchor position from Rebecca Erwin, a meteorologist who worked with me at Channel 24. She had taken a position at TWC from Macon.

Those early days were exciting. They were building a new studio, which is a fraction of the size of the studios that followed. We had a new advertising campaign that included a jingle, "You need us, the Weather Channel, for Everything you Do."

The staff, with Dave and I in front, sang that jingle for a promotion outside our building.

I remember my first Christmas there when I brought some decorations in from home to spruce up the set. The only adornment previously was a HUGE poinsettia sent to us from Today Show weatherman Willard Scott, whom I had met when he visited Macon for the first Cherry Blossom Festival.

I remember he signed the card - P.S. I'm in love with Liz Jarvis. I still have that card somewhere. It was a thrill to be recognized by a REAL celebrity.

Because of my strong reporting background, I became the principal storm chaser and hit the road during hurricane season as storms approached. In the early days, we shot video and brought it back to edit and put on the air. Then during Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, we did our first live shot from the coast of Texas as we piggy-backed with WXIA-Channel 11's satellite truck.

As part of the new anchor format, the Channel wanted to encorporate weather news into regular programming. I had envisioned traveling all over the country to cover weather events, but the budgets did not allow much travel in those days. I did have the opportunity to travel to the west coast and points in between for a documentarly I produced, wrote and anchored called "'Til the Well Runs Dry."

Now it seems as soon as clouds form, a team is in the air on the way to pending disaster.

We had a lot of fun in those early days. Our president was from Chicago, so we took a bus every year to a Braves-Cubs game at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. We had a bowling league and held regular picnics, parties and golf tournaments. I remember naming our bowling team, Lightning Strikes. I always thought I would have really been an asset if I could swap my bowling and golf scores during those years. I also became an unofficial photographer of sorts for our newsletters and company events.

It was a great place to work and we all felt like family. I think some of that's changed now that the network is a corporate empire. The current studio is fabulous as I toured it last summer. Many familiar faces are still there.

A girl named Charlie

2007-05-01T05:18:00.000-04:00

My mother greets 1952 Democratic Presidential

candidate Adlai Stevenson aboard a Delta flight

Today is my mother’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mama!

(No, I'm not too cheap to buy her a card!)

I won’t tell you how old she is. Let’s just say time has treated her very well.

Her name is one of the many unique things about her. She has gone through life as a girl named Charlie.

At the University of Georgia, she was once assigned to a men’s dormitory. A store in Atlanta once refused to accept her check. The Army, Navy and Marines all tried to recruit her.

When she worked for Delta Airlines in the early 1950s, the passengers always were curious when it was announced one of the stewardesses was named Charlie Curtis Smith. In the above photo, the gentleman who is about to get on the plane in Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who was on her flight while campaigning for the 1952 Presidential election he lost to Dwight Eisenhower. (He lost again to Ike in 1956.)

My mother was named after her father, who died before she was born. He went on a fishing trip and caught pneumonia -- a death sentence back in those days.

She named my brother Charles Curtis, and I have a nephew who goes by Curtis. So the name lives on – on the male side of the family.

Anyway, she’s the prettiest, most charming Charlie I know.

I hope you have a special day, Mama.

Strawberry fields forever

2007-04-27T06:03:00.000-04:00

One great thing about living in Middle Georgia is that, if there is a food, we have a festival.

Vidalia gives us the Onion Festival.

Fort Valley brings us the Peach Festival.

Cordele is the place for the Watermelon Days.

Vienna is home of the Big Pig Jig, which is the state barbecue championship.

This may come as a surprise but Plains has a Peanut Festival.

And little Yatesville has the Chitlin’ Hoedown. (Chitlins are not exactly my choice for gourmet dining, but some folks apparently like them. They sell about two tons of the stuff.)

One of my favorite eating events is the annual Georgia Strawberry Festival in Reynolds. This year marks the ninth year of the festival. I’m heading over there on Saturday for the third straight year.

I’ll be with buddy Bruce Goddard, a native of Reynolds, selling books and CDs. So come by and see us.

Click here for some more information about the festival

And read what Bruce wrote about it on his blog.

There’s everything from a teddy bear parade to lawn mower races. And, of course, the usual music, food and arts and crafts. I’m looking forward to all the goodies in the Flint Energies Strawberry Cookoff. I’ve been asked to be a judge again.

Yummy. I love this time of year.

Busted

2007-04-26T06:11:00.000-04:00

Crime suspect Harper Lee was booked on Wednesday

Harper Lee Grisamore, 2, of Lower Bolingbroke, was arrested Wednesday for destruction of private property and cruelty to humans.

The black-and-white dog, a stray the Grisamores adopted two years ago, destroyed the family’s remote control for the second time in three months.

Delinda Grisamore discovered the wounded remote in the recliner early Tuesday morning. She was most distraught over the prospects of being unable to watch her favorite shows on the Home & Garden TV network. Or having to change channels manually.

She blamed Ed Grisamore, the dog’s co-owner, for dozing off in the recliner Monday night and leaving the remote in the chair, where it met an untimely death.

No paw prints were taken at the crime scene. The dog’s teeth marks were submitted as evidence after destroying the “Auxilary” button, the “Menu” key and inflicting major damage on the TV/Video Input controls.

“Since we can’t press the remote buttons, we will have to press charges,’’ said Ed Grisamore.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Grisamore ordered a new remote from Dish Network. After a quick review of the family’s records, the operator asked: “Did your dog chew the remote again?”

Harper Lee, named after the famous novelist who wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has chewed numerous other items in the Grisamore household, including shoes, socks, eyeglasses, jewelry, Christmas ornaments and the wires to the automatic garage door opener.

“If this dog wrote a book, it would have to be called ‘To Kill a Remote,’ ’’ said Grisamore. “I just wish she would show some remorse. Remorse for the remote.’’

Pardon the pun, but stay tuned.

What part of ‘NO’ don’t you understand

2007-04-25T08:36:00.000-04:00

One of the first words a child learns is “No.”

Maybe it’s because they hear it so much.

That’s why I can’t understand why so many people don’t know the meaning of “no” as they get older. It’s the simplest and most-direct of commands.

Actually, they do know the meaning of the two-letter word. They just choose to ignore it. They intentionally disobey.

On the way to work this morning, I compiled a “No” list. Many of them deal with traffic and driving, but I’ve got some others on there, too. Feel free to add your own.

No Parking.
No Left Turn.
No Trespassing.
No Smoking.
No Dumping.
No Littering.
No Loitering.
No Fishing from Bridge.
No Cell Phones.
No Jake Brakes (What exactly does this mean?)
No Entry.
No Exit.
No Drugs or Alcohol Allowed.
No Soliciting.
No One Under 18 Admitted.
No Passing Zone.
No Pets Allowed.
No Admittance.
No Cameras.
No Kite Flying.
No Food or Drinks.
No Trucks Allowed.
No Hunting.
No Diving.
No Stopping.
No Shirt. No Shoes. No Service.

Supply and demand

2007-04-24T05:58:00.000-04:00

“Only God can make a tree, but I'm in charge of seeds and weeds!’’ -- Author Unknown

There are six days left in the month of April. The bills are due. There’s too much month left at the end of the money.

So we’ll have a yard sale.

Yes, a REAL yard sale.

I got a chuckle from the idea this North Macon family had.

Weeds For Sale

U-Pick

Wow! An opportunity to get rid of something you don’t want and make some money in the process.

Why is it when the grass won’t grow and the flowers struggle in their beds, the weeds seem to prosper? It's why we have to arm ourselves with weed killers, weed and feed fertilizers and weed eaters.

So maybe this is an idea whose time has come.

I wonder if I’ll get any prospective buyers.

What's good for the goose ...

2007-04-23T06:54:00.000-04:00

Bill Buckley, my friend and co-author of “Once Upon a Whoopee,’’ sent me these photos he took from his farm in Wilcox County.

While sitting on his porch early Sunday morning with his wife, Jan, they noticed the two Canadian Geese that had taken up residence on their pond had suddenly multiplied.

Five baby geese were born on the pond’s island this past week.

“They chose this morning to take their first family swim,’’ said Bill. “Dad on one side, mom on the other. Teamwork!’’

It reminded me of an essay a neighbor gave me a few years ago called “The Lesson of the Geese.’’ It has been used by businesses, corporations and organizations to emphasize the importance of working together.

It was taken from a speech by author and anthropologist Angeles Arrien in 1991. The original authorship has been credited to two different men – Milton Olson and Robert McNeish.

We all can learn something from this.

Fact: As each goose flaps its wings, it creates an “uplift” for the birds that follow. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock has 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew alone.
Lesson: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are traveling on the thrust of each other.

Fact: When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It quickly moves back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it.
Lesson: If we have as much sense as a goose, we stay in formation with those headed where we want to go. We are willing to accept their help and give our help to others.

Fact: When the lead bird tires, it rotates back into the formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it.
Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. As with geese, people are interdependent on each others’ skills, capabilities, and unique arrangement of gifts, talents, or resources.

Fact: The geese flying in formation honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
Lesson: We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. In groups where there is encouragement, the production is much greater. The power of encouragement (to stand by one’s heart or core values and to encourage the heart and core values of others) is the quality of honking we seek.

Fact: When a goose gets sick, wounded, or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then, they launch out with another formation to catch up with the flock.
Lesson: If we have as much sense as geese, we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we’re strong.

Take this job and love it

2007-04-20T05:54:00.000-04:00

I spoke at the annual career day at Dodge County High School on Friday morning. There were 66 professionals there to give students advice on everything from banking to real estate to diesel mechanics.

Something interesting happened to me on the way back to Macon. I stopped at the McDonald's in Cochran for a mid-morning Coca-Cola.

The girl at the counter took a look at me and asked: "Are you a professor?"

It was a logical question. The campus at Middle Georgia College was just a few blocks away. I had on a coat and tie. I guess I looked like I might have just returned from giving a lecture.

"No," I said.

She looked a little disappointed.

"Well, you sure look like a professor,'' she said. "Let me guess. You're a lawyer.''

Now that hurt.

"No, I'm not a lawyer, either,'' I said.

My mind fresh from career day 20 miles down the road, I could have told this girl I was anything.

Astronaut. FBI agent. Movie star. All those things I once wanted to be.

I decided to have a little fun.

"A preacher,'' I said.

That was not entirely stretching the truth. I have been known to preach.

"Yeah, I can see it now,'' she said. "A preacher.''

"Well, not really,'' I said. "I was just joking. I'm a writer for the Telegraph.''

There was an awkward silence.

"Oh,'' she said.

I knew I should have told her I was a matador.

Forever B.C.

2007-04-19T05:46:00.000-04:00

Many of the national editorial cartoonists have paid tribute to Johnny Hart, creator of the comic strip B.C., who died on April 7.

As I mentioned in a couple of blogs and a column last week, Hart had strong connections to Macon and Middle Georgia. He once worked for the public information office at Robins Air Force Base. He met his wife, Bobby, who was a nurse in Macon. They lived in Macon as newlyweds.

Hart’s in-laws, Wiley and Fran Baxter, still live in Macon. Wiley Baxter, who lost his leg during World War II, is the inspiration behind Hart’s peg-legged caveman character.

Here are some of the memorial cartoons:

The CAT: Columnist Aptitude Test

2007-04-18T08:51:00.000-04:00

Today is National Columnists Day.

Bet it's not even on your calendar. Bet you forgot to get me a card.

That’s OK. It doesn’t carry the same weight as Mother’s Day. There are no hams baking in the oven. No big sales at the mall.

National Columnists Day is not self-serving. The National Society of Newspaper Columnists simply urges those of us in the profession to "write a column about how great it is to be a columnist.''

April 18 is the day we observe because it is the anniversary of the death of Ernie Pyle, considered the patron saint of columnists. Pyle, the famed World War II correspondent, wrote about common folks on the front lines of life trying to make a difference in the world.

On April 18, 1945, he was killed by Japanese machine gun fire on a tiny island in the Pacific. He died with his boots on. He died doing what he loved the most --- writing and reporting.

A few years ago, after I participated in a career day at one of the local high schools, I came up with an aptitude test for column writing. Here’s the test again – with a few revisions. You’re welcome to take the test.

1. Where does a columnist get most of his ideas?

A) Research journals. B) Interviews with experts and intellectuals. C) Discussions with various professionals. D) Funny paper.

2. A columnist makes enough money to own which of the following?

A) Mercerdes. B) Beach condo. C) Original Picasso painting. D) Lawn mower.

3. What is the No. 1 prerequisite for the job?

A) Being able to type 65 words per minute. B) Minimum SAT score of 1550. C) Masters degree in journalism and Ph.D. in philosophy. D) A patient and understanding wife.

4. What does a columnist eat for breakfast?

A) High-fiber cereal. B) Omelets and whole-wheat bagels. C) Strawberries and yogurt. D) Nails.

