Day: July 9, 2017

CHAPTER 12

      About the next thing we did, was to lock up the old house and take a trip to Canada. We took Barrett Dick along with us. A very good friend of mine. As kids, we had gone to school together. We were gone a couple of weeks and had a wonderful time. When we returned, I got busy. We made great plans.

      Down the road about a mile, was an eighty acre plot of land that could be bought by paying up the back taxes. Most of it was still in brush and there were no buildings. We bought the place. Like the place we were living, a drain ditch ran through it. Unlike the one where we were living, there was no pipe. It was all open and ran lots of water. Just south of where the ditch crossed the road, we built a new house, drilled a well, built a barn and a chicken coop and moved in. I will never forget all the raised eyebrows among all the neighbors. The big question was; Where in hell did he get all his money! And I guess right up until this day, they never found out.

      After we moved in, I bought ten head of milk cows. I think I paid an average price of thirty dollars each. Also, I bought a cream separator. There were no rural electric lines at this time. But I fixed that. I put a water wheel in the drain ditch, attached it to a six volt car generator, backed up by a couple of storage batteries, and we had electric lights all over the place. Plus enough to run our radio. We were sitting pretty.

      Then along come little Gertrude. She was so tiny and frail that we weren’t sure she was going to make it. But she did. And not only did she survive, but turned into one of the prettiest girls that ever lived. Also the sweetest. Then along come Bill. A big ten pound boy. And I was proud. He had a chest on him that looked like a full grown man. Many a time I proudly displayed his magnificent form.

      We were now in the worst times of the big depression. But I was never out of a job. In the summer times, I irrigated the Obermeyer orchards. Either that or run a spray rig for the J.C. Pulambo Fruit Co. I got a job with F.H. Hogue, which took care of the winters. I run the night shift for his big apple drier in New Plymouth. I could write a book on what happened during this period, but will go on to the next step.

      We now had a new president. Franklin D. Roosevelt. He tried to put people back to work. The P.W.A. was formed. Many projects were going on. Men standing around with shovels in their hands, doing nothing. There was some relief. I have often thought, maybe I did break the law a bit when I made that big batch of moonshine, but I never went on any form of relief and my family never went hungry.

CHAPTER 11

      Just across the road from where we lived, was an old abandoned house. The old Earl Bishop place. Boxing was fast becoming one of our leading sports. I think that the reason that it was so popular at that time, was on account of so many people being out of work. A bunch of us young fellows put a ring and some punching bags in the old building and began training. There were several guys that lived around there that were real pros: Lance Earp, Bill and Auto King and others. The boxing course I had taken years before and the many battles in holding my street corner as a news boy in Boise, gave me quite an advantage over the other amateurs. I guess I was pretty good. In a short time, I was fighting professionally. I didn’t have a real knockout punch but was a good boxer. I fought some of the best light and welter-weights in the country. Even some middle-weights. This didn’t pay much but kept food on the table. It was a damn hard way to make a living. I kept looking for something better. I kept thinking about what Buddy Frank had told me. I was getting desperate. There was one fellow that I had known all my life that was a moonshiner and boot-legger. His name was Emmett Parks. He had been in and out of jail so many times that he lost track of the number. I went and paid him a visit.

      This guy owed me a couple of favors. Like the time that he had broke jail in Caldwell and had come tearing down the road to the ranch, broke and out of gas. Also he had a flat tire. I had an extra spare for my car. I gave it to him along with a ten dollar bill. I didn’t want to see the guy go back to jail. Yes, I figured he owed me one. I asked him. “Shorty,” which was what everyone called him, “I know that you have made and sold a lot of whiskey these past years. Some of it good and some pretty rotten. At least that is what everyone tells me.” Shorty nodded, “And you have been told right.” “How come,” I asked him, “that it isn’t all good?” “Why do you want to know?” “Because,” I told him, “I want to make up a ten gallons for myself. I will not be a competitor of yours. That I promise.” “The reason that I get a bad batch once in a while,” he explained, “is because it hadn’t been taken care of properly. Making good moonshine is just like making a good batch of bread. Everything must be done just right at the right time.” The guy gave me a good lecture and showed me his still, which was at the present time, in his bedroom. When I left there that night, I knew how to make whiskey, good whiskey.

      Even in these tough times, I had managed to hang to some cash. I could still scare up a couple of hundred dollars. I told Helen about Buddy Frank’s offer. Also, about my meeting with Shorty. She had only one comment. “Why don’t you do it. But promise me one thing. After you fill this order, you will call it quits.” I promised. Then I started work.

