RICH: The wedding gift

Published 9:02 am Sunday, August 4, 2024

It was a wedding gift. We never knew from whom it came. Even after all these years.

I just opened the front door and there sat a quart jar of clear liquid. My first thought was that it was water.

Then I saw the note.

“Congratulations on your marriage. Have a toast, from a friend.”

I opened the jar to smell it. Holy cow. I nearly fainted. I brought the jar in and said, “Tink, someone left a quart of moonshine on our front porch!”

“I’ve never seen moonshine,” he said as he took the jar from my hand and smelled it. He, too, nearly fainted.

Now, remember, Tink comes to the South by way of Connecticut, Hollywood and Beverly Hills. This was a big shock to him. He had only heard of moonshine. He never dreamed that he would hold a jar in his hand.

And, to be honest here, though I am descended on one side of my family from some not-very-successful moonshiners, I also had not seen or smelled moonshine.

As Daddy used to say, “They could take a bushel of corn and sell it for 50 cents or turn it into a pint of moonshine that they could sell for two and a half dollars. It was the depression and the family was starving. What would you do?”

Daddy always made good sense.

The successful moonshiners ended up owning two or three hundred acres of land with a river running through it. But my grandfather barely managed to feed the family and hold on to a small farm with a pitiful house on it. Many years later, Daddy put cattle up there and built a wonderful, two-story barn and, using his ingenuity, put railroad ties from the ground to the second floor. That way, he could drive the truck up there and unload hay. A few months ago, a big wind storm came and blew down the barn. It was a sad day for all of us.

My grandfather squeezed out a living making his “white lighting” but his brother, Dillard, was much more serious about the business. He had partner who made what turned out to be an unfortunate decision: He went to work for the enemies.

“I’m gonna work for the revenuers and get me a pension,” he announced.

“Go,” Dillard said. “But you tell ‘em where my still is and I’ll shoot you dead.”

A short time later, the ex-partner showed up with another federal agent. Dillard was working the still. He shook his head.

“I told’cha if ya told ‘em where my still was that I’d shoot’cha dead and I always keep my word.” Killing a federal agent in front of another federal agent put him in prison for most of the rest of his life.

Amazingly, my daddy broke that chain of lawlessness and became such a good man that everyone in town called him “Honest Ralph.” Once, he bought something at the drugstore and when he got back to his mechanic’s shop, he realized that the clerk had given him a dime too much. He drove back to store to give back the dime.

I grew up in a home where there was no liquor and cuss words that I did not hear until I worked in stock car racing.

And, surprisingly, I’ve never given a bottle of moonshine for a wedding gift, either.

—Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of “St. Simons Island: A Stella Bankwell Mystery.” Visit www.rondarich.com for her free weekly newsletter.