I know I have told this story on here before. My apologies for retelling it. This is a pretty cool story, though... Lewis Grizzard-related. Better yet, it is tied to this board's history. A good Dawgvent (the original) story.
Years ago... mid/late-1990s... I worked in downtown Atlanta. Some of the old hands down there where I worked would occasionally want to get a big group of us together to go have lunch at Harold's BBQ. I had never been there, never even heard of it. But it was definitely an oasis, down very near the Hapeville Ford plant. On my first trip there when paying the cashier, I noticed this extremely cool framed picture hanging on the wall behind the girl running the register. It was a large print of a colorized editorial cartoon drawn by Mike Luckovich when Lewis Grizzard died. I don't recall if I had even seen it when it ran in the newspaper. I was absolutely blown away by all of the symbolism within that little cartoon, as I had read a number of Grizzard's books, and immediately knew what each meant.
I got on the old Dawgvent that very same day that I saw the picture, telling this same story about seeing it, saying what a cool picture it was and I probably said something about how I would love to try to find a copy. A number of people commented. I totally don't remember the handle of the person who responded. It "might" have been something like GwinnettDawg or something like that? Maybe? I do want to say that he lived in Gwinnett County at the time.
Whomever it was, this guy got back to me and he told me the story of the print, saying that the editorial cartoon was SO POPULAR that the AJC had made the decision to colorize it and to sell prints. I believe he told me they sold for $1 each, and had to be ordered through the newspaper. He told me he had bought 2 or 3 of them. He told me he would make me a deal. He explained that when he was a young boy his father was the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Rockmart. He said they lived in the parsonage, which was owned by the church. He told me where that house was located. He asked me if I knew two particular guys, two brothers, which I did (and still know them, today). I went through school with both of those brothers. He said they lived next door to them during that time. He told me that he would GIVE me one of the prints, at no cost, even mail it to me, under two conditions:
1. That I would contact those two brothers' mother and tell her that he asked about her, and...
2. That I would promise to have it framed and hang it on my wall.
Well, who was I to pass up such generosity as that!
I contacted the lady and she knew exactly who I was talking about when I told her who had asked me to call her. She was so happy to hear that and she talked a bit about them, and asked me to pass along a good word to this fellow, which I did.
Sure enough, I received the print in the mail, still in its original cardboard tube in which the guy had received it. I had the print matted and framed and it is still hanging on my wall, today. Man, this was very close to 30 years ago when this all happened. Time flies.
This is the picture I am talking about, below (copied from a website). Then below that ... in case someone may not be familiar with the place... are a few pics and such from Harold's BBQ, which is now closed after (so I have read) ~65 years in business.
If you go to the 1:28 mark of this video you can see someone included that Lewis Grizzard print within their collage of photos: