Uncle Roy

The long and storied history of distilled spirits.

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Truckinbutch
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Uncle Roy

Post by Truckinbutch »

Uncle Roy was a younger brother of my Grandfather . One of numerous children sired by my great Grand father at the turn of the last century . They all led productive lives and reared large families . Roy and his wife raised 12 to productive maturity and buried two . He busted his butt to feed the 12 that lived on his side hill farm augmented by working in a deep mine . All the kids learned to work for their keep at an early age .
His passions beyond making babies included keeping a prime pack of fox hounds and a good flock of fighting chickens . Making a little whiskey helped subsidize the the other hobbies of chickens and fox hounds .
A high dollar chicken fight was scheduled in the loft of a dairy barn in a blind hollow one ridge over from where I live now . Big money people were in attendance .
Uncle Roy walked across the ridges 6 miles from his house with 7 quarts of his whiskey in the pockets of his long wool coat and a box with a good rooster in each hand . He planned to sell his whiskey to get enough pocket cash to bet on his roosters .
That part of the plan worked well . He sold out his likker except for his personal pint and the fights began in the chicken pit . He bet his roosters well and handled them good . Had a pocket full of cash money to speculate on when the State Police staged a raid .
Some 'dogooder' in the community had dimed them out to the State Police about the chicken fight . About 20 bullassed state boys swarmed the barn puttin everybody on the floor and wringin the neck of every chicken they could get hold of . Ckickens were sqackin their last and people were runnin and hidin wherever they could . Uncle Roy skun down a hay chute to the milkin parlor and run out the shit ramp to a flyin leap over the pile and lit out for home over the ridges .
One trooper decided to make him a habit and started chasin him across the bottom . He would get just close enough behind Uncle Roy that he could feel the trooper's fingers scrabblin at the tail of his long coat flying out behind him . Every time Uncle Roy felt those fingers on his coat tail he found just a little more speed .
The footlog across the creek fouled the trooper . Uncle Roy hit it perfect in the dark and the trooper missed a step and skun his nuts before he hit the creek .
Uncle Roy made it home over the ridges with his chicken fightin and whiskey sellin profits still in his pocket .
Such was life in our hollers 'back in the day '.
If you ain't the lead dog in the team , the scenery never changes . Ga Flatwoods made my avatar and I want to thank him for that .
Don't drink water , fish fornicate in it .
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Bushman
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by Bushman »

You sir can tell a story :D
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S-Cackalacky
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by S-Cackalacky »

Bushman wrote:You sir can tell a story :D
+1 on that. These are the kinds of things that die with time unless someone like you sees fit to pass it on.
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Truckinbutch
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by Truckinbutch »

Thanks for the kind words . With the whiskey trade and use filtering in from both sides of the family I have a small bag of such stories that I could share on occasion . Don't want to dominate a thread or become boring.
Just plain to good to be here learning enough to carry on the tradition in the proper fashion .
If you ain't the lead dog in the team , the scenery never changes . Ga Flatwoods made my avatar and I want to thank him for that .
Don't drink water , fish fornicate in it .
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Rastus
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by Rastus »

can i sign up for a signed book? whenever you get it done will be fine :lol:

that was great! thanks for sharing.
She was just a moonshiner,
But he loved her Still
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Truckinbutch
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by Truckinbutch »

Rastus wrote:can i sign up for a signed book? whenever you get it done will be fine :lol:

that was great! thanks for sharing.
That book writin is harder work than makin likker and ya gotta spel good . Others have been after me to write it down for years and I've tried . Got published a couple of times . I'd rather take a seat on the 'liars bench' on the store porch , have a couple of pulls , and swap a few stories .
Mebbie if I get me one of them ghost writers that would set and listen while my friends and I are vistin and copy some down (headscratch) .
If you ain't the lead dog in the team , the scenery never changes . Ga Flatwoods made my avatar and I want to thank him for that .
Don't drink water , fish fornicate in it .
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Rastus
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by Rastus »

well heck i enjoyed the reading so much i never even noticed any spelling problems... i could almost see it in my minds eye, like a movie, I always felt if a person writes the way they speak, a reader can feel it and a little sense of the character of the person telling the story....