      First, I bought a copper wash boiler and fifty feet of half inch copper tubing. Soon my still was ready. One hundred pounds of cane sugar, two pounds of bakers yeast, plus fifty gallons of warm well water, put into a fifty gallon oak barrel, put two inches of bran on top and wait. In about seven days, the bran cap will sink. Now is the proper time to fire up the still. By setting a batch to brew every day for a week, I soon had one of those big upstairs rooms in that old house filled with mash barrels.

      Shorty told me of a bootlegger supply house in Boise, where I could buy ten gallon white oak kegs, charred inside. I bought several to start with. Also a hydrometer for testing the booze. As Shorty had told me, on the seventh day, barrel number one was ready to run. I fired up the Coleman gas stove that night and before morning I had a ten gallon keg of 100 proof moonshine, plus about two quarts extra. I carried down all the waste and dumped it into the drain ditch which run by the side of the house. I pumped water from the well and carried it upstairs, warmed it on the stove and set another batch. So every night for about two months, I repeated this performance. And where did I keep all this booze? As I said before, a drain ditch ran by the side of the house. A six foot concrete pipe had been installed at this point. For about a hundred and fifty feet, the water ran through it. So every morning, I would take a full keg and carry it down to the upper end of the pipe. Float it down the pipe that was about half full of water, then find a joint between the sections. With railroad spikes, steel hooks and ropes, I tied each keg to the wall. It would lay there in the water and roll gently in the slow moving current. According to my teacher, in a month’s time, this would age the stuff equivalent to ten years standing still. It kept the stuff moving through the charred wood inside.

It wasn’t exactly what you would call an easy life. But I kept training with the boys across the street; Now and then facing some opponent in the ring. Then summer was over and in that big pipe running by the side of the house, was about seventy ten gallon kegs of moonshine! We had spent all our money for supplies, plus using up all the credit we could muster. We decided to call it quits. I smashed the still. Took it out in the foothills and buried it. When I started this project, I told Buddy Frank, “Don’t look for anyone else, I will supply you.” There had been nothing more said between us. Then one day, I crawled down in the pipe and cut one of the kegs loose. When I got it out in the sunlight, it looked dark with age. I removed one of the stoppers and took a sample. It was dark amber in color and no longer smelled like the raw material I had put in there. I tested it for proof. It was right to 100. He said it should be at least ninety. Well he could probably gain a gallon and water it down. I put the plug back in. I filled a gunny sack, part full of chopped hay, then dropped in the keg. Finished filling it with chopped hay and sewed it up so as to look like a sack of grain. I threw it into the trunk of my old car and we headed for Boise and Buddy Frank.

      I left him the keg for sample, assuring him that it was all the same. Then we took off for home. We sure held our breath for a few days. Then through the mail, come a plain post card. On it was printed; Bring over the forty nine. Signed, B.F. It took me a few days to get them put in sacks like the sample. But I finally got it done. I rented a truck from one of my neighbors and once more headed for Boise. That night I come home, with a check in my hand for the sum of three thousand dollars.

      Our first thought was to get a decent car. The old one was getting pretty well worn out. We went to Emmett and looked around. At that time, Howard Eaton was working for the Murray Bros., who owned the Chevy garage. He showed us an almost new model A Ford sport coupe with a rumble seat. We liked it very much. He told us to take it and try it out. Suddenly an idea struck me. These guys always have booze around, and there is still a bunch of kegs left floating in that pipe. I told Howard. “There is lots of ducks in the ponds just back of the house. Why don’t you guys come down early in the morning and we will go hunting. If we like the car, I will offer you a deal.” As I remember, it was on a Sunday and a whole car load of them come down. The hunting was great and we got a lot of ducks. Finally, we ended up in the shed back of the house. Everyone was all smiles. “What have you decided about the car?” Howard asked. “We like it.” I told him. “But I got to get rid of something before I can pay for it. Something that I took in on a bill from a guy over in Jordan Valley. While I had that service station in Caldwell, he run up a big bill. He finally paid me off but not in cash.” “And what did he pay you with?” “Moonshine.” I lied. “It was either that or nothing.” “And how much have you got?” At six dollars a gallon, ten kegs would just pay the difference between the two cars. “Ten gallon kegs.” I told him. “Have you got a sample here?” He asked. I pointed over to the drain ditch. “All ten of them are all up inside that big pipe. You got on your boots, wade out in there. I will crawl up and cut one of them loose.” In a few minutes, we come back with a keg. I went into the house and brought out some glasses. Before the day was over, we owned the Ford and still had all the money.

