Excerpt from Gris & More dated 9/17/07.

Random thoughts and Monday musings from a third-floor window at 120 Broadway. ...

First, let me say how impressed I have been with the response. If everyone shows up at Luther Williams Field who has said they will, there is no doubt we are going to shatter the record of 2,700. Organizers of the event are prepared to even double that number. Schools, churches, senior groups and other organizations are getting the word out.

Steve Scroggins, one of the ringleaders of this event, said engraved kazoos with the state fair name and date will be given to the first 500 people as an "incentive to get there early" when the gates open at 6:30. He said there will be about 6,000 kazoos for everyone else. And, of course, you can BYOK - Bring Your Own Kazoo. The event will begin at 7:30.

"You never know, if we break the record, those 500 could be valuable collector's items one day," Scroggins said.

The kazoo record of 2,679, set on Dec. 31, 2006, in Rochester, N.Y., was reportedly broken Aug. 31 in Matthews, N.C., outside of Charlotte. That record is said to be more than 2,700 but is still unofficial until it is confirmed by Guinness World Records.

Scroggins said Barbara Stewart, author of "The Complete How to Kazoo" book, will attend the event and arrive Sept. 26. Stewart is perhaps the planet's most famous kazooist, having performed at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as on "The Tonight Show" and "Prairie Home Companion." She has launched a campaign to make the kazoo the national instrument. She will give a short lesson in kazooing and authenticate the event, as a requirement for Guinness.

Otis Redding III also has committed to attend. The kazoo record attempt will be hummed to his late father's most famous song, "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay."

The kazoo was invented in Macon in the 1840s by Alabama Vest, an American black, and made to his specifications by Thaddeus Von Clegg, a German-American clockmaker. It was exhibited at the Georgia State Fair in 1852. ...

It was not mentioned in her obituary, but it should be noted that Alice Ford, who died in Macon on Sept. 2 at age 76, toured as a dancer with both Little Richard and James Brown in the 1950s and '60s.

I'm glad I got to meet Ford five years ago at the home of her nephew Jesse Evans. ...

Macon's Natalia Livingston, who recently renewed her contract with ABC's "General Hospital," will be in a short clip from the soap opera on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on Sept. 24. The scene is with Maurice Benard, who plays Sonny on "General Hospital" and deals with bipolar illness, which will be a topic on Winfrey's show that day.

Natalia won a Daytime Emmy as Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2005. ...

Karin Winward, of Warner Robins, shared her own observation after reading my Sept. 2 column about how folks just don't seem to pull over for funeral processions any more.

Had I been on Russell Parkway the day before the column was published, I would have been impressed. She said a line of cars stopped as a funeral procession made a left turn from South Davis Drive onto Russell Parkway. Then, about 15 minutes later, she watched as cars pulled over out of reverence as another funeral procession headed eastbound on Russell.

"We are Northern transplants who have embraced the Southern tradition of stopping for funeral processions in respect for the family and their loss," she said. "The tradition is not disappearing here in Warner Robins." ...

Have a magnificent Monday.

www.macon.com/194/story/138499.html

Reach Gris at 744-4275 or egrisamore@macon.com.