The Whisky Drummer

As i sat in the old one bedroom home of my grandfather, a home that was old enough to be considered either condemned or of historic
value. Grandpa, was a relic of the past also, days of the wild west, and ww's (world wars) had filtered into his memory of those boyhood days and young man, I thought to myself, he know of the first automobile he rode in , and of course when they were invited. Since life began about 10 years after the civil war years, many veteran of that war, must have told him story of past days also. Those days he would sometimes lament to me, that " the nurses would ask how old he is when he went to the doctors, since they gathered his age let me see, 1888. about a hundred years old? (since this was 1988 in the summer) But he would only tell them that to make him seem younger" , actually it was around 1882" so i never question him further on the matter. He would sit comfortably in his cushion rocking chair comparatively content, and it seems that all was complete what his life had been through the years. He himself had many brothers and sister living throughout the state, which accounted i believe for eleven siblings , brothers and sisters from his family. But as i sat across from him , you had motioned my father to go to a part of the house , a cellar or basement completely concealed from plan site by a rug covering it . As he lowered himself in the dank, dark bowels of the house he suddently reappear with a glass jar of something clear and in a mason jar? (Moonshine) And then grandpa , commence to tell me his story , those early days of prohibition, the feds, etc, who would come around to the different countys looking for illegal liquor brewing in the deep woods. " that many times he would say that the feds would try to sneek up and catch them making moonshine for sale. He claims that he would have a dog or two, german shepard, waiting in places, and when he heard them barking , he knew he had to leave the still and shimmy away. . he say he never got caught. i assume that was because many people in the town he lived would keep him until coast was clear. So that how i made some money, good liquor " , and which supplemented the other work he did. farming , etc, He use to tell that , " he would have gotten married at fifteen , but he was to young for the shotgun" , what a card he was, picking his teeth with a toothpick
everytime i saw him , up until his last days. But all the memories are there , even if i was not running along side him in his early years, i relive those events and more for they seem to reenter my thoughts of family living in those times. the comraderie etc, it had to have and overwhelming effort on all our lives.