Month: June 2021

by Jerome Pearson

June 27, 2021

When I was coming up South Carolina, there was only one bar and no whisky stores (Red Dot) in my community. As an amelioration to this obvious deficit, many folks would sell moonshine in their homes. How do I know this? Now that is another question for another day!

Therefore, instead of going to bars on Friday and Saturday nights, men in our community would travel from one house to another just enjoying themselves. Whisky was sold in special glasses. These glasses were used to measure the amount of liquor being requested.  You could get a quarter shot, a 50-cent shot, or a dollar shot. There was only one marker on the glass, and that was for the dollar shot. The half and quarter shots were only estimated.  

For physical protection, most men carried a pocketknife in case it should ever be needed. Guns would only be brought with them if there was a known or obvious threat.  We would sometimes know some men by the knives they carried.  A man referred to as “Bubber B” carried a jack knife, and he was known as one the most efficient knifers around. Some men would even carry ice picks, or if they didn’t have one, reach in your refrigerator and grab one in case of emergency. And some bad ass would carry a straight up razor blade.

I remember on one occasion two men got into a fight over a pig.  Man “A” had promised man “B” a pig one Friday night.  The caveat was that Man “B” was supposed to come by the home of man “A” on that Saturday morning to receive the pig.  Well, man “B” did not show up on time, so man “A” left his home and went on about his business.

After later coming by the house and finding no one at home, Man “B” finally arrived at the establishment where man “A” had traveled to.  Once man “A” saw man “B” entering the establishment, he immediately greeted him: “Hey “B”, me and my wife were waiting for you to come by, but you never came, so we decided to leave and come on over here. But we can go back to my house and get that pig if you still want it.” “B” pulled out a big gun, his hands shaking, and became quite formal when he said, “rather than do that, I would rather bust a cap in your….!” Others present had to persuade “B” to put his gun down. I can only imagine the fear that the kids in that establishment felt in observing this. But in the end, it turned out alright. A short time later, they were able to return to the home of man “A” and man “B” was able to get his pig.

On another occasion, two men were arguing with a 3^rd man about an organization called the “Masons!” The 3^rd man was apparently a member of the “Masons” and was describing to the other two men all the benefits of being a “Mason”, almost in a braggadocio fashion. The two friends were laughing at the 3^rd man and was making fun of his organization. In essence they were teaming up on him with an attempt to demean his organization. When they left that establishment, the 3^rd man was steaming, and felt that he was being unfairly demeaned and double-teamed.

Later that Sunday afternoon, the two friends returned to the same establishment. The 3^rd man returned shortly afterwards.  Apparently, he was hoping to find them again because now he had his gun with him. I can imagine him driving around just wishing to spot them somewhere. And to his good luck, those two men had returned to the very same establishment where they had the earlier argument. When the 3^rd man drove back to the establishment and observed that their truck was there, he was now swamped with a rush of adrenalin.  I can imagine him thinking, “I just wish they start some shit now!” He left his car and entered the establishment with his gun hidden underneath his shirt.  Oh, please say something now and we will see what happens.  

And would you know that as soon as the two men spotted him, the first thing they said was, “Oh no, here comes that “Mason” again” as they both began to laugh. That was the spark that the 3^rd man needed. He pulled out a big gun, pointed directly at them and dared them to keep talking. His hand was shaking with the big gun. The two men nearly wetted their pants as they had no idea it would turn into this. As the 3^rd man was being calmed down by the owner of the establishment, the two men were able to sneak out with their tails between their legs. They jumped into their truck and quickly sped away. I can only imagine what was going through their minds as they drove away. “That fool was about to kill us!”

Sometimes men would bring their wives along. Other times they would bring their side woman. But mostly the men were just stag. There were a few men who always had their wives with them because they would not let their husbands go out without them.  In such cases you would never see the husband without the wife. And those wives who attended on regular basis were usually the ones who make the most ruckus. And those husbands who chose to come out with their side woman had to be careful. There have been occasions where the wife and children would track the husband down and put a good whipping to both him and the side woman. The side woman received the worst of those beatings, which   often happened in areas where there were many witnesses. The witnesses would rarely intervene and would enjoy the fact that the husband was now finally getting his just deserts.  And they would call the side woman a name that I will not mention here.

During those days, the police department was always on the lookout for the selling of illegal corn whisky. They were on the lookout for those who were making it, those who were transporting it, and those who were selling it.  Moonshine was always manufactured in the middle of some forest so that the “whisky still” could not be detected. And usually, this production occurred during the middle of the night.

Distilleries are sometimes hidden in houses, garages, secret underground basements, or even dug into the sides of hills. The first step in making moonshine is fermenting a mixture of rye, sugar, corn, yeast, or other ingredients in “mash” kegs. The mixture is then distilled in cooker kegs, by heating the liquid and collecting the alcohol vapor through a network of copper tubes into a “thumper” keg.

It was not unusual that a policeman would stop a car along some dirt road or highway suspecting that there was corn liquor in the trunk. Sometimes, they were correct but sometimes it was a mistake. Sometimes they would show up at the house of the person selling it, and if they caught any inventory on hand, there could be trouble.  Therefore, a large inventory was never left in the home; no more than can be poured down the drain within 5 seconds flat if it came to that.

Sometimes, they would get a tip that about a “Whisky Still” being located in a certain area in the middle of some forest. Sometimes they were even able to catch the manufacturers in the act. Other times, they would only see the “Whisky-Still”, but no one present. But because these “Stills” were often located on land that did not belong to the manufacturers, there would be no way to trace the “Still” to the owner unless they were caught in the act.

