October 3, 2012 • 30 mins
Sure, Chuck and Josh have discussed it before, but it's worth revisiting: Running moonshine led to the creation of NASCAR. Chuck and Josh aren't even NASCAR fans and they think that's cool. Join them as the investigate moonshine runnin'.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh Dina
the Dinosaur and Jerry's over there. That's Dinah Dna. Remember that. Yeah, man,
(00:25):
that movie Blew Me Away. When I was over old,
I was, oh, yeah, that's from the movie, wasn't it.
I thought it was from a parody of the movie Park. Yeah,
that's like the educational video they show. I just remember
that first, Like, it was amazing when you saw that
first shot of the dinosaurs and you know, like because
you know that was all brand new, take it for
granted out like crappy CG movie that's out today. It
(00:48):
was like one of the greatest things anybody's ever done.
It in Tony Great. I think they're rereleasing it to
like that three D are they? Yeah, the original that
has a lot to do with Bootleggers. Um, Chuck, we've
talked to this before twice. Yeah, we have. Yeah, I
think we kind of forged the circle. It already needs
(01:10):
to be bigger. Um. Well, we did how Moonshine Works
episode one of my all time Favorites tree. If you
haven't heard of how Moonshine works episode, do your self
a favorite. There's some primo sound design from Jerry. Um.
We end up in a still you can believe it? Uh?
And what was the other one that we did where
we mentioned this too? Uh? Prohibition Yes, ye, yeah, which
(01:32):
is another good one which is part of another circle,
a tri part episode, prohibition addiction. And uh what was
the other one, Oh, rehab. Yes, and everything is so
interconnected here, it's all the circle is getting smaller, my friend.
It's the's the tree of life, the tree of Life. Okay, so, um,
(01:56):
what we're talking about is moonshining, Yes, bootlegging. I have
moonshine at my desk right now. Yeah. We discussed just
drinking it while we were doing this, and we opted
not to because it's not right. We'd like to do
things in one take these days, it's like seventeen. But yeah,
I mentioned the fan sentis a moonshine and the thank
(02:19):
you's one of the thank yous we said hello and thanks.
I remember it's delicious, Yes, it is. Um And specifically
one of the things we're talking about, um, that we
just kind of covered a little bit and I think moonshine.
I think it was moonshine. Um was that this really
amazing thing. I'm not in the NASCAR. I'm not either.
(02:44):
I had a spell you did, yeah, like one year
and then it just went away. It is one of
the world's biggest sports. Um popular popular wise u um.
People love to see the cars go around in the circle,
not always just in the circle. I'm not. That's true
at the road races, that's true. Um. And I'm not
(03:05):
into NASCAR, as I said, but I have a tremendous
amount of respect for the sport because it was directly
created by moonshiners, bootleggers running moonshine lad not you know,
indirectly exactly. They literally met and founded the National Association
(03:25):
for Stock Car Auto Racing. Like that's where NASCAR came from.
One of the one of the pre eminent owners racers
and then owners, Junior Johnson, did a year in jail
for bootlegging. Yeah, Wilkes. He's from Wilkes County in North Carolina,
which was like one of the hotbeds the bootlegging. And
(03:48):
by no surprise, it is also North Carolinas, like the
center of NASCAR it's not a coincidence. No, it's not.
So let's talk about this this whole thing, Like where
what were people bootlegging for? I mean, like, I know,
it's kind of like if you want it done right,
do it yourself. But when it comes to making booze,
like there's a lot of really good booze out there,
(04:08):
why not just spend the money. Well, this was happening
in the rural South. A lot going on back then. Um,
on the heels of the Great Depression hit the South
really hard because um, there weren't factories to go to
work too afterwards or during and the mills were shut down.
The mills were basically the economic engine to the South. Yeah,
(04:31):
so farming is drying up to a certain degree. There's
prohibition going on. That's a big one. So it's basically
prohibition and the Depression of the two big factors that
led to rise. Right, So we need to Even after Prohibition,
the South still had a lot of dry counties, and
to this day still has dry counties. It is crazy,
twelve like two thousand and there are dry counties. Was
(04:53):
it two twelve or two and eleven? When Georgia voted
or let cities vote to repeal the the Blue Law
for Sunday Sunday sales. Like, just this year Georgia got
Sunday sales. There's like a Mars Curiosity rover on the
planet Mars taking pictures of a of us not buying
beer on Sundays. It's crazy. It is crazy. Um. But yes,
(05:16):
So even after prohibition gets repealed, a lot of southern
counties were like, well, you know, you can't tell us
what to do, Johnny Law. We're gonna we're gonna stay dry.
And a lot of bootleggers were like, okay, well I
can still sell to these counties. And it happened to
have one Sweet Ride. I don't have a lot, but
(05:37):
I got a Sweet Forward with a ambulance engine in it, right,
and it goes really really fast. Cadillac ambulance engine. Yeah,
that was one of the mods that they would do
to make these things faster. So you needed this car
not just to show off, but because if you were
selling in Dry County, the federal government really couldn't have
cared two bits whether you were not. Yeah. Most of
(06:01):
the time, though, if you were smart at all, you
weren't reporting these sales on your taxes. Yeah, I read
that had more to do with it than anything I
would was they didn't want to pay taxes. I mean,
it had to do with prohibition all that stuff, but
it was really like, you know what, we were making
the stuff ourselves, selling it to people across county lines,
like why should I give the federal government a piece
(06:22):
of that? Well that that um, not just whiskey making
or moonshining, but also the idea that you shouldn't be
paying taxes on that predates the United States. I'm like,
the Whiskey Rebellion was the that that actually came after
the United States, but moonshining came before. But the whiskey
Rebellion the first the one of the first things George
(06:43):
Washington had to deal with was because of taxing corn liquor,
which is it's an American tradition, don't tax our booze um.
So all these factors add up to, uh, either it's
your family business and you're maybe fifteen, but you've been
driving the truck on the farm since you were eight,
(07:05):
and the tractor so you're like in the South, it
wasn't like, oh, you don't have a license yet. You know,
we shouldn't let you behind the wheel of a car.
