Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You: A good beer joint is hard to find and other facts of life

by Lewis Grizzard

  I am positive she did everything in her power to wait until the Octopus ride was over.

  The beer gave out about midnight. We promised each other we would get together again soon. Likely, we won’t.

  You know how it is when you have children.

  AIRPLANES ARE UNSAFE

  I WAS HAVING A conversation with an airline stewardess. We were not in an airplane, however. I avoid traveling by airplane. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not afraid to fly. It is crashing and burning that bothers me. If God had intended man to fly, He would have never given him the rental car and unlimited mileage.

  “That’s silly,” said the stewardess when I told her of my aversion to air travel. “Don’t you know that you are safer in an airplane than in an automobile?”

  I’ve heard that bunk before. Anything that goes five miles into the air at 500 miles per hour and they make you strap yourself inside can’t be safe.

  Automobiles are much safer than airplanes because they don’t go as high nor as fast, and they can be pulled over and parked and abandoned, if necessary, at a moment’s notice. Try pulling an airplane into the emergency lane when the engine overheats.

  I only fly in airplanes in extreme emergencies. Like when the train doesn’t go there, the bus company is on strike, or I go temporarily insane.

  I even hate airports. First thing you see at an airport is a sign that says “terminal.” Airports are noisy, crowded and usually a $15 cab ride from the hotel, plus tip.

  The stewardess said she has been flying for twelve years. “I’ve only been in one real emergency,” she said. “I was in a two-engine prop and we lost power in both engines. We were directly over Palm Beach, so we just glided in for a safe landing.”

  Nothing to it. But engines don’t always go out over Palm Beach. Try gliding in to Brasstown Bald, for instance.

  I have tried to overcome my difficulties with flying. I decided drinking before boarding would be the answer. I scheduled a flight and then went to the airport bar. A day before the flight.

  There isn’t enough booze on earth, I discovered, to make me relax on an airplane.

  A number of bad things have happened to me on airplanes. Once, I stepped on a woman’s violin case while trying to get past her to a window seat. She called me awful names for two hours and tried to hit me with what used to be a violin.

  Another time, I had to sit next to a religious nut on an airplane. I had rather be hit on the head with a broken violin than to sit next to a religious nut.

  “Brother,” he said to me, “do you know the Lord?” I said I knew of Him.

  “Are you ready to meet Him?” he continued.

  I looked out the window. We were 20,000 feet and climbing.

  “I thought this was the Milwaukee flight,” I said.

  I do have some faith in airplane pilots, however. Especially Robert Stack and John Wayne. I know pilots go through rigorous training, and I know they are checked regularly to make sure their hands are still steady on the stick.

  When I fly, I like for the pilot to have gray hair and a gorgeous woman awaiting his arrival at our destination. Something to live for, in other words.

  “I dated a pilot five years,” said the stewardess. “I’ll never forget the day we broke up. He called me from the airport, just before takeoff. We had an awful fight and I hung up on him.”

  “Was he mad?” I asked her.

  “Was he mad? He pulled the plane away from the gate and rammed one of the wings into another plane. He always was one to pout.”

  A pouting pilot. I think I am going to be sick.

  MY KIND OF TOWN

  CHICAGO ISN’T REALLY A city. It’s a train wreck. Five or six or seven million people live there against their will. Chicago has a river that runs through the middle of town. You can walk across it in the wintertime because it’s frozen. You can walk across it in the summertime because it is thick with various forms of waste. Like floating bodies.

  Chicago’s political system is “Vote for the Democrat, or I’ll break your arms.” It is not safe to ride the city’s transit system. Dial “el” for murder.

  It is not safe to drive on the city’s streets. Every year, hundreds of motorists are lost after driving into potholes which the city repairs once a decade whether they need to or not.

  Say something nice about Chicago for a change. OK. There hasn’t been a mass murder there in nearly three weeks.

  The worst thing about Chicago, of course, is the weather. There is no autumn in Chicago, and there is no spring. Summer lasts an hour and a half. The rest of the time it is winter.

