Review: An Icon at the Top of his Game
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2012
Lewis Grizzard had issues: political Issues, social issues, health issues, relationship issues, alcohol issues. He was a very imperfect man with views that not many would agree with today. He also had a singular talent: Using the stuffy, serious Atlanta Constitution (Now the AJC) to make people laugh. If you are from anywhere near Atlanta, and you are over about 30 years old, you probably know Lewis and his good-ole boy comedy, expressed in his daily column, stage shows, and even a guest appearance on Designing Women. In this volume of short essays, originally printed in his newspaper column, he is at the top of his game, recounting the funnier aspects of his youth in rural Coweta County, career is the newspaper industry, observations of Chicago (where he lived for a while), and Atlanta the way it used to be. For a metro Atlanta native like me, it's full of familiar territory and the type of nostalgia best seen through rose-colored glasses.  I'm sure he had many years of humor writing left in him when he passed away from heart disease at the tender age of 47. He did manage to leave us with an awful lot of laughs before he left us way too soon.