The Red Flannel Rag

Uncle Jim and his three children — Loretta, Bus, and Christine

s topped when he saw you coming.” He told everybody the truck ran me off the road. I

knew he was covering for me.

Uncle Jim always had an old car or two in his yard that he was “fixin’ up” as he

called it. I loved to watch him, so I would hang over the fender with my nose stuck right

in whatever he was working on. Every once in a while he would cross up some hot wires

and grab my arm. I would get a slight electrical shock. “What happened?” he said after

he stopped laughing at me, “Did it bite you?” I never stopped watching him even though

he shocked me because I liked being around him so much.

Uncle Jim was fifteen when his father, Grandpa John, died. He left Hopkins Gap

and lived in Pennsylvania for a year with Uncle Charlie. He returned to Hopkins Gap

and became a small-scale moonshiner to make his living. He gradually increased his

moonshine production to about one hundred gallons a week. He spent some time in

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