Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
I never saw that but I rarely go to the big city. I lived in Oak Ridge until 1958 and then in West Knoxville until 5 years ago when I moved to the sticks in Lenoir City. I'm looking to move farther back in the sticks now. We're up to 9000 population and it's too crowded.
I appreciate the kind words!
Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Don Dudenbostel
I'm looking to move farther back in the sticks now. We're up to 9000 population and it's too crowded.
Well, hopefully not too far that you can't roll into Loudon to the Tic Toc.:)
Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jody_S
Should I ask how often Mr. Sutton blew up his still(s)? I didn't see a lot of safety valves and fire blankets in those photos.
Funny you asked that. The pictures of him with his still was taken about 5 hours before the still house caught fire and everything burned up. Popcorn had two still hands and one was the cousin of the girl he was about to marry. Big Dave, and he was big, was upset with popcorn for spending too much tie with Pam and not enough time making whiskey. Dave being a brilliant man set fire to the still house and destroyed about 1800 gallons of whiskey and all three 1000 gallon stills. The fire drew the attention of the local authorities and Popcorn wound up in jail that night. Around midnight I got a call from Popcorn wanting me to put my house up for bail and loan him $10,000 for a new still setup. My response was, "I'd like to keep my house and my wife, No can do". Anyway the sheriff and fire marshal showed up at the scene the next day and declared it an electrical fire. The sheriff punched a tiny how in each of the three stills and declared they were inoperable. Popcorn promptly put one on a truck and hauled it to the local welding shop where they patched the hole. Within a week or so he was back in business.
Popcorn was a little too brave for his own good. The state and federal ATF discovered what was going on and sent an agent to start buying whiskey. Popcorn made him a distributor and was selling 500 gallons at a time to him until the state ran out of money and the feds got involved. I'm sure they had a few parties with the evidence. The feds and state finally moved in and Popcorn was arrested again. When Popcorn was arrested he had b previously been convicted on 2 felonies. Well Popcorn in true form started taking too much and led the police to his safe where he had firearms, ammunition and narcotics he'd been selling.
I understand Popcorn could have received 25 years for each felony count for the drugs and firearms. In addition Popcorn bragged he'd never paid a penny of federal tax in his life. With all the felony charges Popcorn received an 18 month sentence. He always told me though he's kill himself before he'd go back to prison and he did.
Popcorn carried a S&W 38 in his high bibs and pulled it out to show me what he's do if I ever crossed him. On another occasion he pulled out his Case hunter and described what he did to folks that betrayed him and another day he described shooting and killing a man and then running over another and killed him over a business deal that went bad. Popcorn could be a real charmer but other times he could be a nasty little piece of work. I described his personality like a 50 pound rock suspended by a sewing thread in a tornado. You never knew what would set him off.
After saying that, I thank him for trusting me and letting me into his private life. It was a real experience.
Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CreationBear
Well, hopefully not too far that you can't roll into Loudon to the Tic Toc.:)
I try to stay out of there because I love ice-cream. I just live 10 minutes from there and eat breakfast at Tommy's next door. Loudon's a sweet little town and will be much better after they rebuild the court house. I have to say Lenoir City is a pretty sweet place too.
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Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
I'll come back to moonshine another day but wanted to post a few images from the local fair and carnival in 1975. It's nothing like this today.
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Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
Well Jody, I sure wouldn't personally classify it as faith, but recklessly tempting the inevitable. God gave men common sense for a reason, but also the choice to ignore it. Gosh knows how any of us survived our teenage years. Older kids were doing chicken runs in hotrods right around the time I was learning to scramble up cliffs, shimmy through caves, and tumble down rapids with zero training or proper equipment. Then riding to school on a tiny bobtail bus that negotiated hairpin curves on a one-lane road on the side of the cliff, which during that time, had bussed certain kids that literally became axe murderers and rapists soon thereafter ... then moving here to the coast right in the middle of all hell breaking loose in the early 70's, and multiple massively armed murderous doomsday cults springing up right in the neighborhood, only two or three of which are commonly known about, well ... lots of us have seen a wide spectrum of humanity, I guess. I just never had the nerve to point a camera at some of it.
Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Don Dudenbostel
He always told me though he's kill himself before he'd go back to prison and he did.
Probably the correct choice.
Re: Faces and Places of Appalachia
The image of the woman in post #21 was very striking to me. I first saw it as a cubist image with two different perspectives of her. The sharp cut off of focus puts one image in a profile and the out of focus cheek seemed to look like a more frontal perspective as if there are two images of the same woman. Very interesting to my eyes.
The first dozen or so pictures and posts started as a positive point of view compare to photographic profiles of the region that I have seen in the past, healthy kids not very far from my concepts of reality. Things have gotten a bit darker and stranger as the thread goes on. Your portraits are wonderful!
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...4&d=1588125711