“Why did I instantly think about those dern’ Duke boy”
Well I thought of Junior Johnson, the real deal turned race car driver, and Robert Mitchum, the movie version.
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BALLAD OF THUNDER ROAD
Let me tell the story, I can tell it all
About the mountain boy who ran illegal alcohol
His daddy made the whiskey, son, he drove the load
When his engine roared, they called the highway Thunder Road.
Sometimes into Ashville, sometimes Memphis town
The revenoors chased him but they couldn’t run him down
Each time they thought they had him, his engine would explode
He’d go by like they were standin’ still on Thunder Road.
(CHORUS)
And there was thunder, thunder over Thunder Road
Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his load
There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the Devil’s thirst
The law they swore they’d get him, but the Devil got him first.
On the first of April, nineteen fifty-four
A Federal man sent word he’d better make his run no more
He said two hundred agents were coverin’ the state
Whichever road he tried to take, they’d get him sure as fate.
Son, his Daddy told him, make this run your last
The tank is filled with hundred-proof, you’re all tuned up and gassed
Now, don’t take any chances, if you can’t get through
I’d rather have you back again than all that mountain dew.
(CHORUS)
Roarin’ out of Harlan, revvin’ up his mill
He shot the gap at Cumberland, and screamed by Maynordsville
With T-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead
The mountain boy took roads that even Angels feared to tred.
Blazing right through Knoxville, out on Kingston Pike,
Then right outside of Bearden, they made the fatal strike.
He left the road at 90; that’s all there is to say.
The devil got the moonshine and the mountain boy that day.
I think I will cruise down Kingston Pike, into Bearden and have me a drink in honor of 'Popcorn' after work today. I will, however, be traveling less than 90.
Dat's Maynardville LOL. Thunder Road was a network of old highways the runners used before Interstates were built. In the East Tennessee/Eastern Kentucky region to go from Kentucky to Ashville, Memphis, or Nashvile, you almost always had to go through Knoxville as it was the major junction for those highways then and for the interstates now. The movie was fiction but the runs were real enough.
Oddly enough Newport where Popcorn was is on the other side of the valley so to speak from Maynardville. About 40 miles as the crow flies. I'm from the Maynardville side of the valley and my wife's step mom was from Newport, Bybee, and Moshiem area depending on which map you use. My wife said her Granny had a man who would come by and sell some medicine :>} That was way back in the late 50's early 60's.
When I bought my place one of the first things I found was some old plastic jugs and a barrel with ax marks in it on the back of my property. I suspect that one was operating in the 1960's and the persons doing it long ago dead. My place is real close to where I grew up. I suspect some of the people I saw walking up the road when I was a kid in the early 60's were headed there.
They need to forget about the moonshiners though and get the blasted Meth Labs. Now there is a true public danger to all. There's likely not that much shine being made anymore anyway.
BTW the Feds where Popcorn lived a few years back were also busting grandpa's for selling a rifle or shot gun at a Flea Market or if they ran too many adds in a local sales papers for such.