The sound of the Buckeye Band filtered through the air this past weekend in Moreland, Georgia, as friends and fans gathered to remember Lewis Grizzard at the first Lewis Grizzard’s Hometown Reunion festival. As covered by the Newnan Times-Herald, the weekend ended with a “Toast to Lewis Grizzard,” featuring remembrances of Grizzard by colleagues and relatives, including Grizzard’s widow Dedra. During the weekend, Dedra also signed copies of Grizzard’s They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat, newly re-released by NewSouth Books.
In an earlier interview with the Times-Herald, Dedra described her plans to republish other of her husband’s books with NewSouth, including Elvis Is Dead and I Don’t Feel So Well Myself, If I Ever Get Back to Georgia I’m Going to Nail My Feet to the Ground, and My Daddy Was a Pistol and I’m a Son of a Gun. Dedra called the latter book her favorite of the four.
Mary Ann Cauthen, a cousin of Grizzard’s who grew up with him, told the Athens Banner-Herald that Grizzard “had a way to really get to the bottom of something, of really what most common people are thinking. He had a way to say it and get it in print that the average person on the street can’t do without getting in trouble.”
The Hometown Reunion weekend also included an exhibit of Grizzard memorabilia, a parade, barbeque and grits-cooking contests, and a showing of Bill Oberst’s one-man Lewis Grizzard show. Carol Chancey of Cloudland Canyon Entertainment, organizer of the Lewis Grizzard’s Hometown Reunion, says she hopes to make the festival an annual event in Moreland.