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A Lantern With Stories to Tell

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…

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Remembering Christmas Past

There weren’t many holiday traditions in my family during my childhood. No big holiday dinners or parties. My parents did always see to it that Santa was good to me as a child, and looking back, I can only imagine the financial sacrifices they made to get me the presents I wanted. It was a big event in my childhood when the Sears Wishbook came in the mail. I’d go through it from cover to cover, dog-earing pages with things I wanted. Mama and Daddy almost never spent a dime on themselves throughout the year, no doubt hoarding every penny so I could be spoiled at Christmas. I know they were self-conscious about our lack of money, but they made sure that Christmas morning a huge deal for me. Often Nanny and my cousin Lysa came over to watch me tear open all of my gifts while Mama looked on in her baby blue house coat. Daddy was always running the Super 8 movie camera saving the mornings for posterity. I was well into middle age before I began to appreciate what they did without to provide for me.

As an only child without much close family, many of the events I now remember as holiday traditions wouldn’t be important to most people, but I relive them every year. We always used to go visit my Uncle Buck and Aunt Rose on Christmas Eve after they moved back to Rabun County. We always went up to “the store” as we referred to Dickerson Hardware and I would get Daddy a small gift that Charles would help me pick out for him as Daddy pretended to not notice what I was up to. Charles was Daddy’s best friend and the ritual continued until Charles’ untimely passing.

When I was really young we always went to see Daddy’s daddy. Paw Paw, as I always knew him, always had a box of Red Band stick candy for me to take home for the holidays. He didn’t drive, rarely leaving the family farm, so I imagine my Aunt Virginia went to Mason’s for him to pick up the yearly treat.

The Red Band candy ritual continued until Daddy’s death last year. Mason’s became Andy’s, but Andy kept continuity with his stock, with shelves and tables stocked with candy as the holidays approached. This year was different, and without Daddy here to buy my present of Christmas candy, I had to get it for myself.

The memories remain. Yesterday I sat in Mama’s old rocker in front of the fireplace that Daddy built in 1976. I was eating my Christmas candy while wearing a Carhartt coat Daddy bought me for Christmas almost thirty years ago. 

            Merry Christmas, everyone.

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1980 Winter Olympics Came to Rabun County

It seems like I vaguely remember seeing bits of the 1976 Winter Olympic Games on television. I was only three years old, and Mama said there was no way I could have remembered it. At any rate, I was fired up and ready for the 1980 Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid. Not just fired up, but completely obsessed.

            Things were much different then, at least at my house in rural North Georgia. We got all three, yes three, major television channels, plus Superstation, which was a network owned by Ted Turner. Of course, these stations were “streaming” through our black and white 19 inch set, so it definitely was NOT like being there. I’m pretty sure that we were the last family in America to purchase a color television. I think it was around 1988 when my dad, The Biggest Tightwad in America, finally broke down and made the purchase. Thankfully, we at least had cable by 1980 and I wasn’t having to hold the rabbit ears so Daddy could watch wrasslin’ and Star Track (yes, in our house it was never Trek.)

            We had a fair amount of snow during the winter of 1979-80, and in keeping with the Olympic theme, I carved a pair of miniature bobsleds for my three-inch action figures. Once it snowed, I made a mini-scale bobsled run on a small hill in our front yard. I even made a flag for the finish. Daddy later cut me out a goalie mask from cardboard in homage to Jim Craig, the star goalie of the 1980 U.S. Team. I would set up a TV tray in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, put on the mask and let Daddy fire Nerf balls at me while he was sitting in his old brown chair, drinking beer and watching wrasslin’ as I defended the goal.

            Yesterday was February 22, 2020. The Game was 40 years ago yesterday. Wow 40 years…  How time flies. The Miracle on Ice. Likely the best sporting moment in our history. The U.S. Hockey team beat the Soviets 4-3 on home ice at Lake Placid. I watched the game on pins and needles as only a seven-year-old boy could, inches away from the 13” black and white television in my room. No one believed it was possible except Coach Herb Brooks and his boys on the ice. The best way to put the matchup into perspective would be to field a D2 college basketball team against the original Dream Team. It was that lopsided. With Mike Eruzione’s goal well into the final period, the American crowd went wild. The college boys had pulled ahead of the Russian juggernaut with only minutes left in the game.

