A RIDE TO GLORY

In the beginning a message must have been dispatched to all guardian angels that they were to go forward and watch over little boys, forevermore!

My Father once owned the western side of a mountain, called the Whinnlin Ridge, on the western slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. In the 1930’s the government through the WPA built a gravel road across the mountain. When you looked from atop the Hooty Knob, about a mile west, this road resembled a large letter Z. Starting from the top and proceeding in a southerly direction then cutting back sharply in a northwest direction. Then again it turned sharply to the south.

At the lower southern tip of the zee at a place called Pine Springs, a small dirt road had been cut in the steep slopes to a small community in the valley below. Gandertown was a settlement of six or eight home sites. It had two enterprises. Fletch’s country store and Bootleg Billy’s! Fletch and Billy were brothers.

Fletch’s store carried all the necessities and an ample supply of the small luxury items these mountain people required or could afford. Billy’s establishment sold a rare and pure form of mountain moonshine. Billy’s brew would curl your lip up like a window shade and the mountain men beat a path to his door to buy, trade or barter a fruit jar of his notorious concoction.

Bootleg Billy had seven sons, ages four to twelve. His brother Fletch had seven daughters about the same age. Billy’s seven sons were to my brother and myself like a light to a moth, drawing us up to Gandertown every spare moment we could find.

Billy’s boys laid out of school anytime they felt like it. They never had to take a bath or wear shoes and fancy things like underwear. They all carried pocketknives, gravel shooters and a sack of Stud smoking tobacco. They made box traps, dead falls, wooden wagons, sleds and crossbows.

They knew every bad word ever spoken and were permitted to sleep in the woods in rickety shanties they built themselves. They also claimed to know exactly how babies were made. They were mean, ornery, kind, generous and happy. To my Mother, they were hellions of the first order, not fit for man or beast. To my brother and I, ages eight and eleven they were then as irresistible as their female cousins would prove to be a few years hence.

For sometime we had been whetting up the courage to strip Billy’s old Model T Ford , long discarded and rusting away behind the woodshed, push it to the top of the Whinnlin Ridge and free wheel a ride to glory, all the way to the Pine Springs. Many happy, carefree moments were spent in anticipating this glorious adventure!

We finally got up the courage we needed in the summer of ’36. The body, fenders, running boards, engine and all heavy items were discarded. We installed a lever type friction brake with a long wooden handle at the back wheels. The rotting tires were patched, booted, taped and tied. Wooden boards were installed as seats. We painted the whole thing a bright red. We were finally ready to go!

The push to the top was a laborious affair, bossed by the driver, Billy’s oldest son, sitting in the drivers seat guiding us to the top and threatening us with "If you don’t push ‘er going up, you can’t ride ‘er coming down." We pushed. We pushed with all our might. Finally we got to the top and turned the machine around. We were ready.

Our driver then produced a fruit jar of his father’s famous concoction, passed it all around to boost our courage and steel our nerves!

With burning belly’s, nine young lads climbed aboard for a free wheeling ride to glory!

"Give her a big push!"

"Whoopeee…..hallelujah!"

"Liquor and gas don’t mix."

"We ain’t got no gas. Don’t need none."

"Hit the brake."

"Betcha we’re doing forty."

"Hit the brake. Hit the dad burned brake!"

"Brake ‘er! Brake ‘er!"

"Brake ‘er hell, the handle broke.’

"Hang on. Hang on tight."

"Stay in the road!"

"Reckon we can make that first curve at the near cut?"

"Yeah, Munn’s curve is the one I’m worried about."

"Get on the upper side of the road or we won’t make the curve."

"Who’s chewing tobacco up there?"

"Betcha we’re doing sixty!"

"Whee, eat our dust."

"What if we meet Smith’s logging truck?"

"Here comes that curve, hang on."

"We’re going to wreck! We’re going to wreck!"

"Whew, we made that one."

"Betcha we’re doing seventy."

"Don’t yell, I’ve got to drive."

"Here comes Munn’s curve!"

"Hit the ditch line. Hit the damned ditch line!"

"Jump! Jump! Jump!"

"We’re goners!"

"Great balls of cat manu….."

About fifty feet, straight down below the road at Munn’s curve a thick curtain of mountain laurel, green briars, grapevines and huckleberry bushes were punctured with a scattering of steel, rubber and tender young human flesh.

"Where’s Rusty?"

"In top of that sarvest tree up at the near cut. Slung him off coming around the curve. Here he comes now."

"Anybody hurt?"

"Naw."

"Nope."

"Let’s roll a smoke. I know how we can get some ready rolls, free!"

"Hey look, the fruit jar wasn’t broken!"

While draining the last drop from the unbroken fruit jar and puffing on our cigarettes, we sat down in the ditch line, leaned back against the bank and hatched further plans to test the alertness of those special guardian angels!