by Tony Nalley
They were all just sittin’ around in the livin’ room and talkin’ back and forth, so I went ahead and fed our dog, Mr. Whiskers, and then I hurried up and did the rest of my chores. When they were all done, I found myself a comfortable spot on the livin’ room floor, right up there next to my dad!
“…and mama liked to have killed me! She just kept whoopin’ on me!” My dad said. “If it hadn’t been for my older sister stoppin’ Mama, I wouldn’t be here today!”
“She might still be goin!” Mitch said with all of us laughin’ in the background.
“She liked to beat me to death!” Dad continued. “And I wasn’t, hell I wasn’t as big as Anna! And she liked to beat me to death! I think the madder you know …she got madder as she came down the line. And boy, when she got to me!” Dad said as he demonstrated the use of a cane switch in the air.
“Say ‘Mama next time start out with me!’” Mitch said holding up his hand. “I wanna be first!”
“I can remember two or three whoopin’s.” Dad related. “I remember Daddy hittin’ me by god, with a tobacco stick two or three times! We’d get up there in the barn and be doin’ somethin’ and he’d grab us with…” he demonstrated the use of a tobacco stick being used. “Em …em …uh …and boy don’t you think that tobacco sticks don’t hurt? You get hit with it two or three times!”
“No thanks! I’d just as soon pass!” Mitch stated. “One of the nice things about not having tobacco in West Virginia I guess.”
“They got willow branches.” Sara interjected.
“I never saw it ‘til I came up here.” Mitch said.
“You never had seen tobacco?” Dad asked.
“Well I have a couple times up here, you know.” Mitch answered.
“I’ll take you to where help cut it this time” Dad replied.
“I went over to Pappy’s; I went over to Pappy’s last year to see what it looked like.” Mitch said.
“You know it? I’ll take you to where you can help cut it this time.” Dad replied again.
“Well I know, but not say up close, I’ve never.” Mitch continued.
“I’ll take you over to Georgie’s and let you cut some of your own and put it in the barn.” Dad stated. “You’d see what it looks like.”
“I’d see what it looks like huh?” Mitch laughed.
“You’d see what you have to go through.” Dad stated.
Well, we all laughed at that for a minute. I laughed mostly cause everybody else was laughin’. I didn’t know what was so funny about seein’ what tobacco looked like and all, but I didn’t reckon that it really mattered. We was all havin’ a good time.
“Now Georgie hit me one time, we was uh, pretty small.” Dad related as he spoke about his older brother. “He had a little, a little farm he’d built out of sticks right outside the door. And uh, he wouldn’t let me play. Well I jumped out that door and I hit his farm and tore it down!” Dad said. “And he said, ‘If you do that again, I’m gonna beat the hell outta you!”
Everybody laughed again.
“Well, I was a smart kid, and small. And I jumped out that door and hit his farm and he hit me right there.” Dad stated as he held his fist up under his chin. And he knocked me up over that step! It was about that tall!” Dad said as he held his hand up off of the floor about three feet high.
“He knocked me back up over that flat in the floor! And I tuned just as black, my sister said she ‘thought I was dead.’” Dad said.
“He knocked all the air out of you!” Mitch stated.
“Which sister was it?” Mama asked.
“Michelle.” Dad answered. “She laid me out up on the bed and I laid there for about three hours. And she said, ‘I was just as black. She said it was like I was already dead.’”
“Georgie probably went back outside and played.” Sara related.
“No …he didn’t.” Dad answered. “Michelle said that ‘he cried and cried’. She said, ‘he thought he’d killed me’.” Dad continued. “And uh, up until we were about I guess maybe …let’s see Georgie’s what, thirty-five? Up until I was about twelve …eleven or twelve years old we didn’t do much fighting then. But then from there on out we just fought every once in a while.” Dad continued. “I knocked the hell outta him one time too! I hit him right across the head with a hatchet!”
“That would slow him down pretty quick!” Mitch remarked.
“I don’t know why I done that for now I was small.” Dad continued. “Mama and all of them said I done it but I don’t know what I done it for. I don’t remember doin’ it but they said I did. And he blames me for given him his headaches.”
“Well, I don’t doubt it.” Mitch stated.
“Didn’t you hit one of your sisters with a hoe one time?” Sara asked Mitch.
“It was a spade.” Mitch answered.
“That’s what’s wrong with her huh?” Sara replied.
“The little one ran a close hanger in my eye when we were jumpin’ around.” Mitch said.
“You were raised in a rough bunch too!” My dad stated. “I guess if you just stopped and looked back, you’d just wonder that when we were kids…”
“How we survived!” They all said at the same time and laughed.
I really didn’t understand their laughter, but they were grownups so nothin’ they ever said to me was really ever all that funny anyways. I just laughed so I didn’t hurt nobody’s feelin’s.