5. What does a columnist have for dinner?

A) Prime rib. B) French wine. C) Baked Alaska. D) Maalox.

6. Columnists demand solitude while they are writing. Where is the best place to find some peace and quiet?

A) Roof. B) Library. C) Chapel. D) Mercer basketball games.

7. A columnist defines "research" as which of the following?

A) An afternoon poring over clip files and microfilm. B) An afternoon digging through records at the courthouse. C) An afternoon muck-raking over at City Hall. D) An afternoon on the golf course.

8. When it is necessary to turn to other media for information, what is a columnist's best source?

A) CNN. B) Smithsonian magazine. C) Talk radio. D) The Andy Griffith Show.

9. Every columnist needs somebody to pick on. What are the favorite targets of columnists?

A) Politicians. B) Politicians. C) Politicians. D) Politicians.

10. In order to produce columns four times a week, one must keep up with current events. A columnist culls his best material from which of the following?

A) International affairs. B) National affairs. C) Regional affairs. D) White House intern affairs.

11. Since a columnist is in the public eye, what is the required dress code?

A) He must own his own tuxedo. B) He must dry-clean his shirts and polish his shoes. C) He never is allowed to participate in company "dress-down" days. D) He must remember to change his socks.

12. When a columnist suffers from writer's block and runs dry of ideas, is it permissible to "borrow" a column written by another columnist?

A) No! Plagiarism is strictly prohibited by law. B) No! It is a violation of the journalism code of ethics. C) No! Most editors consider stealing another writer's work a firing offense. D) Grizzard? Grisamore? Hey, at least they sound alike!

Too pooped to pedal

2007-04-17T05:32:00.000-04:00

At some point about 4:33 p.m. on Monday, I suddenly got very tired.

Pooped. Worn out. Exhausted. Weary.

My leg muscles ached. My tongue was hanging out. I was gasping for breath.

And I wasn’t really doing anything.

Well, actually I was doing something. I was watching the cyclists take on the downtown loop in Stage 1 finals of the Tour de Georgia.

They had already pedaled more than 90 miles from Peachtree City. They had battled gusts of wind, the rolling hills of the Piedmont and stayed together like a little swarm of hornets as they orbited city streets without having to obey any traffic laws regarding stop signs, traffic lights and speed limits.

I was getting tired just watching them try to find the torque in their legs to pull the hill at Plum Street, and then up past Five Points to High Street, where the road turns into a surface of century-old bricks.

I’m sure it’s not the steepest hill the cyclists will encounter over the next six days. But it’s a grueling incline with a tricky terrain. (And one of the best places to watch the cyclists because they aren’t zipping by you at high speeds.)

They have to put it in another gear to get up that hill, and it will wear you out just observing it.

I slept well Monday night, and all I did was watch.

Where center stage began

2007-04-16T05:55:00.000-04:00

I posted some of this back on Jackie Robinson’s birthday on Jan. 31, because it somehow seemed very appropriate then. Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith had just become the first two African-American head coaches in the NFL to make it to the Super Bowl. It was also the eve of Black History Month.

But I wanted to dust it off for today, too, because Sunday was the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier. All of major league baseball celebrated that historic date – April 15, 1947 – at games played on Sunday.

In the summer of 1993, I drove down to Cairo and, with the help of a friend, found the old shack where he was born a few miles outside of town.

Here is the column I wrote about my adventure on June 27, 1993. My descriptions of that experience are mentioned in the first chapter of the book, “Great Time Coming: The Life of Jackie Robins, from Baseball to Birmingham” by David Falkner.

ON THE ROAD TO CALVARY -- Highway 111 turns to the south in Cairo. It winds past rich farmland toward Calvary, a town about as deep as you can go without stepping over the state line into Florida.

The directions called for us to cross four bridges, then turn left on a county road. We found the dirt road to the old Jim Sasser plantation about a mile ahead, and we drove slowly through a south Georgia thunderstorm.

I searched the cornfield on the left side of the dirt road. My friend's eyes combed the thicket on the right.

"Stop! There it is!" he shouted. I hit the brakes, and it seemed neither of us could open the car doors fast enough. The remains of the chimney were about 20 feet from the road.

It was all that was left of the house where Jackie Robinson was born.

"I'm getting chill bumps," I told my friend. I suspected his heart was also racing. We found a cornerstone under some wet leaves and a few crumbled bricks on the ground. A crepe myrtle branched out near the chimney.

I tried to picture what the house must have looked like in 1919, the year Robinson was born. I tried to imagine I was now standing on the same ground where he took his first steps as a child.

His father had been a sharecropper. His grandfather had been a slave. I stood near the fireplace that kept everyone warm that winter, when his mother gave birth to him during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

History was not made here. It was born. No other athlete in the 20th century had such a profound social impact. Had it not been for Jackie Robinson, there might not have been a Hank Aaron or a Willie Mays or a Reggie Jackson.

I'm not quite sure why I drove nearly 180 miles in search of Robinson's birthplace. I knew there wasn't much left of it. He only lived in the house until he was 16 months old. After his father deserted the family, his mother put her five children on a train and moved them to California.

She hoped to free them from the shackles of a plantation system that still existed in the deep South nearly a half century after slavery ended.

I guess it was curiosity that led me to the ruins of Robinson's homestead. I knew that many people in Georgia, and even some in Cairo, were unaware he was born here.

A Pennsylvania couple once sent the local chamber of commerce a Louisville Slugger bat Robinson had autographed. But that is pale compared to what you will find in Royston, the home of Ty Cobb. Signs everywhere let you know the Georgia Peach was born in the northeast Georgia town. There also is a small museum.

On the outskirts of Cairo, where the nickname of the local high school team is the Syrup Makers, there is only a chimney hidden by trees on a lonely dirt road. I found it kind of sad Robinson came and went before people here could claim him as one of their own.

When my friend and I stopped at the public library in Cairo to research Robinson's roots, we were told several unsuccessful attempts had been made to locate people who might have known the Robinson family.

So, we drove nine miles in the rain to find the unmarked birthplace of a legend.
I thought a lot about Robinson while driving back to Macon. I thought about how he left that dirt road behind and blazed a trail for millions of other black athletes.

He could have been inducted into the Hall of Fame based on courage alone. But he also proved he was a superb player in his 10-year career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Robinson, who died in 1972, will best be remembered for his ability to endure unspeakable abuse without fighting back when he broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. Even though Joe Louis was the heavyweight champion at the time, the presence of a black athlete at the top of the boxing world did not carry the same symbol of social change Robinson delivered as a black in the baseball arena.

A target of hatred and a victim of ignorance, Robinson must have grown weary of turning the other cheek. The most important lesson for all of us is that he never stopped turning it.

When I got home, I found the words of Roger Kahn, who wrote "The Boys of Summer."

"Like a few, very few athletes, Robinson did not merely play at center stage," Kahn wrote. "He was center stage; and where he walked, center stage moved with him."

But only the memory, along with a few scattered bricks, has been preserved from the place where center stage began.

Matters of the Hart

2007-04-13T05:53:00.000-04:00

I am going to completely ignore the fact that today is Friday the 13th. There is too much going on to get carried away with that.

For one, the local connections to cartoonist Johnny Hart just keep on coming.
(The memorial service for the creator of the B.C. comic strip will be held today in Ninevah, N.Y.)

This is from a local chiropractor, J.C. Smith of Smith Spinal Care of Warner Robins:

Dear Gris, enjoyed your article about Johnny Hart this morning. For years I took care of his niece, who introduced me to Johnny. One day years ago I cut out one of his cartoons that dealt with my profession of chiropractic. She saw this and a month later brought me the original autographed by Johnny. In all, I have 7 cartoons that he signed for me, including one idea that I sent to him and he did as a cartoon.

Got another note from Kate West who wrote:

Just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed your Johnny Hart story - what a great story and it was well written. I grew up in Thomasville, Ga. And interviewed Mr. Hart during a visit to Boston, Ga. in 1988. I was a senior in high school and was so impressed by how nice he was to grant me an interview for a high school newspaper.

Here are several autographed B.C. strips Smith sent me. Enjoy!!!

A verb can make a difference

2007-04-12T06:25:00.000-04:00

(Photos courtesy of Linda Horky)

I spent my Wednesday morning reading to a second-grade class at Pearl Stephens Elementary School in Warner Robins.

It was part of the “Celebrity Read” for the Warner Robins chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). This group has sponsored a “Reading is Fundamental” program in several elementary schools in Houston County. These “Celebrity Reads” are usually held twice a year, in the fall and spring.

Over the past few years, I have read to classes at several schools, including Lindsey, Parkwood, Westside, Sullivan, Pearl Stephens and Perry.

It started for me in 1998, when I became involved locally with the Rolling Readers program. Over the next eight years, I was a regular at least once a week in five different schools in Bibb County – Bruce, Lane, Tinsley, Sonny Carter and Morgan.

I’ve always found it very rewarding. You don’t reach ALL the kids, but if you can make a difference in the lives of some of them, it makes it all worthwhile.

On Wednesday at Pearl Stephens, I read them several poems from one of my favorites – Shel Silverstein. I read from “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and “A Light in the Attic.’’

They loved the “Recipe for a Hippopotamus Sandwich.’’ I have asked their teacher to get them to write their own recipes and send them to me.

See what reading can do? A noun. A verb. An adjective. They all can make a difference.

Blue light special

2007-04-11T05:36:00.000-04:00

I’ve never met Dennis Kocken. Wouldn’t know him if he walked up and rang my doorbell.

Wouldn’t recognize if I passed him on the street or sat next to him in church. He’s not on my speed dial. He’s never been on my Christmas card list. He didn’t sign my high school annual.

But I’m granting him a “True Gris” award for honesty in law enforcement, even though he lives in a town 839 miles away.

Kocken is the sheriff in Brown County, Wisconsin, which happens to be home of the Green Bay Packers but has nothing to do with his story.

In case you missed it, Kocken wrote himself a ticket a few weeks ago for an unsafe lane change. He rear-ended a suspected speeder who had slowed to turn.
He issued himself a ticket, which carries at $160.80 fine, because he believes it was the “right thing to do.’’

"As sheriff, I'm held to the highest standard in law enforcement,’’ he said. “ How can I hold officers accountable if I don't hold myself accountable?" "I'm satisfied I'm doing the right thing."

I hope other public defenders are listening. Unless you’re chasing a drug-dealing, gun-toting criminal or in hot pursuit of a wild pack of terrorists headed down I-75, you’re supposed to obey the traffic laws just like everybody else.

If not, pull yourself over and give yourself a blue-light special.

You have the right to remain silent.

An appreciation of Johnny Hart (1931-2007)

2007-04-10T05:18:00.000-04:00

The house where Johnny Hart drew some of his earliest caveman caricatures is no longer there.

It was an upstairs apartment in a house on Georgia Avenue in 1955. It rested along the back slope of College Hill, where the Wesleyan Conservatory used to be before it burned (now Macon’s main post office). It was up from the old Pig and Whistle Drive-In – it, too, now just a memory.

Guess there must have been something in the ink. A block up the hill on Arlington Place, playwright Tennessee Williams wrote part of his famous play, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” during his stay in Macon during the summer of 1942.

I’ve thought about that these past few sad days. Hart died Saturday at his home in New York. His comic strip, “B.C.” is syndicated in 1,300 newspapers, making it the most widely read comic strip in the world.

And part of it was born right here in Macon. Hart lived here with his wife, Bobby, when they were newlyweds. He was a graphic artist who worked at Robins Air Force Base. She was a lab technician at the old Macon Hospital.

I had the opportunity to interview Hart in 2003. I was writing a column on his brother-in-law, Wiley Baxter, who lives in Macon. Wiley lost his leg in France during World War II, and Hart created the character “Wiley,’’ the peg-legged caveman poet and coach, in honor of Wiley Baxter.

Wiley’s wife, Fran Baxter, and Bobby Hart are sisters.
I’m writing a column about Hart’s connections in Macon and Warner Robins for Wednesday’s Telegraph and macon.com

Here is what others are saying about Hart:
Johnny Hart and his wham wham world (New York Times).

Johnny Hart: Not Caving In (Christianity Today)

Johnny Hart: 1931 - 2007(Chicago Tribune, Washington Post)

Johnny Hart: In Memorium: 1931-2007 (Creators Syndicate)

Over the hill and far away

2007-04-09T06:08:00.000-04:00

Another birthday for me today.

Another year older. Another year wiser?

Just look at all those candles on the cake from a family birthday party this past weekend.

A lot of fire. A lot of smoke.

And a lot of wise cracks.

So if you’ve got any “over the hill” jokes to add, go ahead and throw them on the blog pile.

