Did I ever tell you that my Great Grandaddy was a rainmaker?  Beat the drums, light the dynamite, step back nonbelievers, we're gonna make it rain. " I can bring you showers from heaven, just you wait and see but it’s gonna cost you! It ain't free! "   He and the local sheriff in Tennessee didn't see eye to eye on rainmaking.  That's how our family came to live in North Carolina.
     He gave up the art of rainmaking when he learned how to make moonshine. Seems that there was a bigger market for whiskey and a lot more satisfied customers.  Now he and the local sheriff didn't see eye to eye on whiskey making.  That's how our family came to live in South Carolina.
     My Grandad took over the whiskey making and opened up a general store in Dentsville.  He sold dry goods during the day and whiskey at night.  He was the one that had the pet lion I told you about earlier.   Grandad was doing well until he sold liquor to the wrong man, a Federal Agent.   They were called Revenuers.  Grandad had another name for them!   Well the Revenuer put handcuffs on Grandad and was about to haul him off to jail but  my  Grandad was a smooth  talker.  So smooth that he talked that agent into taking those cuffs off of him just long enough for him to say goodbye to his family.  Grandad told my dad to go get his older brother and bring the car up to the store.  When my uncle and dad drove the car in front of the store my Grandad hit the door running.  He jumped on the running board of that Model A Ford and they took off.  They didn't stop until they got to the North Carolina border.  That's how some of our family came to live in North Carolina again.
    My Grandad had messed with the wrong people.  This was Federal stuff now but he was friends with the local law and a deal was made.  He came back to South Carolina and gave up the whiskey making.  He sold dry goods in the general store, told stories around the old pot belly stove and cared for his lion till the day he died.  There is now a BP station where that old store stood.  I drive by there once in awhile and I can almost see my grandad on the running board of that Model A.
                                                                                                                            Carl