All These Years Later Lewis Grizzard Still Shows Up In the Craziest of Ancient Places

You find the strangest things when your editor takes drunk for an extended period, leaving you to your own devices with a lot of time on your hands cooped up and qualrantined due to widespread panic.

One example would be a website full of fond recollections about Lewis Grizzard that is somehow still active but has no new content since 2004. That means someone is paying the bill to keep it plugged in and the beer cold but they have had nothing to add for 16 years.

It is like this all over the internet. Lewis died in 1994, but you can find his not always flattering obituaries in often snotty newspapers from New York to Los Angeles. And these 25+ years later, where would you rather live, LA, NYC or Georgia?

Yet even fond Grizzard tributes mysteriously float on, sustained like the one below by Gawd who knows who.

North Georgia Trout Online sounds like a fun place or group or organization or whatever. It's also a good play on words about having a trout on the line, which I have never managed to do at least in Georgia. 

My flies and lures get snagged in trees unreachable with anyone casting but me. Trout actually pop their heads out of rivers while treading water against stiff currents to laugh at me when I trout fish.

This more poorly educated trout in Lousiana was not so snarky or fortunate. I held it as such acting like I was a girl and touching trouts with bare hands is icky.

In truth I romanced that trout for the holidays. Then I ate her.

But I digress.

When you go to North Georgia Trout Online dot org it takes you to this forum where I was hoping to see almost nekkid hot young Greek women wearing skimpy togas. But it is not that kind of forum.

http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/forum

It has not been much of any kind of forum for going on a decade and a half. When you go to the "About" page you get this:

WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO

is followed by

"Adobe Flash Player is blocked"

Whatever they do for why ever they might do it, someone should unblock that stinkin Adobe Flash Player. Otherwise how might almost nekkid hot young Greek women flash me if they wanted to?

But to put a merciful end to all this digressing, lets get to the 2004 Lewis Grizzard memory lane fond recollections we started writing about before we digressed.

There might be some formatting errors when I publish this. No telling what might happen if you remove formatting from crap people posted so long ago. It might unleash some perilous virus. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

03-20-04, 08:02 AM

Weyman C. Wannamaker Jr., a great American; Kathy Sue Loudermilk, who "made a tight sweater seem much more than a woolen garment".

I really miss you! And, Lewis, my favorite Bulldawg of all times, I truly miss you. Thanks for all the books!

Regrets, I've had a few, but then, too few to mention

03-20-04, 09:40 AM

Back in the late 70's I was stationed out west in the Air Force. My mother started sending me these crazy books by this guy named " Lewis Grizzard " Seemed like I would either cry or rotflmao at every story. It didn't take long for me to realize it was a thinly veiled plot by mama to make me homesick for the south.

Thank the Lord for Lewis and Harold's Barbecue !

No, no, he didn't slam you, he didn't bump you, he didn't nudge you... he " rubbed " you. And rubbin, son, is racin'. Harry from " Days of Thunder "


03-21-04, 08:28 AM

"Won't You Come Home Billy Bob Bailey"
"Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You"
"Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Tators Got Eyes"
"Elvis is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself"
"Shoot Low Boys, They're Ridin' Shetland Ponies"
"They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat"
"If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Floor"
"Chili Dogs Always Bark at Night"
"When My Love Returns From the Ladies Room, Will I Be Too Old to Care"
"If Love Were Oil, I'd Be About a Quart Low"
"My Daddy Was a Pistol and I'm a Son of a Gun"

Many of his books were compilations from his syndicated column in the AJC. I couldn't wait for the next book just because I wanted to see what the title would be.


03-21-04, 01:43 PM

I taught English for several years, and inside that process I both studied and taught Mark Twain as one of the greatest authors in American Literature. He had a gift for writing - more correctly story telling - that allowed him to spin a good yarn wrapped as his forum for commenting on the human condition. If you have not done so, I highly recommend you read 'Huckleberry Finn' as an adult and look at Twain's description of the times through the eyes of the inhabitants. And hopefully you will recognize that all those characters are still with us today! Another great piece is 'The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg'. With this short story, Twain pokes his finger right in the eye of the self-rightous.