            Of course, every red-blooded American sports fan has Al Michaels’ call during the final seconds committed to memory. I still get chills when I hear it. Now the Miracle on Ice team has AARP cards and I’m getting closer to it myself.  Forty years… wow. But I still have the bobsleds and the mask. I wish Daddy was still here to throw some Nerf balls.

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Fun in the Snow

Daddy always loved a good snow. He was child-like pacing the kitchen floor, constantly flipping on the back porch light during the night to see if it had begun. Of course, boots had been oiled and sat ready to put on for sledding and snowball fights. If the snow came during the night the two of us would be up at first light. Mama was in the kitchen making breakfast for us before the foolishness began. Later in the day she’d always have coffee and hot chocolate ready for us.

I was four years old the first time that I saw snow in real life. I saw it on television, but we didn’t get any snowfall for a few years. I was so excited for that first snow. Daddy took me outside and pitched me into it, pajamas and all.

For some reason Daddy always built up a fire when it snowed in the antique wood stove we had in the basement. It was an antique Home Atlantic parlor stove with a flat top which we could keep water and coffee warm on for when we didn’t want to undress and go back into the house. He made my first sled from scrap lumber in his shop and used roof flashing on the runners to make them slide. It weighed more than I did, but wow, did it haul down the hillside. Later I would get a store-bought wood and metal sled, but that home-made job was always the fastest.

My first store-bought sled

On one occasion we went to the old homeplace on Bridge Creek to sled. Between the orchard and the home of my Uncle Rip was an epic hill for sledding. We spent most of the day over there sledding with my cousins Doug and Ricky.

Every time we got a good snow, we took off riding around in whatever old Jeep we had sitting in the yard at the time. Forget all the “roads are unsafe so stay at home stuff.”  We must have hit every back road in the county just being nosey and taking pictures. Sometimes Mama went, other times she stayed at home to “send out the search party” if we didn’t make it back. Good times indeed.

As the years passed, we spent more time riding and exploring and less time with sledding and having snowball fights. Charles Dickerson, our family’s best friend, was almost always with us. When it snowed Charles always brought out his Browning down jacket, Daddy grabbed his cowboy hat, and we would pile into his old blue Chevy Blazer and headed out. If Daddy was child-like with his love of snow, him and Charles together were a hoot. Charles was one of the most fun-loving people I ever knew, and the two of them were a hoot. We never really had destinations; we just went on whatever roads we could get through. Through all the years and all the adventures, we never were never stranded in the snow.

Charles rocking the vintage Browning puff jacket

It’s dumping snow right now. The last forecast I heard before bedtime last night called for somewhere between a dusting and four inches. We have six inches of the white stuff now and it’s just tapering off.

I wish Daddy and Charles were still here to go play. They’d have a blast today. I’m sure they’re together watching it from Heaven. Maybe they had God send it so I would remember… They don’t need to worry; I’ll never forget. I miss you, Guys.

Daddy’s final Jeep trip in the snow…

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When Camping Became Work

Early Spring 1985… It was supposed to be an unseasonably warm and beautiful weekend. My buddy Alan and I, along with another friend John, decided to go on a camping trip on our dirt bikes. The predicted weather was just too good to pass up. We loaded up our random bikes. I was on my fairly current Suzuki DR125. Alan, owner of a shed full of eclectic bikes picked up by his dad, was on an old Kawasaki 185 Enduro. John showed up with his trusty Suzuki TS185. We strapped our junk onto the bikes as best we could. Our camp site was, as usual, on Popcorn Creek. That time we camped close to the old homeplace of Alan’s family. His Uncle Juke still lived there, but otherwise there wasn’t a neighbor or house for miles in any direction.

            We set up camp after school on Friday evening and spent the evening lying around the biggest campfire imaginable. I’ve seen school pep rally bonfires of less magnitude. We talked away the night, eating Cheetos and guzzling Mountain Dew while solving the word’s problems. That’s what thirteen-year-old boys did back then. I don’t think we’d quite discovered girls yet. The night was warm; the weather stayed tolerable, and we awoke on Saturday morning without frostbite.

