Second ctass postage patd at Btack Mountain, NC 28711 Thursday, October 5, 1978, Vol 24 Serving * Black Mountain Swannanoa Montreat ^ Ridgecrest ToMrresM/fs m p/an by Dan Ward A subcommittee appointed by the joint schooi committees of the Owen District found structure probiems to be worse than expected in a tour One o/ the ciassrooms being used at Btaca Mountain Primary. JMany o/ the windows wii! not dose because o/ warping. fDan Ward) of Black Mountain Primary Schooi October 2. As a resuit of their in spection, the committee chose to send a letter to ali parents in the Owen School District urging them to attend the October 19 meeting of the Buncombe County School Board in Asheville. Fred Myers, chairman of the subcommittee, suggested that color slides showing extensive water damage and unsafe wiring be made and shown to the board that evening. Black Mountain Primary Principal Jerry Green, former Principal Leonard Keever, and custodian Leonard Worley took the subcommittee for a tour, pointing out places where moisture caused by improper roof drainage had caused three-month-old paint to peel off the walla, and in two places, caused the floor to rot to a point that a child could fall through Those two places are in a room now kept locked and unused, and in a used classroom, where the spot is covered by carpet and a table. Other rooms are kept empty and locked or are used for storage because of safety hazards. Green pointed out a rafter in a classroom on the ground floor that is bowed and cracking from rot. Ceilings in other rooms are warped, and alee afelMMng a*^ resu* of moistare. / Green said that most problems stem from con struction of an addition to the 60 year-old main buildhtg that Black Mountain firemen to hold open house The Black Mountain Fire Department wiii observe Fire Prevention Week with an open Muse from 2 to 5 p.m. October ! The department' s equip ment wiii aii be on diapiay, and fire truck rides wiii be given to children and aduits. Refreshments wiii also be served According to Fire Chief Gary Bartlett, the open house will be postponed until October 15 if it rains Sunday All persons are invited. The Black Mountain Fire Department made one run last week. A report of a stabie fire at Monte Vista Stabies turned out to be a controlled burning on September 30. Two engines and 17 men responded. The County Ambulance Service made nine routine and five emergency runs last week Our Valley dfecZines totfA va%feygrr<pM?f/t byBUJPenfound and Jane Hedge It is probable that the early Pioneers witnessed huge Hocks of passenger pigeons and smaller Mocks of Carolina parakeets. Of the larger mammals they would have sighted the gray wolf which **s iast recorded in Bun combe Co. in MM. They might have seen the tiustve puma (cougar, pan ther) which may still be Present in the high mountains "" the basis of tracks and supposed sighfings in the last **w years. Of the ungulates the elk (wapiti) was last "'ewed In 1M9 and the bison buffalo) was last seen about MM. Apparently the redu& bon in the fabulous Mocks ol passenger pigeons was due tc the hunting of the bird for tood Birds were attacked on the nest and woods were se! afire "The last passenger pigeon, an aged female called Martha, died on September 1, 1914, in the Cincinnati Zoo" (Wagner, 1971:317). The Carolina parakeet was eiiminated because of its fondness for man's crops Apparently the pioneers viewed all competing animals as expendable, especially the large birds and mammals There is iittie doubt that clearing of [and and sub sequent farming have reduced the number of forest organisms However, it is probabie that the totai number of plant and animal species had increased by farming practices around the turn of the twentieth century Many new habitats were created including the forest - field border and the rail - fence haven for wildlife The fence row served as a travel lane, a food source, a place of escape and a nook in which to live. Abundant birds along railfence rows included bobwhites, cardinais, cat birds, kingbirds, orioies, robins, song sparrows and predatory birds such as the bam owi, screech owi, red taiied hawk and sparrow hawk. Fence-row mammals comprised severs! species of mice; but also chipmunks, cottontails, groundhogs (wood chucks), possums and skunks The penultimate predator of the fence-row was the red fox with man as the ultimate, super-predator According to Smith (1974:12) many farms considered the fence-row as an outmoded nuisance, since they wasted precious far mland. Throughout The Valley, moat