Grizzard recalls his early newspaper days in Georgia

IF I EVER GET BACK TO GEORGIA, I’M GONNA NAIL MY FEET TO THE GROUND, by Lewis Grizzard, Random House, 586 pages, large print, $19.95.

Lewis Grizzard is odd, very odd, and he’d be the first to tell you so.

Consider him a sort of redneck combination of Garrison Keillor and Dave Barry, although not quite as odd and not quite as funny. But Grizzard, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist who became its executive sports editor at age 23, is an old-school journalist, one of the last of a breed who were initiated into this now antiseptic business with beer, cigarettes, 12-hour days, typewriters and competition.

“If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I’m Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground” is Grizzard’s journalistic memoirs, a tale of a small-town Georgia boy who decided on his life’s calling, and an incredible cast of characters he knew along the way. A lover of sports and newspapers, Grizzard decided to combine the two and earned his first newspaper byline at age 10.

As with his columns, the meat of Grizzard’s book is people and their stories. Only he knows how much of it is actually true, but truth, like a Down East tale, is not all that important here.

The author of “Don’t Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes,” and “Elvis is Dead and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself,” and other books, Grizzard actually lists in the book some of the things he made up in his columns, such as that Richard Nixon was born wearing a suit and that Bugs Bunny is gay.

The most interesting part of this entertaining book is Grizzard’s first real newspaper jobs in Georgia in the mid-1960s, first while attending the University of Georgia, and then after moving to Atlanta after graduating. Much of the action is placed in Athens, Ga., home of the university, where I lived for a few years while attending college there. Much of what Grizzard writes about is familiar to me in one sense, yet Grizzard’s Athens has been dead for years — The Grady School of Journalism, the prestigious Peabody Awards, The Red and Black student newspaper and the rest are still there, but without the vivaciousness described by Grizzard.

While in Athens, Grizzard attached himself to anything that had to do with sports, hoping it would pay off with a job at the Atlanta newspapers, which then were separate entities.

The Athens Daily News was fathered in 1965 by a group of men who changed their shopper into a daily to rival the well-known dud, Athens Banner-Herald. The Daily News was lucky enough to have as its editor Glenn Vaughn, a Pulitzer Prize winner with an unquenchable thirst for fast news, and a penchant for odd story ideas.

In the 30-odd months that the Daily News published, the tiny crew of talented misfits often scooped not only the Banner-Herald, but sometimes beat the Atlanta newspapers as well. It was the Daily News that first reported that President Lyndon Johnson would attend the nearby funeral of Sen. Richard Russell, and it reported on the new University of Georgia president the day before it was announced by calling all the candidates. Only two weren’t home, and the Daily News guessed between them.

The newspaper people in this book are breathing stereotypes — mismatched socks, nicotine-stained fingers, booze and marital problems, and an ability to squeeze information from just about anyone.

Example: Just in case Jesus decided to pick Athens as the site for the Second Coming, Vaughn wanted the Daily News to be ready, and designed the front page of the extra with the headline, “He’s Back!” The paper also reported with a fair amount of fun, once running an April Fool’s story about a catfish with false teeth.

But after 30 months, the Daily News was sold to the owners of the Banner-Herald, a move that sucked the life out of the paper and robbed the Daily News crew of its lust for news and fun.

“The place had once been so alive. Now, it sat dark and orphaned,” Grizzard writes.

John Ripley is a reporter on the NEWS city desk.