            About the time we finished cleaning up from breakfast we heard a vehicle coming down the old logging road to our camp. It was Joe Thompson. Alan’s daddy. I’ve said many times that he was a spectacular hunter and fisherman. Unfortunately, Joe had another extraordinary skill. He had an unbelievable knack for getting men to work. Furman Kilby also had this trait. They could get men to work like absolute dogs for them without the men even realizing it was happening. I mean, seriously, at the end of the day, men would actually thank Joe and Furman for the opportunity. It would always start with a casual comment… “Let’s see how this new axe handle feels on this oak firewood…” Next thing you knew, it was dusk and you’d just split a cord of wood while Joe or Furman sat in a lawn chair with a cold drink.

            Looking back, had us boys been camping under the pretense of hunting or fishing, the Weekend of Blisters would have never happened. But in Joe’s eyes we were just being lazy. He got out of the truck and looked us over. He shook his head at our laziness, cocked his cap back on his head, hiked up his britches and said, “Boys, I have an opportunity for y’all today.”

            He instructed us to mount our dirt bikes and follow him back to their house a few miles away after a short span on the highway. Yep, thirteen-year-olds on the highway on dirt bikes. Things were different then. Once we turned down the driveway we veered right to the home of Mr. Melton, known to everyone as just “Melt.” Melt wasn’t there, but three or four fruit trees with their root balls wrapped in burlap were. After we got our helmets off and walked over to Joe, we noticed a few stakes driven into the ground at precise intervals.

            “Melt’s gone to town. We need to help get these trees planted before he gets back,” Joe said.

            I looked around. My uncle had a commercial apple orchard on our old family homeplace, so I knew a little about setting out fruit trees

            “Who’s gonna run the tractor and auger?” I asked.

            “Y’all are big strapping men. Y’all don’t need no auger to dig ‘em,” Joe countered as he threw three shovels on the ground.

            Alan, John, and I thought it would be nice to surprise Melt when he got home with the trees planted for him and figured if we worked wide open, we could be out riding our dirt bikes within an hour. We dug like crazy and cut the burlap from the root balls with our pocketknives. Every boy always had a pocketknife handy back then. We finished just before Melt turned down the gravel driveway. Pulling a trailer. With a lot of fruit trees bundled on it. Really a lot, like thirty or forty. It was then that us boys noticed that the whole yard and surrounding area was dotted with stakes in the ground.

            We looked around for an escape route.

            “You mean there’s more?” one of us asked.

            “Yeah, I just needed to make sure you could do it without screwing up before we let you do all of them,” Joe responded.

            The word ‘let’ wasn’t lost on me. We spent the entire rest of the weekend under the beautiful blue sky on the warmest weekend of the year digging until our hands actually bled. At some point Melt or Joe dropped us off some Lance crackers, Vienna Sausage and Mountain Dew, but otherwise we worked until Joe decided that we should call it a day so we could get back to camp before dark. We then worked all day Sunday until it was time to head home. I was never so ready for the school week to begin in my life.

            Many of the snowflakes and younger people in general probably think we experienced child cruelty on that perfect weekend back in 1985, but I’m thankful for it, just as I’m thankful for many things our parents subjected us to. We didn’t once think of saying “no” and pitching a big fit like kids now would do. Never once did we think about quitting. We didn’t want Joe or Melt to think bad of us. We did the work because Alan’s daddy told us to. Times like that helped shape the work ethic I grew up to have. Thirty five years have passed and I’m not sure if any of those trees survived, but we planted every single tree on the trailer that weekend.

            Joe, thanks for the opportunity.

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Paying Respects

The high school basketball season is upon us. I’m a huge fan of Lady Cats basketball. I usually start the countdown to the first game around six months ahead of time. I love watching those kids play ball. When the first game of the season rolls around each year I find myself looking around the gym, searching for old faces as well as new fans. There are several diehards. Mr. Tom Richardson, Mrs. Odell Hamby, and too many others to count. When I see their usual seat or spot along the railing empty, I’m always concerned. There are certain folks that are just always there. Unfortunately, they are getting older and it is harder on them to get out as winter progresses. When I see them, I always make a point to go speak to them for a bit. I love talking to the older crowd and hearing their stories.