  I lived in Chicago two years. It was so cold, my precinct captain was Frosty the Snowman. A precinct captain is the one who gives you the bottle of whiskey on election day.

  The current winter in Chicago has been the worst since 1912, the year Mayor Daley was elected. Already this month, there have been two blizzards. I saw it snow in May once. Welcome to Ice Station Zero.

  There is some humor in all this, however. Something new called Chicago jokes. A few were offered in a Chicago newspaper the other day:

  How many Chicagoans does it take to drive a car in winter?

  Seven. One to steer, six to push.

  Why do Chicago-style pizzas have such thick crusts?

  What isn’t eaten can be used for insulation.

  How do you drive a Chicagoan crazy?

  Send him or her a $5 gift certificate toward a Florida vacation.

  I thought of some Chicago jokes of my own.

  How do they start the baseball season in Chicago?

  The mayor thaws out the first ball.

  How does a robber disguise himself while holding up a Chicago liquor store in the wintertime?

  He takes off his ski mask.

  Where had your wife rather live than in Chicago?

  Wait a minute. Alaska.

  I feel sorry for people who still live in Chicago. They should have their heads examined for brain warts. I especially felt sorry for them Thursday. Thursday was a spring day in January in Atlanta.

  I even called one of my old Lincoln Avenue haunts—the Twenty-Three Fifty Pub—to inquire about the health and well-being of some of my old drinking buddies, the ones who used to insist Chicago is a nice place to live.

  “Your mother’s a polar bear,” I would say to them just before the beer-throwing started.

  Chuck Dee came to the phone. He runs the joint. I asked about the weather.

  “Colder’n (something I can’t print),” he said. “Thirty inches of snow on the ground and more falling.”

  “Nearly sixty degrees here,” I told him.

  “That’s cold,” he said.

  “Sixty ABOVE, dummy,” I said.

  “Go to (somewhere it’s at least warm),” he said back.

  Chuck lives near the pub.

  “The people on my street got together and hired two snowplows to come dig us out,” he explained. “The drivers took one look and refused. I’m the only one who can get out. But I had to buy a four-wheel drive jeep to do it.”

  Some people never learn, which reminds me of another Chicago joke I made up Thursday.

  What do you say to a smart Chicagoan?

  Welcome South, brother.

  3.

  COLD BEER AND COUNTRY MUSIC

  I fell in love with country music when I was nine years old and somebody slipped a nickel into the juke box at Steve Smith’s truck stop in my hometown of Moreland, Georgia, and played a hurtin’ song by Hank Williams. Everybody likes beer, of course.

  THE BEST BEER JOINT IN GEORGIA

  JIM STONE LED ME inside the “No-Name” beer joint. “This place just ain’t been the same,” he said, a certain sadness and longing in his voice, “since the monkey died.”

  The monkey and its passing are another story I will get around to later. Before that, meet the winner of the Lucille’s Memorial Best Beer Joint Search Contest, Jim Stone.

  Several months ago, I asked for nominations for the bes
t beer joint in the state of Georgia and named it for Lucille, who sold me my first beer. There were contest rules. The juke box had to be all-country, there couldn’t be any mixed drinks or cheeseburgers on sale, wives or girlfriends of regulars weren’t allowed, neither were smart-aleck college students, and a bottle of imported beer within thirty miles of the place would be grounds for automatic disqualification.

  Jim Stone entered the “No-Name” beer joint in Willacoochee. It is called the “No-Name” because it doesn’t have a name. A broken Pabst sign outside is the only evidence the one-room building is where a man can break a dry spell. Otherwise:

  - The jukebox is all-country.

  - Beer costs 55 cents. All beer, including gloriously cold long-necks.

  - Cans of Vienna sausage adorn the back counter.

  - There is a sign that says, “No Bumming and No Begging.” (“They ain’t kiddin’,” said a regular.)

  - There is another sign that says, “No Gambling: Anybody caught gambling will be ‘prosuted.’”

  - There are two pool tables in the back, which is the reason for the gambling sign.