“We’d shoot an arrow straight up in the air and watch and see who stands there; you don’t know which way it goes. It would come down! And hit his sister in the foot!” Sara said.
“Chuck. You know Chuck?” Dad asked if they knew one of his other brothers. “Well I got a sister, my sister the one right above him. It’s Teddy’s mother.”
“Well …when they were kids he got this little Doctor’s box you know, for Christmas?” Dad continued. “And he was a Doctor and she was his patient. Well he Doctored on her and he give her these pills …these little candy pills and she eat all them up!” He related. “And you know he liked to beat her to death!” he stated. “They said he liked to beat her to death! Because she ate his candy I guess.”
“You’re gonna need a doctor when I get through with ya!” Mitch said laughing.
“And he throwed a fork; which one did he throw that fork at …Maggie?” Dad asked my mom which sister Chuck had thrown the fork at.
“Well, Honey I wasn’t there.” Mama replied.
“I know I wasn’t either, I was just tryin’ to think.” Dad said.
“He threw a fork at Maggie and it stuck right in her hand. If it hadn’t been for her hand he would have got her right there; when she throwed that hand up, that fork went right in there.” My dad said as he held up his hand in front of his face. “They were mean!” He continued. “I thought I was mean, but that older bunch was meaner than I was!”
“I threw a knife at a guy one time. It just so happened that the back of it hit him instead of the blade.” Mitch stated.
“You hit him in the back?” Dad asked.
“It hit him in the leg …with the back of the knife.” Mitch answered. “You know I threw it at him and the back of the knife hit him.”
“Were you mad at him?” Dad asked.
“Oh! Heck yea!” Mitch stated.
“He wouldn’t have thrown it unless he was mad!” Sara interjected.
“I threw a board at my brother one time. He took off runnin’ and I threw a board at him and it just so happened that it ran right in between his legs and tripped him.” Mitch continued. “He thought I liked to have killed him.”
“Well did you get him after you tripped him?” Dad asked.
“No! He took off again. He had a pretty good head start on me.” Mitch said.
“Me and Sherman…” Dad started.
“He’d hit me in the back of the head with a walnut is what I think it was.” Mitch continued.
“I think me and Sherman had one round that I can remember. I wouldn’t want
to round with him now, because he’s big as I am.” Dad continued. “Me and …Me and Georgie gotta …gotta set of boxing gloves one year for Christmas. He had a set and you know …he had a pair and I had a pair. And we got upstairs. We was on these, we had these old feather mattresses.” Dad stated. “Things like that you probably, you probably aint never seen one.”
“Oh yes. I’ve seen em’.” Mitch said. “We’ve slept in them.”
“We had, we had one of them on our bed; which we put it on top of us when we slept at night you know, in the winter time. We had another mattress and we used this to put over top of us for blankets.” Dad said. “And by gosh that kept you warm!”
“Well, we were up there boxin’ one day. And he said, ‘I’ll whoop you with one hand tied behind me.’ And boy he was puttin’ it on me pretty damn good!” Dad said. “I jumped up on that bed and he come in and when he did, I come up with an upper cut and caught him right there.” Dad said as he pointed to his chin. “I knocked him across the floor! And he put them gloves up, and you know he never did put them back on no more!” my dad continued. “He wouldn’t put them on no more! I whooped him!”
“Did he have one hand behind him?” Mitch asked.
“He had one hand behind him, yeah. Then when I hit him I just caught a lucky punch and knocked him back across that floor and he sat down on the floor.” Dad answered. “He untied them gloves, and he took em’ off!”
“When I think of that it reminds me of, those little boys you see on the TV.” Mama said.
“The Little Rascals!” Sara replied.
“Oh, we used to do alot of things when we were kids. Fight. Gosh damn we’d fight like wildcats!” Dad continued. “And scatter moonshine!”
“Did you ever do that?” my dad asked Mitch. “Now I was about the size of Anna when I used to scatter moonshine.”
“Did ya?” Sara asked.
“Scattered Moonshine in jugs across the fields.” Dad continued.
“Very good …I know what moonshine is. But what did you do? What do you mean ‘scattered it’?” Sara asked again.
“You see my dad was a Moonshiner. He used to Moonshine! And my uncle was in it with him.” Dad replied. “Well we lived down there, down there in Manton and right behind our house there was little, there was a hill, just like this.” Dad explained holding his hand up about three feet from the floor. “There was a rock wall down here and they had a little …there was a place about this wide that they had behind the house and it had a little roof that covered that rock wall and the house, you know? And then a shed out here.” Dad explained further giving size and distance references with his hands.
“Well …one night Daddy and them got a tip that the revenuers was comin’! He got us out of bed …and we started packin’ moonshine!” He continued. “And we had this hill …and it had damn little …trees and little buck bushes and all this up on this hill. And we carried moonshine for two hours!” he said. “We scattered it all over that hill. And we didn’t break any of it! Revenuers come. Daddy and all of them had done had that still knocked down and hid so well that they couldn’t even tell there was ever moonshine there!” Dad said. “And as soon as the revenuers left, they put the still up. And we carried the whiskey back down the hill!”