rail fences have been replaced by wire fences Furthermore, the immediate, weedy borders have been destroyed. iimited the number of downspouts from the Hat roofed building to two. In a heavy rain, water puddies up and seeps between the wails — and into the ceilings of vir tually every room in the older building. The existing wiring is the original cloth-covered exposed wiring installed when the school was built, adding to safety hazards there, Green pointed out. Based on suggestions from Myers and Keever, the sub committee chose to keep the presentation to the school board brief and simple, but with an intense emphasis on the immediate need to correct problems at the Primary School. "We aren't going to tell them we need a new school — we' 11 just show them that something has to be done. They'll see for themselves, I believe, that a new school is the only way," Myers said A Keever said that his ex perience in dealing with the m Schooi Board is that there is iittie effect from even the best demonstrations unless a )) number of persons are present to bach it up. "I'm afraid that you'd be wasting your money making ? slides if you can't pack that . board meeting with parents,'' g he said. Myers said that the sub- g committee will meet soon with the joint school committees to present the plan to enlist the 4 aid of all parents in the school district, as was done to obtain a new school In Swann an oa, to ? attend the presentation to the jj school board. A printed list of other ^ problems in the Owen district schools will be given to each s school board member at that ^ time, also, the subcommittee agreed. A group e/fort makes the potato harvest easier on the Lee Hutchtns Farm near Tom Brown Road (Dan Ward) AML profits down little despite 1-40 opening by Dan Ward Profits from the Black Mom tain ABC Store for the iast quarter were down only 7.36 per cent from the previous year, in spite of predictions compietion of 1-40 would cut considerabiy into business from, traveler* .Profits from the quarter ware disclosed at the Sep tember 38 meeting of the Black Mountain ABC Board. W.L. Wheeion, store manager, toid the board that income from the quarter was (229,237.50, down ap proximately 7.36 per cent from the same period in 1977. Wheeion said that traveling salesmen and pseaons from oat of town^ave continued to stop at the store, even though interstate traffic now bypasses Biaett Mountain. A1 Richardson, one of three ABC Board members, said eariier predictions indicated that business at the ABC store would drop by as much as 20 per cent. In tight of the relatively s,naii dr.p tn Mdes,^,bo.rd. mfdrr '.My agreed to drop a ptan to buitd another store near the interstate highway. The board had set aside $9,834 — the amount paid yeariy on the mortgage before the mortgage was retired last year — as a down payment on a new store. The new store in view of revisions in the NC Open Meetings Act that require a board to give 48 hours advance pubiic notice of non-reguiar meetings, the board agreed to set the third Wednesday of each month at 4 p.m. as the regular meeting time of the ABC Board. rd, heid a)t reopen to the^ The board si! to chose to put off action on a suggestion by the NC Board of Aicohoi'c Control that the stare instaii two special cash registers that keep inventory as weii as receipt records. The machines cost (4300 each. The cash registers now used in the store were approved by the state, board when they were bou^hf, at (2700 each, a few years ago. Onc-maw sf ?tat% j?/acc m foca% economy by Dan Ward ed. note — When debate over the mixed drink referendum wax at its height, opponents said that liquor did not fit in with the religious character of the vaiiey. Proponents pointed out that the vaiiey's first export, and the basis of its eariy economy, was diatiiled whiskey and appie brandy. Mary Lindsey is one of a number of persons Uving in the vaiiey who is descended from the eariy distillers. Days were when running off white liquor was not only respectaMe around here, but an art. Mary Lindsey, who today, at 94, still works a good-siMtl garden, one of the most ad mired in Biack Mountain, remembers the days when it was her job to carry firewood up to her father's government licensed stili in McDoweii County and watched him at work in one of the most prided, but underpaid professions at the turn of the century. "Sure, there were some who thought he shouldn't make it," Mrs. Lindsey said of the neighbors of her father. Charles Godfrey "But manv others were glad he made it." The alternative