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

by Lewis Grizzard

  Like watching “Donahue”? Like playing in the Wednesday Morning Serve and Chat Doubles? Like running for political office? Like marching on a nuclear plant?

  I accept no excuses, and there is nothing uglier than a hairy-legged girl. I asked Martha White if she cooked biscuits in the mornings for her family.

  “Not on weekdays,” she said. “Besides, my husband doesn’t like a big breakfast.”

  Mr. White could not be reached for comment.

  I looked in A Taste of Georgia for a biscuit recipe. One is for “Angel Biscuits.”

  You need flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, sugar, shortening, yeast and buttermilk. Cook for twelve minutes. Sounds divine.

  And one more thing, an ingredient most important. The last woman to cook biscuits for me in the mornings was a lady I lived with for seventeen years. I can remember asking her, “What makes these biscuits so good?”

  “Love, son,” she would say. “I put in lots of love.”

  Homemade biscuits for breakfast, ladies? At least once? And soon?

  He’ll taste the love. I promise.

  MAKING UP

  I REMAIN CONVINCED LOVE conquers all, even in this day and time of rampant divorces and the breakdown of the family.

  Take the recent example of the lovely Oregon couple, John and Greta Rideout. Greta called the cops on her husband one day and claimed he had raped her.

  John said everybody knows you can’t rape your own wife. That would be like stealing your own car.

  A messy and much-publicized trial resulted. Besides raping her, Greta said, another thing she didn’t like about her husband was he didn’t keep his fingernails trimmed and clean. John countered and said Greta had these weirdo sexual fantasies that didn’t include him.

  Luckily for husbands everywhere, the jury said, “Not guilty.”

  But that was not the end of the story. Almost before the jury could get out of its box, Greta and John announced they had resolved their differences and were returning home to live as husband and wife.

  If John and Greta Rideout can patch things up again, anybody can. Including the Marietta couple that was divorced last week.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes as I read news reports of what finally put their marriage asunder. It happened last October. On Halloween night.

  There stood the wife, who was separated from her husband at the time, minding her own business in her kitchen. Into the room walked the muscular figure of the man she married.

  He’s an avid weightlifter, so the story goes. Apparently, that’s not all of his problem.

  He was dressed in the costume of the television character, the “Incredible Hulk,” all green and scary looking. On television, the “Incredible Hulk” is a quiet, unassuming, puny physicist who has this chemical imbalance in his body.

  When riled, the physicist swells to several times his normal size, and his face changes into something that would scare a dog off a meat wagon.

  Frightening his wife right out of her apron wasn’t enough for the Cobb Clonker, by day a pharmacist.

  According to the news story, he also pounded his wife one to the head, rendering her unconscious as they say at police headquarters.

  He denied belting her and said he had simply dropped by her kitchen on his way to a Halloween party where he later won “best costume” after eating the glass punch bowl.

  The divorce was granted last week. I called authorities in Cobb County for further details. I was told the man is presently free on a $3,000 peace bond following another assault on his wife.

  I also found out policemen hate dealing with this sort of situation because it can be extremely dangerous duty.

  “What drives us crazy,” a Cobb officer said, “is when you go into one of these things where the man has beaten up his old lady and she wants him thrown in jail, sometimes she’ll turn on you if you have to take him out by force.

  “These officers went into a house one night. The woman was all bloody and bruised. Two or three young ’uns were crying, and the man was drunk. They tried to take him to jail, and he put up a fight.

  “Before you knew it, the woman and the young ’uns were breaking things over the officers’ heads. They knocked the brim clean off one officer’s Stetson.”

  That’s what I was saying. When the going gets tough, love can still overcome the greatest obstacles. I think there is definitely hope for the ex-couple from Marietta.

  He wants to be the “Incredible Hulk.” Fine. She could dress up like “Wonder Woman.” Give and take. That’s the answer.

  Just like the Rideouts. John is going to get a manicure, and Greta, sweet thing, has promised to try to work him into at least two fantasies a week.