“I’d be sayin’ hmmm I don’t know where I put it.” Mitch remarked.
“I went with them two or three times on delivery runs, haulin’ moonshine. Well they had a, they had a damned old …awe it must have been a …shit it must have been about a forty or fifty Chevrolet coupe, one of them small ones.” Dad related. “They took the back seat out so you could fill the trunk up and then fill the back seat up. We had moonshine stacked up to the roof in the backseat and the trunk, plumb full! And we hauled moonshine!”
“Is that the reason you watch the Dukes of Hazard?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, I reckon I just like a run. We never did no really fast drivin’ or nothin’ like that because I don’t guess the revenuers were as bad in Kentucky as they were in Tennessee and all them - like up in Hazard Kentucky and places like that.” Dad said in answer. “Now they were pretty rough up in there. But down around here they weren’t all that bad.”
“So we hauled moonshine to Louisville. And we hauled it to St. Francis.” Dad continued. “We used to take it down there in Louisville; …I don’t know where this place is or nothin’. I don’t even remember what street cause I was little. But I can remember we’d pull in this alley and you could sell it by the jug, just sittin’ there in your car! And sell that whole damn car load of moonshine right there in that one car!” he said. “There’d be drunkards comin’ out of corners! I mean they’d be poppin’ out! And you wanna talk about gettin’ money! They used to get about, hell …fifteen or sixteen dollars a gallon back then, for moonshine! And you talk about drunkards, hot damn!”
“It looked like a bunch of rats comin’ out!” Mitch said as he laughed.
“All you’d have to do, I mean, they knew that car! You’d pull that car in that alley, and they’d be there with the money to buy that moonshine!” Dad said. “Never did have no, we didn’t take no guns with us.” He continued. “Because if we ever …if they ever got caught they wasn’t gonna put up no fight with the revenuers. They were just gonna go to jail.”
“Daddy spent, I don’t know if it was sixty days or ninety days in jail one time for moonshine. He spent it right up here in the Old Jail House. And that was I guess …that was back before I was ever born.” Dad related about the grandfather I never knew. “Or it might’ve been right after me, you know when I was still small. I don’t remember it. That was back when I could remember some things. I can remember a few things back when I was little, but I can’t remember a whole lot.”
“I remember carryin’ that damned moonshine up that damned hill! With little bitty damned legs tryin’ to carry that! I was real slim.” Dad said.
“Short legged.” Mama interjected.
“Short legged, yeah and tryin’ to climb over that damned rock wall.” Dad continued. “We didn’t have no damned steps you know? And gallon jugs of moonshine!” He declared. “Yeah, gallon jugs of moonshine and carryin’ it plumb to the top of that goddamned hill! And then we had to go back up there and carry it down!”
“I think I’d let mine roll back down. Catch!” Mitch said all kind of funny like.
“It was big old rocks, this big! It was all kinds of rocks. And if you ever hit one.” Dad said.
“I wonder if it was anything like that hill of ours.” Sara questioned.
“I never did like to climb a damned hill.” Dad said.
“But then you get to come back down.” Mitch stated.
“Huh?” Dad wondered.
“Just think when you get to come back down though.” Mitch commented.
“Yeah, but you had to make the trip to go back up. If you made six trips up hidin’ it, you’d make twelve comin’ back!” Dad said.
“How does that work out?” asked Mitch.
“Cause carryin’ two gallons goin’ up is easier than carryin’ two gallons comin’ down.” Dad answered. “Because it’s faster than when you’re goin’ up most of the time, you don’t watch your step you know, you don’t slip as much.”
“I like goin’ up Mitch and them’s hill, its fun! But goin’ down it hurts my legs.” My sister Anna said. “Especially, when there was that bush that uh, cut my legs so much.”
“What bush?” asked Mitch.
“That blackberry bush.” Anna replied.
“Where?” Mitch questioned further. “Back in the woods?”
“No along that side of the fence by the pond.” Anna replied. “Goin’ down.”
“Oh …you mean way back there?” Mitch stated as a question. “I thought you meant more by the house down this way.”
“We used to have uh, a little bridge across a creek. Down there its …we just had a …no the creek wasn’t as bad. It wasn’t about as wide as this is.” Dad said holding his hands apart about four
feet apart. “It was a little walkin’ bridge, you know? We’d park the cars over on this side and you had to walk across to get to the house. We had one of these old rain barrels. And we’d sit it down in that creek and fill it up with water and then take baths in it.” He continued. “We’d get down in there and play in that water. And you ever seen this, this type clay in a little creek you know that we used to use it as putty? And hell, you could use it for anything. You could make statues with it. We used to play in that stuff all the time!”
