The Red Flannel Rag

waste. It was a great way to have fun because whomever the barrels belonged to could

not say a word to our parents because of the chance of getting caught.

We justified our behavior to ourselves by assuming the mash we wasted belonged

to Uncle Jake since he made moonshine right up until he went into a nursing home. My

mother told me that Jake was a dangerous moonshiner. She said, “He uses whatever

way necessary to make a quick batch for sale. He runs his mash through car radiators

and mixes his whiskey in zinc washtubs. I don’t like him selling moonshine to Grandma

Molly because I’m afraid she will die from his brew.”

I thought Mom might be proud that we filled Un cle Jake’s mash barrels with river

rocks, so I told her. I got a serious tongue lashing from her. She asked me, “How do you

all know the barrels belong to Jake? They might belong to somebody else and you

wasted a lot of money. Let the law take care of your Uncle Jake, and you mind your own

business.” Fortunately, she never told Dad what we had been doing.

I guess we felt justified in spoiling the mash because when Grandma Molly got

her hands on a pint of moonshine, she sipped at it until she was drunk. Mom always

fussed about Grandma Molly getting drunk on Sundays when we went to visit her and

Grandpa Austin. Mom said, “She gets kinda sloppy with her cookin’. She clams up and

won’t talk to anybody, and then wanders off somewhere and goes to sleep b efore its time

for us to leave for home.” A lot of times, Mom sent my brothers and me off into the

woods to find Grandma and make sure she was all right before we left Hopkins Gap for

home.

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