Flashback Friday ~ Meet Granny

As a child my main objective at any given time was to remain as small as I possibly could and that I could stay out of sight and hopefully out of mind. My favorite seat at my granny’s was in the wood box in the corner of the kitchen. From there I had the perfect vantage point to see what was coming at me from all angles. I could see down the hallway that led to the living room. I could see the back door where everyone that wasn’t a stranger came into the house. Most importantly I could sit and watch my granny cook and do what I fondly referred to as ‘the pace”.

My granny was the most amazing woman. She stood a towering 4 feet 11 inches and was made of solid steel and filled to the brim with piss and vinegar. She would not hesitate to shoot you if she didn’t like you and I learned much about ‘shooting with accuracy’ under her tutelage.

I remember one particular afternoon when I was hiding in my little box in the corner watching her do ‘the Pace’. The kitchen window was wide and faced the road that led into our holler where the matron of the family ‘granny’ resided. In the mountains, that is actually not so uncommon that the family would set up in a crevice between the mountains many times called Hollers. It was a product of lifetimes of feeling the need to hole up and protect yourselves from the enemy. In our case, the revenuer, the government or anyone that ‘weren’t from around heeere’!

From her vantage point in the kitchen granny could always see someone coming long before they ever got to the cattle guard that separated her from the rest of the big bad world. Her habit was to go to the stove, lift the lid, stir the contents, close the lid, wipe her hand on her dressing gown, go look out the widow and repeat. For hours she would Pace and Cook. As a matter of fact, when we weren’t out doing chores that’s really about all that she did do.

This particular afternoon, I was watching her with amusement when like a lightening bolt she took off down the hallway for the front door, grabbing a 3030 pump rifle along the way. The whole time yelling, I’ll kill that son of a bitch. I think she did also yell back at me to stay put, but duh like that was going to happen. This was extreme excitement from the Pace.

As she leapt off the front steps she threw the shotgun up against her side just like in the movies and within seconds she was headed down the driveway, rifle to the ready. I walked out on the front porch and hid behind a banister the whole time trying to see what or who she was going to kill.

She was already half way down the mile driveway when I saw a very familiar Black 56 Chevy pickup truck peaking over the hill and down the driveway. It was Marvin the moonshiner coming to bring my grandfather his weekly jugs of moonshine.

Well, the moonshiners truck didn’t even hit the cattle guard before my granny cocked that 30/30 with one hand like something you would only see on Gunsmoke and before I knew it she had shot the windshield out of Marvin’ truck. She was cocking it again, still on the charge as Marvin quickly shifted the truck into reverse and went flying backwards as fast as he could drive back up the holler.

I never saw Marvin down our holler again and I’m assuming that from that day my grandfather had to go pick up his poison instead of the door-to-door delivery.

All I know for sure is that the moonshine sure did not stop coming. It continued to flow through my life like poison to an inmate condemned to die by lethal injection.