I’m getting so old …

When I tried to straighten out the wrinkles in my socks, I realized I wasn’t wearing any,
I’ve been having dreams about prunes.
I turned up my hearing aids at the breakfast table and heard the snap, crackle and pop. Problem was, I wasn’t eating Rice Krispies.
My favorite part of the paper is “50 Years Ago Today.’’
I think Sansabelts look pretty good on me.
My summer reading list includes "The World According to AARP."
I don’t care where my wife goes, as long as I don’t have to go along.
Everything hurts. And what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work.

Spring break

2007-04-03T21:31:00.000-04:00

Folks, I'm taking the week off for some much-needed R&R and mental health days.

I've got a honey-do list, so don't think I'm chilling out the whole time.

Check back for some new Gristakes next week.

Thanks for being loyal readers!!!!!

Buckeyes = Bucks

2007-03-30T05:32:00.000-04:00

I have suddenly become an Ohio State basketball fan.

Go Buckeyes!

I don’t think I have ever rooted for Ohio State in anything. But, this weekend, I hope the Buckeyes make more Bucket-eyes than the teams they're playing.

No, I don’t have Ohio State to win it all in the NCAA office pool. I’m so far out of it now I don’t have a prayer.

But somebody close to me does. Since I can't win, I'm pulling for him.

If Ohio State wins the NCAA title, my youngest son Jake will be a semi-rich man. He should finish first in the office pool. At the very least, he’ll be in the money.

At the start of the NCAA tournament two weeks ago, I wrote a blog called “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’’

Sometimes the people who are the least familiar with the subject – in this case, college basketball -- sometimes do the best.

The daughter of a co-worker once won the pool by picking teams based on the ferociousness of their nickname.

Jake is another classic example. When I gave him a bracket sheet, I had to explain how it worked, how the teams were seeded and the laws of probability.

“A No. 1 seed is usually going to beat a No. 16 seed,’’ I told him. "That’s just the way it works. But a No. 8 vs. No. 9 is roll-the-dice time. And there always are a few No. 3, 4 and 5 seeds who somehow manage to get upset along the way. A few Cinderellas usually come out of the pack. So don't just play by the numbers.''

He nodded that he understood, but I really had my doubts that he did. He took the bracket sheet and filled out the whole thing in five minutes.

No hair pulling. No pondering. No flipped coins or the biting of fingernails.

Five minutes. Five minutes? He hasn't watched five minutes of basketball all season.

But, after the first weekend, he was in first place.

After the second weekend, he was still in first place.

And, if Ohio State wins, he will be rolling in the dough.

Bucks from the Buckeyes.

Yep, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah slept here

2007-03-29T05:45:00.000-04:00

It seems every time Disney does something, there is some group out there criticizing it.

So it really should come as no surprise that the recent decision to “consider” re-releasing the classic “Song of the South” is causing some controversy. There are those who contend it is racist in its depiction of Southern plantation blacks.

Gimme a break.

The animated film was made in 1946. That was 60 years ago – different times – and it is looking back at a period of time even further back than that.

Still, it’s 2007, and some folks are demanding we apologize for slavery. Most of us moved past all this a long time ago. Not proud of it, but certainly not trying to re-write history, either.

Why is it all being stirred up? And why is it some people are never satisfied unless they are stirring something up?

But that’s not the purpose of today’s “Give Us Thy Daily Gris.’’

I’ve been whistling and humming Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah for the past several days. Can’t seem to get it out of my head.

I have come across a local connection to the making of the Disney movie, but you’ll have to wait until Friday’s column in the Telegraph to read about that.

In the meantime, let’s string together the Middle Georgia thread of Joel Chandler Harris, the man whose tales of Uncle Remus provided the inspiration for “Song of the South.’’

Of course, Harris was born in Eatonton and worked as a typesetter for both The Macon Telegraph and The Monroe Advertiser in Forsyth.

A few weeks ago, I visited the Monroe County History Society, which has a neat little museum at the train depot near the former site of Tift College.

There, they have the typesetter table that Harris used at the Advertiser and a brief history of Harris as an apprentice newspaperman in Forsyth.

Here is what it says:

Before writing his Uncle Remus tales, Joel Chandler Harris served as an apprentice typesetter at The Monroe Advertiser between 1868 and 1870. Although he spent only three short years in Forsyth, those years had a profound effect on him, as his personal letters reveal.

After moving from Forsyth to Savannah to work for a larger newspaper, Harris wrote: “My history is a peculiarly sad and unfortunate one – and the three years in Forsyth are the very brightest of my life.’’ He went on to say that he had never really known what a friend was until he came to Forsyth. He called his sojourn in that town “…a precious memorial of what would otherwise be as bleak and desolate as winter.’’

Below is a photograph I took of the typesetter’s table he used at the Advertiser.

Long odds at the library

2007-03-28T05:41:00.000-04:00

I stopped by the Washington Memorial Library after lunch Tuesday. I had been to Sid’s for soup and a sandwich. And, since Sid’s is named after poet Sidney Lanier, I was feeling quite literary. So it was off to the library.

At the checkout desk, I asked the lady how many books there were in the three-story library. She said she had known the figure at one time, but she would be afraid to guess at the number now.

I wanted to know how many books were on those shelves because I wanted to know what the odds were for something that had just happened to me.

I had been on the second floor browsing through the new non-fiction titles. I spotted a biography that interested me and read a few pages.

It was well-written and enlightening. I told myself I would check out the book. I left it on the shelf, figuring nobody was going to come along in the next 15 minutes and get that book. After all, there weren’t a dozen people on the entire second floor.

I sat down to browse through another book, then chatted for a few minutes with one of the staff members at the library.

When it was time to leave, I walked over to the display shelf for the biography.

Suddenly, a man appeared out of nowhere, stepped in front of me and reached for the book. The same book!!!

I was a little stunned. What were the odds of that happening?

I have no idea. I’m still trying to figure it out. I don't much about probability but it seems very strange.

After writing about the “man in the rear-view mirror” on Monday, I followed up with the “man in the stacks at the library” on Tuesday.

Am I living in Bizarro World?

Makes me curious about what might happen today.

The man in the rear-view mirror

2007-03-27T05:55:00.000-04:00

I was making a left turn from Riverside Drive onto College Street Monday afternoon. Dozens of cars were coming from the other direction, so I had to wait for them to pass.

Most of them were going at least 45-50 mph. They kept coming around a sharp curve. There was a distance of about 100 feet beween the next-to-the-last and last car, so there was the shortest of breaks in the action. But it was my judgment that there wasn't enough time to try to turn between them.

Apparently, the driver behind me didn’t feel the same way. He started honking his horn. I don’t read lips, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t reciting scripture.

I don’t prefer being broadsided by a speeding vehicle on a Monday afternoon. That’s why I didn’t risk it.

It was not a good day to die, and I certainly didn’t want to take everyone in the other vehicle with me.

I’m rather proud to say that I usually react well in these situations. I'm calm, cool and collected. I don’t yell obscenities out the window. I don’t exercise my middle figure. There is no confrontation.

After I made my turn, this guy tailed me all the way up College Street before turning onto Georgia Avenue down to Hardeman. He wasn’t’ driving a Model A, but he definitely had a Type A personality.

I also figured his blood pressure is probably 320/210.

I figured he was in a bad mood because he had Duke winning it all in the NCAA office pool.

I figured he was having a bad hair day.

Or he was not too fond of it being a Monday, the most rotten of days.

Or his allergies were bothering him.

But I’m saving the funniest part for last. When he pulled even with me at the stop light, I looked over.

I knew the guy!!! Known him for years. He came by my office and bought a book for his mother a few months ago.

He had no idea it was me.

Should I tell him about this the next time I see him?

End of the blossom trail

2007-03-26T06:29:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Cherry Blogger Stephanie for taking this photo and posting it in her Saturday slideshow

I would like to thank everyone who stopped by my booth at the Mulberry Street Arts & Crafts Festival. It was great to see everybody and to make some new friends.

Saturday was a very busy day. The crowds were unbelievable, elbow to elbow at times.

Sunday was a little slower, but there were other events going on. And it was so blessed hot. The sign on a nearby bank read 94 degrees. It may not have been that hot, but it was very warm. Maybe a new festival record. I'll have to check on that.

The blooms came out in mass over the last weekend, validating my longtime theory that there is no prettier place on earth than Macon in the springtime.

I visit with the Bogue family from Warner Robins on Saturday

Planning those blossoms

2007-03-23T05:58:00.000-04:00

Who said anything about there not being many blossoms for the festival this year?

Just look at the photograph, which was taken Thursday at Central City Park.

I have on my "blossom" tie. I've been showing it to folks all week.

And that's the famous "Miss Blossom,'' also known as Florence Wood.

Today is March 23. It's the birthday of Mr. William Fickling Sr., who died in 1986. But we celebrate his birthday every Cherry Blossom Festival with a cake in Third Street Park at lunchtime.

This is the 25th festival, the silver anniversary, and it was always started to coincide with Mr. Fickling's birthday. It started out as a weekend event. Now it's a 10-day festival that always includes two weekends. That's why this year's festival began a week ago today.

But given the continued stubborness of the cherry trees, perhaps it would have been better to have started this year's festival today. I realize you can't predict such things, and Mother Nature is very unpredictable.

But even if the blossoms had come out early, wouldn't it be better for the trees to have already bloomed and at least have leaves on them to look like dead, bare trees all week?

Timing is everything.

Just a thought.

Next best thing to being there

2007-03-22T05:35:00.000-04:00

Delinda took this photo in the Fickling driveway on Ingleside Avenue Wednesday morning.

If you haven’t been able to make one of the Cherry Blossom bus tours, you can do the next best thing.

You can take a video tour our online journalist Liz Fabian did of one of my tours this week. It was a tour group from Fort Payne, Ala., on Tuesday afternoon.

I gave a tour to a sweet group from Weaverville, N.C., on Wednesday morning. It was some of the same group I had last year, and they requested me again.

Many of them said two or three hours is not enough time to see all the beautiful places in Macon, so next year than plan to come and stay a few days.

I told them Macon was named for Nathaniel Macon, the statesman from North Carolina, and of course they all knew who he was.

This morning will be my last tour of the festival. I have a speaking engagement on Friday with a hostel group being sponsored by Georgia College & State University. These folks have come here from all over the country.

I have a booth to sell my books and CD at the Mulberry Street Arts & Crafts festival this weekend. Come by and see us.

I wish we had more blossoms out this week. I’ve never seen them so stubborn. Next week is going to be gorgeous.

A personality responsibility

2007-03-21T06:28:00.000-04:00

I ran into a high-ranking local official in the Third Street Park after lunch on Tuesday. She had some out-of-town guests with her and, of course, she was talking about the blossoms.

Or the lack of them.

“People in Macon feel personally responsible when the trees don’t bloom for the festival,’’ she said.

She’s right. We do feel a bit guilty. We have all these people coming from all over, and we want to strut our stuff. But it’s just not all there. Not yet, anyway.

It’s kind of like a painting without all the colors.

It’s kind of like a concert without all the chorus.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to put the best face on the bus tours I’ve been giving all week. But it’s tough without full cooperation from the cherry trees.

I did get a nice note from reader Randall Murphy, of Macon. He included three photographs of the full-blooming trees from a past festival.

“Just in case you have to conduct a tour of bare cherry trees, I’m enclosing a couple of pictures you can show your guests to prove they do bloom and how beautiful they are when they do.’’

Thanks, Randall, and happy first day of spring to you.

A picture is worth a thousand blooms.

Pink Dawg and some new friends

2007-03-20T06:26:00.000-04:00

Owner Paul Williams and Lacie were at Central City Park on
Monday afternoon.

If you’re rubbing your eyes this week because everything appears to be pink, it’s no optical illusion.

Yes, those pancakes are pink. So is that trash can. And those are pink bubbles coming out of the car wash.

Pink poodle? If you’ve been anywhere near Third Street or Central City parks this week, chances are you’ve seen Lacie.

I ran into Lacie outside the Long Building at Central City Park Monday afternoon. She was getting a lot of attention. A tour bus group from a church in Alabama was having a few Kodak moments with her. She seemed to enjoy all the attention.

I saw Lacie last year but had only gotten close enough to take a few pictures.

Five years ago, I did a column on Casper, the dog Paul and Alice Williams had prior to Lacie.

Casper died two years ago, and now Lacie has taken over the festival duties.

Lacie is a sweet dog, and is very gentle around children. Big people, too.

The face of the festival is often a dog.

And Lacie is quite the ambassador.

Also on Monday I happened upon a group of students touring the Woodruff House on top of Coleman Hill. They were from Central Georgia Tech and were in the "English as a Second Language" class. In other words, they didn't speak much English.

But one of the instructors recognized me, and explained to her students who I was. I also told them a little about myself and what I do for a living. They wanted to have their photograph taken with me. I told them I would post the group photo at the web site, so here it is. That's me somewhere in the middle.

