Moonshine was a big business in this area when I was growing up, and even for a few years after I was grown and married. Just the word, "moonshine" had an excitement to it and lots of money was made and spent on moonshine. The most exciting part of moonshining for us redneck boys was the runners that hauled the moonshine and most of us youngun's dreamed of outrunning the law in a hotrod car loaded with moonshine. Most of you probably know that NASCAR was started by moonshine runners racing the cars they hauled the "shine" in but the runner all of us wannabe's here envied the most was a local guy who drove a black 1940 ford coupe with a souped up Oldsmobile V8. That thing would fly, and since most of the law drove 6 cylinder Chevies they had no chance of catching him. About once every two weeks they would chase him down the highway by our house, actually chase isn't an apt discription. He would go by flat out, throwing up clouds of dust and slinging gravel all the way to our house. About 10 minutes later we would hear the sirens of the law chasing him and they would go by.
Just before I turned 20 I had the opportunity to become a moonshine runner. I grew up working on cars, my dad was a mechanic, and driving like a maniac on the narrow gravel roads. Evidently it caught someones eye because right after I got married I was offered a job hauling moonshine from Alabama to Amory. Two loads a week at $90 a load. That was big money for a run that was less than 40 miles. I had one of the better jobs in the area but only made $64 a week before taxes and it was a tempting offer but I turned it down. Times were changing, there was more law officers on the roads and they were using radios. I could outrun their cars but not the radios. Another thing that made me decide to turn it down was something that happened when I was 14 that could possibly happen to me if I took the job, and being newly wed and happy as a possum in hen house I surely didn't want anything bad to happen. Here's the story.
The county supervisor in our district started building a road, only a couple of miles from our house, through Lusby Bottom in 1954 but couldn't get the funds to build a bridge and stopped the road levee about 40 feet from a railroad track. Both the railroad and road were 10-12 feet higher than the level of the surrounding ground because the bottom was prone to flooding, plus there was a small creek that ran parallel with the railroad. That left a 40 foot gap between the end of the road and railroad that was anywhere from 10 to 16 or 18 feet lower than the road and railroad embankment.
One Friday night in 1957 the law was chasing a runner in a hopped up 56 ford and he turned down the unfinished road. He was loaded with moonshine and running flat out when he went off the end of the road and hit the railroad embankment. It completely demolished the car, and broke all the jugs full of moonshine, but they couldn't find the driver. They looked for him until daylight, then sent some officers to round up all the folks who lived in the area to help search for him. My father and I went to help.
The car was only about half as long as it had been before the wreck, there was blood everywhere and it was plain to see the driver had went through the windshield from all the blood on the pieces of glass that was left and on the mangled hood. They told us they knew he was too badly hurt to get very far and thought he had crawled off in the bottom somewhere to hide. There had to be close to a hundred people searching, we hunted all day but found no trace of him at all. They brought some dogs, including a couple of bloodhounds, and searched for almost a week before giving up. Speculation was he had crawled in a hole and died, and if ever found it would be by accident. The car didn't have a tag, which wasn't unusual as most runners took their tag off before making a run to keep the law from getting the tag number, and they couldn't find out who the car belonged to.
Fast forward 12 years to 1969, seven years after I was offered the job hauling moonshine. I was visiting my mom and dad one afternoon and William Berriman pulled in the drive. William and my father had been close friends, and drinking buddies on occasion, but he and his family had moved to Florida about 10 years earlier and this was the first time my father had seen him since he moved. They sat down on the porch and starting talking about old times and some of the things they had done. Eventually they got around to talking about the good times they'd had drinking moonshine and rambling around. In the course of the conversation my father asked William did he remember when the moonshine runner ran off the end of the road and wrecked. William's head snapped around and he asked why, and then asked my father if he heard something about it. Dad told him no, just wondered if he remembered it. William then said he'd tell us something if we'd never tell anyone, Dad looked at me with a funny look and said yeah, okay, we won't mention it.
William told us he had lived in a small house near the railroad, three miles east of where the runner had the wreck. We knew that already, but he went on to say the night of the wreck, about 1 o,clock in the morning, he had been awakened by someone pounding on the door. He got his gun, turned the lights on and opened the door to see who was beating on it. There was a man standing there with most of his clothes torn off, he was soaked in blood and he could tell the man was hurt bad. He got him in the house, got his wife up and they were gonna take him to the hospital but the man told him no. Wiliam said the guys face was cut to shreds, one of his ears was mostly gone, his left shoulder had to be broken and his left arm was turned backward at the elbow. William said he and his wife kept trying to get the guy to go to the hospital but the guy refused, and then told William he would give him $200 to take him to Alabama, but only if he never told anyone about him. That was more money than William made in a month so he and his wife cleaned the guy up as best they could and took him to a house in Vernon, Alabama. William said the guy never told him what had happened, but he put it together the next day when word got around about the moonshine runner having the wreck.
