THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604130148
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
I saw in the paper the other day where there has been a resurgence of moonshining in Franklin County, at the western tip of the state. That's where, unlike Chesapeake, they actually have terrain higher than a snake's belly button.
Anyway, us old geezers would like all you pre-geezers out there to know that, once upon a time, Chesapeake was full of moonshine stills burbling out enough illegal whiskey to float a fleet. At least they burbled until rev'nooers like Bill McFarland collared the moonshiners and busted the stills.
McFarland - call him Mac - was an agent for the old Alcohol Tax Unit. That was a federal crew whose agents worked with agents from the state Alcohol Beverage Control Board. There was a time, 30-plus years ago, when the Tidewater boondocks were so full of stills that they raided one almost every day.
And though the Chamber of Commerce might not consider it a civic badge of honor, the southern end of what is now Chesapeake was a prime location for stills. Lots of woods to hide in, lots of shallow ground water, raw materials like grain and sugar close at hand and a couple of good roads to run on.
Mac is 74 now and his ticker isn't tocking too smooth, but there was a time when he could outrun or outlast any moonshiner short of Brer Rabbit. In fact, one of my old newspaper colleagues, Carl Cahill of Great Bridge, called Mac ``The Galloping Ghost of the ATU.''
Like the day Mac was headed for federal court to testify when he spotted a guy loading moonshine jugs into a car. Never mind that Mac was spiffed up in a light blue suit and white buck shoes. He chased the guy. He caught the guy. Justice triumphed, but the shoes and suit got enough dirt on them to re-make Rhode Island.
Another time, the still was on the edge of a swamp. There went one of the moonshiners slogging through the swamp. There went Mac slogging after him. It was slow and heavy going. Every little while the moonshiner would stop to pant. So would Mac. The moonshiner couldn't get away but Mac couldn't quite catch up. Finally, Mac yelled, ``Hey, you might as well give up. I know who you are!'' That did it. The moonshiner surrendered, and they both got some rest.
However, when you talk about chasing moonshiners, the image is souped-up cars zooming down country roads at speeds that would make Superman get out and walk. Mac did his share of zooming, even though budget problems didn't help.
The government wouldn't spend a lot of money on more muscles for the engines of ATU cars, so the agents sort of did it themselves. One time, they sent an engine to a speed shop in Danville. When it came back, it had to be installed, right? The man who was then the U.S. attorney here, Norfolk lawyer L. Shields Parsons Jr., was a car buff, and he installed the engine.
Or maybe you figure that the ATU cars should have had radios so agents could call ahead and block a road. At one time, there were no radios authorized, so Mac bought one at a State Police surplus auction and put it in the chase car himself. He not only spent his own money on the radio but he got docked a day's leave time for the trip to the auction.
Way back then, training also was sort of catch-as-catch-can, and Mac half-shudders, half-laughs when he talks about it.
``We blew up big stills,'' he says, ``and the only instruction I got was what an old-time agent told me. He said you took the sticks of dynamite, lit the fuses and threw them at the still. Then you counted the explosions to make sure all the sticks had gone off.''
Mac finally got some instruction in handling explosives from the Navy but not before an incident that could have turned him into people chop suey.
``We were storing explosives in a shed,'' he says, ``and they told me to clean it out. I was shoveling some liquid off the floor and just dumping it until I found out what it was.
``It was nitroglycerin that had leaked out. Why it didn't explode I'll never know. Just lucky I guess.''
Mac's grinning all over his face when he tells the story, and when he says he loved the work and the excitement, you know he means it. I was young and sprightly enough to go on a few still raids myself, and they're some of my favorite news papering memories.
Like, there I was out in the woods with a raiding party. We are trying to sneak up on a still and the terrain is rough. ``Don't fall and break your leg,'' the agent in charge says to me.
``What if I do?'' I wonder.
``You can groan,'' he says. ``But groan quietly.'' by CNB