Down Home Book Launch
“A Priest Walks into a Waffle House: Stories from a Gritty, Grace-Filled Life” by Lauretta Hannon, Bestselling Author of “The Cracker Queen.”
August 30, 2026
Cathy Ivey Community Library
2 – 4 p.m.
Program starts at 2:15 p.m.
Free
STORY BY LAURETTA HANNON
The old neighborhood along Highway 247 had been bulldozed due to blight, replaced by green space. Nature had done her job and reclaimed the seven places where I grew up. Flourishing forests and lush tangles of vines now give no hint of the people and houses once there. It’s surreal to return to the land that formed you and find no trace of it exists.
As I stood on that ground where my family laughed, loved — and sometimes hurt each other where it already hurt — the memories gushed like a geyser.
First, I was transported back inside the tiny rental house by the train tracks, where it was all about the music for my jazz musician father, John Hannon. He’s at the upright piano in the living room. While insisting his hearing is shot and his chops are history, he performs classical pieces and jazz standards with bravura. On occasion, he pokes fun at uninspired pieces by making wacky faces as he performs them. His humor is a hallmark, and man, oh man, Jazz Daddy is funny as all get out.
But when he plays sad songs like “Angel Eyes” or “Stardust” on that piano, the feeling turns so poignant and breathlessly mournful that I weep — and then try to hide it before he turns around.
The music exposed the secret place of our hearts where the losses were stacked.
Next, I’m standing in the yard, observing Daddy in a state of childlike wonder. On this fresh spring morning, he’s enraptured by the bird sounds. Armed with a Radio Shack tape recorder, he moves about the yard to capture the warbles, chirps, cries, hums, and whistles. Then he will transcribe them onto manuscript paper and play the various parts on piano and alto sax. The creatures treat him to a concert, and he composes birdsong sonatas in return. And by the way, if you’re of a certain age in Houston County, Mr. Hannon might have been your band teacher.
My last stop on this memory express: Driftwood Apartments, unit 23. My mother is troubled and unwell. From my bedroom window, I can see the naughty movies on the screen at the M&T Drive-In.
When we are at our most hopeless and helpless—numb and robotic from trying to keep going — only one performer’s music can sandblast us out of the doldrums: Little Richard. Once she puts on his singles, we launch into no-holds-barred “dance parties.” Imitating his hair-on-fire expressions, we strut like we have oil wells pumping in our living room.
Then we holler “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom!” with mad dog Pentecostal fervor before collapsing on the sofa. Emptied of our troubles. Part purgation, part exorcism. He doesn’t just anesthetize our wounds; he debrides them with preternatural glee.
You could say Little Richard brought us songs of outrageous praise and worship. With his ministering, Mama could go from a three-day crying jag — slumped over the kitchen table with ashtrays overflowing — to a woman renewed.
It’s no exaggeration that at the first screech of “Good Golly Miss Molly” we were alive again. Like the Frankenstein monster resurrected by the lightning bolt. Delivered from the tomb by a gale-force God-force of the most flamboyant persuasion.
But now when I think of Middle Georgia, the sound I love most is the sound of us. I’m not talking about Southern rock bands or those skinny blonde boys from Florida with the surname of Allman. I’m referring to the unmistakable timbre and cadence of our speech.
“I can be anywhere in the world and know instantly when someone is from around here.”
I hear it when Central Georgia Technical College President Ivan Allen speaks — and the moment my Macon friend Diane Lewis opens her hilarious mouth. I hear it in the compositions of my musician nephew Josh Graff. He’s the keeper of Daddy’s piano now. It stands in his living room as a well-worn monument to the lilts and laments of the ancestors.
In the end, it doesn’t matter that my neighborhood is gone. Home is still — and will forever be — where the music is. Unbound by space or time, its ineffable melody plays on.
This essay contains adapted excerpts from “A Priest Walks into a Waffle House: Stories from a Gritty, Grace-Filled Life”
The phrase “we strut like we have oil wells pumping in our living room” is a variation on a line from Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise.”
To learn more or contact Hannon, visit laurettahannon.com.