CHAPTER 10

      By spring, our money was all gone. Our President, Herbert Hoover kept telling us, “Prosperity is just around the corner.” But he didn’t say around which corner. Soup lines were established in most every big town in the United States. Crime, was on the up swing. Al Capone was running Chicago. Speak easies were springing up everywhere. Every day, jobs were getting harder to find. Service stations were going broke by the thousand. Even at twenty cents a gallon, it seemed too high. Lots of people that were working, were making less than ten cents an hour. I knew that I must do something. I started looking around.

      We took a trip back to Emmett Valley. I knew that I must find something to do. I was much better aquatinted over here. Maybe I could find something. There was an old couple that lived down below the enterprise ditch. Their name was Feaster. The Misses had just died and he was going to California. I rented the house, farm and all, eighty acres for the sum of ten dollars a month. I paid him a year in advance. We went back to Caldwell, locked up the service station and moved over. As I look back and recall that winter in Caldwell, I remember one great thing that happened. We had gained a beautiful daughter.

      Before we were married, Helen had lost the fingers of her right hand while working in a plywood factory. The insurance company had made a settlement. She would receive twenty dollars a month for the next twenty years. That is in Canadian dollars. We sure made good use of that money. I don’t know what we would of done without it. Even if that twenty was only worth thirteen in U.S. money.

      I did all kinds of odd jobs. Anything to make a buck. I was still a fast box maker. But disaster had struck this trade. No longer did the growers ship their fruit in boxes. Those thin bushel and half bushel baskets made of redwood took their place. No one would buy furs. Trapping come to a standstill. I knew that I must do something. There was another baby on the way and I wouldn’t see them starve.

      In those days, home brew was a favorite for those that liked to drink. There was the malt, the sugar and the yeast for sale in most every store. There was more beer drank in those days per. capita, than now. At least that is what the statistics say. Dad always had a batch brewing in the cellar. I guess he made a pretty fair brew and moonshine whiskey. There were bootleggers at every dance. Dad always liked to keep a gallon or so around. “Just in case of snake bite.” he would say.

      One of our neighbors, his name was Emmett Parks, made a lot of the stuff. One day when I was up to the ranch, Dad bought a gallon from him and hid it in the big grape vine just back of the house. Mother wouldn’t allow him to keep it in the home. Ray who was always snooping around, witnessed the transaction. (Later Ray bragged about it.) He had run in the house and got Mother. He had lifted out the jug and showed it to her. Then he had poured most of it out and filled it up with water out of the irrigation ditch. Naturally, Mother approved. Ray was now her fair haired boy. Always taking her to church, defending her against all evil, even his own father. He must have read somewhere, divide and conquer. He had got rid of me, Dad was next on his list.

      Feldman, Dad’s partner, also liked a little nip at the end of the day. At harvest time, when he was there, he always kept a bottle around. Then one day, Feldman come up with a new Son in Law. His name was Frank, Buddy Frank. As a dowry, the old Jew had sold him the loan office or pawn shop at a very low price and he had just taken over. I liked Buddy and we become friends. He liked to fish and hunt. Many times we went together. One day Buddy told me. “Ted, I got a problem.” “Anything I can do to help?” “I don’t know. But answer me this. Do you know how to make whiskey?” I shook my head. “Why do you ask?” He grinned. “As you probably know, us Jews stick together. We help each other whenever we can.” “So?” “There was one in Boise that for years supplied all the others with a good brand of whiskey. Sometimes it was moonshine and sometimes it was imported from Canada. This old boy died awhile back. Now, they are looking for another.” “And you could get the job if you could supply the stuff?” “Yes. But it would have to be good.” “How much of it are we talking about?” He pulled a notebook from his pocket. “Last year,” he said, “they bought over five hundred gallons. Got it form a guy over in Jordan Valley Oregon.” “And how much,” I asked him, “did they pay for it?” He looked down at the book in his hand. “The guy that made it,” he said, “got six bucks a gallon. and it was all in ten gallon, charred, white oak kegs. And it was ninety proof.” “Holy smoke! That is three thousand bucks!” “Any ideas?” he asked. I grinned at him. “Let me think about it. I will let you know.”