It's like, you know, are you old enough to reach
the pedals? Or we have wood blocks? Yeah, exactly like
the kid in uh oh Brother Where Art? Though you
didn't like that one right now, I like that? Okay,
that kid and then all the wood blocks right in
short round from Templar Doom Oh yeah, the good Indiana
(07:28):
Jones movie or one of them? Yeah, one of two,
one of three? Yeah, I would the fourth one right, yeah,
I would put that third in the list, though, I
would go Raiders, then Last Crusade, then Temple of Them
and then I don't even count the last one. So um,
Either you're in the family business and they're like this
kid can drive or you can drive, and some other
(07:50):
families like, hey that you know that Clark kid, he
can get on it in that forward, let's get him
to run the shine and so also, you got a
job that pays you dough. But it's not just paying
your dough. It's also extremely thrilling. Yeah, and a lot
of bragging rights going on when you're out running cops.
It's it's like the Dukes of Hazzard. Can we just
(08:11):
go and say it? Yeah? It is. I mean you
can't read this article without thinking bone Luke, Duke, Bone,
Luke Duke. You know what's crazy is not onstead? I
think of really how man? The whole time I was like,
this is the Dukes of Hazzard. Were they moonshiners? No?
But it was the same thing, like juicing up your car,
beefing up the suspension and the engines so you can
outrun the local cops and you know, you know all
(08:32):
the back roads. All right, I don't want to give
away too much, Okay. So, um, we've got the depression
thing and unemployment in the South, and then we also
have prohibition, and these things are coming together, and so
all of a sudden you've got fourteen year olds who
know how to operate cars out running cops and revenuers, right,
the revenuers. So there was a revenuer named John Carter,
(08:53):
and he became a great source of mars. Now okay,
different John Carter. Uh. He became a great source from
the laws side. He was one of the guys chasing
these people, and he was the source for um that
fourteen year old quote about how like by the time
(09:14):
these kids are fourteen, not starting when fourteen they're driving
by the time their fourteen. He said they could outraw
any law man he knew, and he was one of
the lawmen. Yeah. And so one of the ways they
did it was, like you said, was by modifying uh
stock cars, right, Like taking a Ford coupe and putting
a Cadillac ambulance engine in it. Do it um, switching
(09:38):
you know engines between makes. Right. So like apparently Chevy
engines are easier to modify than forwards. So you might
have a forward car with the Chevy engine, um, and
they'd say that if you see it. Go to one
of these auto shows today, some of these old twenties
and thirties forwards will still have Chevy engines in them.
Well that's where hot rods came from. To it's just nastcar,
(10:00):
but hot rods and like that whole hot rod thing
in the in the California in the sixties, straight out
of bootlegging moonshine with cars. That's pretty cool. Um. So
the revenuers I don't think we specified there. They were
the tax guys, yeah, who came to collect and they
were they were Feds, the Alcohol Tax Unit. Yeah, Like
(10:21):
they were sending these guys in from like New Jersey
and New York to these rural southern towns, and Bow
and Luke were like, bring it on. Yeah, you don't
know these roads like I know. I'm pal. You don't
know these roads. You don't know your car like I
know my car because I'm the one who modified it
in all these crazy ways. I added the turbo charger.
(10:42):
I brushed out the piston hole cylinder, the piston hole cylinder.
Is that a common method, brushing the cylinder? I believe? So? Okay, Um,
they would modify. They would built in custom switches. We
could turn off your brake lights or your tail lights
(11:02):
or both. That was a Clay call. It was a
buddy of Junior Johnson. He did that. So what what
happens is you're flying down the road behind one of
these cars at night and let's say the tail lights
completely go out and they can pull in a little
you know, like side dirt road, or you're following them
during the daytime and they're banking on a corner and
(11:25):
they're hitting the brakes and the cop doesn't realize that,
so he goes flying into the corner and then he
smatches into something pretty smart. Yeah it's so basic though,
you also need really really good shocks and struts, um.
And the reason why is because the best thing to
do is to not have to try to outrun the
cops and just drive right past him and wave like
(11:47):
you're just a law of Biden citizens, like I don't
have five pounds of liquor in my trunk exactly, um.
And that's the whole point of the shocks and struts.
And also so when you do have to outrun them,
your car is not just bottoming out on every divot,
that's true. Um. And if you do get pulled over.
Another early line of defense was false bottom trunks, um,
(12:09):
hidden cargo panels, basically just places you could stash flicker.
That's true. But ah, who wrote this? Was this the grabster? No,
this was Jamie page Dton jp D uh. As jp
D points out, cops would eventually get wise to all
these things as well, and then it came down to
(12:31):
what would lead to NASCAR, which is I can drive
better than you, period. So that's like when the banjo
music would start, exactly when the cop turned on the sir,
right and like, I know all your tricks, but now
the race is on. So um, you've got these local
roads that are often very What is it thunder Road
in North Georgia. You know there's a place there's a
(12:54):
road called thunder Road, North Georgia, And I think Bob
Mitchum was in a movie about it or something back
in the day, really called thunder Road, I think. But anyway,
it's like like a lot of people died, especially revenuers,
because they didn't know like the curves. It was particularly dangerous.
But those Moonshine boys like knew exactly what they were
doing and could take these curves. Most of them. A
lot of Moonshine runners died in their own cars on
(13:17):
their own roads, just going too fast, too far, too hard.
But if you were a revenue you're at a greater
disadvantage because also you didn't know where to double back
and hide out. Um. And there was a move that
was created by Junior Johnson called Bootleggers turn, which we've
all seen. It's where the car goes um one direction
(13:37):
and then all of a sudden it does a one eight,
straightens out and drives back the other direction before the
car that's chasing it can turn around. Bootleggers turn. I've
never knew that. Yeah, Junior Johnson patented that one, and
also later on would go on to um I wouldn't
say an event, I guess discover the drafting, which if
(13:58):
you don't know what drafting is and car racing, it's
when and you can experience. This is very dangerous. You
don't want to try this. But if you get behind
like a big eighteen wheeler on the highway and you're
close enough, it often feels like you don't have to
hit the gas is hard. It's because you don't. You're
being sucked up into the wind behind it, and it
breaks the draft and essentially you're in a little vacuum
(14:20):
getting right up on the car behind you. And in
nineteen sixty I think at the Dayton of Junior, Johnson
realized this by accident on a practice lap and apparently
had an inferior car to the rest of the cars
and won the race based on that technique. And then
everyone was like, what's June you're doing. We gotta do
(14:43):
it too, let's name it. So they named it drafting.
That's weird, you, No, I guess drafting makes sense. It
does now, But is that just because we know what
it's called. No, it's like a draft, Yeah, like I
gets you're right, there's a draft, you know what I mean? Yeah,
all right, Junior Johnson hardoned too by Ronald Reagan. Yeah,
(15:07):
because you said he got arrested for not actually bootlegging,
but just for going to the still one night. Right now.
