The odd things online

I was looking up some information on Lee Victory for my class project. While online I came across this small item on him.

Lee Victory He had many interesting, colorful stories to share about the area. he knows so many people and has done so much that he was a wonderful resource

It seems another class had a project and put together a website called "The Jefferson Springs Project".

Now that's nice, but it is the writeup on Knox Ridley and his brother that got me laughing.

Knox Ridley discussed bootlegging and how the bootleggers delivered the booze. One of the bootleggers would ride it in on a motorcycle, and the guys would fill up flasks to take into the dance hall. They lived behind the park (see Ridley map on wall of office). He talked about the different ways to make moonshine and said that if it was made a certain way the moonshine would taste different and make you sick. He described the cabins, the store, the bowling alley (even the number of pins and size of balls), the swimming hole, the bridge, the dance hall (but it was the rebuilt, open-air dance hall), cars (but they are 30's models), clothes (they wore nice pants and a jacket to dance, no ties), food (pimento cheese and tuna sandwiches from the store), and music (he names a song-it's on the tape).

Once, He and his twin brother drove their car into the dance hall one night. They were drunk and just goofing around. He talked about taking the girls riding after the dances. Didn't give more detail than that really - just that they "parked" - we can all assume what that means. Many people (women mostly) would not even own up to leaving the dance hall. He talked about rigging the nickelodeon with "slugs" -fake coins or even tripping the wires to make it play more songs. He talked about fights between local boys and Nashville boys over the girls. He mentioned the catholic sororities (high school - St. Bernards) called the Cats that would come to Jefferson Springs. He talked about the constable who would leave the bootleggers alone but cite girls who were walking around with just robes and bathing suits for being improperly dressed. If there was a more serious legal matter, people would go before the magistrate and plead their case.

He said that the traveling medicine men never came into Jefferson Springs because there were not enough people there - they would just go to Smyrna to draw a bigger crowd. He talked about the mail wheel - pretty much what we already know from the history Dr. Kates gave us. He talked about the punch cards for gambling and other games like dice. I think that's about it!

Bootlegging, slugs, fights, parking with young ladies. Oh the horror....and delight at finding the richness of our area.