Were I still teaching, or if I were to teach again, I would create a literature study segment that starts with Mark Twain and migrates into Lewis Grizzard as a continuum of classic American literature. Grizzard had the same gift as Twain for talking about our lives with humor and candor, a rare combination. You can observe the nature of Twain's works changing as he matured, and you can see the beginnings of that with Grizzard before his life ended so early. For a good example of Grizzard with a little more edge, try 'They Tore My Heart Out and Stompled That Sucker Flat'.

I think my all time Grizzard favorite is the story of the south Georgia funeral and the tradition of sitting up all night with the dead. Of course there is the ensuing thunderstorm. If you don't know this story I won't spoil it for you and if you do, you're already laughing. And perhaps best of all, Grizzard recorded this story on one of his albums. What a great teaching aid that would be!

The night Grizzard died, I happened to be across the street at the Emory Emergency Room on another matter. Knowing the end was near, I stepped out into the night air, looked at the hospital windows across the street, and told Lewis goodbye.


03-22-04, 01:49 PM

My favorite Grizzard quote concerned a complaint that the AJC was a very biased newspaper and would oftentimes bend the truth. Lewis came to his employer's defense regarding the Atlanta Constitution, "Heck, it only costs a quarter. If you want accuracy....it'll be a buck-twenty-five!"

Here's another Grizzard gem regarding college football recruiting:

The Season for Child-Snatchers
By Lewis Grizzard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published: 1978

It was all over the Sunday paper about the recruiting of young athletes to play football at large universities in the region. It's that season. Children are snatched away from their mothers' arms back home in Twobit County, and the next thing you know, the Head Coach is saying, "Ol' Dram Bowie from down in Twobit County is the finest prospect since Jiggy Smaha." Which brings up that musical question, has anybody seen Jiggy Smaha lately?


03-25-04, 10:27 PM

To this day I carry a laminated copy of his column "What my Daddy gave to me was a love of baseball" in my briefcase. Truly the Southern male's poet laureate.and the greatest Dawg fan ever.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I do not name these nostalgic waxers due to the remote chance they might sue me or one day fix that Adobe player so I might get flashed by hot young Greek women in togas.

With that I must get back to work trying to write something no one else in the world has yet written about the coronavirus. Hey, I just figured out Corona is a beer! Maybe I can write funny stuff using a play on words.

Surely no one has thought of that.

https://www.amazon.com/Lewis-Grizzard-Dawg-That-Hunt/dp/1795440279

Peter Stoddard

678-725-5889

stoddardmedia@gmail.com

BREAKING NEWS: Nicotine & PBR Kills Coronavirus Dead

Some of this will be truthiness, then we shall commense nonsense with some truthiness mixed in. 

Truthiness is like truthfulness except the exact opposite. It is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. 

Just like CNN, the New York Times and Washington Post operate today.

Truthiness was coined by Stephen Colbert, who I think is hilarious but far left so I no longer watch or listen. I just steal from him without compensation to give lefties a taste of their own medicine. As this church did.

Good for that church. I want to worship there if I can find it just to annoy lefties even more.

Lewis Grizzard embraced his version of truthiness before the term became a thing. As in. "Don't let facts get in the way of a good story."

I will not get bogged down comparing this coronavirus with the flu. Just look up the flu. It kills tens of thousands annually yet rarely makes the news.

I am 62 and seemingly healthy. I have O+ blood, which if you believe anything you read suggests I am less likely to fall ill to this crud.

My brother several years older with some underlying but not severe medical issues gutted thru what he thinks is this crud without medical attention whatsoever and is better. Same with his 40 year old son with no underlying medical issues. They live in a different state than me but a metro area with a higher number of confirmed cases than where I live. But they are 2 for 2 in surviving on their own.



Second only to Japan, Italy has the oldest population of any major nation of the world. Italy is visited by legions of Chinese. Italy contracted out to China much of the production and maintenance of their infrastructure. The US is not Italy.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wrote, “We will not put a dollar figure on human life.” Nonsense. Every time we raise the speed limit 5 MPH we know with certainty more people will die. But we put a dollar figure on human life and raise speed limits.

Who knows whether we can believe www.worldometers.info? Yet according to them as of 3/28/20 these are the global figures.

Coronavirus Cases: 629,682
Deaths: 28,970
Recovered: 138,089

4.6% died. 21.9% recovered. The rest remains to be seen. You can check supposed country by country figures here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries



Yes, I know, testing is incomplete. Testing will never be complete, just like the census. Smart people lock their doors before they willingly give information to the government.