He was caught at his daddy's still by John Carter himself.
That's what. Yeah, when your father has a still in
the woods, that's daddy, um. You. He was caught at
his daddy's still, um by John Carter. And he did
(15:30):
eleven months three days in prison. Um in North Carolina. No,
I'm sorry, Chillicothe, Ohio or Chilla Coathee Ohio. Um so,
but he was caught in with Carolina. But apparently bootleggers
and whiskey runners had this reputation of being so honest
(15:51):
that when they were caught. His legend tells, when they
were caught and sentenced, the judge would frequently let them
leave um and just go home and be told when
to meet the prison bus, like meet the prison bus
March twenty one. And when the prison bus showed up
like at that stop, the bootlegger would be sitting there
waiting for the bus to take it to take them
(16:12):
to prison. They were known to be that that uma
despite their illegalities. Yeah, well that was I think one
of the reasons why Tom Wolfe called the North Carolina
Wilkes County specifically bootleggers the last the last American heroes
because they were kind of I mean, they were against
(16:33):
the law and they would like kill revenuers, but they
were also very honest in their dealing when they were caught.
Did he say, didn't you should point out there was
a movie coming out about this. Yeah, there's a movie
called Lawless, and it's based on a book called The
Wettest County in the World. Yeah. I saw. The original
name of the movie up until this year was Wettest County. Yeah,
(16:54):
which I have to men's pretty bad. No, it's gotta
be wettest county in the world, like the wettest County
in the world. And it's about a county in Virginia.
I can't remember which one. Um and the They changed
the name to Lawless and Nick Cave wrote the script.
He is awesome and like every way Um and Guy
pierces in it. He plays the Treasury revenue guy. That's
(17:17):
Nick Cave with a V. By the way, not in
Nick Cage. Yeah, okay, Nick Cave of Bad Seeds Fame, Yeah, exactly.
Um and shy La Buff to bring it full circle
from Crystal Skulls. Yeah, I don't think we should bring
things full circle of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Right.
You know that's two consecutive episodes where it just came
up organically. Yeah, strange, but yeah, Lawless is coming out
(17:41):
this month. The recording this the twenty nine I believe. Yeah.
I can't wait because I was thinking, I think I
told you this morning when I was reading this, I
was like, man, why haven't they made a movie about this? Well,
my friend, they have looking forward to it. Um, all right,
so where are we world War two? Yeah? What's what?
Why isn't this still going on? And by the way,
(18:02):
this this article is not correct, said that they were well,
they were running whiskey well into the seventies. Clay call
who's Junior Johnson's bff forever, Um, he was doing it
in the eighties really into the eighties. Yeah, And it
was the um, the rise of the chicken farming, like
mega chicken processing plants that converted all of these former
(18:26):
corn liquor distillers into chicken farmers because it's it was
just more lucrative, and they're like, well not, I'll raise
chickens then. Interesting. But he was into the eighties. He
said that one of his cars a an old New
Yorker from the sixties that he said, um the writer
of this hot Rod Magazine article called something that I
(18:46):
like doctor a lawyer would would um use would drive.
But it was like one of his prize possessions because
that thing would just haul to He modified it. He
said that he um their bullet holes in it from
the eighties. So he was like real deal, seriously doing
this into the eighties, because I mean his car got
bullet holes in the nineteen eighties from bootlegging. When I
(19:08):
was smoking the band it that was seventies. Yeah, but
he wasn't. He was just he just couldn't drivetive. No.
They were smuggling beer. I don't remember that. Yeah, of
course that was what they were doing. Remember the big truck.
I didn't know that full of course beer, illegal course beer. Yeah.
Back then the course was only out west and they
(19:28):
wanted some in Georgia. Oh, so they sent Smokey Uh
Sarcana and Jerry Reid to get the truck load of
course beer to bring it back in like twenty four
hours or something. Yeah. Um, okay, So flash forward a
bit um in the thirties, forties and fifties, I guess
not forward. We're kind of right there in the middle. Um,
(19:49):
there wasn't a lot going on entertainment wise in the
rural South. Didn't have a movie theater, sometimes didn't have
a mall, didn't have a lot to do. So they
would clear out fields and make dirt track race tracks.
Well farmers would, yeah, it make some cash off of it. Yeah,
because sort of like Field of Dreams, except they would
build a race track. You know, if you build it,
(20:09):
they will come and like um Days of Thunder, except
in a farm field. And dirt track was huge. I
mean it's still big. People still race on dirt tracks.
But Junior Johnson apparently said that he never got on
pavement when he was bootlegging. He's like, you have a
ten to one better odds of losing the cops on
(20:29):
a dirt road because these cops, I mean, not only
did they not know the roads in the South, they
were not used to sliding around on dirt roads. And
these guys are just like you know, professional uh drifters,
not Tokyo drifters. Tokyo drifters, not hobo drifters. Um. So,
all right, while this is going on, you've got these
(20:50):
southern towns and farmers building these dirt tracks, making a
little scratch but also kind of making a name for
car racing, like this is kind of a new thing. Yeah,
I mean, the Indie was around and all that, but
these this it wasn't kind of big in the South.
I don't think was it. When did that start of
Formula one racing? I should say that was the earliest
auto racing was like maybe or they were racing like
(21:14):
Mercedes and stuff like that, but stock car racing was
very much new to the South. Well it was, and
then you know, eventually bootlegging dried up and these people realize,
you know what in n they got together in Daytona, Florida,
uh and said let's make this like a legit thing,
(21:35):
Like we think there's money to be made here. You
guys can drive really fast. These stock cars aren't that
much money because back then it was stock car racing.
Like that was the whole point was we want to
have the fans identify with these people by driving a
car just like they could drive. Yeah, it was all
on the driver, yeah, because it was like you weren't
(21:57):
allowed to modify, and any amountifications you could do very
slight and they were really heavily regulated and it was
all about your driving skills. And they did decide to
go that route because it was, like you said, a
common bond between the fans and the driver. Yeah, you know,
like well and it's still driving the same car. Yeah,
(22:17):
I mean that that brand loyalty is still huge. Yea.
You know the Chevy guys and the Ford guys, like
they don't they stick with the car more so than
the driver even. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Um. Of course
now they're much more modified. But back in the day
it was called strictly stock, meaning you know there s
S means on some cars. I don't know, wonder you
(22:41):
haven't seen that, I don't think so, Yeah you have.
