It is Monday morning. In a few hours - noon to be exact - the Georgia State Fair will swing open its gates for the 151st time.

Less than a mile from where I'm sitting, carnival workers will soon be barking in the midway. Funnel cakes, elephant ears and candied apples will lock thousands of taste buds in salivary confinement. And there will be enough neon in the night sky to do some serious global warming above Central City Park.

It is Monday morning. On my desk is a brand new book called "The Complete How To Kazoo." It has a bright yellow cover and promotes itself as a "user's guide and practitioner's manual" to the art of kazooing.

It is hot off the press, warm to the touch. The author is Barbara Stewart, the leader and "kazoo keeper" of Kazoophony, once described by The Wall Street Journal as "America's premier kazoo group."

She is perhaps the most well-known kazooist in the world, having performed at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as on "The Tonight Show" and "Prairie Home Companion."

So what does a book with fingering charts and lip positions have to do with the Georgia State Fair?

It has everything to do with the Georgia State Fair.

If you've visited the Georgia Music Hall of Fame or checked out the fair's Web site (www.georgiastatefair.org), you may already know our city is considered the birthplace of the American kazoo.

It's right there on page 3 of Stewart's book, too, in a chapter titled "Kazoo Roots."
"Legend has it the kazoo was invented in Macon, Georgia, in the 1840s by Alabama Vest, an American black, and made to his specifications by Thaddeus Von Clegg, a German-American clockmaker."It was reported to have been exhibited at the Georgia State Fair in 1852 before being sold to a toy manufacturer, who produced it under the name, 'Down Home Submarine.' "

I researched this subject a few years ago for a column during Black History Month. I have no idea if Alabama Vest came from Alabama with a kazoo on his knee. But I do know history credits him with designing an instrument similar to a voice disguiser known as a "mirliton." The mirliton was used by African tribal doctors to disguise their voices during ceremonies. (The tubes were made from cow horns and the membrane from the eggshells of spiders.)

Vest took his specifications to Von Clegg, who was living in Macon. The instrument later attracted the attention of a traveling salesman named Emil Sorg. A toy manufacturer purchased the marketing rights. (The name "kazoo" was not coined until about 1916.)

Stewart has launched a campaign to make the kazoo the national instrument.

"We already have a national song, a national bird and a national debt," she writes in her petition. "We may not need those either, but why not make the kazoo the national instrument?"

Because Macon is the cradle of kazoovilization, we need to jump on this bandwagon.

Maybe the fair can construct a giant kazoo at the entrance to Central City Park. Perhaps the mayor can propose naming a building after Alabama Vest.

At the very least, we should appoint Barbara Stewart as official kazoo ambassador to Macon. We need to invite her to town, roll out the red carpet and have a parade. Yes, she could even ride in a Hummer.