I read that old people with three dire pre existing medical conditions are most likely to succumb, then two conditions and so on. The same can be said about stepping on a rusty nail or getting bit by a copperhead.

If CNN could scare one more viewer into staying glued to their sorry network they would show 24/7 rusty nail copperhead snakebite stories.

Even in Italy the reported fatality rate is 10.6 percent, and they reportedly no longer medically assist anyone over 60. Italy also says the world can trust Fiats, so treat all this with scepticism.

But compare this to mortality rates of whatever flu at whatever source you choose.



What will be the mortality rate of those with life’s fortunes wiped out due to a shutdown of commerce? Wall Street buying opportunity my ass.

Spirits will break and hearts will ache. Mental illness will be rife. Hell, without Georgia Dawgs football & other sports life ain’t much worth living.

Intrepid survivors will use humor to cope.



I do not see a Big Red G on what Jane is knitting. With any luck Jim is a Gator fan.



For millennials out there, those round colorful candy things with holes are Life Savers, which were invented in 1912. Get it? No? Never mind.

Even millennials should get this one. Parents unwittingly toss Little Debbie cakes downstairs to millennial offspring who will not move out of the basement to find work:

I credit much of this to Dennis Prager, a man of God and rare common sense.

Why don’t the powers that be just let us get back to work, return to normal life, trust God and let us take our chances?

Until then I also recommend:

1. Do not watch TV news. Find a trusted source and read the news.
2. Turn off the TV unless it’s something informative. The Bachelor, Real Housewives & Keeping Up with the Kardashians ain’t it.
3. Explore years worth of online stuff the Library of Congress and likely your local college and library have made available for free.
4. Phone people and have long talks you have not had time for in ages. If they are well talk about anything other than coronavirus. Like fond old times.
5. Read. Write. Walk. Run. Give thanks. Pray.

Lewis Grizzard stole this line and paraphrased it from the far less funny Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing, who wrote extensively on mental illness:

“Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.

Laing wrote:

“Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.”



See, Grizzard’s line was better. No one ever made no decent meme about no RD Laing.

Bruce Cantwell, Larger Than Life Trade Show Personality, 1953-2020

I met Bruce Cantwell 40 years ago. To say he changed my life would be a dramatic understatement.



Somewhere someone gave Bruce the nickname, “Mr. Warmth”. I expect that was facetious at first, as Bruce was the salesman’s salesman. But it did not take long to get to know that Bruce was indeed a very warm person.

I will wager it was Steve Johnson, the master of endearing monikers. Bruce resembled Brutus or Bluto of Popeye comics, a larger than life man, except Bruce was almost always smiling. He was a Marine, and I would not want to be around Bruce if he was not smiling. Thankfully, I never was.

In 1980 I was the 23 year old Convention Manager for Atlanta’s Lanier Business Products. Jack McEntee and Mike Metzger of I&D visited to explain the new concept of what is now called the exhibitor appointed contractor. I had experienced a few months of general contractor “help” in installing and dismantling Lanier exhibits and welcomed an alternative.



Soon my I&D account executives were Johnny Merritt, Lynn Silvaroli and Bruce Cantwell, whoever answered the phone. They became my friends as well. Bruce lived with I can’t remember who in “The Cabin”, a one of a kind company residential lodging near Stone Mountain. Think Flintstones but with electricity and indoor plumbing - just barely.

In 1982 I was prepared to go into sales with Lanier, as was their plan. Two years in corporate then on to field sales. Yet I enjoyed “show business” and let people know that.

Bruce gave me the heads up that a relatively unknown Atlanta company needed an exhibit person. I interviewed and accepted the convention job at Siemens-Allis, now Siemens Energy & Automation. 

Two years later Bruce gave me the heads up that I&D was opening field sales offices and asked if I would be interested in Anaheim. I am not a California guy and declined but thanked him. Not long thereafter he asked me about Philadelphia/New Jersey. I again declined and thanked him.

When Bruce called again about Chicago my antennae went up. While the Atlanta of the 1980s was in my eyes bland suburbs and rolled up downtown sidewalks at 5 PM, Chicago was the very happening virtual opposite. I finally interviewed with Wayne “The Real Deal” Veal, who did all the talking and did not ask me a single question. Those who knew and loved Wayne will smile and likely not be surprised.