  MY LITTLE CUPCAKE,

  DEAR “SWEETIE-POO”

  BET YOU THOUGHT YOU’D never hear me call you that again. Cupcake, we may be living apart now, but there are some things I will never forget about the six weeks we had together.

  Just the other day, I was remembering how I started calling you that name, “Sweetie Poo.” Do you remember, Dovey? I used to leave little notes on my pillow before I left for work so you would find them when you awakened later.

  I would write, “Roses are red, violets are blue, and I love my Sweetie-Poo.” I know you enjoyed them because you would always call me the minute you turned over and found them.

  I’m sorry I was hardly ever in the office when you called, but the boss insisted we knock off for lunch at one o’clock on the dot.

  Darling, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what happened to our Little Blue Heaven. I have never had a shock like the one you gave me when you said you believed we should separate and I should move out because marriage was stifling your career.

  Honey, I still believe you could be married and teach bridge at the club, too, but I suppose it’s too late to turn back now. I guess you know your lawyer has talked to mine and we’ll be going to court soon to get the divorce.

  Maybe you didn’t know. I ran into your best friend Gladys, and she said you’ve been traveling a lot. Aspen, huh? I’ll bet you turned a few heads on the slopes with those new ski outfits you bought for the trip.

  Didn’t think I knew about that, did you, Pumpkin? The bill you had the department store send me came this morning. We’ve worked something out so I can pay a little at the time. It probably helped that your old man owns the joint.

  Incidentally, if Gladys mentions anything about my saying I hoped you broke your leg in five places, I was only kidding, ma chérie.

  Drove by the house the other night to pick up the broom and dustpan set you gave me as a wedding present, but I was afraid to come in. It looked like you might be having a party.

  The band sounded tremendous. I know you are going to think I’m crazy, but for a moment, I thought I could see you and your lawyer dancing without any clothes on by the pool. Silly me. Just my imagination, I’m sure, or the lighting from the Japanese lanterns.

  By the way, was that a new car I saw parked in the driveway? Gladys also said something about your Dad giving you a new Jag to help you get over the grief of our sudden breakup.

  Love that color! You always did look good in red. Besides, the burnt orange Porsche he gave you for your birthday last month simply wasn’t you, Cutes.

  Sorry I got so upset last month when you said you had run out of money again and I’d have to make the house payment. I had some fool notion you could put what I send you together with the allowance from your old man and have plenty for the mortgage and some left over.

  But you’re right. I had no idea the price of tennis outfits had gone up so much, and I didn’t know your father had cut you to a grand a week because of the way his stocks have fallen off.

  I managed to scrape by. The watch my grandfather gave me on his deathbed was worth a pretty penny at the pawnshop, and I sold a few pints of blood to get the rest.

  I’m doing just fine in my new place, Gumdrop. The landlord said he couldn’t do anything about the rats for a wh
ile, but I’m getting used to them. It’s nice to have some pleasant company for a change. (Ha! Ha! Still kidding, my little Sweet Potato.)

  Better close for now, Puddin’. Know you’re busy. Me, too. Working two jobs can sure keep a fellow hopping. One more thing, I really laughed when Gladys made that crack that you and your lawyer planning to “take me to the cleaners” in divorce court. You’re a regular riot, Loveykins.

  All for now. Write soon.

  Always, Your “Precious Lamb”

  P.S.: My lawyer just called and told me the Supreme Court has ruled that women with a lot of money may now have to pay alimony to their husbands.

  P.P.S. See you in court, Snorkel-Face.

  HOPE

  ELLIJAY—THE DAY HAS grown old gracefully in Ellijay, where the mountains are about to begin, and as is the custom in such settings, men with nothing better to do have gathered around the courthouse. In this case, it is the Gilmer County courthouse. There is a tree in front. And benches.

  I still love a courthouse because it was on the steps of one I learned to play checkers and dominoes, and I learned about the Book of Revelation, which is what the old men would talk about after they tired of checkers and dominoes.

