Gris & more and tooting our kazoos
Random thoughts and Monday musings for the last week of January. I am counting the days until spring. I may have to send a text message to our resident groundhog, Gen. Beauregard Lee, to see if he has any pull. ...
Tuesday is National Kazoo Day. It should be a holiday in Macon, since we are considered the birthplace of the kazoo.
The kazoo was invented by an African-American man named Alabama Vest in the 1840s and introduced at the Georgia State Fair in 1852 by a German clock maker named Thaddeus Von Clegg.
You may remember Barbara Stewart, the country’s leading authority on kazoos and author of “The Complete How to Kazoo.”
Stewart came to Macon in 2007 when we unsuccessfully tried to break the world’s record for “largest kazoo band” at Luther Williams Field as part of the Georgia State Fair. (Dave Price, a weatherman for CBS-TV’s “The Early Show” also was in town for the attempt.)
This is what Stewart writes about National Kazoo Day, noting the official date of Jan. 28 is flexible.
“National Kazoo Day occurs annually (although in some regions, more often) on or about Jan. 28 or whenever it is convenient to the kazooist,” Stewart writes. “Many kazooists choose the fourth Thursday in January because it’s handy.”
So, it’s up to you. Just remember to toot your horn for Macon. ...
Speaking of making a joyful noise, the 13th annual Super Bowl of Hymns is going by a different name this year. It will be called the Annual Hymn Festival at Mulberry Street United Methodist Church on Sunday beginning at 4 p.m.
The hymnfest will be led by Milburn Price, a visiting professor of music at Mercer. Cam Bishop will be the organist. Gail Pollock will be the pianist. It will feature the Ainsworth Choir from Mulberry and the Mercer Faculty Brass Quintet. It is sponsored by the Macon chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Among the hymns for the congregational signing is “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” I’m not sure if “Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through the Goal Posts of Life)” is on the program, but I suspect it’s not.
This is always a special event, free and open to the public. And it won’t go into overtime. They promise everyone will be home in time for the 6:30 p.m. Super Bowl kickoff. ...
It’s hard to believe I covered my first (and only) Super Bowl as a Telegraph sports writer 20 years ago this week, when Super Bowl XXVIII was played on Jan. 30, 1994, at the Georgia Dome.
That may sound like a glamorous assignment. Trust me, it wasn’t. It was pack journalism. I hated it.
I remember Dallas Coach Jimmy Johnson having to field a silly question from an MTV reporter during a pregame press conference. “The world wants to know, Coach. Boxers or briefs?”
The Ringling Brothers Circus will be in Macon this weekend. I guess that’s one reason I was reminded of the 20th anniversary of my Super Bowl experience. It truly was a circus. ...
Ed Fluker, who died last week at age 88, was a member of the Greatest Generation and the subject of one of my columns in October 2006.
I interviewed him the same week the movie “Flags of Our Fathers” was released in theaters. Fluker shared his story about getting one of the first prints of the famous photo of six U.S. servicemen raising the flag on Mount Suribachi during the battle to take Iwo Jima.
An Associated Press photographer named Joe Rosenthal took the photo, which became the most reproduced image in the history of photography.
Fluker was in the Navy and stationed in Guam. He was given one the first of Rosenthal’s prints from a Navy photographer’s mate. ...
Stay warm and have a magnificent Monday.
Reach Gris at 744-4275 or egrisamore@macon.com.
This story was originally published January 26, 2014 at 10:37 PM with the headline "Gris & more and tooting our kazoos ."