There Goes The Judge

My grandfather, A.J., was the judge in our little county seat in Iowa.  He had been an attorney who handled everything as attorneys must in rural areas.  But he did have a specialty in accretion and evulsion law which was still being developed as our county bordered on the Missouri river.  And he did have a rather good reputation in the Midwest for that specialty.  The great dams that came along later made most of that area of law irrelevant.  But in my grandfather's time it was a big deal.  My grandfather was also a Methodist and a teetotaller.  Now the law of our great land has always had a little problem with private stills.  Martinis come and go but White Lightning always seems to have it's problems and it's following.

My grandfather also followed the stills, except that he had an ax in the trunk of his big Buick Roadster.  A bootleggers blood would run cold at the sight of that big car going down his road  And Grandfather did personally go out and bust up a good many stills.  He always took the sheriff along with him to observe the proprieties.  The problem was that Grandfather didn't really trust the sheriff.  He was pretty sure that the sheriff was just a bit too friendly with some of the bootleggers.  On the occasions when A.J. had told the sheriff ahead of time when and where they would be going, they had arrived to find an empty clearing just once or twice too often. So Grandfather started showing up at the sheriff's house just a bit late for supper and saying, "Let's go!"  The sheriff had little choice but to grab his hat and go with the judge.  And down the road they would go in that big Buick.  And another still would be in pieces by dark.

So the big thing was, if you were a bootlegger in our county you tried to figure out if Effie was fixing supper early.  And if she was, you might give some real thought to moving your still.  It might not survive the evening.