  - There is no air-conditioning. The windows and doors are kept open in the summer, closed in the winter.

  - There is a new paint job on the outside toilet, despite the fact an indoor facility was installed a month ago.

  - You can still use the outdoor toilet if you want to.

  - The regulars inside do a lot of pulpwooding in the swamp, but they are friendly.

  - The bartender’s name is “Hoss,” and he chews tobacco.

  First prize in the Lucille’s Memorial Best Beer Joint Search Contest was that I come to the winner’s favorite spot and we drink beer and I pick up the tab.

  We started as the evening sun was going down on Willacoochee, which straddles the Seaboard Coast Line tracks and Highway 82 between Pearson and Alapaha, on the west end of Atkinson County, a hard day’s ride from Atlanta in the flats and piney woods of deep south Georgia.

  Jim Stone had driven in from Douglas, where he works for South Georgia College. “A lot of folks come here from Douglas,” he explained. “Willacoochee is to Douglas sort of what Hyannis Port is to Boston.”

  “Hoss” was behind the bar, his jaw bulging. Luther, one of the regulars in overalls, had dropped by. So did Lace Futch, the mayor of Willacoochee, a man of constant good humor. Amos, the jailer, was there and so was Henry, who owns the No-Name.

  Henry was proud to know his place had won the contest.

  “I can use the business,” he said.

  “You ain’t doing so bad, are you, Henry?” asked Jim Stone.

  “I ain’t saying for sure,” replied Henry, “but I got three head of young’uns at the house, and ain’t none of ’em missing no meals.”

  We sat ourselves down at one of the two tables, the one nearest the jukebox, which Henry turned up because we asked him to. We proceeded with the longnecks.

  The hot south Georgia sun poured in through the windows. Tired and thirsty men who sweat for a living poured in through the doors in search of relief for dusty and parched throats. The jukebox blared.

  She stood outside the door, not daring to come in. She wore bermudas. She was barefoot in the sand. She held an infant at her hip.

  “Your old lady’s out there,” Henry said to a young man as he pulled on a tall bottle. The young man finished his beer. But slowly.

  Only then did he walk outside and disappear with his family west on Highway 82.

  A slow Seaboard freight passed on the tracks outside. Somebody said Mayor Futch ws ready to take on the entire Seaboard Coast Line.

  “They got boxcars parked right in the middle of town, and they won’t move ’em,” the mayor said.

  “How long have they been there?” I asked.

  “Eight years,” he answered.

  Jim Stone finally got around to the monkey story. It is fairly complicated.

  A few years back, there was a girl in town who was an excellent basketball player. Her family gave her a pet monkey for high school graduation. But the monkey was messy. Her parents told the girl to give the monkey away.

  “She brought it here,” said Jim Stone. “It was some kind of smart monkey. They trained it to take the change off the table anytime anybody passed out. Everybody’s got to earn his keep.”

  I had to ask how the monkey died.

  “Bad diet,” Jim Stone explained. “You can’t live that long on just beer and peanuts.”

  “That ain’t nothing,” interrupted Mayor Futch. “They used to have a coon in here, too. People would come in and the coon would crawl up on their table. They’d fill the ashtrays full of beer and the coon would drink it all.”

  We were pondering that when the mayor spoke up again.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” he said, “about half drunk, that was one mean coon.”

  The tab for the entire afternoon was less than $30, and that even included a round of Vienna sausages and Conway Twitty’s “We’re Not Exactly Strangers” five times on the juke box.

  Somebody said it was the only thing the monkey and the coon ever agreed on. It was their favorite song.

  ZELL AND FUZ

  NASHVILLE—THE DISTINGUISHED LIEUTENANT governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, is a big man in Nashville. He knows practically all the country music stars, and they know him.

  Zell Miller was instrumental, a lovely choice of words, in helping Don Williams acquire a new drummer for his band from England recently.

  For the uninformed, Don Williams was named male vocalist of the year Monday night at the spiffy Country Music Association awards program here.