  “Gon’ be an awful day That Day,” one old man would say at the courthouse.

  “Gon’ be a lot of folks caught short That Day,” another would reply.

  I even tried to read Revelation once. I stopped. It spooked me.

  Standing with the men under the tree in front of the Gilmer County courthouse, I noticed the heat again—it remained stifling despite the approaching dusk—and perhaps that is what brought back Revelation’s fiery warnings so vividly.

  I am in Ellijay to watch the campaign tactics of Mary Beth Busbee, wife of the governor who is the first man in our state’s modern history to seek a second consecutive term to that post.

  I watch her closely and decide she loves her husband deeply or she wouldn’t be working with such fervor. That feels good to me. He is campaigning south. She is campaigning north. Mary Beth Busbee says to people, “I’m Mary Beth Busbee, and I hope you will vote for my husband.”

  As I watch her, I think about marriage and how it has failed me—or how I have failed it—and I wonder if there is hope for those of us who have seen only marriage’s bad side.

  Earlier, Mary Beth Busbee had walked into a book and magazine store on the Ellijay courthouse square. “I’m Mary Beth Busbee,” she said to the woman working there, “and I hope you will vote for my husband.”

  The woman spoke up quickly, “I lost my husband, you know. A year ago. He had a massive heart attack.”

  Mrs. Busbee listened. The woman’s voice cracked with emotion. A year later, her voice still cracked with emotion.

  The governor’s wife introduced herself to the group standing at the courthouse.

  A man in a T-shirt said, “If I was runnin’ for office, the last person I’d want out tryin’ to get me votes is my wife.”

  Mrs. Busbee wanted to know why.

  “‘Cause,” the man went on, “she ain’t never said nothin’ good about me at home, and I know she ain’t gonna say nothin’ good about me out in public.”

  That brought a laugh all around. A good marriage needs a little levity, I was thinking.

  Grady was there, and he met Mrs. Busbee, too. Grady is wearing overalls. His hat is twice my age. Remnants of the day’s snuff encircle his mouth. For every courthouse, there is a Grady.

  “Grady’s ninety-three,” somebody said.

  “He still gets up and preaches over at the Holiness Church,” somebody else said.

  “That’s my wife over there,” Grady said to me. I looked and saw a little lady in a print dress, sitting on one of the benches alone. She drank water from a tall soft-drink bottle. There was evidence she dips now and then, too.

  “How long you been married?” I asked Grady.

  “Twelve years,” he answered. “She’s a good woman.”

  As I drove from Ellijay, I looked back once at the courthouse. Grady and his bride were walking away. It may have been my imagination, but I think I saw him take her hand.

  Only one thing spooks me more than Revelation. Marriage. But Mary Beth loves George, a woman in a store grieves a year later, a husband makes a loving joke, and a ninety-three-year-old newlywed still feels the spark.

  There is hope. There is hope.

  10.

  A STINKING PLACE TO DIE

  A good father. A good cop. A good friend. And a porno hustler who saw the light. Death and near-death from Guyana to Lawrenceville, Georgia.

  DON HARRIS

  RAY TAPLEY IS A man I have known for a long time. He has a good job with an insurance company in Atlanta, but he continues to insist upon working for the newspaper on Saturday nights.

  Ray Tapley writes headlines and edits stories that appear in the Sunday sports section.

  Saturday night, he said he only glanced at the front page when the final Sunday edition came up to the newsroom for a final read-down.

  “I saw the headlines about Congressman Ryan possibly being killed in Guyana,” Ray said, “but I didn’t look at the story any closer. Only after I got home and read the entire report did I know about Don Harris.

  “And it took me a minute to recall ‘Don Harris’ was Darwin Humphrey’s television name.”

  Don Harris—or Darwin Humphrey—was the NBC reporter from Los Angeles who was murdered along with Rep. Leo J. Ryan, two other newsmen and a member of the suicidal People’s Temple settlement in the Saturday ambush at Port Kaituma, Guyana.

