Memories

ERV’S PIGS

Granpaw loved his family and tried to support them by farming some dirt-poor land. When that failed he turned to making Corn Liquor. ‘White Lightn’ as locals and revenue officers called it.

Mama told us of many times he would get drunk, he became an alcoholic, called ‘drunkard’ in those days, beat all of them and threaten to burn the house down with them in it. When he was drunk, he roared and the children knew to stay out of his way. When he was sober, he tried to make up for his poor behavior and would sleep it off in the barn.

One particular incident comes to mind that happened when my mother, Eva, was about twelve.

Grandpa was clever, even though he only went to third grade. Revenue Officers, "revenoors" to the locals, knew that he had made several stills and had broken them up but had never caught him at or near one. He knew every inch of the mountains and could hide out for days. He could out-run the ‘revenoors’ and be sitting calmly at home when they came.

Many of the houses, in the South, were built up off the ground several feet. By bending over a person could see anything stored underneath. He made the children crawl underneath and clean out everything in sight. The only thing visible was the chimney, which came down to below ground level.

He cleaned all the ashes out of the fireplace in the kitchen and started digging. As soon as he got the hole deep enough he had Mama and the other children carry buckets of dirt out and spread it around on the ground so it wouldn’t look suspicious.

After endless buckets of dirt he had dug himself a space big enough to stand up in and to build his copper still. He perfected it and finished off with a drain, a wooden trough, under-ground that led directly to the hog pens. He knew the hogs would eat the mash. The smoke went directly up the chimney beside the trap door he had made for himself under half of the wide chimney floor. He was quite proud of his accomplishment. This was the best "likker" he had ever made and orders were rolling in. Revenoors heard that he was in business again and came to the house several times looking for the still. They looked under the house but could see nothing. They gave up for awhile.

A neighbor stopped to visit and look at some fat pigs Granpaw had for sale. As they stood by the fence, the man remarked on how good the pigs looked... then he looked again. The pigs all seemed to be hogging it, pardon the pun, at one trough and then running around like crazy.

The man said, "If’n I didn’ know better, I’d say them pigs was drunk". He left with a healthy looking pig. The next ‘revenoor’ he saw he told about Erv’s pigs. He got a reward after the ‘revenoors’ came back and threatened to burn the house down if Granpaw didn’t tell them where the still was.

Granpaw had to give in and tell. He got six months in jail and that ended his career as the best "Likker man" in Habersham County.

His moonshine days were over. He and the family, still at home, moved to Towns County. They bought a small farm with an old house on Fodder Creek near Hiawassee, Georgia.