He had another daughter bad, too, he said. The old man said he went to her house last week and gave her $37 and some food stamps and then went back later and found her and her husband at the kitchen table drinking beer.
“I’m through with ’em now,” he said. “I tried one time to get ’em to come live with me, but they won’t. You know why?”
I didn’t have the slightest.
‘“Cause every morning I get me some good preachin’ and some good gospel singin’ on the radio, and they don’t want to listen to that,” he said. ”I guess they’re afraid it might do ’em some good.”
His bus finally arrived. We shook hands and he was gone in a cloud of MARTA fumes. If I live long enough to be an old man, I’ll play my preachin’ and singin’ as long and as loud as I please and the devil with any of my ungrateful children who don’t have the good sense to listen to it.
INVITATION
THE SPEEDING METROLINER FROM Washington to New York last week had already passed through Baltimore and its railside ghetto that seems to stretch into an endless prairie of shacks from the window of the train.
Wilmington would be next. Then Philadelphia, and on to Trenton, through the ruins of Newark, and into the tunnel that leads to Pennsylvania Station.
I had seen all this before. I know every junkyard by heart. This is one train ride where the scenery is a liability to those who would espouse the benefits of downtown-to-downtown rail travel.
I do not want to be accused of provincial prejudice. I sat next to a man from New Jersey on this same trip once. I’ll let him describe the view traveling by train up the eastern seaboard:
“One big dump,” is how he put it.
You look for diversions on a trip like this. A newspaper will last you barely past Capital Beltway, the first stop out of Washington. I like to pass the time talking to people who will talk back.
Like the old man who sat down beside me out of Baltimore and ordered up a cup of coffee, cream and sugar. One gulp into his refreshment and he was gushing with conversation.
A lot of people won’t listen to old men. A lot of people are stupid.
His clothes were wrinkled and tired, but he had at least bothered to wear what was left of his tie. There was a dignity about him.
When he talked, his blue eyes danced about. His hair was solid in post-gray white. He was a little man, but not stooped.
‘‘Goin’ to New York, sir?” he asked me. I said I was. He said he was, too. The traveler’s ice was broken. Imagine, I thought to myself, this old man addressing me as “sir.”
“I’m seeing the ball game today at Yankee Stadium,” he continued. “I live in Baltimore, but I go to see the Yankees. The Orioles have no team, no team at all. Now, the Yankees, there is a team.”
I used to talk a lot of baseball with my grandfather. He barely got out of Heard County, Georgia, in his seventy-three years, but he knew some baseball.
“Do you know, sir,” the old man went on, “I saw Mr. George Herman Ruth hit his first home run in Yankee Stadium? That was fifty-six years ago. Nineteen-and-twenty-three.
“They talk about ball players today. There are no ball players today like we used to have ball players. Ever hear of Mr. Ty Cobb, sir?”
I said I had heard of him.
“Hit three-sixty-something lifetime. LIFETIME! Can you imagine somebody hittin’ three-sixty-something lifetime today?”
He took another gulp of coffee.
“Did you know, sir, Mr. George Herman Ruth was also a pitcher? He was also one fine pitcher. Held some records for shutout innings in the World Series. He was the greatest ball player of all time. I saw him hit his first home run in Yankee Stadium in Nineteen-and-twenty-three.”
If I had seen something like that, I would repeat myself, too.
“I know all about the Yankees,” the old man said. We were coming into Wilmington. “I could name you the starting lineup of the 1923 Yankees, sir, do you believe I could do that?”
I didn’t have time to answer. He was already off and naming. Few of the names meant anything to me, but his feat was impressive, nevertheless. I can name the starting lineup of the 1959 Dodgers and White Sox. It didn’t seem worth bringing up, however.
Philadelphia was next. When they finally close Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia, they can use it for a dungeon. Trenton. Then, Newark. I would hate to live in Newark.
Five minutes into the tunnel that leads to New York, the conductor announced Pennsylvania Station. The old man was still talking. Among other things, he predicted the Yankees would win the World Series again because Tommy John keeps his pitches low.
“You’re a busy man?” he asked me. Very, I said.
Later, after he had tottered away, and I had departed the station for a task that wasn’t all that important in retrospect, I concluded
the old man had probably considered asking me if I wanted to go to the ball game at Yankee Stadium with him. But I was too busy, I had said. A lot of people are stupid.
BARNEY
BARNEY WISDOM IS DEAD. It happened Monday. Everybody has a right to an obituary, I was thinking. Even old winos. This is Barney’s. It’s the least I can do.
It won’t be that complete, however, because nobody knew much about Barney—and he could barely talk—except he was a pitiful sight hobbling around the Howell Mill-Collier Road area in Northwest Atlanta looking for his next drink.
“I’m not that sad Barney died,” a lady from the neighborhood told me. “It’s probably a blessing. It just breaks my heart he had to live the way he did.”
Barney was sixty-nine. A policeman found that out. Somebody said he was a native of Alabama and used to work in a sawmill. Somebody else said he had a son in Florence. There was talk he might have a sister in Summerville in north Georgia, and I even heard once he had a brother over in Lawrenceville.
A man at the coroner’s office told me Wednesday he had tried to contact a relative to claim Barney’s body from the Grady morgue.
“So far,” he said, “nothing.”
Barney was the quintessential wino. He worked at it all his waking hours. His favorite drinking perch was atop a bench on the side of Springlake Pharmacy at the corner of Howell Mill and Collier.
Barney never bothered anybody that I knew of. Give him a buck and he would return a toothless smile that was certainly not without charm. Barney was the subject of another column of mine a few months back.