Driving, dribbling, dancing and a nap

2007-03-19T05:40:00.000-04:00

Son Jake cuts the rug Sunday afternoon at Idle Hour

Not much cherry blossoming for me this past weekend. I figured I will get my fill of that over the next seven days, so I needed to pace myself.

I didn’t even go to the pink pancake breakfast at Central City Park. It’s the first time I’ve missed that in a few years. And, as I blogged last Friday, we have stopped going to the balloon glow ever since they moved it from Wesleyan.

I was all over the map on Saturday. I took my mother down to Georgia Veterans State Park in Cordele. It was her cousin, Perry Mobley’s 80th birthday, so it was pretty much like a family reunion down there. They cooked a pig all night, and there was some good eatin’.

There was so much traffic on I-75, and it was so intense, that we took U.S. 41 most of the way. It was a delightful drive.

There wasn’t much time to catch my breath when I got back to Macon. I had been asked to speak Saturday night at the 35th reunion of the great Taylor County girls basketball teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Those teams won 132 straight games between 1967-72, which is still a state record and ranks fourth nationally. I think it ranks among the greatest feats in high school sports in our state’s history.

A huge crowd of about 180 attended the banquet at Taylor County Elementary in Butler. Delinda went with me. It was a very inspiring evening.

There was a great tribute paid to Coach Norman Carter, who also served as principal and school superintendent. He and his wife, Jane, operate “The Golden Rule” a home for women recovering from alcohol and substance abuse.

He is one of my heroes, and I pledge to do everything it takes to get him in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. It’s hard to believe he is not in there already. If you want to read more about the incredible run by the Taylor County girls, click on this link.

I taught Sunday School at First Baptist on Sunday morning. I did "The Andy Griffith Show" series, with my favorite episode, “Man in a Hurry.’’ We all could learn a lot from this episode. We need to slow down our lives. Also, Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. It’s not supposed to be just like any other day of the week.

So I did rest Sunday afternoon. I was a pooped puppy. I took a 45-minute nap. I think it was my first nap since 1988. Delinda took Jake to the graduation for Susan Rodgers’ cotillion class at Idle Hour. Jake has been a student instructor for her this year.

Now it's Monday morning. Time to put on the pink tie.

Bring glow-ry days back to Wesleyan

2007-03-16T05:17:00.000-04:00

I took this photo of the balloon glow at Wesleyan in March 2001

The Cherry Blossom Festival is a bit like Ivory soap.

99.44 percent pure.

Yep, it’s about as close to perfect as a festival can get. It’s well-planned, well-organized and well-orchestrated. There are more than 500 events at the annual 10-day festival, and more than 90 percent of them are free. There’s something for everyone.

So you won’t find me hanging out at the complaint box very often or for very long. I can’t find much fault with the festival.

Except for the balloon glow.

I would love to see it return to the campus at Wesleyan College.

I know it won’t ever happen. I’ve asked Cherry Blossom officials about it until I am pink in the face.

Four years ago, heavy rains on opening day forced the event – one of the festival’s most popular – to make a quick move from the Wesleyan campus to the Herbert Smart Airport in East Macon.

What a nightmare! The traffic was heavy. The “glow” was a disappointment. Little did we realize it would never return to Wesleyan.

I vowed to never go back.

And I haven’t.

It was so much more of a community event when it was at the college. I loved the tradition of going. It was exciting. And we would always get up with the sun the next morning and go watch the balloons take off.

I was told there were logistic, safety and liability issues at the more urban setting, along Foryth Road. The balloonists would rather stake out to the wide open spaces at the airport.

But, when they left, they took something with them. And it's no longer a free event, either. It costs $5 to get in the gate (children under 12 free).

Wish we could get it back at Wesleyan.

For old times sake.

Blossom bouncing on a Thursday

2007-03-15T06:17:00.000-04:00

I gave a mini-tour to a dozen students from Boston University on Wednesday afternoon. They have been in town all week working on repairing houses for Rebuilding Together.

Before we left on the trolley from the brand spanking new Macon-Bibb County Convention and Visitors Bureau, we saw the 12-minute video about Macon.

I suggest everyone march down there and view that short movie. If that doesn’t make you proud to live in Macon, I don’t know what will.

We took them on a loop up Cherry Street, across to Poplar and up on High Street, over to College and Bond Street atop Coleman Hill, then down Mulberry and back over the the CVB.

These young people thanked me for the tour, but not before I thanked them. I thanked them for giving up their spring break to come to Macon, Ga., to help repair houses for needy families.

That, to me, says a lot about them as people.

So I thanked them. We should all thank them.

* * *

I attended the Cherry Blossom Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon at the City Auditorium. Even though there were hundreds of folks there, the crowd was less than I’ve seen in a number of years.

Maybe its because the program always tends to drag on for almost two hours, despite efforts to streamline it.

Here’s my suggestion: Cut ALL the speeches from the public officials -- nobody wants to hear them anyway -- and focus on the volunteers. We’re there to honor them.

* * *

One of my favorite people I have met this week is Ruby Busbee of Houston Heights Baptist Church.

Miss Ruby is amazing. She had done all the decorating for a seniors luncheon at the church.

Even more amazing is that she is 92 years old with no signs of slowing down.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

2007-03-14T06:33:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine once gave me some excellent advice.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

My friend was saying sometimes you know so much about a subject it will work against you. You over-think. You over-analyze.

I’ve always felt that was about the NCAA Basketball Tournament, better known as this affliction known as March Madness.

It consumes us as we head from winter to spring, making the conversion from basketball to baseball, bare trees to blossoms.

To me, it’s always been one of the great events in all of sports – three weeks of the biggest free-for-all in sports.

I especially like those first two frantic-filled days – Thursday and Friday of this week – when the pairings are parings. The field goes from 64 to 32, then melts to 16 by sundown on Sunday.

And the NCAA office pool is a traditional rite of spring. At our place, it only cost $5 to jump in and give it a chance. It’s one of the few times I put down any money on a sporting event. And it’s not really betting. The NCAA basketball bracket is truly a game of chance.

It seems sometimes those who know the least around our office do the best. It goes back to the “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” theory.

Remember the Nebraska man last year who picked George Mason to be in the Final Four?
George Mason? An unknown, unheralded team and the first No. 11 seed to reach the Final Four in 20 years?

"I got them confused with George Washington," said Russell Pleasant, of Bellevue, Neb.

Anything goes.

In fact, everything goes.

“But I don’t know that much about all the teams,’’ one of my sons admitted as I encouraged him to fill out his bracket and join the fun.

“Doesn’t really matter,’’ I said.

No, don't fall for Niagara. Don't bet the house on tiny tots Winthrop, Davidson or Central Connecticut State.

But you should always expect the unexpected.

And, remember, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

A remarkable life

2007-03-13T05:49:00.000-04:00

When I am speaking to church groups, I often ask for a show of hands.

“How many of you,’’ I ask, “have read the Bible from cover to cover?”

A few usually raise their hands. There are times when nobody does.

Unless you are a seminary student, a preacher or a missionary, it’s difficult to count yourself among those who have done a complete read of the King James version from Genesis to Revelation. That’s a total of 807,361 words.

I don’t ask this question to make people feel guilty, although if I wanted to do that, it certainly would work.

It has always been to point out the remarkable feat of Mr. Talmadge Shepard, who was a member of my church – First Baptist of Macon.

When I interviewed him for a column in August 1999 called “The holy word in his hands.’’

This is what I wrote on a Sunday morning:

Talmadge Shepard's fingers have fought the battle of Jericho and met Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
He has literally felt every heartfelt word of Psalms. He keeps the verbs of Ecclesiastes and adverbs of Corinthians at his fingertips.
This morning, the churches of Macon will be filled with worshipers who rarely miss a Sunday. They are devout in their faith, frame their lives around the "Good Book" and can quote Scripture from Acts to Zechariah.
I wonder how many of them would admit they never have read the Bible from beginning to end.
Many, like myself, will claim to have pieced together a complete reading over a lifetime. We might have studied enough Scripture in Sunday School and accumulated enough verses from within an earshot of the pulpit to achieve the sum of the parts.
Still, reading the Bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelations 22:21 remains an unfulfilled challenge.
For that reason, Shepard has taken his rightful place among those on my "most-admired" list. At year's end, he will have completed reading the Bible 21 times.
That, in itself, is amazing.
What makes it even more remarkable is that Talmadge Shepard is blind.

Mr. Shepard died this past Friday. He was 86. He had been in poor health for a number of years. His funeral was Monday at First Baptist.

He was known for more than just his scripture reading. He was a remarkable man.

For 32 years, he ran the concession stand in the lobby of the Bibb County Courthouse. He learned to recognize his customers by the sounds of their voices. He would distinguish their money by its size and shape. He worked five days each week from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., often walking to the courthouse from his family's house on Spring Street.

While living on Spring Street, he and his sister, Jean Davis, grew up in the shadow of the tall steeple at First Baptist Church at the top of Poplar. They joined the church in 1944.

After he retired from the courthouse concession stand in December 1978, he took on a preacher’s challenge to church members to start the New Year with a resolution: To read the Bible in its entirety.

And he did. Again. And again. And again. His 18 Braille volumes stretched across two bookshelves.

I always counted him among my heroes.

Portrait of an artist as a young man

2007-03-12T05:42:00.000-04:00

Butler Brown looks the painting he did for my grandmother in 1968, when he
was just starting out.

Artist Butler Brown had a reunion with one of his earliest paintings Sunday afternoon.

It was sweet. I should know. It belongs to me.

My family has a long history with Butler, going back to Hawkinsville in the 1960s. My late maternal grandparents – Mr and Mrs. W.E. Richards – taught school there from 1948-73.

My grandmother was a second-grade teacher and, in 1968, had Butler’s son, Tony, in her class.
That was the same year Butler was taking an art correspondence course. He called my grandmother one day and asked if he could come take some photographs of a lake at their house. He went over there with his camera.

He then went to work, painting the lake, trees and sky. If you’re familiar with his work, it’s unlike most of his landscapes. The blues and greens are bright and bold.

In the portrait is a little boy fishing at the end of a dock. It is supposed to be Tony, his son, but my mother says it could very well be me. I caught my first fish at that lake. If I close my eyes, I can still feel it tugging on the end of my cane pole.

Butler gave the painting to my grandmother and, before she died, she gave it to me. It always hung over her mantel. It is truly a family treasure.

Of course, eight years after he painted that and others, he became famous when Jimmy Carter hung his paintings at the White House.

I believe he may be the most famous artist the state of Georgia has ever produced. He still has his studio outside of Hawkinsville.

Since I was with Butler most of the weekend at the Forsythia Festival, I promised to bring the painting to show him. I had told him about it many times in the past, but he had not seen it in almost 40 years.

It was a beautiful reunion. Kind of like showing Hemingway the first paragraph he ever wrote.

Blossom countdown

2007-03-09T05:30:00.000-05:00

Look!
Up in the sky!
It’s a … blossom!!!!
At 5:17 p.m. on Thursday, I saw my first cherry blossom. It was on the large Yoshino cherry in my mother’s yard. I went by to see her after work, and the first words out of my mouth when I walked in the door were: “You’ve got one blossom on your cherry tree!!!!”
She told me she had been outside earlier in the day and hadn’t seen any. But, sure enough, one solitary blossom had opened up during the warm afternoon.
A few more sunny, 75-degree days and those blooms will start popping.
The festival starts one week from today.
I can’t wait. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again.
There’s no prettier place on earth than Macon in the springtime.

Scattershooting on a Thursday

2007-03-08T06:45:00.000-05:00

Scattershooting on a Thursday morning.

I would like to thank friend Bill Pilcher for providing me with my newest favorite quotation. Bill and I are currently working on getting a film project started. His words of wisdom were from the great Albert Einstein: “Nothing happens unless something moves.’’
A southwest Bibb County woman found a red bowling ball in her yard last week. She believes it may have been dropped there by Thursday’s tornadoes. Although her home is several miles from the Sandy Point area in Crawford County, where there was considerable storm damage, she is not ruling out the possibility of one big gutter ball by the twister. Sounds like one of my errant golf shots.
I bet Ed Nabors, the truck driver in North Georgia who won $116.5 million in the lottery, now has relatives he didn't know he had. Of course, his name is Ed. So the thought has crossed my mind we might be related. ...
I hope our lawmakers vote against Sunday alcohol sales when it is put up for a vote in the senate next week. Can’t folks go one day a week without drinking? It’s a sacred day. Let’s keep it that way. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
I’m working on my first -- sniffle, sniffle, cough, cough – cold of the season. So if you run into me somewhere, I won't have to explain why I smell like Vicks Vapo Rub.
This certainly won’t make me – or anybody else – feel any better. Gas is back up over $3 a gallon in parts of California and Hawaii.
Have they finally buried James Brown and Anna Nicole Smith? Is it safe to come out now?
Hope to see you at the Forsythia Festival in Forsyth this week. I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday signing books and CDs at the Monroe County Museum at 126 East Johnston Street. Come by and say hello.

