The Franklin News-Post
P. O. Box 250
310 Main Street, SW
Rocky Mount, Virginia 24151
540-483-5113
Fax: 540-483-8013
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Wednesday, November 5, 2008
By MORRIS STEPHENSON -
"The last man standing" is a phrase I've heard since I can't remember when.
It's also one that hasn't entered my mind for a long time.
With that said, it was early Saturday morning of the 35th annual Blue Ridge Folklife Festival.
I was looking out the back door, as a steady rain fell. A little later, hearing something that was vaguely familiar, I looked out again. The sound was rain pouring down. Water was running down the paved road in front of the house in Ferrum - same location as the festival, as you probably guessed.
When I glanced out again, the rain had turned to a steady, but still soaking, drizzle.
It was the worst weather I can recall for the start of a folklife festival on the Ferrum College campus. And I've been around for the festival since friend Roddy Moore started it.
That fact is hard for even me to believe. It's like someone once told me, "If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself." Yeah, right.
I can remember events that were very hot and only t-shirts were worn. One year, while I was working with the Worley family at Log Cabin Raceway, I took the track's pace car up to exhibit with the antique vehicles. But come to think of it, there were several race cars on display.
That year it was bitter cold. Then the snow flurries started, pushed by a gusting wind.
Someone, perhaps from the college, came by and dropped off a fire barrel for us to use. You know, one of those big sizes, like a 100 gallons, or was it 50?
The only problem was no one had any wood, so I decided to pull the Chevy Impala out of the show and go in search of firewood. This was in the early '80s, so the memory may not be exactly right on some of the actual facts.
I headed west on Route 40 after leaving the campus. I remember seeing a large stack of firewood piled up behind a house. It was on the right side of the road right up from the last campus building.
Pulling into the driveway, I saw a man and asked if he would sell me a trunk load of firewood, followed by a brief explanation of why I needed it.
He was very understanding and agreed to part with some of his wood even though winter hadn't even started. He began gathering the wood and stacking it in the pace car as I pitched in. We loaded the baby blue and white No. 1 car to the point that after closing the trunk lid, I could have been hauling moonshine. I'm sure one of the ABC agents stationed in the county would have questioned me about the car's rear end riding so low. Can you imagine the expression on an agent's face if he had stopped me and wanted to look in the trunk. What would he have said when the lid came up and there was the firewood?
The trip, from start to finish, probably didn't take more than 15 or 20 minutes. I was a hero when the folks back at the festival saw all the wood I had gotten in such a short period of time.
Using some old racing programs out of the back seat, we got a fire started. Before long, it was crackling, popping and producing heat from flames leaping high above the barrel's top.
Needless to say from that point on, we had the most popular, most visited area on campus. Festival-goers would stand next to the barrel warming their hands, then turning to warm their backsides. I remember as if it were yesterday, that warm glow a person gets when being cold turns to being the opposite.
The Saturday morning rain continued as the clock's hourly readings moved from 6:30 until 9:30 a.m. The rain continued to fall, but not nearly like it was when I first looked out the door.
Dressed in jeans, my old army combat boots, a warm turtleneck under a sweater, long coat and an umbrella, I arrived at the festival grounds around 10 a.m., an hour before I was scheduled to be there.
I had been looking forward to being on the moonshine stage since the day Roddy invited me. I had been there the year before for the same purpose. That year, we had seven participants.
I was invited because I photographed moonshine stills for some 20 years and knew a lot of the people involved. I was the one who was kinda neutral. I got along with most everyone, or at least made an effort.
Prior to the festival, I had helped Roddy think of retired ABC and ATF officers and state troopers, along with a gathering from the other side of the fence, so to speak.
The real search was for people on the other side, who built the stills, made the likker and transported it.
We were doing some brainstorming, trying to come up with as many names as possible. Roddy had compiled a pretty good list of invites. Would the day's weather have anything to do with the actual number of participants? Time would tell.
There were seven men at last year's moonshine stage presentation. Bill Dyer, a retired ABC agent who lived near Ridgeway, made his first and only appearance. Bill died this spring.
But I know personally he enjoyed every minute of being on that stage last year. He and retired ABC Agent Jack Powell told some tales that cool, windy day.
I missed out on a photo that day and still regret the lost opportunity. Bill was having trouble with his legs, and it was difficult for him to climb a slight hill after he, Powell and I found a bite to eat.
Powell noticed this and said something like, "Take my arm Bill and we'll walk up this hill together." But pride stepped in and Bill answered with "I'll make it." "Ah, come on Bill, don't be so hardheaded," Jack almost demanded. After taking about one more step, Bill reluctantly reached over and took Jack up on his officer. He was holding onto Jack's arm. The two old agents walking up the hill is a photo I'll regret missing for the rest of my life. And it'll never leave my mind.
Arriving at the site that Saturday, Jimmy and Jamie Boyd had a fire under a small submarine-type still. A small stream just a few feet away was gushing clear water down the hillside.
The stage, smaller than last year, was set and ready to go. The two-hour session would be videotaped once again.
The first person I saw was the one who called me at home earlier, asking where I was. Doug Brooks, a retired moonshiner I've known for years, was already on the scene. If I had a buck for every jar of moonshine he's made, I'd be a millionaire for sure. I bet he could build a still and turn out a batch blindfolded. He'd also probably set a record doing it.
Then came retired Virginia Trooper Woodrow "Woody" Ward. We briefly chatted before he headed toward a nearby music stage.
Next was Jim Silvey, who was stationed in Roanoke for a couple of years before being reassigned. I remembered him. Jim ended up as agent-in-charge of the Roanoke office, but that was after I had left the newspaper business to go racing.
Everyone was asking about Powell. No one had seen him. He usually was the first to arrive. Then we began to worry something might have happened to him.
But around 11 a.m., here came Jack down the hill. Seems he drove in behind an old pickup truck on Route 40, traveling at 35-40 mph. "Couldn't get around him," Jack explained. If it had been a few years ago, Jack would have dusted the doors on the truck and been out of sight before the driver realized what was going on.
There was a big crowd on hand for the two-hour session. Everyone in the audience seemed to enjoy it. A lot of questions were asked of the participants along the way.
Stories and tales were told, many for the first time. The subject of the cemetery still came up again. To the best of my knowledge I was the only one around, except Kenļ¾ Dudley, a former agent who was in on that bust from the beginning. Jack, I think, arrived later with some others from the Roanoke office.
And yes, I had to explain that the still was not built under a cemetery. There was a fake cemetery with stacked cinder blocks painted white for tombstones, along a dirt path that the operators used to haul supplies in and likker out of the still site.
A vacant frame house sat below the fake cemetery, and the electric service was in the name of someone who had died a couple of years before. Thus there was electricity to the site. The 18 stills were oil fired, which was unusual at that time.
I captured that operation on both B&W and color film. And I got a pic of pieces being blown above pines, under which the still was built. There was a roof made of 2x4s (without cutting any of the pine trees in the thicket) and covered with tin. Agents also found an old pickup loaded with cases of white lightnin'.
A good time was had by all, as they used to say.
There are still people in the county who would make outstanding participants on the moonshine stage, should Roddy decide to do it again next year.
But time is taking its toll on the number of those who have the stories to tell, which leads me back to my opening question: "Who will be the last man standing?"
TGIO -- Or thank goodness it's (election) over! And I don't even know, as I write this, who's the new president. I'm just tired of having the phone ring off the hook between 5 and 9 p.m. and hearing commercials that always end with "I authorized this message."
And Finally -- Thanks to John Eames for his interesting letter and price sheet. But I don't think I can do much about the subjects he brought to my attention. |
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