Moonshine and Memories
Janice M. Armes, Tennessee

In the center of their front lawn, almost on the edge of the highway, sat a moonshine still. It rested in a soft bed of pastel pink phlox. This still was the object of our hour-long journey over Gray's Gap Mountain. The Appalachian Moonshiner had always been only words on paper and images on a television screen for me. My husband had told me he knew a real-life Moonshiner who liked to tell stories, and who might just share a "sup" with me, if he had any on hand.

"Just let me do the talking," Arvile had said as we turned into Ike's graveled drive that morning. My husband is one of "their own," born and raised in the coal-mining community of Lige's Fork. He had known Ike all of his life--he'd gone to school with his daughter, and mined coal with his sons.

Ike had worked the mines for forty years, just as his father had before him. The talk between the two men this morning was of the whereabouts of those men they had worked beside, deep under the mountain, before Blue Star Coal Company had gone out of business. Like Arvile, most of the men and their families had moved off "the River," and hadn't been heard from since. Ike had been lucky--the company had given him an early retirement.

"No sirree, buddy," Ike said, as he tapped out a Camel filterless cigarette, "coal mining just ain't what it used to be. Arvile, you boys just had it too easy. Now, my ole' daddy--he was a real miner."

"He was the one who taught you how to make liquor, too, wasn't he, Ike?" Arvile had found his opening.

"Oh yeah, he shore knowed how to make moonshine. Hell, if it weren't for ‘shine, our family would have starved to death in them days! They was just too many of us young'ns to feed on a miner's wages. You know, the company paid in scrip' back then. H'it weren't no money. There wuzn't even nobody h'year on the river that could buy his whiskey, ‘cept at Christmas time. He'd have to take h'it over the mountain to sell it."

Ike's rheumy eyes focused on some point on the high ridge before him. He spoke of a time long since past. He remembered watching his father by the dim light of a coal-oil lamp, stoop-shouldered and black from head to toe, the whites of his eyes bright and vivid against the darkness, as he placed a tin lunch pail down on the table. With a wistful smile, Ike told of stoking the fire for Ole' Daddy when he was "running off likker," and about the evening they heard the three gunshots fired from atop Gray's Gap Mountain--how his father had yanked him up by the arm and took off running through the woods toward their house. His father moved the still often, and never took the same path between it and the house, but always managed to come right out on where he was headed. It was three days before Ole' Daddy would go back to the still, and then he went alone. Ike remembered his father's return, how his tallness filled up the doorway, a sheet of white paper clutched in his hand, with words printed on it that he could not read.

The only words he said were "H'it's gone."

"Is that still out by the highway the one he made moonshine in, Ike?" I dared to ask.

"Naww," he said as he rose from the wooden glider. "That one's jest fer decoration. But now that copper worm thar is part of his ole' still, if I remember just right."

As I followed him down the steps and across the green grass, he told me a little about making "good drankin whiskey."

"Ya see, ya steer up your mash in this barrel h'year. Ya put in your corn meal, sugar, yeast and spring water, and let it work ‘bout three days. Now, if ya want corn whiskey, ya use sprouted corn and leave off the sugar. Hit's rough to swaller, but it don't leave ya with a headache like sweet likker does. Then after yore mash has worked good, ya start cooking it. Ya build up a f'ar under that barrell right thar, and brang it slow up to a boil so it don't scorch, ya see? Once it gits to boilin' real good, hit'll run through this copper tube h'year into this thump keg. All ot this has to be copper, ya see, or you'll have pizened whiskey--hit'll kill ya now, pizened whiskey will! And if it don't kill ya, hit'll make ya so sick yuh'd wish ya wuz dead! Anyways, when ya h'year that ole' thump keg go to thumpin', ya know hit won't be long ‘for the likker'll start dripping outta that copper coil thar. That's what's called the worm. You guage the worm down so's hit'll drip real slow into yore bucket, ya see? Then ya have to cut it down to whutever proof ya want."

"Does it taste as rough as they say it does, Ike?"

"Well . . . if it ain't made right, h'it can be a chore to git down. Hey," he almost whispered, a sudden twinkle now in his faded blue eyes, "how'd you like a drank uv som good home-made likker? . . . I mean some good moonshine, now!"

I followed him back into the house.

"Have a seat," he said, waving his hand toward a brown naugahyde couch. I admired the delicate stitches of a crocheted doily on it's armrest as Ike shuffled off toward the kitchen. Above a console television in the corner was a ceramic plaque of the Praying Hands beside a gilt-framed portrait of a baby-faced Ike in military uniform. On the glass-topped coffee table before me was a once-white family Bible, wreathed with pink, plastic baby roses.

Ike returned with a small-mouthed, gallon-sized glass jug that was half-full of a clear liquid, and two Flintstone Jelly glasses cradled in his huge wrinkled hand. Handing me the glasses, and with a hand gripping each end of the jug, he gently swirled the jug around and around.

"Look at that bead!" he murmured reverently.

"What's a bead, Ike?"

"Ya see them ahr bubbles ‘long the edge uv the likker thar?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's a sign that hit's good likker! If it hain't got a bead, then it ain't fitten to drink."

He poured about two fingers worth of the homemade whiskey into one of the jelly glasses. I looked at it's clearness between Fred and Barney. Ike stood there in front of me, arms crossed, expectant smile upon his wizened face.

"Did you make this moonshine, Ike?"

"Naww, this 'shine came from Kentucky. I hain't made ‘shine in years."

"Just hold your breath and down it," urged my husband.

I did. And everything was fine until I took my next breath. The fire started in the back of my throat and followed the path of the moonshine--when it reached the pit of my stomach, there was a sudden spasm of revolt. I fought back the tears and just prayed I could hold it down.

"Now wharn't that good?" Ike asked, with a toothless smile.

"Sure, Ike. It was fine," I gasped.

"H'year, let me pour ya another drank!"

We left the green valley of Lige's Fork when the shadows of the day became long. My disposition was as sanguine as the deep, rose-tinted hues of the setting sun in the West. I laughed and giggled all the way back over Gray's Gap Mountain.

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