There's like sometimes like you'll it'll be like a normal car,
like a Monte Carlo, but it'll say s S or
something next to it. Oh maybe I don't know what's
look in at that, or maybe it means like superstock,
no strict or it means super. But I did find
(23:02):
an interesting though at the beginning of NASCAR in UM,
I read this other article where they said that fans
didn't want like it was sort of a um, a
slap in the face to have these new cars out
there being beat up, because it was post World War
two and it was kind of waste, wasteful to do
something like that. So that's why they got these stock cars.
(23:26):
And like a lot of dudes rode in the early
days would actually rent cars to race, like a car rental.
Oh yeah, yeah, they would get just get a rental car,
and that's where thrift car care exactly. Uh. And it
wasn't until later on that they like um nifty two,
I think we're when roll bars were mandated and uh.
Then you know, gradually over the years they became more
(23:48):
and more modified, although it's still it's still I mean,
they're modified, but it's still a regular car. It's not
like digital paddle shifters like an IndyCar like you get
in a NASCAR car and theoretically you could drive it
not well no, let mean be surprised. Oh you know.
Junior Johnson said that it was a letdown to go
(24:09):
from bootlegging to NASCAR. He said, quote on the race track,
you're a running to beat someone out on the highway,
You're a running for your life. Awesome. He is eighty
one years old now and I just read that he
is selling his mansion and downsizing and he sells moonshine
(24:34):
midnight Moon. Oh is that his? Yeah? He can sell
it like he can bite on the web. And he
also sells ham and pork crime. I would eat those.
I would do any other movies you got, No, I
got too Big Bad Mama bootlegging movie. Yeah, she takes
over the bootleg in business after her husband dies. Uh.
And then there's a small it's a small part, but
(24:56):
it's one of my all time favorite movies. Paper Moon
I thought was your leg. Yeah, okay, but it has
a small moonshining park bootlegging park. And I think the movie, Uh,
did you ever see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot? No? I think
that had something to do with bootlegging. I might be wrong.
(25:18):
What about Dirty Mary? Wait, Dirty Larry, Crazy Mary? Was
that bootlegging? I don't know, but Clint Eastwood was in
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and oh, actually no, it wouldn't about
it wouldn't about menshine, but it was about driving really fast. Yeah, yeah,
I think so, Blue Lagoon. No, it's about six. If
(25:42):
you want to learn more about Whiskey cars, you can
type in Whiskey cars with a knee um to the
search bart how stuff works dot com. I would also
strongly urge you to listen to our Moonshine podcast or
prohibition podcast. Uh yeah, and there's articles on the site
for those two, so you can type those in the
search parts. See what comes up, I said, search bar.
(26:02):
This means it's time for a listener mail Chuck. Yes,
we should tell everybody about something very special and dear
to our hearts New York City. That's right. We are
going to Comic Con and we will be doing a
live podcast on Friday, October twelve at Comic Con at
the jab At Center. It's like our new thing. We
did San Diego, now we do in New York. That's
(26:24):
right next up Albuquerque. So if you are going to
Comic Con, you should come by and see that. But
after Comic Con, we have one of our famous it's
famous to us all Star trivia nights. Um, where is
it gonna be the cutting room? It is at the
grand reopening of the Cutting Room in the flat Iron District,
which is what's the address. It is forty four East
(26:47):
thirty second Street in New York. And uh, it's in
the flat Iron you said. And the doors open at
seven thirty. Trivia goes down at eight thirty. And what
does first come, first serve? Right? Free, free, free, first come,
first serve. We will have a bar there that you
can buy drinks. Yeah, you can buy us drink that's right.
We're gonna basically be having a really good time if
you if you're not familiar with our Trivy nights, like,
(27:09):
just come out and check it out. It'll be worth
your while, absolutely, And stay tuned for info on Facebook
and Twitter about the makeup of the all star team.
We're filling that out as we speak. But we will
have some special guests that you will want to meet. Yeah,
and at the very least you can come take on
me and chuck right, yeah, okay, it's just fun. So
what is that that's Friday, October twelfth, right, yep, the
panels that went The panel is at at least okay,
(27:33):
and then we're gonna be at the cutting room starting
at eight thirty Trivite starts at eight thirty doors at
seven thirty. Be there, be square. You were good at this.
Thank you? All right the time for listener mail. I'm
gonna call this shark attack man. I have to say, Chuck,
you're you have to go onto a Twitter account. You
were getting kudos all over the place for this. People
(27:55):
love that. Hey, kudos stall that actors. Yes, um, all right,
shark attack. I just listened to your Shark Attack podcast
and was thinking about my boyfriend. Uh, you might be
interested in his happy ending of his own shark attack.
Kevin is his name. He's from South Africa and he
was surfing in front of his house one day when
he was sixteen. Went out of nowhere, a great white
(28:16):
came up and chopped down on his leg. Shark disappeared,
and the one friend he was with helped him back
to shore, which was quite a ways, and then went
off to the hospital. The doctor patching him up said
he was really lucky. Specific can figure the top of
the jaw of the shark went into the leg while
the bottom never made it through the surfboard, which is
kind of like that one story we talked about Surpord
(28:39):
saving the life the doctor thought maybe the shark bit
him in such a way where the fin of his
surfboard hit that soft part under your tongue, you know
that party le and hurt the shark, so it swam away. Um,
after listening to the podcast, maybe it was just a
test bite though, and the shark didn't have any follow through.
Now that we're complained, not we're complaining, of course. Anyway,
(29:01):
he left with a couple of hundred stitches and was
back surfing six weeks later. I'm attaching a picture of
his leg. I'm sorry that it's sideways crazy. And I
did look and it was the dude's leg that had
big shark teeth in it. I didn't see that. Well,
it was good, she said. One more thing. We're talking
about it just a few weeks ago. And I asked
(29:22):
him if he punched the shark or anything like that. Um,
I had a zoo books on shark when I was little.
I always thought I'd for sure punch a shark. He
said it was pretty much the last thing on his mind,
which is kind of what I was thinking. Um. Anyway,
I loved the podcast. And that is from Bethany and
Kevin is the boyfriend awesome, the surfer surfing out in
(29:44):
front of his house that must yeah, congratulations and staying
alive yes, uh Kevin right, yep. Thanks for the story,
bethany Um. If you have a story for us, especially
one about how you're granddaddy or Peppy or whoever was
a bootleg, your a moonshiner something like that, sure you
can send us stuff via Twitter at s y s
(30:08):
K podcast. And when I say that means the AT
symbol at M person, people do that. No M person
is the N sign. So AT symbol s y s
K podcast all one word. You can go to Facebook
dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can
send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
(30:31):
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh Dina
the Dinosaur and Jerry's over there. That's Dinah Dna. Remember that. Yeah, man,
(00:25):
that movie Blew Me Away. When I was over old,
I was, oh, yeah, that's from the movie, wasn't it.
