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Index | Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
Part 7
Rattlers, Moonshine, Bootlegging, Etc.
Steve Dennie
March 1987
It's 8:30 Monday morning when I pull into the Dine-a-Mite parking lot. The "Closed" sign still hangs in the window. But within a minute, Alvin arrives in his green Dodge pickup.
Alvin is wearing a sweater over a shirt and tie. The tie would normally seem out-of-place in the Kentucky mountains, but not on Alvin. He's a minister, a businessman, and probably the most respected and trusted man in the area.
The diner is just a small room. It has three tables, a counter with five stools, and a small backroom kitchen. A deep freeze stands against one wall, a Coke and RC case on the other. Cases of pop and other supplies are stacked in one corner. That's the grand tour.
"It's sure a little place," I comment. Alvin is making coffee.
"Oh, but we serve some mighty big meals."
Alvin owns ten acres in Big Laurel, including one large building which includes a mechanic's garage, the Dine-a-Mite, the post office, and two upstairs apartments. Next door is Miniard's grocery store. I have just described Big Laurel's financial district.
"Do you like milk in your coffee?" Alvin asks, pouring me a cup.
"A little, but no sugar."
"Good for you! I don't even offer sugar. People have to ask for it."
The Dine-a-Mite is the only restaurant around. Alvin originally built it as a laundromat--he showed me the hook-ups on the wall--but decided on a restaurant instead. He was a cook in the army, but insists, "The military didn't teach me anything. My mother did that."
Shirley Miniard enters about 9:15.
"Hi, Shirley," Alvin greets her.
"I'm early this morning," she says. "Joe had to bring the car to the garage, so I came with him."
Alvin turns to me. "Shirley is my right-hand helper. Left-hand, too."
Shirley is Alvin's only employee. He opens in the morning, and she takes over for the rest of the day, closing at 6:00. She worked for him before--25 years ago as a live-in babysitter when Sharon was a baby.
Shirley is wearing a shirt saying, "I'm a coal miner's daughter." She's that, and a coal miner's wife, too. Joe worked in mines for IS years before getting black lung.
Shirley's father-in-law, I. D. Miniard, gave Laurel Mission the acre of land where Cedar Chapel is. Her folks used to be active at Abner's Branch, but she and Joe are among the 30-40 people who attend the Church of Christ.
What's it like growing up in this area?
"We had a lot of fun," she tells me. She had seven sisters and a brother. "We didn't have much money or anything, but plenty of love. If one got in trouble, we'd all help out. Now, it seems like people are beginning to turn against each other. It's not like it used to be."
She and Joe met at a molasses stir-off. "My dad had a horse pulling that around. Joe took his car and started pulling so they could get done faster." She pauses. "You ever been to a stir-off?"
Never heard of one.
"Welt, that's a lot of fun. Everybody goes. We take one of those big cane sticks and put it in the molasses. They make a party out of it. That's the kind of parties people have back in here."
Several men are sitting in the Dine-a-Mite.
"This feller," says one, pointing to another man, "brought me a piece of rattlesnake--or hog, or something. Said it was rattlesnake. It had a little gristle. Rattlesnake don't have no gristle."
"Oh yes they do," another man says.
"Have you ever had rattlesnake?' someone asks me.
"No, but I'd like to try it."
"Well, it's kind of late in the season to catch them," Alvin says.
"Snakes don't like the cold."
"Well you know, we don't got none here no more."
Shirley, standing at the counter, mentions someone they all know. "He just killed a rattlesnake. Laying right out in his yard."
"He did?"
"About a week ago,"
"One year," one of the men begins, "we caught 13. We killed I don't know how many. The next year, we caught just three--that was it. The next year we went back, we found one and it got away. I waited about two years and went back, and I saw that same one that got away. I say it was the same snake. It looked the same."
"Was it a yellow or black one?"
"Yellow."
"That's the best kind."
"No, I gotta tell the truth," says the man who gave his friend what he said was snake meat. "It wasn't rattlesnake.
"Frog legs?"
"Yeah, frog legs."
Alvin tells about one snake he caught. "It was the most beautiful thing, golden. It had just doubled back, maybe a little farther than half. We hit it with a switch. They can fight if you hit them with a rock, but not if you use a switch. It paralyzes them. He couldn't even coil.
"They skin easy--like pulling off a sock. We cut the snake up into chunks and put it in saltwater overnight. The next day, we deep-fried it. I tell you, if we had that every day at the Dine-a-Mite, we'd sell-out."
Shirley has been listening from the counter. "You'd have to cook it. I wouldn't," Shirley states.
Alvin turns around. "Shirley--you wouldn't?" He turns back to me. "That's what Ruth said. She said, 'You're not cooking it in my kitchen.'
When Shirley's son was eight years old, he ran up to a rattlesnake to shoot it with his 88 gun--which wouldn't have hurt the snake at all. Shirley yelled at him, but knew it was too late.