My cure for the hiccups

2007-03-07T06:07:00.000-05:00

A 15-year old Florida girl made national headlines last week when she was finally cured of the hiccups.

She had been hiccupping 50 times a minute for five weeks. That had to be no fun.

She tried everything from drinking pickle juice to breathing into a paper sack. Nothing seemed to work. She made trips to see medical specialists. She tried hypnosis and acupuncture. Finally, they just stopped on their own.

Now that she has been cured, I wonder if the movie rights can be far behind.

Everyone, it seems, has offered their own remedies for the hiccups.

A spoonful of peanut butter
Tickling the person
Several quick sips of water followed by several long sips.
A spoonful of sugar.
A dose of balsamic vinegar.
Placing a bag of ice next to your diaphram.
Bending over and drink from the “back” side of the glass.

I’ve found the sugar usually works for me. Of course, getting a “scare” also does the trick. That's why I have a guaranteed method for scaring me.

It never fails. I look at the photo below.

The time it is a changing

2007-03-06T05:57:00.000-05:00

Daylight Savings Time begins on Saturday, and we were trying to explain the concept to our youngest son at supper Monday night.

Spring forward.

Fall back.

You’ll lose an hour of sleep this weekend, but you’ll get it back after the summer. More specifically, you can sleep late on Nov. 4.

I also tried to explain how simply moving the hands of the clock ahead will make things better.
It will give you more daylight at the end of the day. You’re trading an hour of light in the morning for an hour of light in the evening. It’s a good deal. It allows you to maximize the daylight hours.

It is especially nice in the summer as the days get longer.

We’re getting the extra daylight earlier this year. In the past, the time has traditionally changed on the first Sunday in April. But in 2005, President Bush pushed for the extension of Daylight Savings Time by two months to conserve energy costs.

Of course, they are saying the change could affect your computer settings – kind of a mini-Y2K bug – so be on the watch for that.

Did I just say "watch?" Gee, I'm so clever.

Our little secret recipe

2007-03-05T06:44:00.000-05:00

I’m going to let you in on a little secret but you’ve got to not tell anybody.

You have got to promise me you won’t breathe a word of it. It’s top secret. Classified information.

I’m going to give you the recipe for the best Brunswick stew you ever put in your mouth.

It was passed on to me by a man in McRae about five years ago. I don’t think he was supposed to give it to anybody. I don’t think I was supposed to give it to anybody.

But I’ll share it with you.

I’ve been asked many times over the years for the recipe. I always tell people if I gave it to them, I would have to kill them.

I've added a few things to the original recipe. I've also kicked it up a notch with the hot sauce. It gives it a little bite.

Whenever I make a big batch of this stew, as I did for a church social Sunday night, I am the most popular guy at the party. Whenever I take it to the office, I have co-workers bow down at my feet.

I’ve always heard the sign of a good Brunswick stew is sticking a fork in the middle and it not moving. Well, this stew is not like that. It’s more soup than stew.

But it is guaranteed. And it is so simple to make. You won’t believe how easy it is.

Remember now, this is our little secret.

TRUE GRIS BRUNSWICK STEW
(Mix together in large pot)
--1 pound ground beef, browned and drained
--1 pound pork barbecue
--3 boneless chicken breasts
--4 cans sliced tomatoes
--4 cans sliced potatoes
--4 cans whole grain corn
--1 can cream corn
--1 can tomato sauce
--2 cans English peas
--1 can beef broth
--1 bottle ketchup
--3 tablespoons Texas Pete hot sauce

(Simmer well. Makes 20 cups or 10 pints)

March roars in like a lion

2007-03-02T06:06:00.000-05:00

Storm forced part of Thomaston Road to close Thursday night
(Photo by Woody Marshall/The Telegraph)

I ate lunch Thursday at the Ryan’s Steakhouse in Warner Robins. I was speaking to the Warner Robins Noonday Optimist Club.

You don’t want to sound like a pessimist when you sit down to break bread with the Optimists, but I told the gentleman next to me about how I now pay attention to severe weather warnings.

No longer do I ignore then. Four and a half years ago, just a few weeks after we moved to south Monroe County, we hardly raised an eyebrow one Sunday afternoon when a tornado watch was issued. It was November, and we had just gotten through watching a football game, for goshsakes. That’s not typical tornado weather.

But within minutes, a tornado had cut a swath through our neighborhood, and I had neighbors who lost dozens of trees. That will get your attention.

I will never forget the sound of that storm as it passed around us. We huddled in a walk-in closet, and you could almost feel it in the atmosphere as it passed over.

I will never forget the strange way the clouds looked. They were low, with a strange color and light. They raced through as if they were in a hurry. The sky was very angry.

And it looked the same way Thursday night.

It reminds us of just how unpredictable the weather can be this time of year.

The first day of March certainly roared in like a lion.

Butterflies at the doctor's office

2007-03-01T05:52:00.000-05:00

I went to the doctor Wednesday morning. It’s never the most comforting place to be.

I don’t know many folks who don’t get nervous at the thought of going to the doctor’s office.

Their minds keep tryin to convince them all these things are wrong with them.

For me, it was just a routine check-up, a follow-up from my annual physical this past August.
I had to make sure all my prescriptions were working, and not causing any side-effects, like strange things growing out of the side of my head.

Before I went, I jotted down a few questions – and a list of new ailments.

Why does that list keep getting longer as you get older?

While I was in the examination room, I overheard one of the physician assistants discussing something as she was reading the morning paper.

She saw the headline “Antioxidant vitamins may add to death risk” on the front page.
“Get ready,’’ she said. “We’re going to get a lot of calls today.’’

I did have some bloodwork done, so I’ll be anxiously awaiting the results of that. Otherwise, everything else seems to be OK. The aches and pains appear to just be normal aches and pains.

Sweat's was a religious experience

2007-02-28T13:34:00.000-05:00

It’s always a bit sad when you pass a place along the side of the road – once full of so many happy memories – and it’s no longer there.
It’s either gone out of business, something has taken its place or it has been torn down.

I got that feeling late Tuesday afternoon when I turned off I-16 onto Highway 29, about six miles north of Soperton.

In the tiny community of Ormond, not far from the interstate ramps, a gas station and the local Huddle House, I pulled into what used to be Sweat’s Barbecue.

My mouth started watering just sitting there in the parking lot.

I lost track of the number of times I went there over the years. We used to stop there regularly on our family beach vacations to St. Simons.

I can’t say Sweat’s was my all-time favorite barbecue place. That honor is reserved for Fincher’s in Macon.

But Sweat’s was legendary, and folks would travel great distances to eat there. The theory is time-tested. People will go a long way to get good barbecue.

Anyway, Sweat’s closed several years ago. I know it’s been at least 10.

I know at least one other restaurant tried to make a go of it in the old Sweat’s location. It was a seafood restaurant, I believe.

When I passed by in recent years, it looked closed.

But there were signs of life on Tuesday. In fact, a new addition was being added to the front. I don’t have any official word about the renovations, but judging from the façade, it looks to be another one of those metal-sided churches.

That won’t bother me too much.

Eating Sweat’s Barbecue was always somewhat of a religious experience.

Positively

2007-02-27T05:50:00.000-05:00

I took this photo Saturday of the koi pond in the Japanese garden
at Massee Lane Gardens on the grounds of the American Camellia
Society headquarters between Fort Valley and Marshallville

I have a little book I keep within arm’s length. It’s a book of quotations called “Positive Thoughts.’’

I’m not sure how I got it or how long I’ve had it. It’s just one of those books that showed up in my life. And I’m glad it did.

Here are a few of the quotations I would like to share with you.

“Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.’’ – Danny Kaye

“Write it in your heart that every day is the best day in the year.’’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.’ ’’ – Sam Levenson

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.’’ – Teddy Roosevelt

“To be nobody but yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.’’ – e.e. cummings

“Every good thought you think is contributing its share to the ultimate result of your life.’’ – Grenville Kleiser

“Neglect not the gift that is in thee.’’ – I Timothy 4:14

“My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate.’’ – Thornton Wilder

“Every man is the architect of his own fortune.’’ – English proverb

“You win some, you lose some, but you gotta suit up for them all.’’ – J. Askenberg

“Joy is the echo of God’s life within us.’’—Joseph Marmion

“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.’’ – Robert Louis Stevenson

“We are all here for a spell. Get all the good laughs you can.’’ – Will Rogers

“The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.’’ -- Sebastien Chamfort

“To be happy and contented, count your blessings, not your cash.’’ – Chinese Proverb

“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.’’ – Alphonse Karr

Your history lesson for today

2007-02-26T05:39:00.000-05:00

Macon-born Charles Coburn waves to crowd during parade in
September 1949. On left is Macon Mayor Lewis Wilson. Seated
is Mayor Pro Tem Dan Tidwell.

In honor of last night’s Academy Awards, my trivia question today is: Which two Academy Award winning actors were born in Macon?

If you said Melvyn Douglas and Charles Coburn, give yourself a pat on the back.

I’ve written about Douglas several times over the years. His father was a Wesleyan professor and lived here only a short time after his birth. Douglas captured Oscars twice for best supporting actor in "Hud" (1964) and "Being There" (1980).

Lesser known is Coburn, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor for "The More the Merrier" in 1943. He also starred in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Monkey Business" with Marilyn Monroe, and "King's Row" with Ronald Reagan. He also worked with Bing Crosby in "Mr. Music," Gregory Peck in "The Paradine Case" and Henry Fonda in "The Lady Eve."

There is some dispute whether he was actually born in Macon. In fact, when I wrote that a few years ago, I had several letters telling me I had made an error. I was told Coburn was born in Savannah. Several web sites, including the grandest movie source of them all, the Internet Movie Data Base list his birthplace as Savannah.

But I’m looking an old release from a New York theatre company we had in our files at the Telegraph. It is dated Jan. 22, 1951 and lists Macon as Coburn’s place of birth. He moved with his family to Savannah when he was 9 months old, and grew up and was educated there. At age 14, he got his start in show business as an usher at the old Savannah Theatre. Three years later he was the youngest theater manager in the U.S., so that’s where the confusion may have started.

During a visit to Macon in 1949, where he was honored with a parade (see above photo), he said his father told him he was born under a rose bush in Macon. Coburn was such a prolific actor and busy man I doubt he would have taken time to participate in a parade in this city if he had no connections here.

The parade was held downtown to mark the opening of football season at Lanier High school. Coburn was showered with tributes during his visit. He was made a life-time member of the Macon Police Department and honored at a luncheon at the Sidney Lanier House.

That's your history lesson for today.

Where books are born again

2007-02-23T05:32:00.000-05:00

I was browsing through my favorite section at the Friends of the Library Old Book Sale on Thursday.

You can usually find me at Georgiana/South books at Table No. 39.

I was nearing the end of row of books with everything from Faulkner to Grizzard to Pat Conroy when a man reached over and handed me a book.

It was “More Gris.’’

He was grinning.

A few minutes later, someone tugged at my sleeve with a copy of “Once Upon a Whoopee.”

“Ever read this?” he asked.

We both laughed. Why, of course, I have. I wrote it.

When I started writing books nine years ago – I’ve now written five of them – one of the fears I had to overcome was the fear of one day ending up on the bargain book table at the local bookstore.

That is the graveyard where all books go to die.

The same could be said for the annual Old Book Sale at Central City Park. You figure if folks really wanted your book, they wouldn’t donate it to the Friends of the Library.

It used to break my heart whenever I saw one of my books on the table. There was almost a feeling of rejection. My first inclination was to quickly grab the book and put it in my bag before anybody saw it. That would save any embarrassment on my part.

Or I wanted to see if I had personalized the book. That way I would know the culprit. But, in recent years, I’ve come to realize it’s not the same as the “bargain book table.’’ Those books in the bookstore have never been purchased. Their prices have been slashed. They are on the clearance table.

At least if you make the Old Book Sale in the Long Building at Central City Park, you can at least claim to have been recycled.

You were loved once, and now you can be loved again.

You’re not being rejected. You’re being shared.

Makes you feel a little better about it, anyway.

It's a germ field out there

2007-02-22T06:09:00.000-05:00

I feel like I have spent the past six weeks walking through a mine field.

Don’t step there. Don’t touch that. Jump. Go around. Run for cover.

I’m talking about the flu, of course.

And the croup. And the stomach bug.

I cannot remember a winter in recent memory when so many people have been sick.

Coughing. Sneezing. Wheezing. Sniffling.

Feeling rotten. Can’t get out of bed.

Schools have been shut down.

I did have a 24-hour stomach virus the first week of January. Fortunately, it was the weekend, and I didn’t miss any work.