I thought it was from a parody of the movie Park. Yeah,
that's like the educational video they show. I just remember
that first, Like, it was amazing when you saw that
first shot of the dinosaurs and you know, like because
you know that was all brand new, take it for
granted out like crappy CG movie that's out today. It
(00:48):
was like one of the greatest things anybody's ever done.
It in Tony Great. I think they're rereleasing it to
like that three D are they? Yeah, the original that
has a lot to do with Bootleggers. Um, Chuck, we've
talked to this before twice. Yeah, we have. Yeah, I
think we kind of forged the circle. It already needs
(01:10):
to be bigger. Um. Well, we did how Moonshine Works
episode one of my all time Favorites tree. If you
haven't heard of how Moonshine works episode, do your self
a favorite. There's some primo sound design from Jerry. Um.
We end up in a still you can believe it? Uh?
And what was the other one that we did where
we mentioned this too? Uh? Prohibition Yes, ye, yeah, which
(01:32):
is another good one which is part of another circle,
a tri part episode, prohibition addiction. And uh what was
the other one, Oh, rehab. Yes, and everything is so
interconnected here, it's all the circle is getting smaller, my friend.
It's the's the tree of life, the tree of Life. Okay, so, um,
(01:56):
what we're talking about is moonshining, Yes, bootlegging. I have
moonshine at my desk right now. Yeah. We discussed just
drinking it while we were doing this, and we opted
not to because it's not right. We'd like to do
things in one take these days, it's like seventeen. But yeah,
I mentioned the fan sentis a moonshine and the thank
(02:19):
you's one of the thank yous we said hello and thanks.
I remember it's delicious, Yes, it is. Um And specifically
one of the things we're talking about, um, that we
just kind of covered a little bit and I think moonshine.
I think it was moonshine. Um was that this really
amazing thing. I'm not in the NASCAR. I'm not either.
(02:44):
I had a spell you did, yeah, like one year
and then it just went away. It is one of
the world's biggest sports. Um popular popular wise u um.
People love to see the cars go around in the circle,
not always just in the circle. I'm not. That's true
at the road races, that's true. Um. And I'm not
(03:05):
into NASCAR, as I said, but I have a tremendous
amount of respect for the sport because it was directly
created by moonshiners, bootleggers running moonshine lad not you know,
indirectly exactly. They literally met and founded the National Association
(03:25):
for Stock Car Auto Racing. Like that's where NASCAR came from.
One of the one of the pre eminent owners racers
and then owners, Junior Johnson, did a year in jail
for bootlegging. Yeah, Wilkes. He's from Wilkes County in North Carolina,
which was like one of the hotbeds the bootlegging. And
(03:48):
by no surprise, it is also North Carolinas, like the
center of NASCAR it's not a coincidence. No, it's not.
So let's talk about this this whole thing, Like where
what were people bootlegging for? I mean, like, I know,
it's kind of like if you want it done right,
do it yourself. But when it comes to making booze,
like there's a lot of really good booze out there,
(04:08):
why not just spend the money. Well, this was happening
in the rural South. A lot going on back then. Um,
on the heels of the Great Depression hit the South
really hard because um, there weren't factories to go to
work too afterwards or during and the mills were shut down.
The mills were basically the economic engine to the South. Yeah,
(04:31):
so farming is drying up to a certain degree. There's
prohibition going on. That's a big one. So it's basically
prohibition and the Depression of the two big factors that
led to rise. Right, So we need to Even after Prohibition,
the South still had a lot of dry counties, and
to this day still has dry counties. It is crazy,
twelve like two thousand and there are dry counties. Was
(04:53):
it two twelve or two and eleven? When Georgia voted
or let cities vote to repeal the the Blue Law
for Sunday Sunday sales. Like, just this year Georgia got
Sunday sales. There's like a Mars Curiosity rover on the
planet Mars taking pictures of a of us not buying
beer on Sundays. It's crazy. It is crazy. Um. But yes,
(05:16):
So even after prohibition gets repealed, a lot of southern
counties were like, well, you know, you can't tell us
what to do, Johnny Law. We're gonna we're gonna stay dry.
And a lot of bootleggers were like, okay, well I
can still sell to these counties. And it happened to
have one Sweet Ride. I don't have a lot, but
(05:37):
I got a Sweet Forward with a ambulance engine in it, right,
and it goes really really fast. Cadillac ambulance engine. Yeah,
that was one of the mods that they would do
to make these things faster. So you needed this car
not just to show off, but because if you were
selling in Dry County, the federal government really couldn't have
cared two bits whether you were not. Yeah. Most of
(06:01):
the time, though, if you were smart at all, you
weren't reporting these sales on your taxes. Yeah, I read
that had more to do with it than anything I
would was they didn't want to pay taxes. I mean,
it had to do with prohibition all that stuff, but
it was really like, you know what, we were making
the stuff ourselves, selling it to people across county lines,
like why should I give the federal government a piece
(06:22):
of that? Well that that um, not just whiskey making
or moonshining, but also the idea that you shouldn't be
paying taxes on that predates the United States. I'm like,
the Whiskey Rebellion was the that that actually came after
the United States, but moonshining came before. But the whiskey
Rebellion the first the one of the first things George
(06:43):
Washington had to deal with was because of taxing corn liquor,
which is it's an American tradition, don't tax our booze um.
So all these factors add up to, uh, either it's
your family business and you're maybe fifteen, but you've been
driving the truck on the farm since you were eight,
(07:05):
and the tractor so you're like in the South, it
wasn't like, oh, you don't have a license yet. You know,
we shouldn't let you behind the wheel of a car.
It's like, you know, are you old enough to reach
the pedals? Or we have wood blocks? Yeah, exactly like
the kid in uh oh Brother Where Art? Though you
didn't like that one right now, I like that? Okay,
that kid and then all the wood blocks right in
short round from Templar Doom Oh yeah, the good Indiana
(07:28):
Jones movie or one of them? Yeah, one of two,
one of three? Yeah, I would the fourth one right, yeah,
I would put that third in the list, though, I
would go Raiders, then Last Crusade, then Temple of Them
and then I don't even count the last one. So um,
Either you're in the family business and they're like this
kid can drive or you can drive, and some other
(07:50):
families like, hey that you know that Clark kid, he
can get on it in that forward, let's get him
to run the shine and so also, you got a
job that pays you dough. But it's not just paying
your dough. It's also extremely thrilling. Yeah, and a lot
of bragging rights going on when you're out running cops.
