Interesting picture of Smoke at age 2 1/2

[Ol Smoke]

The picture below was taken of my family when we were living back on the White River Indian Reservation outside of Broken Bow, Oklahoma in June of 1953.

As a picture it isn't much but their is a story here.

 

The outfit my brother is wearing was his birthday present from his grandpa.  My brother had seen it in a store somewhere and just dreamed about it.  So they

all chipped in a bought it for him.  Mom said he wore it everyday for several weeks.  Now the interesting thing about this picture is my dad, and two cars behind us.

 

We had just moved back here from Longview Washington about 6 months before this picture was taken.  The job in Longview didn't pan out.  The mill near here

was not hiring at this time so dad was driving moonshine for his daddy's still operation.  My grandpa ran moonshine into 4 states during this time and operated

8 (Eight) 500 gallon stills all day everyday.  I don't know the make of the car behind us, but there is a another car just up from us near an old model T.  Both of 

these cars had been altered by my dad and his uncle to haul moonshine.  In those days most cars had 60 to 85 HP and were 6 cylinder motors.  Both of these

cars had been changed to the new Ford V8 and they had been "souped" up as they used to say to about 120 HP.  They had heavy duty truck axles and tires

and would do over 100 mph.  Behind the front seat was a metal framework that held the 1 gallon jugs of alcohol.  They carried 50 at time.  Each jug was separated

by a wool blanket placed over them;  which my mom sewed for them.  

Each night about midnight or so, they would drive to a local drop off point and get their load (my dad and his uncle).  Then dad would drive to another drop off

and let out so many jugs to that person, then drive on to the next, and so on.  His uncle would drive into Kansas and Arkansas and Dad drove mostly in Okla.

One night in 1954 near Ardmore, Oklahoma my dad was spotted by a local deputy and they had a car race for a little bit.  Then dad saw they had put up a

roadblock so he stopped and was arrested by this deputy.  Well, two or three hours later dad was on his way home without any record of his being caught.  It

seems he was making a drop off to the local Sheriff when the deputy and two other local cops had nabbed him.  And that was the way it was back then.

Most of the Arkansas big shots in politics and law enforcement were on the take back then from Grandpa. 

In the end, Grandpa made over $6 million dollars from 1919 to 1968 by making and selling moonshine.  When he died, in 1970, he owned 3 hotels, 20 rental

houses, and an old folks home (as they called it).  By 1984, his family had lost it all and my grandmother had to live out her days in one of the apartments in

the care home.  My dad never saw a penny of his father's money.  After he married my mother he never drank another drop of liquor.

 

Now one of the funny things about this picture is my brother's outfit.  We are living on an Indian Reservation and he ran around with that getup on all the time.

He even wore it to school.  Because of our Scottish heritage, none of us could wear  our hair long like the other Indians did.  Except for my sister and mother.

I tried several times to braid my hair into a traditional look, but it looked more like Carrot Top's hair.  Once it got over 8" long it just frizzed and curled.

 

[KILLERGUN]

Nice story there Smoke.. Interesting.. sometimes we feel like just sitting back and reliving the old days...

[fascistscum]

Very interesting anecdote.

 

You were so cute, in the picture.

 

Thank you for sharing this story with us.

[Nancy]

How old are you, Smoke?

[Ol Smoke]

How old are you, Smoke?

Soon to turn 63 on January 1st.

[docwarren]

While my dad grew up a farmer's son, he also ran shine. A lot of cool stories out there. Gas stations were few and far between in backwoods Ohio Valley back then. And a farm boy burning through a lot of gas from the 1 local gas station would tip off the cops. So he would put 1/4 tank of gas in at the gas station, then run to one of the farms that were pumping their own oil and top off the tank with crude right from the ground. Said that if he ever got chased it was a short one because they would stop because of the smoke pouring out the exhaust making it impossible to drive through.