Cold Spring Water

I received word of the death of a friend. He was a genuine old-timey mountain man, and a moonshiner deluxe.

Like the legendary Popcorn Sutton (pictured above), my friend moved easily among the hills and hollers of this region, fashioning well-crafted stills and firing them with wood he cut himself, filling them with clear, cold spring water that trickled through the cuts and valleys beneath stands of oak and rhododendron. Unlike Mr. Sutton, my friend owned and ran a respectable business and his moonshining was strictly a side venture. He was a master at distilling corn down into the potent clear liquid that so many have savored. Who can number the men who have been jailed or killed while engaging or involved in this outlaw trade? Moonshining and bootlegging have a rough romantic history in these mountains, and the colorful, violent reputation of the trade is well-deserved.

A few years ago, I gave a quart jar of my friend’s product to another friend as a gift on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding. The recipient of the jar told me later it was the best whiskey he’d ever tasted. And also the most powerful.

I’m sorry that I won’t see my friend any longer, him and his lean face and laughing pale blue eyes and dry, laconic wit. I know his customers at his “real” business will miss him, too. And even as I express my mild grief at his absence, I know that the good churchmen of the world would frown at my little tribute. “He was ultimately a criminal, S.K.,” they would say. “The law exists to guide us as Christians. The state bears the sword against evildoers, and to glorify such an individual in any way is, well, rebellion against God.”

Yes, do tell me more, Reverend. Perhaps you can live-stream it so you don’t have to get too close to me.

Requiescat in pace, Tom. You will be missed here, and I think you’ll be welcomed wherever you traveled to after you closed your eyes that last time.

~ S.K Orr