It's it's like the Dukes of Hazzard. Can we just
(08:11):
go and say it? Yeah? It is. I mean you
can't read this article without thinking bone Luke, Duke, Bone,
Luke Duke. You know what's crazy is not onstead? I
think of really how man? The whole time I was like,
this is the Dukes of Hazzard. Were they moonshiners? No?
But it was the same thing, like juicing up your car,
beefing up the suspension and the engines so you can
outrun the local cops and you know, you know all
(08:32):
the back roads. All right, I don't want to give
away too much, Okay. So, um, we've got the depression
thing and unemployment in the South, and then we also
have prohibition, and these things are coming together, and so
all of a sudden you've got fourteen year olds who
know how to operate cars out running cops and revenuers, right,
the revenuers. So there was a revenuer named John Carter,
(08:53):
and he became a great source of mars. Now okay,
different John Carter. Uh. He became a great source from
the laws side. He was one of the guys chasing
these people, and he was the source for um that
fourteen year old quote about how like by the time
(09:14):
these kids are fourteen, not starting when fourteen they're driving
by the time their fourteen. He said they could outraw
any law man he knew, and he was one of
the lawmen. Yeah. And so one of the ways they
did it was, like you said, was by modifying uh
stock cars, right, Like taking a Ford coupe and putting
a Cadillac ambulance engine in it. Do it um, switching
(09:38):
you know engines between makes. Right. So like apparently Chevy
engines are easier to modify than forwards. So you might
have a forward car with the Chevy engine, um, and
they'd say that if you see it. Go to one
of these auto shows today, some of these old twenties
and thirties forwards will still have Chevy engines in them.
Well that's where hot rods came from. To it's just nastcar,
(10:00):
but hot rods and like that whole hot rod thing
in the in the California in the sixties, straight out
of bootlegging moonshine with cars. That's pretty cool. Um. So
the revenuers I don't think we specified there. They were
the tax guys, yeah, who came to collect and they
were they were Feds, the Alcohol Tax Unit. Yeah, Like
(10:21):
they were sending these guys in from like New Jersey
and New York to these rural southern towns, and Bow
and Luke were like, bring it on. Yeah, you don't
know these roads like I know. I'm pal. You don't
know these roads. You don't know your car like I
know my car because I'm the one who modified it
in all these crazy ways. I added the turbo charger.
(10:42):
I brushed out the piston hole cylinder, the piston hole cylinder.
Is that a common method, brushing the cylinder? I believe? So? Okay, Um,
they would modify. They would built in custom switches. We
could turn off your brake lights or your tail lights
(11:02):
or both. That was a Clay call. It was a
buddy of Junior Johnson. He did that. So what what
happens is you're flying down the road behind one of
these cars at night and let's say the tail lights
completely go out and they can pull in a little
you know, like side dirt road, or you're following them
during the daytime and they're banking on a corner and
(11:25):
they're hitting the brakes and the cop doesn't realize that,
so he goes flying into the corner and then he
smatches into something pretty smart. Yeah it's so basic though,
you also need really really good shocks and struts, um.
And the reason why is because the best thing to
do is to not have to try to outrun the
cops and just drive right past him and wave like
(11:47):
you're just a law of Biden citizens, like I don't
have five pounds of liquor in my trunk exactly, um.
And that's the whole point of the shocks and struts.
And also so when you do have to outrun them,
your car is not just bottoming out on every divot,
that's true. Um. And if you do get pulled over.
Another early line of defense was false bottom trunks, um,
(12:09):
hidden cargo panels, basically just places you could stash flicker.
That's true. But ah, who wrote this? Was this the grabster? No,
this was Jamie page Dton jp D uh. As jp
D points out, cops would eventually get wise to all
these things as well, and then it came down to
(12:31):
what would lead to NASCAR, which is I can drive
better than you, period. So that's like when the banjo
music would start, exactly when the cop turned on the sir,
right and like, I know all your tricks, but now
the race is on. So um, you've got these local
roads that are often very What is it thunder Road
in North Georgia. You know there's a place there's a
(12:54):
road called thunder Road, North Georgia, And I think Bob
Mitchum was in a movie about it or something back
in the day, really called thunder Road, I think. But anyway,
it's like like a lot of people died, especially revenuers,
because they didn't know like the curves. It was particularly dangerous.
But those Moonshine boys like knew exactly what they were
doing and could take these curves. Most of them. A
lot of Moonshine runners died in their own cars on
(13:17):
their own roads, just going too fast, too far, too hard.
But if you were a revenue you're at a greater
disadvantage because also you didn't know where to double back
and hide out. Um. And there was a move that
was created by Junior Johnson called Bootleggers turn, which we've
all seen. It's where the car goes um one direction
(13:37):
and then all of a sudden it does a one eight,
straightens out and drives back the other direction before the
car that's chasing it can turn around. Bootleggers turn. I've
never knew that. Yeah, Junior Johnson patented that one, and
also later on would go on to um I wouldn't
say an event, I guess discover the drafting, which if
(13:58):
you don't know what drafting is and car racing, it's
when and you can experience. This is very dangerous. You
don't want to try this. But if you get behind
like a big eighteen wheeler on the highway and you're
close enough, it often feels like you don't have to
hit the gas is hard. It's because you don't. You're
being sucked up into the wind behind it, and it
breaks the draft and essentially you're in a little vacuum
(14:20):
getting right up on the car behind you. And in
nineteen sixty I think at the Dayton of Junior, Johnson
realized this by accident on a practice lap and apparently
had an inferior car to the rest of the cars
and won the race based on that technique. And then
everyone was like, what's June you're doing. We gotta do
(14:43):
it too, let's name it. So they named it drafting.
That's weird, you, No, I guess drafting makes sense. It
does now, But is that just because we know what
it's called. No, it's like a draft, Yeah, like I
gets you're right, there's a draft, you know what I mean? Yeah,
all right, Junior Johnson hardoned too by Ronald Reagan. Yeah,
(15:07):
because you said he got arrested for not actually bootlegging,
but just for going to the still one night. Right now.
He was caught at his daddy's still by John Carter himself.
