Len Robbins speaks to Readers’ Review

By Gale Eger
For Readers’ Review

March 20, 2008 01:01 am

— Despite rumors, facts, and information to the contrary, Lewis Grizzard is alive and well and living in Homerville in the person of Len Robbins, publisher, editor of the Clinch County News, and book-writing columnist for The Valdosta Daily Times and 23 other papers. But make no mistake, Grizzard may be a kind of muse for him and he may be allowed to hang around somewhere inside his personal inner sanctum, but it’s pure Robbins that makes it to the paper.
In “The Greatest Book Ever Written About Cheese” whose contents Robbins used to entertain members at a recent meeting of Readers’ Review, he proves in spoken and written word that he only says what the rest of us are thinking. With the abandonment of a crazed pinball machine player, Robbins apparently sees something, Ping! Hears something, Ping! It darts about in his head, Ping, Ding! And then makes a mad dash out the ends of his fingers and into a piece for his newspaper column on which the book is based. Ding, Ding, Ding! Points!
Robbins is for this generation and for those who raised his generation. This fellow made grown women resort to silly, uncontrollable giggles, outright laughter blasts, and for the more demure, happy tears running down tee-heeing faces as he revealed that his book has nothing to do with cheese.
Logically he explained, that if classics such as “The Catcher in the Rye” is not about baseball or bread, “The Grapes of Wrath” has nothing to do with angry fruit, and since they have enjoyed long and widespread respect, the secret must be in the title giving. Think about it. Would you be as likely to buy or even peruse a book that says, “Columns” by Len Robbins? The guy is smart and he has got lots of press awards to prove it. He knows that once you open its Jarlsbergian yellow cover, you’ll be hooked on the “Cheese.” From “The Not-So-Secret Art of Blaming Others” to “There’s a Skeeter On My Heater — Get It Off!” on through to “Scantily Clad Mandrell Sisters Write Book About Candy,” as you mosey past these, you realize, that every story is an appetizer for the next one.
When you get ready to taste this fromage du jour, and you should, grab your favorite beverage and plan to nibble and feast. His American slices are decked out in the red, white, and blue of living in Smalltown, U.S.A., with its pride in hometown football teams, bands, and cheerleaders. He cubes up some Pepper Jack with his lamentations concerning how men’s bicycles are built, and then he brings in a smooth Camembert when he does the letter, “A Public Thank You From Me To You.”
Throughout the columns and subsequently, the book, Robbins paints himself as a Doritos-eating, much-nap-taking, bumbling-on-the-kid-rearing, dunderheaded dolt with all the grace and style of a 400-pound, slobbering bulldog at an afternoon tea party. Yeah, right. Robbins has more wisdom, analogies, and witticisms than, well, Carter has pills and he’s not afraid to use them.
With all due respect to the various publications he’s in, do yourself a favor, don’t let the papers pile up collecting dust. Just go out and get some “cheese” served up Robbins style. Have him speak to your group. It’s really satisfying.