  Zell is also big buddies with Bill Anderson. Ronnie Milsap, who has reached superstar status, was a student of his at Young Harris College. Zell Miller is a country music expert, a country music superfan, and if he is ever elected governor, I would not be surprised if he didn’t start work on moving the Grand Ole Opry to Marietta. Make that “May-retta.”

  Monday afternoon in Nashville, the lieutenant governor went down to old Music Row to The Alamo, Nashville’s top shop for rhinestone suits, boots and cowboy hats.

  He tried on hats. He priced a $350 pair of boots. But all he bought was a jar of boot polish and a pair of gray socks.

  “This is the same way I feel state government should be run,” he said, counting out the $3.50 total to the cashier. “You look around at everything you would like to have, but in the end, you buy only the necessities and make do.”

  A wonderful thing happened to Zell Miller in Nashville this week at the CMA awards show.

  Zell met country comedian Jerry Clower, who is from Yazoo City, Mississippi, and who tells funny stories in person and on records for a living. He used to be a fertilizer salesman.

  “I’ve been wanting to meet you, Lieutenant Governor Miller,” Jerry Clower said, ‘“cause I have done used one of your stories on my latest album, and I give you credit for it. I say, ‘This story comes from the lieutenant governor of the great state of Georgia.’”

  News that George Busbee had just abdicated the governorship couldn’t have made Zell Miller happier.

  Later, I asked him to tell me the story. There was a reason for that. He’s our lieutenant governor, the story happens in Georgia, and we deserve to hear it before the rest of the world.

  Ladies and gentleman, Jerry Clower’s budding ghostwriter, Zell Miller:

  “This is a true story. It happened up in my hometown of Young Harris. Young Harris is a very small town. We didn’t even have a fire department. Not even a volunteer fire department.

  “One day, a house caught fire. The whole town gathered around to watch it. We were helpless to put it out. About that time, we saw a pickup truck come over the ridge. It was a local character named Fuzz Chastain. He had his wife with him, all their kids, a cousin or two, and some aunts and uncles.

  “Fuzz drove right down to where we were all standing, but he didn’t stop. He drove that pickup right into the middle of the fire.
He jumped out and so did everybody else. They started beating the fire with anything they could find—even their clothes.

  “It took ’em thirty minutes, but danged if they didn’t put out the fire. The mayor of Young Harris was there. He said, ‘This is the most courageous thing I have ever seen in Young Harris. Let’s pass the hat for Fuzz Chastain.’

  “They raised $17. The mayor presented the money to Fuzz. ‘Fuzz,’ he said, ‘the people of Young Harris appreciate this heroic act of yours.’ Fuzz’s hair was singed. His clothes were burned and torn.

  ‘“But Fuzz, there is one thing I’d like to know,’ the mayor went on, ‘What are you going to do with this money?’

  “Fuzz thought a minute and then said, ‘Well, Mr. Mayor, I guess the first thing I ought to do is get the brakes fixed on that pickup.’”

  If Zell Miller’s new “career” takes off, don’t worry if he can mix show business with politics. Lest we forget, in many respects, they’re the same.

  DREAMING AT THE TWILITE

  IT WAS LADIES NIGHT at the Twilite Club down on Stewart Avenue, but it was too cold for a crowd. Nights like this are for covering up early, even if the bedroom is a lonely place. There is always the cat.

  The band was allegedly country. Mostly, it was loud and did too many Elvis numbers. The singer’s shirt was unbuttoned nearly all the way down. That’s not country.

  “Y’all got any requests?” he asked the sparse audience.

  “Yeah,” said an old girl sitting at the table next to mine. She was drinking salty dogs. “Turn that thang down.”

  Big Jim Cook had an easy night. He’s the bouncer. The Twilite Club isn’t a rough place, by any means, but like the lady who runs it said, “We’re getting a little more riff-raff since the Nugget Club burned down.”

  Jim Cook is twenty-seven and big as a Haggard hit single. He’s 6-4 and 240 and he still goes home to Milner, which is near Griffin, on the weekends to see his mother. “I ain’t nothing,” he says, “but an old country boy from the woods.”