My all-time favorite columnist is Lewis Grizzard. Lewis was a columnist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution during the time I lived in Atlanta. While there, I had the all-too-short opportunity to look forward to Lewis’ next column. For those of you who are not familiar with Lewis, he was born with congenital heart disease. After three open heart surgeries, the last in 1993, Lewis finally succumbed to a heart that carried within it more love for the South than any other I have ever known. But while that heart could carry so much love for his beloved Region, it could not sustain the body in which it resided. Lewis’ heart finally gave out on March 4, 1994.

For me, Lewis’ passing broke one of my key anchors to the South. My job took me from Atlanta to Philadelphia in 1986 and, being a Southerner by birth, I have ever since missed the Region that holds my heritage. The South is a place where hospitality is almost a genetic trait and the essence of life is embodied in the values found in small pleasures of day-to-day living. Don’t get me wrong, I bear no ill will toward the North (I even married a Connecticut Yankee), but, for me, the Southern heritage is imbued with a certain je ne sais quoi that is missing in the North.

Lewis was often somewhat vitriolic in his commentary either comparing the North and the South or in outright skewering the North. Before ice hockey was played in the South, he once opined, (sic) “the only way they could make ice hockey interesting would be to paint the puck white.” He loved SEC football and compiled a significant volume of work recounting his experiences following his beloved University of Georgia Dawgs.

But what attracted me to Lewis was his ability to take commonplace occurrences in daily life and turn them into a reflection as marvelous as watching a spectacular sunset from your favorite evening perch. He once wrote a column recounting his observations on watching a group of cyclist pass his house in the evening, while he and his dog, Catfish, were enjoying the peace of a Georgia summer evening on the front porch of his house. Cycling, porch sitting and a dog…all simple, everyday pleasures woven in Lewis’ special manner to espouse his unique philosophy of life.

Would that he were still with us to help us displaced Southerners find our way.