I&D offered me the Midwest Regional Sales Manager job, and I moved to Chicago. Scott Bennett moved to Anaheim, Kurt Walker moved to Boston and Bruce moved to New Jersey. Veal stayed in Atlanta.



I eventually became a little jealous of Scott, Kurt, Wayne and Bruce, as they would travel to Chicago, yet I never managed to travel to their cities. My most exciting destination was glamorous Rosemont IL.

In Chicago I answered to a succession of General Managers, from Tom Cassell to Sam Miserendino & Dan Sclocchini to Gary Wannemacher. In Atlanta I answered to a succession of Sales Managers, from Jim Murphy to Steve Johnson to Jim Wurm. With me in Chicago sales were Bill “The Wet One” Stevenson and Randy Burk. All of these people are my friends today.



I do not name some co-workers I did not care for, as it should be. Yet if I do not name you, it may be because I never reported to you. Please chill.

I left I&D for Giltspur and the trade show business a few years later. Yet I stay connected to most or all of my old friends via social media. None has been a more constant friend over the years than Bruce Cantwell. We fished the Delaware Bay and went to a Georgia-Florida game.

Where Bruce met his wife Deb Farina I do not recall. The happy result was their return to Georgia and Brunswick a few years before I returned to Georgia and Cumming. I visited them in Brunswick, and Bruce visited me on my Lake Lanier houseboat. I immediately took to Deb, who Bruce aptly called “Smokin Hot”. They clearly adored each other, and I adored them.



It does not hurt that Deb is a food scientist who uses her kitchen to create experimental cuisine that knocks your socks off, forces it on guests and insists that you take large portions when you depart because they can not eat it all.

I sensed Bruce was seeking retirement when he confided that he began the aptly named “Bruce Almighty Solutions”, a little business to perhaps handle popups from Jacksonville to Savannah. By this time I was an aspiring PR writer hoping to get trade show clients and experiencing some early success. I proposed to write a press release, and Bruce tentatively agreed to it.

Yet soon Almighty Solutions had taken off beyond Bruce’s wildest dreams. He was again serving clients across the country, with more business than he could handle.



Story of my young PR writing life. I wrote a global press release for a woman trying to retire to promote her autobiography, and she is now President of a major performing arts center in Dallas. 

Why don’t people who tell me they want to retire either stay retired or not have great things happen before I can write the PR to make great things happen for them?

When last I spoke to Bruce I proposed I might visit Deb and him again in 2020, as I travel to do talks about a Lewis Grizzard book I wrote. We discussed no date, as I have yet to venture far beyond metro Atlanta audiences. Bruce said to let him know, as he and Deb would always have an open door, comfortable bed and food that rocks.

The last sentence was mine, not Bruce’s, but what Bruce said conveyed it. Even if they served up no more than saltines and potted meat food product a stay at the Cantwell Farina household was a pleasure not to be missed.

Yet a good portion of my last conversation with Bruce was the 40 x 80 double decker in Vegas, the 50 x 100 triple decker in Chicago and the 200 x 500 quadruple decker in Anaheim, orders he took within the last hour. Okay, I don’t know if triple or quadruple deckers exist, but if they did Bruce would likely get the order to install and dismantle them.

When Bruce talked like that he was not being remotely boastful. He was simply sharing good news. And he shared good news like that with me for 40 years. Oh, how I will miss those calls.

My heart aches for Deb, and I told her so. I know they have a blended family of stellar grown kids and huge community of friends. Though when a presence as big as Bruce leaves the void is immense.

In 2018 we said goodbye to Kurt Walker, and I wrote a tribute to him. Saying goodbye is hard. Yet when those who leave us are such fine people we all know where they are. I am confident Kurt and Bruce are laughing and swapping stories right now from on high.

I realize that I have written only about trade show business men, with the exception of Lynn Silvaroli. In my Lewis Grizzard book I mentioned none of his many ex-wives. It is just easier that way. Were I to name all of the great women, I&D “versatile persons”, clients, co-workers and show business friends I would have to write until 2021. Yet I would not know these people were it not for Bruce Cantwell. He changed my life.

May God bless his family. May we honor his memory.

We love you Mr. Warmth.

Peter Stoddard
stoddardmedia@gmail.com
678-725-5889
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