That cleared up the mystery of what happened to the moonshine runner, at least for my dad and I. I've heard several conversations about it in the intervening years but I never mentioned what William Berriman said and as far most folks know that moonshine runner is still somewhere in Lusby Bottom.
Just before I turned 20 I had the opportunity to become a moonshine runner. I grew up working on cars, my dad was a mechanic, and driving like a maniac on the narrow gravel roads. Evidently it caught someones eye because right after I got married I was offered a job hauling moonshine from Alabama to Amory. Two loads a week at $90 a load. That was big money for a run that was less than 40 miles. I had one of the better jobs in the area but only made $64 a week before taxes and it was a tempting offer but I turned it down. Times were changing, there was more law officers on the roads and they were using radios. I could outrun their cars but not the radios. Another thing that made me decide to turn it down was something that happened when I was 14 that could possibly happen to me if I took the job, and being newly wed and happy as a possum in hen house I surely didn't want anything bad to happen. Here's the story.
The county supervisor in our district started building a road, only a couple of miles from our house, through Lusby Bottom in 1954 but couldn't get the funds to build a bridge and stopped the road levee about 40 feet from a railroad track. Both the railroad and road were 10-12 feet higher than the level of the surrounding ground because the bottom was prone to flooding, plus there was a small creek that ran parallel with the railroad. That left a 40 foot gap between the end of the road and railroad that was anywhere from 10 to 16 or 18 feet lower than the road and railroad embankment.
One Friday night in 1957 the law was chasing a runner in a hopped up 56 ford and he turned down the unfinished road. He was loaded with moonshine and running flat out when he went off the end of the road and hit the railroad embankment. It completely demolished the car, and broke all the jugs full of moonshine, but they couldn't find the driver. They looked for him until daylight, then sent some officers to round up all the folks who lived in the area to help search for him. My father and I went to help.
The car was only about half as long as it had been before the wreck, there was blood everywhere and it was plain to see the driver had went through the windshield from all the blood on the pieces of glass that was left and on the mangled hood. They told us they knew he was too badly hurt to get very far and thought he had crawled off in the bottom somewhere to hide. There had to be close to a hundred people searching, we hunted all day but found no trace of him at all. They brought some dogs, including a couple of bloodhounds, and searched for almost a week before giving up. Speculation was he had crawled in a hole and died, and if ever found it would be by accident. The car didn't have a tag, which wasn't unusual as most runners took their tag off before making a run to keep the law from getting the tag number, and they couldn't find out who the car belonged to.
Fast forward 12 years to 1969, seven years after I was offered the job hauling moonshine. I was visiting my mom and dad one afternoon and William Berriman pulled in the drive. William and my father had been close friends, and drinking buddies on occasion, but he and his family had moved to Florida about 10 years earlier and this was the first time my father had seen him since he moved. They sat down on the porch and starting talking about old times and some of the things they had done. Eventually they got around to talking about the good times they'd had drinking moonshine and rambling around. In the course of the conversation my father asked William did he remember when the moonshine runner ran off the end of the road and wrecked. William's head snapped around and he asked why, and then asked my father if he heard something about it. Dad told him no, just wondered if he remembered it. William then said he'd tell us something if we'd never tell anyone, Dad looked at me with a funny look and said yeah, okay, we won't mention it.
William told us he had lived in a small house near the railroad, three miles east of where the runner had the wreck. We knew that already, but he went on to say the night of the wreck, about 1 o,clock in the morning, he had been awakened by someone pounding on the door. He got his gun, turned the lights on and opened the door to see who was beating on it. There was a man standing there with most of his clothes torn off, he was soaked in blood and he could tell the man was hurt bad. He got him in the house, got his wife up and they were gonna take him to the hospital but the man told him no. Wiliam said the guys face was cut to shreds, one of his ears was mostly gone, his left shoulder had to be broken and his left arm was turned backward at the elbow. William said he and his wife kept trying to get the guy to go to the hospital but the guy refused, and then told William he would give him $200 to take him to Alabama, but only if he never told anyone about him. That was more money than William made in a month so he and his wife cleaned the guy up as best they could and took him to a house in Vernon, Alabama. William said the guy never told him what had happened, but he put it together the next day when word got around about the moonshine runner having the wreck.
That cleared up the mystery of what happened to the moonshine runner, at least for my dad and I. I've heard several conversations about it in the intervening years but I never mentioned what William Berriman said and as far most folks know that moonshine runner is still somewhere in Lusby Bottom.