That's what. Yeah, when your father has a still in
the woods, that's daddy, um. You. He was caught at
his daddy's still, um by John Carter. And he did
(15:30):
eleven months three days in prison. Um in North Carolina. No,
I'm sorry, Chillicothe, Ohio or Chilla Coathee Ohio. Um so,
but he was caught in with Carolina. But apparently bootleggers
and whiskey runners had this reputation of being so honest
(15:51):
that when they were caught. His legend tells, when they
were caught and sentenced, the judge would frequently let them
leave um and just go home and be told when
to meet the prison bus, like meet the prison bus
March twenty one. And when the prison bus showed up
like at that stop, the bootlegger would be sitting there
waiting for the bus to take it to take them
(16:12):
to prison. They were known to be that that uma
despite their illegalities. Yeah, well that was I think one
of the reasons why Tom Wolfe called the North Carolina
Wilkes County specifically bootleggers the last the last American heroes
because they were kind of I mean, they were against
(16:33):
the law and they would like kill revenuers, but they
were also very honest in their dealing when they were caught.
Did he say, didn't you should point out there was
a movie coming out about this. Yeah, there's a movie
called Lawless, and it's based on a book called The
Wettest County in the World. Yeah. I saw. The original
name of the movie up until this year was Wettest County. Yeah,
(16:54):
which I have to men's pretty bad. No, it's gotta
be wettest county in the world, like the wettest County
in the world. And it's about a county in Virginia.
I can't remember which one. Um and the They changed
the name to Lawless and Nick Cave wrote the script.
He is awesome and like every way Um and Guy
pierces in it. He plays the Treasury revenue guy. That's
(17:17):
Nick Cave with a V. By the way, not in
Nick Cage. Yeah, okay, Nick Cave of Bad Seeds Fame, Yeah, exactly.
Um and shy La Buff to bring it full circle
from Crystal Skulls. Yeah, I don't think we should bring
things full circle of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Right.
You know that's two consecutive episodes where it just came
up organically. Yeah, strange, but yeah, Lawless is coming out
(17:41):
this month. The recording this the twenty nine I believe. Yeah.
I can't wait because I was thinking, I think I
told you this morning when I was reading this, I
was like, man, why haven't they made a movie about this? Well,
my friend, they have looking forward to it. Um, all right,
so where are we world War two? Yeah? What's what?
Why isn't this still going on? And by the way,
(18:02):
this this article is not correct, said that they were well,
they were running whiskey well into the seventies. Clay call
who's Junior Johnson's bff forever, Um, he was doing it
in the eighties really into the eighties. Yeah, And it
was the um, the rise of the chicken farming, like
mega chicken processing plants that converted all of these former
(18:26):
corn liquor distillers into chicken farmers because it's it was
just more lucrative, and they're like, well not, I'll raise
chickens then. Interesting. But he was into the eighties. He
said that one of his cars a an old New
Yorker from the sixties that he said, um the writer
of this hot Rod Magazine article called something that I
(18:46):
like doctor a lawyer would would um use would drive.
But it was like one of his prize possessions because
that thing would just haul to He modified it. He
said that he um their bullet holes in it from
the eighties. So he was like real deal, seriously doing
this into the eighties, because I mean his car got
bullet holes in the nineteen eighties from bootlegging. When I
(19:08):
was smoking the band it that was seventies. Yeah, but
he wasn't. He was just he just couldn't drivetive. No.
They were smuggling beer. I don't remember that. Yeah, of
course that was what they were doing. Remember the big truck.
I didn't know that full of course beer, illegal course beer. Yeah.
Back then the course was only out west and they
(19:28):
wanted some in Georgia. Oh, so they sent Smokey Uh
Sarcana and Jerry Reid to get the truck load of
course beer to bring it back in like twenty four
hours or something. Yeah. Um, okay, So flash forward a
bit um in the thirties, forties and fifties, I guess
not forward. We're kind of right there in the middle. Um,
(19:49):
there wasn't a lot going on entertainment wise in the
rural South. Didn't have a movie theater, sometimes didn't have
a mall, didn't have a lot to do. So they
would clear out fields and make dirt track race tracks.
Well farmers would, yeah, it make some cash off of it. Yeah,
because sort of like Field of Dreams, except they would
build a race track. You know, if you build it,
(20:09):
they will come and like um Days of Thunder, except
in a farm field. And dirt track was huge. I
mean it's still big. People still race on dirt tracks.
But Junior Johnson apparently said that he never got on
pavement when he was bootlegging. He's like, you have a
ten to one better odds of losing the cops on
(20:29):
a dirt road because these cops, I mean, not only
did they not know the roads in the South, they
were not used to sliding around on dirt roads. And
these guys are just like you know, professional uh drifters,
not Tokyo drifters. Tokyo drifters, not hobo drifters. Um. So,
all right, while this is going on, you've got these
(20:50):
southern towns and farmers building these dirt tracks, making a
little scratch but also kind of making a name for
car racing, like this is kind of a new thing. Yeah,
I mean, the Indie was around and all that, but
these this it wasn't kind of big in the South.
I don't think was it. When did that start of
Formula one racing? I should say that was the earliest
auto racing was like maybe or they were racing like
(21:14):
Mercedes and stuff like that, but stock car racing was
very much new to the South. Well it was, and
then you know, eventually bootlegging dried up and these people realize,
you know what in n they got together in Daytona, Florida,
uh and said let's make this like a legit thing,
(21:35):
Like we think there's money to be made here. You
guys can drive really fast. These stock cars aren't that
much money because back then it was stock car racing.
Like that was the whole point was we want to
have the fans identify with these people by driving a
car just like they could drive. Yeah, it was all
on the driver, yeah, because it was like you weren't
(21:57):
allowed to modify, and any amountifications you could do very
slight and they were really heavily regulated and it was
all about your driving skills. And they did decide to
go that route because it was, like you said, a
common bond between the fans and the driver. Yeah, you know,
like well and it's still driving the same car. Yeah,
(22:17):
I mean that that brand loyalty is still huge. Yea.
You know the Chevy guys and the Ford guys, like
they don't they stick with the car more so than
the driver even. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Um. Of course
now they're much more modified. But back in the day
it was called strictly stock, meaning you know there s
S means on some cars. I don't know, wonder you
(22:41):
haven't seen that, I don't think so, Yeah you have.
