Patricia Doty, GPC Online Student,
Spring 2008
Moonshine Run!
On Sunday afternoons during the NASCAR
racing season, our family and Dad’s life-long friend, J.D., would gather at Dad’s
house, also known as “Darrel’s”, to watch the weekly car race on television and
to hear another story about his racing days. Old J. D. was gray-headed now and in
his seventies, ambulating with a cane, sporting a pudgy belly and still talking
with a southern drawl, which mirrored Dad to a tee. Even in their seventies,
J.D. and Dad were like two peas in a pod. One of my favorite stories was the one
told by J. D. This particular story is about a race which led to J.D and Dad’s
enlistment into the Navy. As I sat down
on the sofa in the family room where everyone else had gathered, J.D. cleared
his throat and began to speak, remembering as if it were yesterday.
It
was one of those typical hot and humid southern nights in the middle of July.
Darrel and I, two good looking, long haired, skinny twenty year-olds had just
won our first “real” race at the track, and we loved it. To celebrate our win, Darrel
and I popped open a couple of cold ones. We downed the ice cold beers, and then
headed off to get another full trunk-load of moonshine. Darrel and I had started
running moonshine, servicing all of the area surrounding the
As we descended down the mountain, we watched as
the fireflies flitted around in the woods, and listened to the sound of the
tree frogs talking to each other. It was very dark, and the virtual thickness
of the woods prevented us from seeing anything beyond our headlights. About halfway down the steep, winding mountain
road, we started smelling a strong odor of gasoline. Within two or three
minutes we came upon what looked like a disabled car, partially blocking half
of the road. Worried the car was leaking gas, we turned off our engine and slowed
down completely, letting the car coast until we were almost touching the other car. To our shock and total surprise, the car
blocking the road was the sheriff’s police car. We crept slowly past his car,
and then Darrel restarted the car and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The
chase was on!
Darrel
slung me from one side of the car to the other all the way down the rest of the
mountain, with the sheriff’s car right on our tail. I kept screaming at Darrel that I was going
to hurl my dinner if he didn’t slow our car down, but of course he didn’t, and
I did. Once we were finally off the mountain road, Darrel drove through every
back street he knew, passing through two counties, trying his best to avoid
getting stopped by that cop. He was
doing fine, and had almost left the police car behind, until we rolled into
Madison County. That is where the deputies joined in. Two police cars were on our rear, two more
were in front of us, and all of them were trying to create a road block. Darrel
thought he could outsmart the cops, so he turned directly into a farm pasture and
drove past a whole bunch of cows. Our car, which had been smoking and knocking
from the hard and harsh drive, just stalled completely out, right there in the
middle of the field.
The
sheriff walked up to our car window and looked in. He instantly knew Darrel, because everybody
knows everybody in a small town. He asked Darrel if he had been drinking, and
Darrel told him of course he had not been drinking. He then asked who the passenger was in the
car with him, and Darrel just smiled pleasantly. The deputy then shinned his
flashlight into the car. Suddenly, the light from his flashlight came to rest directly
on me. The sheriff instantly shut the flash light off, and warned us not to move
a muscle. He walked back over to the
other deputies that were standing there with their guns drawn, and told them he
had it under control. Since it appeared
as if he did indeed have everything under control, the other deputies packed up
and left. As soon as they were gone, the sheriff walked back over to my side of
the car and roughly yanked me out of the car. And I mean yanked me out hard! To say the least, the ensuing discussion, if
you could call it a discussion, was quite heated. There were cross words about
moonshine, comments about being drunk and vomiting. Oh, and did I mention that
my Daddy was the sheriff of
Jim, who is Darrel’s Dad, was on the
front porch, patiently waiting for us. Remember, word travels fast in a small
town. The sheriff (Dad) got out of the car and gave us that “don’t you move”
look. Over on the corner of the porch, he and Jim had a quick discussion,
outlining various punishments and planning what our future might hold. Hands
shook, feet stomped, arms flailed, and finally the sheriff walked back over to
the car and presented me and Darrel with our options. He gave us the choice of
either enlisting in the Navy for four years or going to prison for four years. Some
choice, right? Well, as you all know
today, we spent four mighty hellish years in the Navy.
We all laughed at J.D.’s story; we
laughed at all those old stories. After the laugher died down, Dad turned the
volume up on the television just in time to hear the announcer say, “Start your
engines.” Dad, with J.D. right next to him, pulled back the
worn handles on the old dark leather Lazy Boy chair. J.D. did the same thing with his chair, and
both of them settled back comfortably to focus two sets of eyeballs on dozens
of cars zooming around the track. Silently, each with his own memory, continued to
reminisce about the days of old. And
every few minutes one of them would smile and shake his head, while the rest of
us, family and friends alike, smiled with anticipation as to what next week’s
story would most certainly reveal.