The Red Flannel Rag

always referred to as the “watermelon man.” People still use the term today when they

talk about moonshining days. When I asked who caught so and so, they still answer,

“He was caught by the watermelon man.”

Moonshiners were proud people and ashamed when they were caught. But there

were different ways to be caught. It was one thing to be chased down on foot by a

revenuer, but it was a disgrace to be caught by the “watermelon man” and thrown in jail

for making money for the family. “Uncle Jim expressed the feeling best, “When a man

ended up in jail by being tricked by a revenuer, it caused a great deal of resentment.”

My daddy and Uncle Shirley both narrowly escaped the revenue agents on foot

and both loved to tell the stories. Dad laughed as he told how he was making

moonshine with Richard Carr when they were surprised by the revenuers. They both

took off running through the woods. Dad said , “I could feel his fingers raking across my

back, but I got away from him. Richard made the mistake of wearing bib over alls; the

other revenuer caught him by the gallowses. He spent time in Chillicothe, Ohio, one of

the prisons where we were sent to spend our prison time. The other prison was Camp

Lee, in Georgia. That’s where I went both times.”

One of Uncle Shirley’s favorite stories is about the time he gave a revenue agent a

wild dash through the mountains on foot. He and another man had been making

moonshine since long before dawn. When the process was well underway, Uncle Shirley

left the still to go home to get some dinner for the two of them. He was returning to the

still with a stew pot full of ham sandwiches and a hundred pound bag of sugar on his

back. He came to a little creek and was looking down to find some rocks to step on as he

crossed.

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