|
“The Moonshiner & The Sheriff”
The following is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the living. There are no innocents. Perched at the head of a high ridge was the country grocery. These days it would be called a rural convenience market. In the front room bread and milk, sodas and cigarettes lined the shelves. In the back room moonshine made the money for proprietor Charley Pride. It was a conspiracy of the community that kept the business going and prevented the sheriff from closing down the illegal enterprise.
Year after year a rural ritual was replayed as the well-known ruse provided comic relief and white lightning for the citizenry of the community. Charlie's place went undisturbed until a month before the periodic elections in which the sheriff was standing for reelection in this "dry" county where liquor was illegal. To insure his reelection, the sheriff made a dramatic show of force to remind the voters that he was a fearless enforcer of the law.
On a sunny Saturday morning after cows were milked and breakfast finished, the folk living on the ridge, as if on cue, would look down the valley and await the parade of sheriff's patrol cars making their pilgrimage to Charlie's place. It was as predictable as sunrise. Neighbors would begin to congregate at Charlie's and chew and spit, pop tops off soda and ready themselves for the election season ritual.
All the while, Charlie was selecting a fruit jar full of his finest brew. Then he would walk out to the fence separating his property from the field belonging to his lifelong friend and neighbor, the Reverend Orville Comeforth. The Reverend was the preacher at the little church midway down the graveled back road off the ridge. He would push back the blackberry briars and gently set the whiskey just out of view. Then he would turn and stroll back to the store and take his place behind the counter.
Moments later the slow-moving procession, lights flashing, would drive onto the parking area before the store. Deputies would pile out of their cars followed by a reporter and photographer from the newspaper back in the county seat town. The sheriff would pose with the gathered congregation while flashbulbs popped. Then he would shake hands all around and ask how all the families were in the community. Then he would stride officiously into the store and "Howdy" Charlie. They would engage in some familiar pleasantries. Finally, the sheriff would say, "Charlie, I hear you been runnin' some moonshine out here."
Charlie would say something like, "Where'd you hear that? I cain't imagine who would tell a thing like that."
They would hem and haw a little back and forth. Then the sheriff would say, "Now Charlie, you and me have been friends for years and I know you ain't goin' to lie to me. Have you got any 'shine around here?"
Charlie, in a sudden show of remorse, would then confess, "Yep, sheriff, I have got one jar full." He would then lead the band of lawmen to the fence where he would reveal the stashed firewater.
The sheriff would say, "But Charlie, that's on the preacher's property. I cain't arrest you for that. And we know the preacher ain't having nothin' to do with that stuff." Then the sheriff and his men would load up, turn around and slowly drive back to town having done their duty until reelection time.
|
