I know that I’ve had at least one person who always looked forward to my stories. Every time I posted a new essay, he made a point to thank me when I ran into him at Andy’s or Walmart. Then he’d look at me and tell me that I needed to start telling the good ones. He meant the stories about the liquor men. He knew I had collected hundreds of them through the years. Sadly, he didn’t live to see this one. It’s time to start telling them while there are still some folks out there who can appreciate them. Godspeed, Richard Bleckley. This one is for you.
The liquor business in Rabun County had become tough by the early 1960s. Daddy had tried a stint at the carpet mill, but ninety cents an hour wasn’t a great living, so he continued to make liquor. Every still Daddy and his brothers set up was cut down by the revenuers before they could run enough moonshine to turn a profit. Daddy was so broke that he had to “leave the country” as he phrased it. When he told this story to me when I was a little boy, I asked him if he went to England or Canada. His reply: “Hell no, Boy. I went to Blue Ridge.” He was going to work for my Uncle Frank Sisson logging and sawmilling in Fannin County.
At the time Daddy made his decision to head to Fannin he had no cash money. He sold his last liquor car for some travel money and left hitchhiking from Uncle Delo’s and Aunt Dorothy’s house on Persimmon.
Uncle Frank started working Daddy like a dog as soon as he arrived. At least Daddy was making an honest living. That didn’t last long. Frank loved to make money. He and Daddy decided that the area where he was logging was a perfect still site. There was good water. The logging operation would hide the trails into the woods where materials were transported to the liquor still while the noise from the skidders and saws would mask any sounds from the liquor operation. The only downside was that Daddy couldn’t hear the revenuers coming if they learned of the operation and raided him.
Frank took Daddy into Blue Ridge and outfitted him for a long stay in the woods. Mr. Claude Call, an old buddy of Frank’s, bankrolled part of the operation. Sugar and steel were expensive and Mr. Call was as tight as Frank. They decided to not hire any still hands. Daddy would do everything by himself. A Lovell man who was kin to Jim Lovell from Rabun County had a store in Blue Ridge. Daddy bought a fancy sleeping bag, a skillet, coffee pot, and a red Coleman lantern for his stay at the still. That stay turned into eighteen months staying at the still around the clock. Either Frank or Mr. Call would bring Daddy supplies and groceries. Daddy cooked his food on the furnace for the still and always said that he spent eighteen months sleeping behind a chestnut log.
The still wasn’t a traditional copper pot set up. It was a fairly sophisticated steamer capable of turning out a lot of moonshine. Frank and Mr. Call made all the money. Daddy was paid a percentage. After eighteen months of getting by without detection, the site was raided by Federal agents. Frank had paid off the local sheriff and was warned that the revenuers were on the way to the still. Daddy barely escaped, leaving the lantern and other gear behind.
The Blue Ridge operation was done. Daddy had Frank drive him into town where he bought a brand-new Chrysler to drive back to Rabun County. As soon as he returned, Daddy spent a few days paying off all the debts he had left behind when he “went west.” He would continue to make liquor for several years, but the era was ending.
Years later Daddy went to Blue Ridge to visit Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary Ann. Frank told him he had something for him. They walked out to an old shed behind the house and Frank handed Daddy the old red lantern. When the revenuers destroyed the operation, they had thrown the lantern into a barrel of mash where it stayed until Frank went to salvage the valves from the steamer. It was none the worse for wear other than a dent and broken globe.
The old red lantern went on every camping trip of my youth. It was with us from my first trip as a toddler up Wildcat Creek where we fled from a skunk, on deer hunting trips with my Uncle Rip, Jack Prince, Mike Cannon and my cousins, and on my trip a few weeks ago in Daddy’s refurbished camping rig. The lantern went on all of them. The stories it could tell…