Over the last decade I’ve become more aware of losses in my own life, and in our community in general. Folks that I’ve always known, enjoyed talking with, and taken for granted that they would always be there, have passed on. I commented to a buddy a few months ago that it’s a sure sign that I’m getting older as I now attend many more funerals than I do weddings. And the funerals themselves, at least in my family, are changing too. Attendance is getting smaller. My family is dying off, and the peers of the older generation are going, too. A vivid memory that I have of my funerals on Daddy’s side of the family is of Mr. Garnett Lovell always being there. He lived just over the mountain from Paw Paw’s farm on Bridge Creek. Mr. Garnett was there every time, always wearing his best overalls. I always made a point to go talk with him and spent a good bit of time with him. I realized without thinking about it that he was the last tie to Paw Paw’s generation. Now Garnett Lovell has passed on and his grandson Jeffrey is the one coming to our funerals.

My Daddy is the last of eight siblings living, and now I’ve lost one cousin from my own generation. At my cousin’s visitation and funeral, I noticed a surreal vibe, for lack of a better way to phrase it. Everyone there went out of his or her way to come talk to Daddy. Not simply to offer condolences; it was clear that they wanted to be around him, to talk to him. I noticed Jeffrey Lovell there with him and it reminded me of his grandpa. It was right then that I realized Daddy had become the last of his generation and the patriarch of his family.

As I sit here editing this short essay, Daddy is in his last weeks or days. After enduring half a dozen successful heart and vascular surgeries in less than four years, he was diagnosed with end stage metastatic cancer two weeks ago. I’m spending every second with him that I can, and trying to get new stories from him while he’s able to tell them. Nevertheless, I know there are many stories that will die with him. I can’t imagine life without him. He has always been tough as nails and is supposed to always be there.

Tomorrow at the first home Lady Cats game I will definitely appreciate seeing the old familiar faces and will not take any of the conversations for granted. Paying respect…

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Howdy!

I was born and reared in Southern Appalachia. Specifically in Rabun County, Georgia. My Daddy’s side of the family has been in Rabun County since at least 1830, and one branch of Mama’s family has been in the area prior to the formation of the county.

I grew up during the 1970s and ‘80s, a period when many of the “old timers” were still around and remembered their childhoods. I have an interview with Paw Paw (Daddy’s father), in which he reminisced about seeing the first automobile to ever come through Tiger, Georgia.

I’ve always had a love of reading, learning, and history. I suppose I officially became a historian (Yes, “a” historian. I’m neither British, nor a self-important elitist.) in second grade. The Foxfire program was at its peak during that time. Students from the program came to our class, put on a presentation regarding the importance of preserving our oral history, and sent us home to record an interview. I interviewed Paw Paw in Spring 1980. I’ve never stopped. Since then I’ve interviewed every old-timer I could find in the area. Most of them were never interviewed by the Foxfire students. Most of them are gone now, and many of their stories are gone with them.

I am a lifelong writer. While reading Revenuers and Moonshiners by Wilbur Miller   during my graduate school years I stumbled on secondary source references to letters compiled by the Internal Revenue Commissioner from the late 1870s and early 1880s. Since I wanted to use information from these in my Master’s thesis, I tracked down copies of the original letters. What a treasure trove of information! A full blown war against the moonshiners was waged in North Georgia and the Carolinas by the federal government. Some of the accounts by the deputy collectors in the field are amazing. I’ve decided to write a trilogy of action/historical novels about the fight. —– I plan to release chapters from the first book here, as well as recount anecdotes from the historical letters.

Daddy is also still with us. At 75 years old, he is now the old timer of moonshining lore, sad as it is to think about his mortality. While he has lived a mostly respectable life, he was an infamous moonshiner back in the day. Most of his family is another story. To call them rogues and criminals would be an understatement. I’ve recorded close to a dozen interviews with him through the decades. That said, every week he tells me a new story that I’ve never heard before. Thanks to modern technology, I’m going to start video recording new interviews with him, especially trying to get new stories unrecorded elsewhere. The videos will be posted on my YouTube channel, with links to them on this blog. Daddy is pretty weak, so each installment will be fairly short.

This blog isn’t going to be simply a collection of oral histories, but will chronicle modern Appalchian life. There will be essays regarding growing up in the area, stories and recollections of the older generation, as well as some travel writing about the area. You might see articles about mountain biking, trail running, or Jeep explorations in Southern Appalachia. Possibly even farming, gardening, and woodworking stories. Generally whatever strikes my fancy and shares my love of all things from life in Southern Appalachia.