By 1980, major moonshine operations had been largely vanquished. The sale of moonshine in the South was gradually replaced by liquor stores. But prior to this time, the sale of moonshine was key source of income for many families and many kids benefitted from this resource.

The sale of moonshine has died, but the memories continue to live.

But this story is really not about me!

It is only about some of the things I remember.

By Jerome Pearson

January 2014

Although working in tobacco was not as bad as picking cotton, I was not fond of either. Working in tobacco could mean many things, as there is more variety to it than there is with picking cotton.

One of the first tobacco jobs I had was planting. This job was not too bad, even for me, because it merely involved riding on a machine that would dig a hole in the ground; drop water into the hole, and all you had to do was drop a tobacco plant in each hole. Simple enough, right?

Planting usually occurred during the spring season; the weather was usually no problem during the spring because, unlike summer, temperature and humidity are, for the most part, bearable. Moreover, we rarely had to miss school to do this job even though school had not ended for the year. Basically, we would do this job a few hours in the afternoon after school.

The worst tobacco job I had was “suckering” tobacco. As the plants grow, they usually require topping and suckering. “Topping” is the removal of the tobacco flowers while “suckering” is the pruning out of leaves that are otherwise unproductive. Both procedures ensure that as much of the plant’s energy as possible focuses on producing the large leaves that are harvested and sold. The suckering aspect was not quite easy and very often it would take a knife to cut those leaves that were difficult to remove. Plus, your hands would be covered with tar that came from the tobacco. For some reason there was more tar on those parts. It would sometimes take a couple of minutes to even move from one stalk to the next.

Around the second week of June would be the start of tobacco harvesting. My first job in this arena was called a “toter.” Basically, “toting” means to “carry”. Therefore, as a “toter”, my job was to take the tobacco away from the croppers, and carry it to the drag or wagon, or whatever apparatus being used to transport the tobacco. In essence most fields were divided into sets consisting of four rows, and between each set of four rows, there would be enough space for a tractor and wagon. If available there would be 8 men cropping the tobacco, one on each row and four on each side of the tractor. Rather than having these men leave their particular row to load the tobacco they had accumulated in their arms, they would have the “toters” run to each cropper, grab their tobacco, and then run to the trailer and then load the tobacco in the trailer. There would be one runner for each of the four croppers. Therefore, throughout the day when the cropper’s arms were filled, they would yell out “toter!” So, there was a constant echo throughout the day: “toter”, “toter”,” toter”,” toter” … and so forth.

And if you did not come in time, they would complain that you were preventing them from doing their job because you were not taking their accumulated tobacco fast enough to allow them to continue. There was one occasion where a man name Ivory (who was called I.B., for whatever reason) complained to me “you no wanna tote my bacca?” As if I had some ulterior motive for not getting to him on time.

“Cropping” was the term used for removing mature leaves from tobacco-plants. Leaves are cropped as they ripen, from the bottom to the top of the stalk. The first crops of leaves located near the base of the tobacco stalk are called “sand lugs” in more rural southern tobacco states. They are called “sand lugs” because these leaves are close to the ground and get splashed with sand and clay when heavy rains hit the soil. Usually, a field is harvested on a weekly basis; each week you returned to crop the next set of ripe leaves, and this would continue thought-out the summer until the stalk was finally bare. The croppers were men, and the stringers were usually women or young girls.

Smaller farmers would have the women situated at a designated area awaiting the arrival of cropped tobacco. Upon receipt, they would have one person hand them the tobacco, usually 3 or 4 leaves in a bunch, and they would proceed to string the bunch on a pole that was 4 feet long. Some women were good at this and there was often a beautiful art to the way they could string tobacco on one side of the pole and whip it over to other side as if they were tying a not. The women were paid by the number of poles they completed.

Larger farmers would have an apparatus that pulled by a tractor that would contain the croppers and the stringers. There were no “toters” in this type of apparatus, as the croppers could hand the tobacco directly to stringers who were sitting on seat above the cropper; more efficient, right? The harvesters had places for one team of ten workers: eight people cropping and stringing, plus a packer who moved the heavy strung poles of wet green tobacco from the stringers and packed them onto a pallet that was connected to the tractor as well.

There was a group of guys responsible for the loading the tobacco into the barn. The pallets of stringed tobacco would be loaded on a trailer and carried to the barn. The barn contained several rows and several levels which were call tiers. You would begin loading the barn from the top, and then levels 2 and finally level one. In order to do this, there would be a loader on the top tier and one loader on the middle tier; these two individuals would straddle two rows (legs apart) and the sticks of stringed tobacco would be handed from the bottom level to the person on the second level, who would then hand the to stick to the person on top level. The person at the top was responsible for hanging the tobacco on the columns. This process continues until all rows and all levels had been filled.

When the tobacco had been cooked (cured),usually around 3 days after starting burners, the process would be reversed when unloading the tobacco; this was more fun than loading because the tobacco would also now be much lighter, as all of the liquids would have been drawn out by the heat, leaving only a dried yellow leaf. At this stage, it is as close to a cigarette as it would ever get. Once unloaded, there used to be a process of separating the cooked tobacco by “grades.” This would require examining each leaf by looking at its color to determine if it was a higher grade or lower grade. There would piles of beautiful yellow tobacco, some brownish color tobacco, and third pile of very brown tobacco, which I think was used for cheap cigars. Obviously, the higher grade would garner more money than a lower grade, although all of it would be sold.