Kolya on 5/12/2008 at 17:27
Bet she'll be charmed to hear that.
The_Raven on 5/12/2008 at 17:42
:p
Tocky on 6/12/2008 at 04:39
Quote Posted by BEAR
You should hear my dad rant whenever they close down a still. Luckily they are more concerned with meth these days. I shudder to think when meth becomes the new moonshine in terms of southern country identity. Its got no fucking charm.
QUOTE]
I miss passing round a jar on a cold fall night while we waited for the black and tans to bay a coon. Just a sip because getting sloshed wasn't what it was about. The stories told with a glint of firelight in the eye. The faces of the older gents as they listened smiling and remembering times past, maybe adding a comment at just the right time to cause a burst of laughter and the foggy huffs of breath on the cold night air.
I don't recall ever killing a coon. We would "go see" the tree just to give the dogs a pat for a job well done. We would crunch about through the frost and someone would call "haaaaaoooweee get em drum" in a way I can't possibly duplicate with text but which carried every sentiment and connection between man and animal and would echo through valley and moonlight triumphant and eternal. There would be the shine of eyes in a lightbeam before someone would say "hell I aint goin' up there after it" and nobody volunteered to shoot though everybody had guns. Maybe they did it just to remember a time when they would have needed to.
Yeah. Damn a bunch of jittery meth heads and all those who don't understand the importance of things because they focus on the wrong ones.
BEAR on 8/12/2008 at 02:12
Seems to be the transition between the old timers generation and their direct descendants and the generation after that. Its hard to put my finger on it, but something is getting lost, I lament sometimes being too young to have been a part of it. Its hard to find a bigger difference taking place (at least where I grew up) from one generation to the next in terms of lifestyle and outlook. Nowadays when people talk about moonshine its "lol it will get you SO wasted!", its all about the cheap thrill.
I can only half relate to your stories, but just enough to be able to feel like I know and wish I could relate more. Kind of thing I didn't appreciate enough until I got away from it for a little while.
ZylonBane on 8/12/2008 at 03:58
Quote Posted by BEAR
You should hear my dad rant whenever they close down a still.
What the hell? How are you posting to the internet from 70 years in the past?
BEAR on 8/12/2008 at 05:01
I can assure you its a very real "problem". Gotta use all those empty mason jars for something.
Tocky on 8/12/2008 at 05:51
Heh. The stills they close down now are of the huge thousands of gallons sort that make loads of money mostly. It still goes on in remote areas.
I caught the tail end of the old days by the last hair. I suppose I romanticize it a bit but if I do it's only because it deserves it. My dad was always careful to temper his stories with how hard it was, how everything was used and nothing wasted, how if you didn't take care of what you had you didn't need it, but mostly that it was hard times full of hard people, some so painfully good it would cut you to the bone to hear thier plights and some so blatant mean you hated them though dead in the ground fifty years but both types hard in what they were.
What we lost we lost in my generation. We gave up independence for interdependence. Easy ways and indolence. Big round bales tractor carted instead of the square ones tossed onto a flatbed by strong backs. It just makes sense. Less farms and bigger. Grow a vegetable garden out back as a vestige maybe. Are we vestiges ourselves?
We are better fed. We have enough time to work out and build on those good genes passed down if we want. I saw mr. Phillips out feeding his cows the other day, 95 with a back bent from a lifetime of hard work and still doing it. Can I be blamed for smiling when I see a young poser struting about in low slung Abercrombie and Fitch acting tough? He wouldn't even get it if I explained my amusement. Just no way to explain what has been lost. Not to say we haven't gained in becoming less insular mind you. God no. Education in particular.
june gloom on 8/12/2008 at 14:07
Sadly, we're still pathetically undereducated.
Which really brings us back full circle.
