Life in rural Alabama has been a wonderful experience. It is authentic. Common sense, practical living, and hard work create an atmosphere that builds character and personifies what is real and what is fake.
Rural life
is not a utopia. There is an ample supply of moral deficiencies that are no different
than most sin cities around the globe. People are people regardless of ethnicity,
social class, location, or education.
Most folks
were poor where I grew up in Alabama. There were very few good places of employment
with an abundance of people moving out of state to work. Those that chose to
live in Alabama either worked in populated areas or eked out a living plowing,
planting, hoeing, and picking cotton. Then there was cutting, manually loading,
and hauling pulpwood. Small farms with pigs, chickens, and cows utilizing row
crops provided for most families. Peas and corn fed most of us.
Another prevalent
industry was bootlegging. It was part of living in the hills and hallows of
most rural areas across the state that were in “dry” counties. I had
bootlegging relatives on both sides of the family. In fact, I had an uncle on
my mamma’s side of the family that did prison time. It was not his still. He
was visiting a neighbor’s still when revenuers raided. My uncle did time rather
than “squeal” on his neighbor.
My uncle
used corn for his brew. Corn made the mash and when complete the mash fed the
hogs. Most well knew his skill everyone, even the local county sheriff who
would send deputies to tell my uncle the revenuers were planning a raid. That
was the code of the community.
In 1977 when
I was a young man dad bought a book from a childhood friend that authored it.
It was titled Moonshine Till Dawn. It was his friend’s autobiography.
It is not about the moon shining but moonshine. Dad’s friend reveals his journey
in Bibb and Perry counties in central
Alabama from bootlegging to prison and then release.
Names have
been changed in the book, but dad pointed out which ones were kinfolk and which
pictures of whiskey stills belonged to the Hopper family. It was fascinating with
stories dad told us growing up coming to life.
Dad’s
brother was driver for bootleggers. My started his Thunder Road
experience when he ran away from home when he was sixteen. My uncle eventually
settled down in Rockton, Illinois. Visiting him back in 2003, I noticed he had
a picture of his old racecar on his refrigerator. As a kid when we lived there,
I loved to watch my uncle race.
I asked if
the picture was of his old car and he said it was. He said he started racing in
Bessemer, Alabama during his moonshine hauling days. He talked about three
friends, all three would become Birmingham Internation Racing and NASCAR legends
affectionately known as the “Bama Gang.”
I knew
that the birth of NASCAR began in Southern rural hills and hallows running from
Revenuers with hotrods full of “White Lightning.” I learned more about the hauling of moonshine
in dad’s friend’s second book Bloody Bibb published in 1995. It is most
revealing of life in central Alabama.
Bootleggers
come in various forms. By definition bootleg means illegally made, copied, or
sold. That a lot of stuff.
Jesus did
not too much of bootleggers. When he raided a large bootlegging operation in
the Temple at Jerusalem, the bootleggers and those profiting from it made plans
to have Jesus killed.
Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee?
In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible.
And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up
to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and
sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he
drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out
the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these
things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
John 2:13-16 KJV.
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