Winter Ridgeland Beauty Original 8"x10" Oil Painting $168
Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at KENDALL KESSLER ART
I
still have a lot of paintings to post that I haven't already posted but
I am running out of time today so here are some favorites!
Near Purgatory Original Painting has been Sold
Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards available at KENDALL KESSLER ART
Evening Glow at Rock Castle Gorge Original 30"x40" Oil Painting $2425
Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at KENDALL KESSLER ART
Old Jake 1983
Bootlegging,
like the chestnut tree, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Only a
few old die-hards persist today. Yet, there was a time when bootleg
whisky was one of the few ways a mountain family had of getting cash.
Not everyone participated but those who did were an independent bunch.
They worked hard to provide for their families the best way they could
during times many of us today would find impossible.
They were not the
lawless hillbilly so many stories have been told about. They were, for
the most part, honest, God-fearing family men who did what they had to
do.
The articles about bootleggers in The Mountain Laurel will not
be making fun of those who made whisky. They may be humorous but it is
not our intention to make fun, just the opposite. We wish to pay tribute
to the people and the era when independence was alive and times were
hard but through it all, humor managed to ease the hardships, if only
long enough for a smile.
Must have been 50 or 60 years ago when
this story supposedly took place. Seems there was a fellow who had him a
still set up down near Lover’s Leap. He was notorious as a “bootlegger”
but his word was gold. If he told you something, you could count on it
and everyone that ever drank his “corn” bragged on it. Word is that even
the judge down at Stuart liked it so much that he kept a little “laid
back” for his own use.
Well, it seems that whenever the revenue
officers in these parts ran up on a slow time finding other stills, they
would come looking for “Jake.” He was their ace in the hole, a
“bonified bootlegger” to fill the slack time and their monthly arrest
reports.
Well, on this occasion, “Jake” had his still set up down
near “the Leap” and it was a model of “bootlegging art.” Just exactly
what the revenue boys needed, since they had received instructions from
Richmond the day before to dismantle a working still and send it to the
capitol for display. The workmanship “Jake” had put into this still was
the culmination of a lifetime of experience. He had spared no detail in
its construction and it was just the thing for Richmond.
The
officers were sorry they hadn't taken a picture of the still before
dismantling it so Jake offered to put it back up so they could take a
picture in the morning. He rebuilt it and made moon shine all night
long!
Well, the boys were upset because they’d been tricked, not
to mention born gullible and they told “Jake” he was under arrest again.
“Jake” is the only man in these parts that’s ever been arrested for
bootlegging two days running on the same still at that! But knowing
“Jake,” it seems appropriate that he should have that honor.
The
day of “Jake’s” trial, he was to be tried for two counts of bootlegging
and since word had gotten out about the circumstances of his second
arrest, the courtroom was packed. When the revenue boys walked into the
room snickers and outright laughs noted their arrival. Since “court
days” were pretty big doings in those days, the town was packed.
Everyone wanted to find out how “Jake” would fare before the judge.
Well,
as it turned out, he “fared” pretty well. The judge reckoned that
“Jake” was guilty on both counts but since the revenue boys had told him
to set the still back up and hadn’t told him not to run off any more
bootleg, if he found “Jake” guilty on the second count, then he’d have
to find the boys guilty as accomplices. This wouldn’t really be fair to
them because they had already suffered enough humiliation by way of
being laughed at by everybody in the county. (At this point, he had to
threaten to clear the courtroom if the laughter didn’t cease.
Immediately!)
So in the best judgment of the court, they would
have to let “Jake” off on the second charge and only find him guilty on
the first. This decision met with the approval of everyone including the
boys and “Jake”, although he could never understand why a man couldn’t
run off a batch of “corn” for his friends and neighbors without it being
the “law’s” business.
I got this great story from the online publication, The Mountain Laurel
Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler
My
husband and I have never been that great with technology. When
computers took over I didn't want to keep up which is a decision I
regret since no one can escape now. Anyway, my husband says we were
barely with it in the twentieth century when it turned into the
twenty-first! Still catching up every day! Yikes!
David Garrett Kendall F. Kessler