  I am still not certain where Guyana is, or even what it is, but I do know it is a million miles from Vidalia, Georgia, and one stinking place to die.

  Darwin Humphrey was from Vidalia, down Route 297 off Interstate 16, in the heart of tobacco country. Vidalia is 11-12,000 people. Ray Tapley says it is the largest town between Dublin and Savannah. He also says it is the largest town in Georgia—outside a metro area—that is not a county seat. Lyons keeps the courthouse in Toombs County.

  Ray is also from Vidalia. He and Darwin Humphrey used to ride the school bus together thirty years ago.

  “Both our families lived in the country,” Ray Tapley was saying Tuesday. He would be leaving his office soon to return home to Vidalia for Thanksgiving. And for Darwin Humphrey’s funeral Wednesday morning.

  “His mother always came out on the front porch to see Darwin when he got on the bus in the morning and when he got off in the afternoon.”

  Later, Ray Tapley’s family and Darwin Humphrey’s family—there were two younger brothers—both moved into Vidalia, country folks come to town. They settled around the corner from each other. ”I saw Darwin grow up,” Ray said. “He was only fifteen when he started announcing for our radio station. They were a middle-class family, good people. His father worked behind the vegetable counter at the supermarket.”

  Darwin Humphrey left Vidalia for Statesboro and Georgia Southern. He had a radio job while in school. Then, it was Charleston and a stop here and a stop there and a name change to a more flattering-for-television “Don Harris,” and on to Los Angeles and NBC.

  And finally to that airstrip in Guyana where a shotgun blast ended his life. He was forty-two, the father of three.

  There is more about Darwin Humphrey. His speech teacher at the high school in Vidalia says that in twenty-five years, he was her most gifted student. Another is a New York actress.

  Both his younger brothers followed him into radio careers. A daughter—Claire, sixteen—has lived in Los Angeles for five years. She says, “Vidalia is my home.”

  I talked to Claire Humphrey Tuesday afternoon at her grandmother’s house in Vidalia. She says she is proud of her daddy.

  “He was always leaving, we were used to that,” she explained. Her voice was strong. “We knew what he was going to do was dangerous, but he did other dangerous things. We expected him back in a week.

  “He was a very brave man. We are proud of him.�
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  I don’t know if Darwin Humphrey was aware of it before he died, but his daughter told me something Tuesday that would have made him proud.

  “My brother is seventeen,” she said. Her brother’s name is Jeff. And he has already decided upon his future.

  “He wants to be a television reporter,” said Claire. “Like his father was.”

  JESSE FRANK FROSCH

  JESSE FRANK FROSCH OF Speedway, Indiana, was twenty-seven when he died. We had both struggled together on a struggling daily newspaper in Athens, and I looked up to him because he was a genius.

  Frank Frosch was a brilliant writer. Once he wrote a story about what it’s like in his hometown the night before the Indianapolis 500 automobile race.

  That story remains the best sports story I have ever read.

  Besides teaching English at the University of Georgia, Frank also led the band at a rural high school near Athens. He was well qualified to do that because he played something like thirty musical instruments.

  Frank raised dogs, too. Basset hounds. When they sent Frank off to Vietnam in 1968, he asked me to keep one of his dogs while he was away. The dog’s name was “Plato” and his pedigree reached for miles. Frank had paid $500 for the dog.

  When he came back from Vietnam, the dog and I had become very close. I was prepared to pay Frank any amount of money to keep “Plato.”

  That wasn’t necessary. Frank gave me to the dog. That’s a friend.

  Frank Frosch was an Army intelligence officer in Vietnam. He knew all about what had happened at My Lai, and after leaving the Army, he detailed his knowledge in a masterful piece in Playboy.

  He later went to work for United Press International in the Atlanta bureau. That job bored him. He wanted to go back to Southeast Asia, this time as a reporter.