to buying his government-reguiated whiskey was to get blockade, or bootleg, whiskey from the moonshiners. "There was a steam distillery in Marion then, but it was just like white lightnin' — fiery and all. Blockade stills operated under a whole dif ferent sort of rules, you know," she said. "There wasn't much money to be made at a government still because there was a man there all the time from the government to oversee how much whiskey was made and what was put into it. He was called the storekeeper.' "If they (licensed distillers) made more than their quota, they had to sneak in the extra ingredients on the side so that (he book man didn't know anything about it. That'! the way the majority of the men that ran the distilleries made their money. They had to be very carefui about what they did and who knowed it,'' she said. , Under government license, a distilier would supply the equipment and iabor while the government provided the whiskey ingredients. For his iabor, the distilier would get a small percentage of the finished whiskey, which he could sell himself by the bottie or in barrels to a wholesaler. Mrs. Lindsey said her father sold to a wholesaler after attempting to sell individual bottles. "At one time, he had an open bar, but it didn't last long — people tormented him so. They'd come in the night and want whiskey, and Dad din t care for that. He called it his grocery store,''' she added with a laugh More than 80 years later, Mrs. Lindsey remembers well how her father's still was run. Would-be distillers would "find a place somewhere '/f Lard worL, Loney^ —3fary Lindsey where they cuM {M water Then they'd geM'glly dig a trench for a turned for the stiil. They'd use a^umace like you' d use for making moiasses." A furnace would b< built of clay and brick or stdp around the copper still itself with a flue created at the %tposite end of the trench fain where the fire is stoked, A- said. Her father 's distillery .dually consisted of three stills dith a capacity of 100 to 200 Sllons each, lined up neat t bach other in a still house The stills were so large, eacihad a set of steps that hadto be climbed to pour in th fer mented mash. "The cap (lid), tened upside down would hold bout a bushel, "Mrs. Lindsey iad "From that, there's a ctl of pipe that fits right down irn a barrel of water and comeout to a spickett at the other ed. A worm is what you call ist coil. 1 guess it was abdut, h, an inch in diameter,"she aid, making a circle with sr fingers to show the width tf the pipe. The barrel, or singling tan* had a continuous flow of cef creek water flowing through % to cool the coil, so that vapt from the cooking mash woui ' be condensed to iiquid. Preparation ot the mash, o ^ 'beer' , was the most pain staking part of the process and the one where moon shiners took the most short cuts. The first step to mash making, and one btockaders today bypass by using yeast and sugar, was preparation of mait from sprouted com. Charies Godfrey wouid fiii a buriap sack with com, soak it, and sprinkie water on it daily until one-inch sprouts were formed. He would dry the sprouts and take them to a mill to be ground, all subject to the scales and scrutiny of the storekeeper.' For bootliquor moonshine, why they'd just beat it with a hammer while it was wet, or just run it through a sausage mill," Mrs. Lindsey said. A peck of this malt would be mixed with a peck of rye meal and a bushel of com meal and water in a targe barrel, or hogshead, and be allowed to ferment. "1 don't remember just how tong the mash had to ferment before it was ready to be cooked," Mrs. Lindsey said. She said her father would occasionally have to use a shovel-like mash stick' to break up globs of dough-like meal that floated to the sur face. Days later, he would pour the milky beer' into the still, seal the cap with rye flour paste, and begin cooking the heady mixture. . Under the eyes of a government inspector, he would test the alcohol content of the liquid that was distilled, and shut the furnace down the moment the purity dropped below the legal level. "When it (the mash) lost a!' its strength, he would turn he stuff left over, the slop, into the hog lot for the hogs and * cattle They didn't get drunk on it, but they loved it,'' she said. Then the government would take so many gaiions of e apirits, and Oaddy would 't a gallon. Working for the #vemntent like that warn't easiest way to make a ving — there was a lot of *#k to It. honey," she said, 'Oghing

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