All three of my sons had it, then decided to share it with me. My wife is the only one who didn’t get sick. But she has been attacked twice by terrible colds. Sinus problems sidelined her for a whole week. Believe me, that was a long week for all of us.

I’m not very good at being sick. In fact, I hate to be sick. Who doesn’t?

I don't have time to be sick. I can usually play hurt, though. It’s rare when I take a sick day at work. Unless I’m contagious and running a fever, I’m usually there. I once went eight years without a taking a single sick day. Guess you can say I’ve been blessed, too.

This winter, I’ve been doing everything I can to stay out of sick bay. I try to obey all the safeguards.

I wash my hands frequently. I load up on Vitamin C. I avoid extremes in temperatures.

Part of it’s just plain luck, though. I’ll admit it. You never know where those land mines are hidden.

Give up giving up

2007-02-21T06:16:00.000-05:00

On Fat Tuesday, my youngest son was worried about Ash Wednesday.

“I don’t know what to give up for Lent,’’ he said.

We were eating fajitas in a Mexican restaurant.

It’s not really necessary to give up anything for Lent, I told him. That’s not really something we emphasize in our denomination.

“Just give up giving up something,’’ I said.

At least I got a smile out of him.

I know it’s a discipline, but I’ve always considered giving up something for Lent a lot like making New Year’s resolutions. How many people keep them and for how long?

OK, so maybe it wouldn’t be that difficult to give up something for Lent.

Mmmmm. Let’s see, I’m giving up. …

1. C. Jack Ellis
2. Peter Pan Peanut Butter.
3. Cold weather.
4. CNN.
5. High-rise window washing.
6. Potholes.
7. Alarm clocks.
8. Fruitcake.
9. Shopping with the wife.
10.Begging.

See, now that was easy.

Old Faithful at the pumps

2007-02-20T06:02:00.000-05:00

Charles Hicks has been pumping gas in Macon for 58 years

One of my favorite people had a birthday on Monday.

Charles Hicks was 75 years old.

If you know Charles, you won’t be surprised to learn he worked on his birthday.

At a time when full-service gas has practically gone the way of the dinosaur, Charles is “old faithful” at the pumps.

He has been a fixture at the corner of Riverside Drive and King Alfred drives since 1975. And he has been pumping gas, checking oil and wiping windshields in Macon since 1949.

His first job was at the Standard Oil on the corner of Broadway and Mulberry. That was back when gas was 10 cents a gallon. You could fill up for what a gallon of unleaded costs these days.

When my family lived in Riverside Park, I used to drive by that Exxon station early every morning. He was usually the first one there – sometimes an hour before the station opened – and he would just sit there listening to the radio in his blue 1975 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

I asked him once why he arrived so early. He said he just liked to watch the people. He loved watching the city wake up every morning.

On Monday, Kenny Desai, who leases the station, brought a birthday cake for Charles. He invited each of Charles’ loyal customers to come in and have a slice. By mid-day, Desai had to order another cake.

"He’s an institution on Riverside Drive,’’ Desai said. “People ask for Mr. Charles. They won’t let anybody else pump their gas.’’

Desai is a native of India and has visited 55 countries.

“I’ve never met anyone with a work ethic like Charles,’’ he said.

By the way, Charles told me he doesn’t plan on retiring until he is 80.

The Presidents and our town

2007-02-19T09:11:00.000-05:00

In honor of President’s Day, I came up with a few questions about U.S. Presidents and their ties to Macon.
QUESTIONS
1. Who was the first U.S. President to visit Macon?
2. What major road in Macon is named after a U.S, president and why?
3. When President-elect Bill Clinton visited Macon in November 1992, what did he do that prompted photographs in national and international newspapers the next day?
4. What did Presidents William Howard Taft and George H.W. Bush have in common in their connection with Macon?
5. Who was the first U.S. President to visit Macon while in office?
6. What piece of presidential trivia is associated with the Dempsey Hotel in downtown Macon?
7. What was Woodrow Wilson’s connection with Macon?
8. Which U.S. President is credited with originating the famous advertising slogan for Maxwell House Coffee?
9. Which U.S. President evoked the “long, excellent tradition” of Georgia football on a campaign stop in Macon?
10. . What was the shortest visit by a U.S. President?

ANSWERS
1. It was Gen. Andrew Jackson, although he hadn’t been elected quite yet. Jackson came to Fort Hawkins in 1817 before the city had been created. Jackson was elected in 1828 and held office until 1836. (Macon became a city in 1823.)
2. Former Macon Mayor Ronnie "Machine Gun" Thompson named Eisenhower Parkway after Dwight Eisenhower. The two were friends, and Ike once endorsed Thompson for mayor.
3. He played the saxophone with the Central High School band in front of City Hall. The saxophone was never played again. You can see it today in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
4. Three years after Taft visited Macon in 1909, his wife, Helen Taft, had the first Yoshino cherry trees planted in Washington, D.C. Soon afterward, the nation's capital began holding a cherry blossom festival every year. In 1984, then-Vice-President George H.W. Bush visited Macon prior to the Cherry Blossom Festival and planted a ceremonial cherry tree near the intersection of Third and Cherry streets.
5. William McKinley, who won the Presidency over William Jennings Bryan in 1896, visited the city on Dec. 19, 1898. He was also the first Republican President to come here. He was re-elected in 1900 but was assassinated on Sept. 6, 1901.
6. At the time President Franklin Delano Roosevelt fell ill at Warm Springs on April 12, 1945, he was being visited by Lucy Mercer, who was alleged to be his mistress. When first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was immediately summoned to Warm Springs from Washington, Mercer and Madame Elizabeth Shoumatoff, the artist commissioned to paint a portrait of FDR, were rushed to a waiting car and hurried to Macon. They learned of Roosevelt's death when they checked into the Dempsey.
7. His uncle, after whom he had been named, had taught Macon’s most famous writer, poet Sidney Lanier, at Oglethorpe College. When Wilson campaigned in Macon in April 1912, he and his wife stayed at the Lanier House.
8. Teddy Roosevelt, who visited Macon in 1912, was an avid coffee drinker. While visiting the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., he commented that the house blend coffee was “good to the last drop.’’
9. President Ronald Reagan, running for re-election in 1984, scored a touchdown in the eyes of the Bulldawg Nation when he made reference to the team in his speech on the steps of City Hall.
10. In 1921, Present-elect Warren G. Harding, on his way to St. Augustine, Fla., for a fishing trip, stopped through Macon on a train. He stayed for 10 minutes.

A tree grows in Macon

2007-02-16T06:07:00.000-05:00

Fort Hawkins has been around longer than just about anything else in this town. It was built in 1806 along the Fall Line and is most often known as the “Birthplace of Macon." From its perch on the hill, it overlooks the city.

It now holds an extra special place for me.

A cherry tree will be planted there in memory of my father.

The Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful Commission held its annual Arbor Day Celebration on Thursday. A large crowd gathered. The mayor and other dignitaries were there. Students from Burdell-Hunt Elementary School participated in the program.

My father, Dr. Jennings M. Grisamore, was one of 42 names that were read.

This is the 21st year memorial trees have been planted as part of Arbor Day. An oak tree was planted on Thursday. The Yoshino cherry trees will soon be planted.

When my parents moved to Macon in 2002, they went to Central City Park for the free cherry tree giveaway. There, they met Connie Thuente, of the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Connie is the one responsible for the tree being given in memory of Dad, who died in November at age 82. I’m sure this is true of the others, too, but I cannot think of anything more fitting.

Dad and I planted many trees together. When I was growing up, we planted and transplanted so many trees in our yard I was convinced he would never be content until he had moved every tree from the front yard to the back yard and then again to the front.

Just last spring, he and I planted a cherry tree in my front yard.

Now, I will always think of him when I look up on that hill at Fort Hawkins.

And the weiner is ...

2007-02-15T05:58:00.000-05:00

A friend came down from Atlanta on Wednesday and we went to the Nu-Way on Cotton Avenue for lunch.

He grew up in Payne City, and when he comes home to Macon he has to get his “Nu Way” fix.

He always goes to the Nu Way downtown. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall with a lot of character. It’s the same Nu-Way of his youth, which he remembers as being “a lot bigger.’’

It’s the same size, of course. We are the ones that have gotten bigger. Life is like that.

I love the tiny booths and the seats at the counter. Every time I eat there, I see people from all walks of life – attorneys and businessmen wearing Brooks Brothers suits eating slaw dogs and guys in construction outfits who have been out digging ditches all morning taking on mega-burgers.

Of course, my favorite Nu Way story is the sign out in front of the restaurant at 430 Cotton Ave. That sign is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.

Look closely at it. Do you notice anything wrong?

That’s right. There’s a typographical error up there. And it’s one that has become a downtown landmark.

“Best Weiner In Town … Nu Way Weiner Stand.’’

If you’ve got a spell check, you know that’s not the way to spell wiener. (Remember your English teacher tell you “i” before “e” except after “c.”)

Here’s your history lesson for today.

When James Mallis immigrated to Macon from Greece (not Grease), he opened the city’s first fast-food restaurant in 1916.

He wanted a snappy name, and called it “Nu Way.”

“Wiener” was spelled correctly for the first 21 years. Then the restaurant was passed through the family to brothers George and Hayy Andros, who purchased a neon sign in 1937. They wanted a conversation piece, something to draw people to the restaurant.

So their calling card was intentionally misspelling “wiener.’’

And now you know, in case you’ve never noticed.

There's No Way that Nu Way is ever going to change.

Valentine's Day: Let me translate

2007-02-14T05:36:00.000-05:00

At approximately 3:38 p.m. Saturday afternoon, my wife Delinda, came home and announced I did not have to get her anything for Valentine’s Day.

She said she had already bought herself something at Sam’s. She opened the refrigerator door to reveal a Godiva double chocolate cheesecake.

Now this was no ordinary cheesecake, even if it did come from a discount warehouse store called Sam’s.

For one, it costs $15, which amounts to more than $1 a slice.

And listen to the ingredients.

Rich Godiva cheesecake baked with chunks of milk chocolate, topped with chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache and chocolate whipped cream.

Did I mention it has chocolate in it?

You won’t find the word “diet” or “light” anywhere on the box. There are an estimated 460 calories per slice.

I told her she did not have to get me anything for Valentine’s Day. I’ve always considered it one of those “girl” holidays, anyway.

Perhaps trying to justify all the chocolate, she said I didn’t need to get her anything else. She was just going to dive into that cheesecake.

Now, I have been married for 24 years, six months and 21 days, so I know these things by now.
Let me translate what she means when she says I don’t have to get her anything else.

It’s Valentine’s Day, so it would be in my best interest to also have her something shiny or something that smells good.

So I do.

More "Centerville" than "Centerville"

2007-02-13T05:53:00.000-05:00

I made a tourist stop in Marion on Monday.

Not that there’s much to see in Marion – a tiny little bump in the road near I-16 along the Jeffersonville-Bullard Road.

It's about 17.5 miles southeast of Macon. And it's more "Centerville" than nearby Centerville.

There in the parking lot of the Old Marion Baptist Church is a marker designating the geographic center of the state of Georgia.

Several years ago, some graduate students from the North Avenue Trade School got out their calculators and compasses. They used geometic calculations to determine the exact center of of the largest state east of the Mississippi River is located at the confluence of two creeks in Twiggs County.

To be precise, it’s at 32 degrees latitude, 38.46 minutes and 83 degrees longitude, 25.54 minutes.

Hope that helps.

There is no longer a town of Marion. It died off following the Civil War, after residents opposed construction of a railroad.

When the county seat moved up the road to Jeffersonville, it was the beginning of the end for Marion. A century later, a swath of concrete called Interstate 16 claimed some of the remains of the once-thriving community in its indirect path along Exit 7.

The town was named after Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion, a hero of the Revolutionary War. And in 1948, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey officially established a swampy clump of land nearby as the "exact" center of Georgia.

At the request of former state Rep. Kenneth Birdsong, the Department of Natural Resources placed a marker on Bullard Road, indicating Georgia's bull's-eye was about 1.1 miles to the southeast -- at the junction of Turvin and Savage Creeks.

It’s not exactly a tourist stop, but I suggest you go check it out sometime. At least you can say you’ve been there.

Wish you were here

2007-02-12T05:18:00.000-05:00

OK, I was not in Los Angeles last night for the Grammys.

They did not call my name. I did not get to go up on stage and thank my family, friends and neighbors in front of millions of people. My wife did not get to buy a new dress and get to see the Dixie Chicks. (She doesn't care for them much anyway.)

But, I was there in spirit.

As many of you know, I did come with an earshot. My audiobook “Gris & That” was nominated for a Grammy in the “Spoken Word” category. I made the cut from the initial round, with more than 1,000 submissions, to the round of 103. Although I did not make the final five, I was tickled to make it as far as I did.

