When Grizzard died, a piece of Americana died that can never be replaced. If Lewis were alive today, he would be read more than anyone. Period. Lewis died over 14 years ago of heart disease leaving behind a wife of less than 2 years (just guessing from memory) three ex-wifes, countless empty bottles of booze. I can't remember his drink of choice, but I don't think he was much of a beer drinker. He also left behind a true love of the south. He didn't care much for what the south was changing to, but he had a love of the old south. Not the "blacks in the back of the bus" south, but things like peanuts in coke bottles, southern cooking and Georgia football. Heck, just the glass coke bottles.He wrote books like "Shoot Low Boys - They're Riding Shetland Ponies" & "Elvis Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself". My favorite title was "Don't Bend Over In the Garden, Granny - You Know Them Taters Got Eyes". I don't remember a whole lot about his works and I did refer to Wikipedia for reference. I do remember reading a handful of books when I lived in Northern California. The last book he wrote, you could tell that he was writing his last. You could feel it in his words. Here is a guy that was a golfer. He loved his bourbon. He loved his strippers. I think he thought it was joke that he could make a living writing and living the way he lived.
What he did was make me happy and sad at the same time. His writing made me homesick. Yet when I read his books I was home. He could put me back in a small room in Alabama, sitting at the feet of my father watching Porter Wagner and Dolly Parton. He would take me back to catching lightning bugs and putting them in jars. Anyway, I digress. I said I yearn to be half the writer Lewis Grizzard was. He had millions of readers, I have one. Me. I
If a Yankee is a northerner and a Rebel is a southerner. If a DAMN Yankee is a northerner living in the south then was Lewis Grizzard a damn Rebel?
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