Who got caught Shinin'?

[The Chemist]

History, or Folklore: I don't know. "Still" a good story.
From our local "fluff" writer.

Teddy Allen: Stories 'still' told in the South

March 3, 2005

Mertie Miller told me the story one late spring day on her porch as tiring pansies battled clover and kudzu to the left of the stone steps and the smell of turned dirt rode the rich evening wind.

I was 8 and would listen to somebody tell a story as long as they'd tell it good. Mrs. Mertie told them good, even the reruns. This was a rerun, sort of like one of her "greatest hits."

She'd start: "At the end of a quiet Carolina day in 1962, not two miles from here over there behind the Ford farm, Narvel Prince was arrested for moonshining. Everybody in town knew by breakfast the next morning. Half the people cussed him, the other half started praying for him. I did a little of both.''

And here she'd go, something like ...

You could smell dead chicken frying in the pan from a nearby farmhouse just outside the tree line when Sheriff Zimp Ivy read Narvel his rights in plain South Carolina mumble. The clearing was quiet except for the low hum of Narvel's truck radio and the squirrels. No one was there but Narvel and the sheriff and his deputy. Even if you counted Narvel's moonshine still, in full bloom at the moment, he was outnumbered, two badges to zip.

Still, it smelled like a picnic. Something about hot grease really loves anything downwind.

This was not good for Narvel. Anyone who's been there will tell you there's nothing much worse than getting arrested around suppertime.

His untimely capture hurt Narvel on several fronts. One, the roast he had in the oven of his two-bedroom, one-bath white wood house only three miles away down Highway 59 was going to burn, no doubt about that. He couldn't even bring himself to think what might happen to his tomato plants.

Two, there was the obvious inconvenience of the arrest itself, even though it was his friends doing the arresting. And the worst thing was the pregame show for the Atlanta Braves had just come on his pickup radio. Perfect reception on a partly cloudy night.

It's always something.

But the arrest did more than irritate only Narvel, just two cases away from being loaded and gone when the sheriff arrived. For the whole town, the incident was not without repercussions.

For starters, the county's lovers of rockgut would have to find a new supplier now. On the bright side, there was always liquor to be found if you wanted it bad enough. The real damage was what the arrest did to the hearts and souls of the majority of people in town. It challenged what they felt would be eternal, or at least a given until the day they died.

Mainly, the arrest and subsequent conviction of Bro. Narvel Prince, a friend to every man, woman and child in his home county, meant the First Baptist Church was going to have to find itself a new pastor.