Former President Jimmy Carter shared the award in that category Sunday night with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

Doesn't seem quite fair, does it? Carter has already won the Nobel Peace Prize. What does he need with a Grammy?

Oh, well. Here is a photo of what might have been.

A guy is allowed to dream a little, isn’t he?

Flowers, hearts and special ladies

2007-02-09T05:54:00.000-05:00

It’s still another five days before Valentine’s Day, but I’ve already spent a special evening with some very special ladies.

One of my favorite events of the year is the annual Sweethearts Banquet at First Baptist Church of Christ, where I am a member.

It has been a tradition at our church since 1990. The senior women (65 and older) of the church who are either widowed, divorced or single are the guests of honor at the banquet, which was held in the church’s fellowship hall Thursday night.

Their “dates” for the night are the men of the church, and the escorts ranged from 13-year-old middle schoolers to retired Navy men in their 70s.

The men go through the ritual of calling the ladies, asking them to the banquet, picking them up at 5:30 p.m. and treating them like the special ladies they are.

Thursday night was my eighth Sweethearts Banquet. I love going and seeing all the ladies, dressed to the hilt, having the time of their lives.

A professional photographer takes pictures and each lady is given a corsage. The tables are decorated with valentines drawn by 4-and 5-year-old children at our church. We have a delicious meal and a wonderful program and musical entertainment.

Of course, we try to have them all home by 8.

New WWII book has local tie

2007-02-08T05:50:00.000-05:00

More books have been written about World War II than perhaps any event in history. I thought you might like to know that one of the newest additions to the WWII library has a distinct local connection.

Macon native Anthony Weller has a new book called “First Into Nagasaki.’’ It is actually the work of his father, the late George Weller, a legendary Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter who was the first American journalist to go into Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945.

My friend, Betty Sweet Simmons, has been telling me about this book since December. I finally have my own copy. She is friends with Anthony Weller, who edited the book and wrote an essay in it. The foreword is by Walter Cronkite.

At the end of the war, Gen. Douglas McArthur imposed a media “blackout” in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But George Weller defied the blackout and snuck into the country, posing as a U.S. colonel to the Japanese military. His eyewitness, which were censored, are the basis for this book. Weller died in 2002 at age 95. His son discovered his father’s unpublished account and made it happen.

Anthony Weller was born in Macon on Sept. 18, 1957. His mother was Gladys Lasky, a well-known ballet instructor who was the founder of the Nutcracker in Macon.

Weller attended Stratford Academy in Macon but graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1975. He attended Yale, graduating in 1980 with a degree in music. He is the author of three novels and is a noted jazz and classical guitarist. You can learn more about him at his website.

Hoops in heaven

2007-02-07T05:54:00.000-05:00

It was 13 years ago this month that I met Herman Strickland in the backyard of his home in Bloomfield.

He picked up a basketball, bounced it a few times on the concrete patio and took aim.

Swish.

He dribbled again, lifted his hand and drew an imaginary line with his eyes, arching over the rim.

Swish.

Every day he would do this. He would go out in his backyard and shoot 100 free throws.

A few days before I got there, which happened to be Valentine’s Day, he made all 100.

A few months earlier, around Christmas, he told me he hit a cold spell. He only made 92.

If Herman Strickland had been 8 years old – or even 12 or 14 – it might not have been so amazing.

But he was 74 years young.

I wrote a column about Mr. Strickland. I called it “74 years of swishful thinking.’’

He was one of the most delightful gentlemen I have ever been around. I loved his spirit. He would log his totals every day on a calendar hanging from a nail in his utility room. It was rare when he didn’t make 90 or more.

He told me about his days in high school in Northport, Ala., -- just across the Black Warrior River from Tuscaloosa. His coach never understood the finer points of free-throw shooting. He made his player shoot under-handed, or granny-style.

Actually, Mr. Strickland’s first love wasn’t basketball. It was putt-putt. When he moved to Macon in 1953, he became involved in miniature golf. He finished second in the Putt-Putt nationals in Indianapolis in 1964 and third in the world championships in Fayetteville, N.C. in 1971.

When he moved to his home on Friar Court off Rocky Creek Road in 1982, he inherited a backyard basketball goal. His affection for free-throw shooting grew right along with the tomatoes in his garden.

I was sad to learn Mr. Strickland passed away this past Saturday. He was 87. And, when I went to visitation Tuesday night at Macon Memorial Park Funeral Home, his wife of 66 years, Girthie Lee, told me when they had moved several years ago from their Bloomfield home into some condominiums, he complained about not having a basketball goal.

God bless him. Heaven must have needed a free-throw shooter.

One more pot of gold

2007-02-06T05:45:00.000-05:00

(BRUCE RADCLIFFE/The Telegraph)

I’m not finished writing about rainbows. In last Friday’s blog, I wrote about one of our readers, Eva Henderson, who snapped a picture with her camera phone of the end of the rainbow back in November on Highway 341 between Perry and Fort Valley.

This followed my column about Julie Wallace, a young woman from Macon who is battling cancer, and rainbow she recently saw as a sign of hope.

During all this rainbow writing I remembered a photograph one of my colleague’s had taken of the “end of the rainbow.’’ I asked photographer Bruce Radcliffe to dust off a spectacular picture he had taken 14 years ago.

Bruce was driving back from a conference in Nashville, Tenn., in 1993 and drove into a torrential thunderstorm.

“After the rain began to let up, a rainbow began to appear off to the left behind a mountain,’’ he said. “As I continued, the rainbow moved from behind the mountain and I could see the end of the rainbow shining onto a pasture. To my amazement, as I turned a corner, the rainbow was shining directly onto the interstate in front of me as vehicles drove through it.’’

Bruce said the sight was so awesome people were pulling over to the side of the road.

“I noticed one couple kissing in their vehicle after they had stopped,’’ he said.

I guess there’s nothing more romantic than being at the end of a rainbow.

Five things I liked about the Super Bowl

2007-02-05T05:32:00.000-05:00

(JOE RIMKUS/McClatchy-Tribune)
1. The Colts won. I’ve always been a Colts fan. They’re not my favorite team, but I’ve followed them since I was a kid and they were in Baltimore. When I was a child, and we lived for a few years in Virginia, they were the team I watched. They always had a big rivalry with the Green Bay Packers, and my best friend in the neighborhood was a huge Packer fan. I adored Johnny Unitas. Never mind the dull white uniforms with the horseshoe on the helmet.
2. Tony Dungy. He is one of the classiest head coaches in football. Very disciplined and a “player’s coach.’’ Never raises his voice. Never uses profanity. I felt so sorry for him last year when his son died during the playoffs. History could not have picked a better person to have the distinction of becoming the first African-American coach to win the Super Bowl.
3. Peyton Manning. I like him, even if he did play for Tennessee. His dad, Archie Manning, was one of my favorites. He’s paid his dues, worked hard and managed the deflect much of the undeserved criticism over the years. I love his commercials, too. He’s witty and a likeable guy.
4. It was an entertaining game – from the opening kickoff right down to the final minutes. So what if there were eight turnovers? You can't blame all of them on the weather. There was some fierce hitting going on. There have been so many blowouts over the years, the Super Bowl has often been called the Super Bore. This one had some drama.
5. Sure it was soggy, sloppy and even bloated. But the game was played in the elements, the way football was supposed to be played. No indoors and 72 degrees. It rained almost the entire game. Granted, rain in Miami in February isn’t as bad as rain somewhere else. But it was there, and it was a factor. The Colts weren’t afraid to get those white uniforms dirty and break the curse of teams playing in domed stadiums cannot win the Super Bowl.

End of the rainbow

2007-02-02T05:58:00.000-05:00

I’m not going to write about groundhogs this morning. I’m not going to talk about rodents and shadows and six more weeks of winter.

I am going to talk about the weather, though.

I’m going to talk about rainbows.

For the past week, I’ve been hearing stories about rainbows from our readers.

My column about Julie Wallace, a young woman from Macon who is battling cancer, and the hope and promise she has received from rainbows turned out to be even more inspirational than I thought.

Seems like everybody has a rainbow story. They are universal.

One letter I received was from Eva Henderson.

“I wanted someone (who really appreciates rainbows) to know that I was fortunate enough and blessed enough to see the end of a rainbow touching the earth,’’ she said. “I was even more fortunate and blessed to have been able to take a picture of this phenomenon with my camera phone.’’

This wasn’t the same brilliant rainbow Julie, myself and others witnessed on Jan. 5. Eva took the photo on Nov. 7, 2006 on Highway 341 between Perry and Fort Valley. She won’t forget the date because it was Election Day.

“I was heading towards Perry when I spotted the end of the rainbow straight ahead but to the right of the intersection I was about to go through,’’ she said. “I pulled over immediately and took two pictures and then after about three minutes of just looking at this phenomenon, it disappeared. It was a beautiful day (voting day). When I saw this site it was at the end of the raining, the sun was coming out. I have never witnessed anything more beautiful than this sight!”

They're playing our ring

2007-02-01T05:08:00.000-05:00

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not into ringtones.

I have a cell phone. Hey, I’m hip. I even wear it on my hip.

However, when it comes to my phone ringing, I don’t need to hear anything on Top 40.

Just give me a simple generic

Rinnnnnggggggg.

Followed by another vanilla

Rinnnnnggggggg.

I don’t need to hear Akon singing “Smack That” when the wife is calling. I could care less about Beyonce or the theme from Charlie Brown or Super Mario Brothers when the boss is on the line.

OK, I know ringtones are artistic and creative diversions. I know they're a sign of individuality.

But some of the same people who extol the coolness of ringtones are the same folks who blush when Beethoven’s Fifth starts playing from their pocket book in the middle of a business meeting?

So just give me a ring. I’ll know it’s the phone. My phone.

If I want to dance, I’ll put a quarter in the jukebox.

Here’s a list of the current top ringtones, according to Billboard.

Happy birthday to a trailblazer

2007-01-31T05:07:00.000-05:00

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being." - Jackie Robinson

Much has been said and written this week about Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith being the first two African-American head coaches in the NFL to make it to the Super Bowl.

I don’t think the face should be lost on anyone that today is Jackie Robinson’s birthday and tomorrow is the start of Black History Month.

Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was born on Jan. 31, 1919 in Cairo, Ga., the last child of Mallie and Jerry Robinson. He will forever be one of my favorite figures in all of sports. He was a true trailblazer not only for black athletes but for African-Americans in society.

Sports is out great common denominator. And Robinson helped pave the way for equality.

I often think about the summer afternoon in 1994 when I found the old shack where he was born a few miles outside the south Georgia town of Cairo. I have been asked many times for reprints of the column I wrote.

Here is the column I wrote about my adventure on June 27, 1993.

ON THE ROAD TO CALVARY -- Highway 111 turns to the south in Cairo. It winds past rich farmland toward Calvary, a town about as deep as you can go without stepping over the state line into Florida.

I searched the cornfield on the left side of the dirt road. My friend's eyes combed the thicket on the right.

"Stop! There it is!" he shouted. I hit the brakes, and it seemed neither of us could open the car doors fast enough. The remains of the chimney were about 20 feet from the road.

It was all that was left of the house where Jackie Robinson was born.

I tried to picture what the house must have looked like in 1919, the year Robinson was born. I tried to imagine I was now standing on the same ground where he took his first steps as a child.

His father had been a sharecropper. His grandfather had been a slave. I stood near the fireplace that kept everyone warm that winter, when his mother gave birth to him during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

She hoped to free them from the shackles of a plantation system that still existed in the deep South nearly a half century after slavery ended.

I guess it was curiosity that led me to the ruins of Robinson's homestead. I knew that many people in Georgia, and even some in Cairo, were unaware he was born here.

So, we drove nine miles in the rain to find the unmarked birthplace of a legend.

I thought a lot about Robinson while driving back to Macon. I thought about how he left that dirt road behind and blazed a trail for millions of other black athletes.

He could have been inducted into the Hall of Fame based on courage alone. But he also proved he was a superb player in his 10-year career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

A target of hatred and a victim of ignorance, Robinson must have grown weary of turning the other cheek. The most important lesson for all of us is that he never stopped turning it.

When I got home, I found the words of Roger Kahn, who wrote "The Boys of Summer."

"Like a few, very few athletes, Robinson did not merely play at center stage," Kahn wrote. "He was center stage; and where he walked, center stage moved with him."

But only the memory, along with a few scattered bricks, has been preserved from the place where center stage began

There she is ... There she was

2007-01-30T05:08:00.000-05:00

A new Miss America was crowned last night. Her name is Lauren Nelson. She is Miss Oklahoma.
Of course, we were all pulling for Miss Georgia, Amanda Kozak, of Warner Robins, the hometown girl.
She had my vote.
The only Miss Georgia to win the title of Miss America still remains with Neva Jane Langley Fickling, of Macon. She won the crown on the night of Sept. 6, 1952.

