If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground by Lewis Grizzard

Author:Lewis Grizzard [Grizzard, Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humor, Usenet, journalism, Lewis Grizzard, southern culture, social commentary, newspapers, NewSouth Books, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, columnists, If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, C429, Kat, Exratorrents
ISBN: 9781603061209
Publisher: NewSouth Inc.
Published: 2012-04-18T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

I KNOW I’VE ALREADY told you the end of the story, but now I’m going back to tell you the middle, back to when we were taken over by the Banner-Herald.

They stuck Glenn Vaughn in an out-of-the-way office at the new Athens Daily News headquarters. His duties were little more than to write an occasional editorial. Little did management realize that was dangerous because it gave Glenn time to do what he was best at—thinking.

He had said it before:

“You know what would be fun? To just start going into small towns with bad newspapers, start a new one, like we did in Athens, and give the old paper hell.

“Then, when we got it going good, we could leave one person in charge and go on to the next town. What we could wind up with is a chain of bright new Georgia community newspapers.”

I had an idea, too.

“What we could do,” I said to Glenn, “is get us a big tent. We go in, set up our tent, and put a news operation under it. It would be inexpensive, and we could get going overnight.

“When we left there, we could go on to the next place and get us another tent.”

” ‘Tent journalism,’ ” said Glenn, pounding his fist into his palm. “I like it.”

Glenn’s first idea out of his new headquarters had to do with a weekly in Toccoa, Georgia, a mountain town sixty miles north of Athens. Glenn’s wife, Nancy, was from Ellijay, another mountain community.

Glenn wanted to buy the Toccoa weekly, owned by an aging gentleman who, rumor had it, was anxious to sell.

“We could buy Toccoa,” Glenn said, “then start a five-day mountain daily. We could call it the North Georgia Mountain Bee.“

“The Bee?” I asked Glenn.

“There’s the Sacramento Bee,” Glenn said. “I’ve just always liked the name Bee for a newspaper.”

Bee isn’t that bad a name when you think about it. There’s a spelling bee, of course, and a quilting bee. I don’t know if there has ever been such a thing as a sex bee, but you sort of get the idea it would be a lot like an orgy, a lot of people real busy doing the same thing.

I always had a few favorite names for newspapers myself. Names like the Times, Herald, Banner, Sun, and even the Daily News are pretty commonplace.

I like the name Plain Dealer, as in Cleveland. That sort of says, “We shoot straight with you.”

And there’s the Hollywood Tattler, which seems to be saying, “We know it all and we’re foaming at the mouth to tell.”

Sentinel is kind of boring, as are Post, Journal, and Oklahoman.

Dean Drewery always enjoyed talking about a small Georgia weekly known as the Hahira Golden Leaf. Probably the best name there ever was for a newspaper, however, was Grit, the national weekly kids used to sell door-to-door to earn a few extra pennies a week.

I’m not sure whatever happened to Grit, but the name implies a newspaper that isn’t about to give up on any story and will stomp all over you to get the news.

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