Lonnie and I was out back a Cooper’s hardware store one day, lookin for scrap metal and such ta make us a few dollars over at the junk yard. Mr. Cooper never minded us back there wallerin in his junk piles, He just told us boys ta take whatever we had a fancy on.

This one day, Lonnie and I decided we was gonna make us a Moonshine still. We had been in them piles a wallerin, and seen us an old hot water tank and some copper tubin.

That’s when the idea hit us! We’d make us one them there moonshine stills, and start sellin the shine to the boys out in Mission swamp. They was always needin a drink a some sort, so’s me an Lonnie figured heck, why cain’t it be us that’d do the sellin of that shine?

Well, we got us all our pieces parts collected and gathered em up over at the shed behind Purvis Sloan’s chicken coops. He had one old converted hen house over there he used to use fer storage of tools and what not. But he ain’t used it fer a spell. So’s we figured it was a good a place as any, plus the main house was a ways off and old Purvis id never know we was in there cookin up that shine anyway.

We set everythin up to the point where it looked mighty good ta me an old Lonnie. We had us that there hot water tank settin over a fire pit, and up on top was that mess a copper tubin all connected and such. We was mighty proud a our handy work. Now’s all we needed was the recipe!

Ta tell the truth, we didn’t have a quiz master’s clue as ta how ta cook up lightenin.

But we was in it fer the long haul and decided that we knowed enough ta at least try.

We went out and collected us a couple a bushels a taters, some kerosene, sugar, and yeast. I’d heard somewhere that kerosene is what give that lighten its kick!

We got everythin back ta the shed and started preparin our creation fer cookin.

I looked over it again and seen that we didn’t make a place fer the mash to go inta the still. There twern’t no hole on this thing!

“Lonnie, how the heck we gonna get this stuff in the still? There ain’t no hole in it?

Lonnie came over and looked it up and down. After a spell he pointed to the top a the tank. Up on top was a big old plug.

“Just take at thing off right ere, and we got us a place ta pour the fixins.”

So’s that’s exactly what we done. I got that plug out and we started pourin it in.

Once we got that mash all situated in side that there tank, I went ta light the fire underneath it. Lonnie looked at me and said, “Wait a minute.”  And he took that plug and put it back in the hole. “We don’t wanna lose all the steam out that there hole. That’d be a loss of our profits steamin away sides; it’ll all come outta that there copper pipe any way.”

A word of advice from Lonnie and me. Pay attention now, Always check ta make sure that yer copper pipe aint go no kinks in it! Oh, and leave at kerosene out the mix too!

I set up that old still, with a good fire underneath it and after a bit we could see a bit a steam comin out the end. I figured it’d be a spell for we seen any results, so’s me an Lonnie decided ta take a well deserved break, and go on over ta Purvis’s pond and take us a dip. I throwed a couple a more logs on the fire ta keep the process goin. We stepped out and I told Lonnie to make sure the door was shut tight behind him. Well, I guess when he slammed that there door, some a them logs from wood pile must fell over and landed on the end that copper tubin bending it and crimpin it all up.

Well, that steam needed some place ta go and I guess it found it’s release right out the bottom a that there hot water tank, but it didn’t come outta there quite like.

That there fire was a cookin and cookin that there mash, and that steam pressure was a building and a buildin, It got so hot and so full a steam  it pushed the bottom of that tank out and made the dern thing fall over at an angle. Little did we know, but that still was aimed right at Purvis Sloan’s chicken coop, not just any coop, but it was a pointed at the coop that housed his prized, blue ribbon hens.

Purvis Sloan was known far and wide in three counties for havin the best layin hens.

He even won him the championship at the county fair, three years runnin! Heck he even had a pot belly stove in the coop ta keep them birds warm in the winter time. Old Purvis did everthin he could to make them birds lay.

Have ya all ever seen one of them rocket ships blastoff? Well, that fire build up so high on the outside that there tank, that I guess it just couldn’t take no more, the bottom a that thing blowed out and took off just like one a them rocket ships, cept it didn’t go up,

That thing took off across the field in a cloud a taters and steam, and kerosene.

The kerosene got lit up by the wood fire, and boy that was a sight, that tank hit the back side a old Purvis’s chicken coop and that’s when the mayhem begun.

Between the taters, the steam and lit kerosene, we seen this big cloud a white feathers and that potbelly stove launch about ninety feet straight up in the air. That chicken coop was no more of this world and worse yet, that home made rocket ship had now exited the other side of that coop and landed in the back a Purvis’s truck, I guess Purvis forgot ta put the parkin brake on and the pressure that was left in that there tank, pushed old Purvis’s truck across the yard, and down the hill inta the pond.

Lonnie and I seen this and hightailed it across the field, and back inta the woods.

Ta this day Old Purvis thinks he got attacked by his county fair competition er somthin like at. Sayin they knowed a his prize winnin chickens and was tryin to sabotage his chances of a fourth year win. He could never figure out how he got two bushels a mashed taters on the roof a his house though.