How many of you remember that night?

Raise your hands. Go ahead and show your age.

They placed a crown on her head and draped a red velvet robe across her shoulders. It was nearly midnight. Flashbulbs along the runway twinkled like the stars above the boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J.
Back in Macon, where she was a college student at the Wesleyan Conservatory, a crowd gathered at the Pinebrook Inn to cheer the radio broadcast.
Being Miss America had been her dream since she was a young girl. Her first exposure to the Miss America pageant came when she was 14 and lived in Lakeland, Fla. She took a trip to Atlantic City, N.J., with her family and passed by the auditorium where the pageant was held.
As she began her year-long reign as Miss America 1953, she returned to Macon for a parade on Cherry Street. A path of rose petals was spread along the steps of City Hall. (The parade route passed Goldman's, the store where she bought the swimsuit she used to win the national competition.)

Here are some interesting facts you may or may not know about that night and later her reign.

She was Florida's ``Tangerine Queen'' when she was 16. She was campus queen at Florida Southern before she began studying music at the Wesleyan Conservatory. She and four of her Wesleyan classmates were selected to enter the Miss Macon pageant in the spring of 1952.

She first was Miss Wesleyan College, then Miss Macon, then Miss Georgia and then Miss America.

During the Miss Macon pageant at the City Auditorium, she impressed the judges by continuing to play the piano after a storm knocked out all the lights.

At 19, she was one of the youngest winners in pageant history and the first to have a full-time chaperone.

Some people still claim to have seen her on TV, but they are mistaken. The pageant was not televised until 1954. Her crowning also came three years before the debut of master of ceremonies Bert Parks and his coronation song, "There She Is, Miss America.''

On tour, she brushed elbows with Marilyn Monroe and President Eisenhower. She was in the Rose Bowl parade and on ''The Ed Sullivan Show.'' She graced the cover of Ladies Home Journal

She is a renowned classical pianist.

Seven years ago, she underwent heart bypass surgery.

A letter can make a difference

2007-01-29T06:31:00.000-05:00

Mark Twain once said the difference between the right word and the “almost-right” word is the difference between “lightning and a lightning bug.’’

I thought about this the other day when we were in midtown. As we drove pasty Crazy Jack’s Shoe Repair Shop, my son glanced over and noticed the “S” was missing.

HOE REPAIR.

Now, you and I both know that’s a shoe repair shop. I had my soles saved there for years when it was known as the Peach Cobbler.

But somehow the “S” had gone astray. I’m not sure if it just fell off or if some thieves struck in the night. Who knows? Maybe they needed to pluralize something and that was convenient.

It does make a difference, though, wouldn’t you say?

Makes me want to take up a collection to get Crazy Jack an “S.’’ Where is Vanna White when you need her?

Right now, I don’t need any hoes repaired. A shovel, maybe, but not a hoe.

The roots of a native son

2007-01-26T06:13:00.000-05:00

(Photo by Beau Cabell, The Telegraph)

A lot has been said and written about Chris Hatcher in the seven days since he became the new head football coach at Georgia Southern.

I’ve known Chris for a long time, and I can honestly say he is one of the finest young men I have ever been around. His daddy, Edgar Hatcher, has always been one of my favorite high school coaches.

Twelve years ago last week, the city of Macon honored its native son by proclaiming it “Chris Hatcher Day.’’ Don’t you think it’s about time we had another one?

The first honor came after the former Mount de Sales player had won the Harlon Hill Trophy. That’s the equivalent of the Heisman Trophy as the top college football player in NCAA Division II.

I had the opportunity cover a lot of rags-to-riches stories in my years as a sports writer. But none of them ever matched Hatcher’s story. It ranks right up there with “Rudy,’’ if you ask me.

Chris was an above-average high school quarterback, but he was small and played at a small school. The college scholarship offers weren’t exactly rolling in.

So it was a stroke of good luck in 1990 that he was honored as the city player of the week at the Macon Touchdown Club the same night former Valdosta Coach Mike Cavan was there as the guest speaker.

Cavan's antenna went up when he heard Hatcher's statistics being read that night, and he telephoned him the next day. Valdosta State turned out to be his only scholarship offer.

Chris reported to Valdosta for preseason drills standing 5-foot-8 and weighing 164 pounds. At registration he was mistaken for a team manager.

Stuck at sixth string on the depth chart, he had to watch Valdosta State's first two games from the stands. By the third game, he was told he would dress out by an assistant coach who couldn’t even remember his name. He kept calling him ``Marty.''

When he was thrown into the fire as a starter in the fourth game, the opposing cheerleaders made fun of his size during warm-ups. The sleeves on his jersey hung down so far on his forearms he had to roll them up.

But, from that day on, Hatcher started 43 straight games for the Blazers and set 21 national passing records.

On the night he won the Harlon Hill award, he dedicated the award to his late 82-yearold grandmother, Agnes Hatcher, a former Macon city councilwoman who had recently died.

I was there that night in Sheffield, Ala., when he won the award. I was proud of him then. I’m proud of him now.

He found a use for everything

2007-01-25T06:15:00.000-05:00

I spent part of a recent Saturday afternoon in a small, storage shed, surrounded by oil cans, wire, cardboard sleeves, spark plugs, nails, batteries, boxes and bulbs.

My brother and I began the process of cleaning out the utility room at our parents' house. We have been planning to do this since our father died almost three months ago.

In his final days, he instructed us to divide up the tools and other items he kept out there.

We knew about the assortment of socket wrenches and hoes. Dad loved to tinker and piddle and run his fingers in the dirt. He was always in his element out in the shed.

But there was so much more than that in the dark room, brightened only by a 100-watt bulb in the corner.

Dad saved everything. He never met a lug nut he didn’t like. He recycled wood, wire and widgets. He figured everything had another use. Again and again. No matter what condition it was in, there was still tread on the tires.

We found things he had carried with him through most of his adult life. We found stuff he probably didn’t even know he had. But, if he did need it, he had it.

If he could find it.

In an rusty tin can in a dark corner of the room I found a bicycle tire repair kit. My father didn’t have a bicycle. I don’t think I ever saw him ride one. He was prepared if he ever did, though.

“What’s this?” my brother and I caught ourselves saying to each other over and over. “Why do you think he saved this?”

We laughed. And remembered. And wiped a few tears.

“I’ll tell you why,’’ I finally said. “It was his generation. They didn’t throw anything away because they never had much. He was a child of the Great Depression. They could always use that strand of rope some other day.''

So we felt a bit guilty filling up a couple of trash cans outside the door.

“I bet he’s looking down on us right now, saying: ‘No! No! Don’t throw that away!!!’ ’’ I said.

Some people would look at my father’s shed and call him a packrat.

I would call him resourceful. He didn’t discard; he recycled.

In this disposable society we live in, that’s saying something.

There’s a lesson in that for all of us.

Up by the belt loops

2007-01-24T06:27:00.000-05:00

I stood behind a young man at the post office Tuesday afternoon.

“Behind” is the operative word here.

His jeans hung way below the accepted belt line. I’m pretty sure his buckle was somewhere below his thighs and above his kneecaps.

Maybe one day fashion designers will make pants that are supposed to fit that way. But, for now, it certainly is a strange way to dress. Or half-dress.

Kind of like wearing the sleeves of your shirt around your neck. The old square hole in the round peg. Or something like that.

Hey, it’s a free world. He can wear that denim around his ankles if he likes. But, if you’ll excuse me, I would rather look the other way.

I’m convinced the only reason young men behave this way when they choose their attire for the day is because they derive great pleasure from shocking people.

If we would simply ignore it, the entire fad would go away. But it bothers us. And they know it bothers us. And that’s why they do it.

Hooray for Plains, the famous little hometown of Resident President Jimmy Carter. Folks are calling for a crackdown – no pun intended – of young people wearing “droopy drawers.’’

Several members of city council have asked city attorney Jimmy Skipper if the town has the authority to tighten the belt on “sagging.’’

This futile fashion statement is said to have started with prison inmates in California who were denied the used of belts. So down slid the pants in protest. Then it spread into rap music and hip-hop, although my guess is that it would be rather difficult to hip or hop with your belt loops that far south of the equator.

Efforts to pass dress code legislation has failed in other places, like Louisiana and Virginia, and I expect it might in little Plains, too.

It is probably one of those unenforceable laws, anyway.

But bring it on, anyway.

We could call it the “No Child Left (or Right) Behind.”

Looking on the bright side

2007-01-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Let there be light!!! Whoa, baby, it's bright in here!

An entire bank of lights went out in my office one day last week.

It might not have mattered so much – tolerable, anyway – had the set of four fluorescent bulbs not been right above my desk.

This caused a rather significant eclipse on that side of the room.

It made it difficult to read anything at my desk. I’m no Abraham Lincoln. I not adept at reading by candle light.

I do keep a candle in my office, but it’s not exactly the reading variety. It’s scented, and when it wafts through my open door, it makes one side of the newsroom smell like crème brulee, which is a good thing.

Not only did I have to strain to see what I was reading, it was also difficult to tell what I was writing. Although my job is to spread a little sunshine when I let my words go, I guess there’s a dark side to my writing, after all.

When Reggie Mays, who works in building services, showed up to replace the bulbs, he started counting the worn-out bulbs in the other three light panels.

1…2…3…7…8…9.

Nine of the 16 bulbs in the room were out. I had no idea I was operating under half-wattage.

Call me a dimwit, with an emphasis on the “dim.’’

“Do you want me to replace these, too?’’ Reggie asked.

Now that they have been replaced, I not only go to work every day, I glow.

There is so much wattage in this room I feel like I’m in a tanning booth.

If I get any more bright ideas, I’ll let you know.

Rainy days and Mondays

2007-01-22T06:47:00.000-05:00

Hanging around, nothing to do but frown. Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
-- The Carpenters

OK. It’s Monday morning. The electric blanket is toasty. I am wrapped up like a quesadilla.

The alarm goes off. One eye opens, then the other. I try to flip the off-switch on the weekend and switch into the weekday work/school mode.

It’s not working.

I hear the rain. It’s lapping at the window. If this was a gentle, summer rain it would be different.

But it is Jan. 22. Two more months of winter. Uggggghhhhhhh.

I get out of bed and read the weather forecast. 100 percent chance of rain.

Rather depressing.

The worst weather in the world is 40 degrees and raining.

I’m looking at the temperature on the screen. It’s 42 degrees. And raining.

I'm embarrassed to say this but I'm actually thinking about driving the car down to the street to get the paper.

It has been another wacky winter. One day we’re stocking up on bread and milk at the grocery store because there is a chance of sleet and freezing rain.

The next day my child is wearing shorts to school again. There are sweat beads on my forehead and I’m running the air conditioner in the car.

But this morning it is cold. And dark. And it is raining.

Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to stay in bed?

I'm thinking I will. But I won't.

Double Edder

2007-01-19T06:18:00.000-05:00

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

A new show will premiere Sunday night at 10 p.m. on HGTV called “Living With Ed.’’ It stars actor Ed Begley Jr., and his wife, Rachelle. It’s a promising concept of a reality show about the environment.

I know all this because my wife thinks HGTV (Home & Garden Network) is the only network on television. This show caught my attention because of the name, of course.

Then I got to thinking about the extraordinary number of TV shows and movies that have the character Ed in the title. I started naming off a few, then did some research for the others.

I was amazed at the high number with either Ed, Eddie or Edward in the title. So I compiled the most complete list I could.

TV Shows

Mr. Ed (1961-66)

The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1969-72)

Ed’s Night Party (1995)

Malcolm and Eddie (1996-2000)

The Eddie Files (1996-2001)

Ed, Ed and Eddy (1999 – present)

Ed (2000-04)

Ed the Plumber (2004)

Ed vs. Spencer (2004)

Get Ed (2005-06)

Movies (several are short films and independents)

Easy Ed (1916 silent film)

Captain Eddie (1945)

Edward, My Son (1949)

Trojan Eddie (1966)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Edward (1981)

Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)

Eddie Macon’s Run (1983)

Homer and Eddie (1989)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Edsville (1990)

Robin and Ed (1991)

Eddie Presley (1992)

Eddie King (1992)

Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)

Edward No-Hands (1995)

Eddie (1996)

Ed’s Next Move (1996)

Ed (1996)

The Best of Ed’s Night Party (1996)

Last Night at Eddie’s (1997)

Ed Mort (1997)

Evil Ed (1997)

Ed’s Holistic Car Repair (1998)

Ed Venture (1999)

Ed TV (1999)

Eyeball Eddie (2000)

Ed and Bet (2000)

Eddie Loves Mary (2002)

Ed (Ted) (2003)

Eddie’s Winning Date (2005)

Ed’s Trip (2005)

Eddie Monroe (2006)

Stone & Ed (2006)

Ed I Hide (2006)