Shirley was about ten feet from the snake. "An ax was laying there. I threw it, and it cut the snake's head off. It was just luck. My son was standing right up close to it. If I had missed, the snake probably would have jumped and bit him."
Just down the road from Alvin's house is the Pine Mountain Church of the Living God, better known as "the snake church." About 30 people attend there.
"Those are wonderful people," Titus says. "I've worked with a lot of them. They are very dedicated people, and live as clean a lives as anyone I know."
The snake-handling services usually occur on Saturday nights. Although Titus hasn't attended one, he's heard all about what goes on. The services are very emotional, with shouting and loud music. After getting worked up, they pull out the snakes or dump them on the floor. They'll drape rattlers around their necks, or let one coil on a Bible and pass it around. If anybody gets bit, they say an unbeliever is present.
On the pulpit is a little bottle of strychnine, which some of them drink. They've also been known to shovel hot coals from the stove onto the cement floor and walk across them in their bare feet. Or run propane torches across their hands.
"I visited Dexter Calahan once," Titus told me. "He keeps the snakes in a box under his bed at home. On top of the box is the verse they use from Mark 16, 'And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name ... they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing...it shall not hurt them.'"
Dexter has been bitten 17 times. The poison hurt him only twice--"l just took my eyes off Jesus," he told Titus.
The second time, he got bit on the back of the hand. They don't believe in going to the doctor for snake bites, but made an exception in Dexter's case because they knew he was a goner. By the time they got him to the back door, he was already rigid and in convulsions. But he survived to handle snakes another day.
Many years ago, the preacher passed a rattlesnake to his wife, who tried to refuse it. He's still handling snakes, but she isn't. The snake bit her, and she died.
Yes, things are different back in the hills of eastern Kentucky. It's a different culture, though not always conforming to the popular stereotypes perpetuated by Hee Haw and the Beverly Hillbillies.
One stereotype of mountain folk is that they make and drink moonshine. Well, some of them do. They tell me it's clear as water, but burns. Bootlegging is popular, too. That's not the same as moonshining, but illegal just the same--and much more widespread.
Half of Kentucky's counties are "dry," which means it's illegal to sell beverage alcohol there. Perry County is wet, and it's surrounded by a bunch of dry counties, two of them being Harlan and Leslie Counties. And Hazard, the Perry County seat, does "a bang-up business," according to Titus.
You can keep a small amount for personal use. But if you're carrying a large amount, like a case, you can be accused of buying it for resale--bootlegging.
"At the sheriffs office in the courthouse, confiscated booze is stacked clear to the ceiling," Titus told me. "I guarantee that in today's paper we'll have reports of illegal transporting of alcoholic beverages, maybe two or three people arrested."
What happens to them?
"In yesterday's paper, a guy got a $157 fine and a 30-day suspended jail sentence. Which means he pays his fine, gets in his car, and goes back to selling."
The nearest police department is in Harlan, but the police rarely come around Greasy Creek. When they do, it's a big event. People get on the phone to find out what's happening, or hop in a truck to follow it. Laurel Mission is located in a sort of no-man's land between Harlan and Leslie counties, both of which claim the other has jurisdiction.
"We elect a sheriff every four years, but you might see his car only once during his term," says Titus. "The police don't show up unless there's a murder or bad accident. That's why there's so much cockfighting, moonshine, gambling, and everything that goes with it. Nobody ever gets caught or punished. There are people around who have shot and killed someone, but never spent a day in jail."
But then, mountain folk don't file charges against each other. Not if they value their property.
"Seriously, they'll burn you out if you do something against them," Titus says. "You settle on your own around here."
One time, a drunk fired his shotgun into the back of the mission van as Rev. Burkett was driving away. It splattered shotgun pellets all over, just below the back window. The next day, the man apologized and promised to pay for a new paint job.
You won't see any blacks around Greasy, either. None live on this side of the mountain. The only black Titus can remember was a woman who married a white man and lived about eight miles from the mission ... until their house burned down with them inside. The autopsy revealed the bullet holes.
Like everything else, the nearest fire department is in Harlan. That's why it's almost impossible to get fire insurance. Harlan built a brand spankin' new fire station after their old one burned down, but it's too far to do Big Laurel people much good. There's a volunteer station a bit closer, but still too far away to beat a blaze.
Mountain people pull heavy-duty pranks, and Halloween is their favorite time for doing it.
I arrived at Laurel Mission the day after Halloween. In one spot, big rocks covered half of the road; the other half had been cleared. In a couple places, thick brush stuck into the road from both sides. Sometimes, junk cars are pulled onto the road. Pity anyone who drives through at night!
A Halloween favorite is to fell large trees across the road. Titus led a UB group out of the area the day before Halloween, and had to stop several times to move trees out of the road. That night, pranksters built a bonfire of old tires at the junction in Big Laurel.
But Titus says this year was mild, by Kentucky prankster standards. About three years ago, so many trees had been sawed across the road that church started extra late that morning.
"We had to find people with chainsaws to cut a path just so we could get to church."
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