one thing they like to do in these parts is to record the elders, let em tell their stories, either by audio or video.... that becomes the treasures of the future generations. if someone records it thats easy, then writing can always come later. but old stories like that can get lost unless someone passes it on... thank you for doing that.

i recall a story my grandma told me about my grandpa, but he was on a law side ... turns out there was a neighbor that homesteaded next to them in the wheat farm area of eastern washington, and this old timer dick davis they called him, was moonshining, and running booze from douglas county to grant county washington, well turns out the sherrif was in cahoots with davis and he got away with it till gramps tipped of some of the other state folks and got them busted. that man davis threatened to kill gramps. he always carried a gun after that. turns out later in life davis was suffering from syphilis and couldnt hardly talk but he needed help and let the medical folks talk to my gramps, in order to get medical help cause he had military service, gramps knew that and when the guy was down, even though he threatened to kill him he helped him out, so he could get medical ... as kids we would go out in the sage brush and wheat fields and mess around in that old house, he sold off eventually. well small and less interesting, but as for local or family history I am sure glad i made the time to talk and get That story



well, thanks again

Rastus
She was just a moonshiner,
But he loved her Still
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S-Cackalacky
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by S-Cackalacky »

Truckinbutch wrote:
Rastus wrote:can i sign up for a signed book? whenever you get it done will be fine :lol:

that was great! thanks for sharing.
That book writin is harder work than makin likker and ya gotta spel good . Others have been after me to write it down for years and I've tried . Got published a couple of times . I'd rather take a seat on the 'liars bench' on the store porch , have a couple of pulls , and swap a few stories .
Mebbie if I get me one of them ghost writers that would set and listen while my friends and I are vistin and copy some down (headscratch) .
Many authors write in the vernacular of the characters they are writing about. It adds to the authenticity of the story.

Have you looked at online publishers such as Blurb - http://www.blurb.com ? You could write at your own pace. You simply download their app and type directly onto the page. It takes care of the formatting. When you're finished, you have a book that can be printed on-demand. This could be a great legacy to your family and I'm sure that many here would be interested in a copy.

Just do it!

Just sayin',
S-C
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Truckinbutch
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by Truckinbutch »

S-Cackalacky wrote:
Truckinbutch wrote:
Rastus wrote:can i sign up for a signed book? whenever you get it done will be fine :lol:

that was great! thanks for sharing.
That book writin is harder work than makin likker and ya gotta spel good . Others have been after me to write it down for years and I've tried . Got published a couple of times . I'd rather take a seat on the 'liars bench' on the store porch , have a couple of pulls , and swap a few stories .
Mebbie if I get me one of them ghost writers that would set and listen while my friends and I are vistin and copy some down (headscratch) .
Many authors write in the vernacular of the characters they are writing about. It adds to the authenticity of the story.

Have you looked at online publishers such as Blurb - http://www.blurb.com ? You could write at your own pace. You simply download their app and type directly onto the page. It takes care of the formatting. When you're finished, you have a book that can be printed on-demand. This could be a great legacy to your family and I'm sure that many here would be interested in a copy.

Just do it!

Just sayin',
S-C
I appreciate the good wishes and fine advice . Been gettin better at the two fingered typin and gradually becoming mere computer literate . I think I will explore some of these venues . In the mean time I will continue to post a bit now and then here and in off topic for your (?) pleasure . Most of my stories need to be heard after you have had a drop or three of the magic elixer to free your mind to follow what life was like around coal camps and farms in Appalachia in the early 1950's .
If I do publish a book you can spit between your feet and tell folks ;"Yep . Knowed him when he was a kid just startin out ." Gives ya 'liars bench creds. :)
If you ain't the lead dog in the team , the scenery never changes . Ga Flatwoods made my avatar and I want to thank him for that .
Don't drink water , fish fornicate in it .
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S-Cackalacky
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by S-Cackalacky »

Good on you! I'm looking forward to reading more.

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Truckinbutch
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by Truckinbutch »

S-Cackalacky wrote:Good on you! I'm looking forward to reading more.