Two rascal children were throwing rocks at him as he sat beside the drugstore one Saturday afternoon. I wrote about the incident in the newspaper. I heard the two children moved out of town. Good riddance.
Barney slept in the woods off Howell Mill. Or in the basement of a neighborhood laundromat. Or, when the weather became unbearable, down at Atlanta’s Union Mission, thanks to rides by caring Atlanta policemen.
That’s where he died. A passing motorist found him nearly comatose on the sidewalk Monday afternoon. Barney had been fading fast lately. A few months back, there was even a rumor he had died, but Barney showed up again, thirsty as ever.
The motorist took him to the Union Mission. One of the spokes men there told me what happened:
“Barney was in bad shape,” he said. “The first thing we do is give them a shower and then find some clean clothes. We gave him the shower, and then he just fell over dead.”
He was taken to the Grady morgue. Police investigated and did find Barney had a small bank account.
“I believe he has enough to bury him,” explained a teller at the bank. “I hope so. He didn’t have a very good life. I would at least like to see him put away nicely.”
The alternative, of course, is a pauper’s funeral at county expense.
I live in the Howell-Collier area, and I always marveled at the special—and surprising—interest the neighborhood had in Barney, the old boozer who was as much a local landmark as Springlake Pharmacy, home of the world’s finest limeade coolers.
I made a speech to the local Garden Club la
st week. After the speech, I asked for questions:
“How’s Barney?” was the first response from a little, gray lady.
Capital City Liquor store is across the street from Springlake Pharmacy. Needless to say, Barney spent a great deal of time there.
“We cashed his social security checks,” said one of the men there. “Barney didn’t beg when he was out of money. He’d just stand there and look at you.
“He could wear you down psychologically. I wish I had a nickel for every fifty cents he got from me.”
I hope some of Barney’s relatives—if there are any—read this, and I hope they show enough interest to make sure one of his own is standing by when shovels of dirt cover his last remains.
Everybody has a right to blood kin at his funeral, I was thinking.
Even old winos.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lewis Grizzard, Jr., was an American writer and humorist known for his commentary on the American South. Although he spent his early career as a newspaper sportswriter and editor, becoming the sports editor of the Atlanta Journal at age 23, he was much better known for his humorous newspaper columns in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a popular stand-up comedian and lecturer. Grizzard published a total of 25 books, including collections of his columns (e.g., Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night), expanded versions of his stand-up comedy routines (I Haven't Understood Anything Since 1962), and the autobiographical If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground. Although much of his comedy discussed the South and Grizzard's personal and professional lives, it was also a commentary on issues prevalent throughout America, including relationships between men and women (e.g., If Love Were Oil, I'd Be About a Quart Low), politics, and health. Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You was Grizzard's first published book. Grizzard passed away in 1994.
Copyright © 1979 by Lewis Grizzard
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
First published in 1979
First E-Book version © 2012
E-Book conversion services provided by Green E-Books.
Published in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Praise for Lewis Grizzard
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
1. COMING HOME IS A ONE-WAY TRIP
Coming Home is a One-Way Trip
No Spot is So Dear ...
Country Store
It's Okay to Cry
A Mother Will Worry
Mother's Day
2. OFF THE WALL
They Gave the Ball without Me
Interviewing Myself
Liver is a Fraud
My House and a Word or Two about Cats
Don't Get Gypped When You Need a Crypt
I Don't Have Any Children
Airplanes are Unsafe
My Kind of Town
3. COLD BEER AND COUNTRY MUSIC
The Best Beer Joint in Georgia
Zell and Fuzz
Dreaming at the Twilite
The Den Mother of Country Music
Willie at the White House
Sweet Innocence
4. THOSE WERE THE DAYS
The Class of '64
They Were Playing Our Songs
When the Smoke Had Cleared
Sweetheart of Sigma Chi
One for Bill Johnson
5. THE VIEW FROM LEFT FIELD
At the Ball Game with My Dad
A Case of the Bleeps
Scooter T. Washington: Blue Chipper
Super Girls
Lest We Forget
Third Down and Praise the Lord
Dwayne Sanders
Baseball's Spittin' Image
Georgia 28, Georgia Tech 28
Larry Munson: Better Than Being There
Two Little Girls
Eighty-Pound Lawsuit
Gatewood Dooper at the Masters
I am the Wind
The Grief Passes Slowly
Boston
Farewell to Sports
6. FERGIT, HELL!
Homer Southwell, Author
The Cyclorama: A Disgrace
The Truth about General Lee
7. ON THE ROAD
"Honk If You Love Elvis"
Texas Chic
Cash Only
Disco Zoo
"Chicken" and the "Worm"
Riding the High Lonesome
Covering the Arrival of Spring
New York Subways
Saltines and Solzhenitsyn
8. RAILROAD BLUES
She Goes Bump in the Night
Jimmy Harmon
The Smiling Chef
Engine Ride
Saying Goodbye
9. AIN'T LOVE GRAND?
Valentine's Day Massacre
Charlie and Julia
Lovin' in the Oven
Making Up
My Little Cupcake
Hope
10. A STINKING PLACE TO DIE
Don Harris
Jesse Frank Frosch
Mournful Silence for Steve Vann
One Year Later: A Father's Pain
Frank Schlatt: Don't Forget
Death of a Stripper
A Right to Private Grief
Religion and Larry Flynt
11. SOME OLD PEOPLE
Smokey Bailey
Pauline Jones
The Man with No Socks
Invitation
Barney
About the Author
Copyright Information
Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You: A good beer joint is hard to find and other facts of life Page 19