Another trip down ‘Thunder Road,’ but this time, Dad’s on it

Published 12:00 am Saturday, September 23, 2017

“Let me tell the story, I can tell it all. About the Statesville man who ran illegal alcohol …”

During my fifth and sixth grades of public education, which I did complete on schedule as soon as my Safety Patrol Boys duty was concluded, I would ride my green Schwinn bicycle the five or six blocks to my family’s dry cleaners and laundry.

Around 5 p.m., my dad would load my bike into the back of the dry cleaners’ panel truck so it would be at my disposal at home the next morning when I left for another day of learning.

For my own safety, I was too young to be at home alone, I was told. Also, my folks probably thought there was less mischief for me to create if I were supervised. That I wasn’t told, but considering the goofy stuff I used to do, it was most likely good parenting.

Upon my arrival at Modern Cleaners, my father would give me 11 cents, which I would immediately put back into our nation’s economy by visiting the next door drug store, leaving with a 6-cent Coke and a candy bar.

I would then return and plop down in the soft chair behind the sewing machine near the front door of our business. Mrs. Davis, our alterations lady, left for the day about the same time I arrived. The soft chair was welcome after sitting in hard wood desks all day.

I kept a stash of Superman comics under the front counter. These often filled the time before we went home. I was happy to enrich my education with good literature.

Late afternoon was the time when folks would stop and pick up their dry cleaning on the way home from their jobs. It afforded my dad some time to socialize with customers after spending the mornings alone downstairs doing the actual dry cleaning. Men and women were in and out constantly, all talking with my father, Bob, about everything under the sun. Some I knew, some I didn’t.

One afternoon, a man entered, shook Bob’s hand, and they commenced to talking. I went back to the adventures of Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen. Then I heard my dad’s voice: “Son, come over here. I want you to meet someone.”

Seems the man had seen me across the room, my nose buried in the classics. “That your boy, Bob?” is how this revelation for me started.

I put down the comic and walked over. Bob introduced me to his friend, whom I’ll call “Joe.”

Joe then went on to tell me he and my father had been good friends for over 25 years. Then he began to tell me how they had met. I remember Bob becoming a bit sheepish, as if he preferred his friend not to do so, but Joe pressed on.

He asked me if I had ever heard of the Depression. I said I had. Hearing my folks talk about it numerous times, I had asked them about it. Of course, I speak of the Great Depression, the terrible time when our country’s economic structure collapsed, banks closed, factories closed, people out of work, people out of their homes.

Some had it worse off than others. My father, his brother and uncle, whom he lived with, had managed to hang on to their jobs at a local cotton mill, which at the time, was still operating across the street from where we stood. Plus, they lived on the family farm, so they ate what they grew. But winter was rough. One can’t eat but so much cabbage.

Joe continued, “Back then, I was a deputy sheriff, and I was often assigned night duty, to park my car in the woods on Highway 115 near the Iredell-Wilkes border and catch folks hauling moonshine back into Iredell County. That’s how I met your father. You know what moonshine is, don’t you, boy?”

I answered yes. Is he kidding? I knew everything about moonshine. I saw “Thunder Road” at our drive-in four or five times.

My father was very embarrassed. Outed as a moon-runner in front of his kid.

“Did you ever arrest anyone?” I asked Joe.

“Oh, sure. I’d run in a few once in a while, to make our reports look good. But the local folks I knew, I never did. Most of the men, like your dad, were hauling for other people. They themselves weren’t selling it. They’d get paid to make a run, and these guys really needed the money. Times were really bad.

“For some, this was the only money they were able to bring home.”

Joe went on to inform me that he’d be out there at night, a car would pass, and he’d say, “There’s Bob.” So Joe would pull my dad over. They’d chat a bit, my dad would tell me to get myself a pint jar from the back, and he’d head on.

“Son,” Joe said, “it got really cold out there in the woods on winter nights. That pint jar helped me stay warm. I did your dad a favor, and he did me a favor.”

After Joe left that day, I now know my father was concerned the golden image I had of him may be permanently tarnished. I told him, “Heck no. You’re just like Robert Mitchum.”

He asked me not to talk this around, and I said I wouldn’t. Over my adults years, I have shared this with a few people, but since my father has been gone 54 years, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind my spilling it now.

“Thunder, thunder over Thunder Road. Thunder was his engine, and white lightnin’ was his load …”

What’s really interesting about this story is that the day I learned my dad ran moonshine, he was a member of the Statesville City Council, and Joe was the Sheriff of Iredell County.

“I did your dad a favor, and he did me a favor,” Joe said.

My first lesson, from two elected officials, in how politics works.

Mike Cline’s website, “Mike Cline’s Then Playing,” documents all the movies playing at Rowan County theaters from 1920 to the present. His previous column was about the movie “Thunder Road.”