S-C
Just posted one in off topic . Pour youself a tall one and go back to the days of yesteryear . :)
If you ain't the lead dog in the team , the scenery never changes . Ga Flatwoods made my avatar and I want to thank him for that .
Don't drink water , fish fornicate in it .
pale horse
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by pale horse »

In ky my 13 year lod boy helped feed and fight 1000 fighting hens and roosters this is 2012 mind you he had a great time in the fighting pits and my friend gave the kid 300.00 when he won 6.000.00 in one night in north ky it costs 40.00 to get into a pit and you have a id with your photo on it no id no fight to bet on roosters.no cells or photos allowed i called down on new years and asked how much hhe wone this year 18.000.00 this year after feed.
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Re: Uncle Roy

Post by contrahead »

(I did not wish to create a new topic, so I'm tacking my comment on here; right after other comments about fighting chickens).

(* The egg came first, because whatever layed the egg was not quite a chicken; and what hatched from the egg - was a new mutation that we now recognise as a chicken).
twellshot009.jpg
The Internet is a strange place. In some instances it seems as though certain information is welded into position, rock solid, bound to exist for eternity. In some other instance though, information tends to be very ephemeral, fragile and short lived. Link rot is responsible for much of that loss. Who wants to pay$ year after year to host a pet website that generates no income or has few viewers?
Sometimes the web is a wealth of information on a subject. At other times though, there is a lot misinformation, bad information, or just plain crap. People also tend to parrot each other, far too much. After an original writer says something, a week later the web is full of other copy-cat versions of the same story, pretty-much verbatim. Opinions sort-of become facts somehow, by consensus (how many times an idea is repeated).

Such is the case with the original chicken.

Quote:
“Most scientists agree that the Southeast Asian Red Junglefowl (gallus gallus) is the primary wild ancestor of chickens. However, because DNA studies show that the Red Junglefowl lacks the gene for yellow skin (and shanks) it is believed that some point, hybridization with the Grey Junglefowl (Gallus sonnaratii) of India has occurred”. (There are other subspecies too: Gallus lafayetti, Gallus varius and just regular chickens; Gallus gallus domesticus). But the asian Red and Grey (Indian) junglefowl are commom, unremarkable looking birds. The DNA trail is inconclusive.
Red_junglefowl_hm.jpg
The young or inexperienced reader might take this information (for what little it is worth) and look for pictures or characteristics for “the primary wild ancestor of chickens” and come to the likely conclusion that it looked like today's regular chicken – which it probably did not. The earliest junglefowl might have had an upright body posture like the white bird in the center, below.
twellshot007.jpg
I once read a story about an American pilot (after WWII) that brought back a few tall junglefowl from some island in Indonesia (Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands). These birds were valuable because of a rare bloodline. They were big (30 – 36”tall ), supposedly primitive ancestors of the modern chicken. But I can't find the story, perhaps 20 years later now, on the fickle, fugacious Internet.
rooshot01-3.jpg
But I think that the true ancestor of the common chicken was a jungle-fowl that stood up in the middle of a path and offered a challenge, to a human or tiger alike. A cock that held a predator at bay as the hens ran to safety.

I've been around domestic chickens all my life. But I've held a game-fowl only once. (I once came home in the middle of the night and glimpsed a hen dodge behind some crates in the driveway. I grabbed her by the legs and pulled her out; but it was a struggle because she screamed and fought like hell. That game hen was nothing like a regular chicken. She was heavy. Her bones were large and hard. She had muscles and was powerful). What I had a hold of, didn't at all remind me of a chicken. Without diving in from a blind spot, it's hard to imagine any large hawk or young eagle, getting the best of a big gamecock that sees it coming.

Some of these birds are very rare. Cockfighting breeds are illegal to even own in some states, whether their fought or not. People that do raise them seem to keep them locked up in little pens. Some of these birds can fetch over $1,500 to $2,000 as breeders.
roollshot088.jpg
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The first link following, is a short but worthwhile read.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php ... -not-food/

https://expertvagabond.com/central-amer ... kfighting/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... all&no-ist
https://www.ncsl.org/research/agricultu ... -laws.aspx
Omnia mea mecum porto
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