There's like sometimes like you'll it'll be like a normal car,
like a Monte Carlo, but it'll say s S or
something next to it. Oh maybe I don't know what's
look in at that, or maybe it means like superstock,
no strict or it means super. But I did find
(23:02):
an interesting though at the beginning of NASCAR in UM,
I read this other article where they said that fans
didn't want like it was sort of a um, a
slap in the face to have these new cars out
there being beat up, because it was post World War
two and it was kind of waste, wasteful to do
something like that. So that's why they got these stock cars.
(23:26):
And like a lot of dudes rode in the early
days would actually rent cars to race, like a car rental.
Oh yeah, yeah, they would get just get a rental car,
and that's where thrift car care exactly. Uh. And it
wasn't until later on that they like um nifty two,
I think we're when roll bars were mandated and uh.
Then you know, gradually over the years they became more
(23:48):
and more modified, although it's still it's still I mean,
they're modified, but it's still a regular car. It's not
like digital paddle shifters like an IndyCar like you get
in a NASCAR car and theoretically you could drive it
not well no, let mean be surprised. Oh you know.
Junior Johnson said that it was a letdown to go
(24:09):
from bootlegging to NASCAR. He said, quote on the race track,
you're a running to beat someone out on the highway,
You're a running for your life. Awesome. He is eighty
one years old now and I just read that he
is selling his mansion and downsizing and he sells moonshine
(24:34):
midnight Moon. Oh is that his? Yeah? He can sell
it like he can bite on the web. And he
also sells ham and pork crime. I would eat those.
I would do any other movies you got, No, I
got too Big Bad Mama bootlegging movie. Yeah, she takes
over the bootleg in business after her husband dies. Uh.
And then there's a small it's a small part, but
(24:56):
it's one of my all time favorite movies. Paper Moon
I thought was your leg. Yeah, okay, but it has
a small moonshining park bootlegging park. And I think the movie, Uh,
did you ever see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot? No? I think
that had something to do with bootlegging. I might be wrong.
(25:18):
What about Dirty Mary? Wait, Dirty Larry, Crazy Mary? Was
that bootlegging? I don't know, but Clint Eastwood was in
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and oh, actually no, it wouldn't about
it wouldn't about menshine, but it was about driving really fast. Yeah, yeah,
I think so, Blue Lagoon. No, it's about six. If
(25:42):
you want to learn more about Whiskey cars, you can
type in Whiskey cars with a knee um to the
search bart how stuff works dot com. I would also
strongly urge you to listen to our Moonshine podcast or
prohibition podcast. Uh yeah, and there's articles on the site
for those two, so you can type those in the
search parts. See what comes up, I said, search bar.
(26:02):
This means it's time for a listener mail Chuck. Yes,
we should tell everybody about something very special and dear
to our hearts New York City. That's right. We are
going to Comic Con and we will be doing a
live podcast on Friday, October twelve at Comic Con at
the jab At Center. It's like our new thing. We
did San Diego, now we do in New York. That's
(26:24):
right next up Albuquerque. So if you are going to
Comic Con, you should come by and see that. But
after Comic Con, we have one of our famous it's
famous to us all Star trivia nights. Um, where is
it gonna be the cutting room? It is at the
grand reopening of the Cutting Room in the flat Iron District,
which is what's the address. It is forty four East
(26:47):
thirty second Street in New York. And uh, it's in
the flat Iron you said. And the doors open at
seven thirty. Trivia goes down at eight thirty. And what
does first come, first serve? Right? Free, free, free, first come,
first serve. We will have a bar there that you
can buy drinks. Yeah, you can buy us drink that's right.
We're gonna basically be having a really good time if
you if you're not familiar with our Trivy nights, like,
(27:09):
just come out and check it out. It'll be worth
your while, absolutely, And stay tuned for info on Facebook
and Twitter about the makeup of the all star team.
We're filling that out as we speak. But we will
have some special guests that you will want to meet. Yeah,
and at the very least you can come take on
me and chuck right, yeah, okay, it's just fun. So
what is that that's Friday, October twelfth, right, yep, the
panels that went The panel is at at least okay,
(27:33):
and then we're gonna be at the cutting room starting
at eight thirty Trivite starts at eight thirty doors at
seven thirty. Be there, be square. You were good at this.
Thank you? All right the time for listener mail. I'm
gonna call this shark attack man. I have to say, Chuck,
you're you have to go onto a Twitter account. You
were getting kudos all over the place for this. People
(27:55):
love that. Hey, kudos stall that actors. Yes, um, all right,
shark attack. I just listened to your Shark Attack podcast
and was thinking about my boyfriend. Uh, you might be
interested in his happy ending of his own shark attack.
Kevin is his name. He's from South Africa and he
was surfing in front of his house one day when
he was sixteen. Went out of nowhere, a great white
(28:16):
came up and chopped down on his leg. Shark disappeared,
and the one friend he was with helped him back
to shore, which was quite a ways, and then went
off to the hospital. The doctor patching him up said
he was really lucky. Specific can figure the top of
the jaw of the shark went into the leg while
the bottom never made it through the surfboard, which is
kind of like that one story we talked about Surpord
(28:39):
saving the life the doctor thought maybe the shark bit
him in such a way where the fin of his
surfboard hit that soft part under your tongue, you know
that party le and hurt the shark, so it swam away. Um,
after listening to the podcast, maybe it was just a
test bite though, and the shark didn't have any follow through.
Now that we're complained, not we're complaining, of course. Anyway,
(29:01):
he left with a couple of hundred stitches and was
back surfing six weeks later. I'm attaching a picture of
his leg. I'm sorry that it's sideways crazy. And I
did look and it was the dude's leg that had
big shark teeth in it. I didn't see that. Well,
it was good, she said. One more thing. We're talking
about it just a few weeks ago. And I asked
(29:22):
him if he punched the shark or anything like that. Um,
I had a zoo books on shark when I was little.
I always thought I'd for sure punch a shark. He
said it was pretty much the last thing on his mind,
which is kind of what I was thinking. Um. Anyway,
I loved the podcast. And that is from Bethany and
Kevin is the boyfriend awesome, the surfer surfing out in
(29:44):
front of his house that must yeah, congratulations and staying
alive yes, uh Kevin right, yep. Thanks for the story,
bethany Um. If you have a story for us, especially
one about how you're granddaddy or Peppy or whoever was
a bootleg, your a moonshiner something like that, sure you
can send us stuff via Twitter at s y s
(30:08):
K podcast. And when I say that means the AT
symbol at M person, people do that. No M person
is the N sign. So AT symbol s y s
K podcast all one word. You can go to Facebook
dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can
send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
(30:31):
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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