A Home Fires Nighthawk
On pine smoke, moonshine, and Renoir
Vol. 141, February 25th, 2025 Published a day early online
Home Fires
‘Round here, sticks pile up quick as bills. Throw in an ice storm or two, and it’s time for a spring burn. After various adventures with gasoline and matches and home-grown Hollywood blazes, the pile is almost gone.
It also sparked the idea of making a bonfire a regular social thing, so I set to work hauling field stone from here and there. Soon, a ring materialized. Another match, another WOOF, and the evening fire crackled merrily. (So did the grass over yonder, but that winked out.)
Night closed in. I tossed on more sticks. The green maple twigs smoked and cracked. While the Big Dipper wheeled up in the northeastern sky, I set about thinking.
A year ago, this house hadn’t been built, and the yard only something marked with flagging tape. It’s strange to settle into a new place, but the bonfire and the night somehow made it feel like home. Stars and flames and the smell of oak and pine are older than any dwelling.
I wondered how it would be to travel among those stars, and settle on a new planet. What would I do to make it feel like home?
I think I’d start a campfire, but there’s a million ways to remember who we are, settlers, and yet wanderers.
Don’t forget.
Field Stone Fire Ring
After some huffing and puffing to carry the rocks and drag the sticks, a blaze crackles in the new backyard fire pit.
Book of the Week
Best Little Stories from Virginia
(C. Brian Kelly)
A treasure trove of tales from Old Dominion by a local and distinguished author. I’m lucky enough to know him!
(It’s available everywhere, and locally, too.)
Happy Birthday, Renoir (1841)
As a teenager, he developed his skill in a porcelain factory painting plates. Later he would help found the Impressionist style.
Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week
Hollow tooth. “You didn’t eat enough to fill up a hollow tooth.”
Quote of the Week
“That learning is most requisite which unlearns evil.”
–Antisthenes
Write to Us!
The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com
Letters from Josh
(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #222)
Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc: Collector’s Edition
Howdy folks, and welcome back to the show! Jimmy watched. The rain on his windshield beaded like diamonds, then turned to rubies as they caught the flash of the police lights, then back. He barely heard the officer’s feet over the thud of his heart. The man leaned down, a mile tall. This had to work.
“In a hurry there, son? What brings you out so late?”
“D-delivering some country hams and bacon, sir.”
“At this hour?” The cop squinted his eyes. Jimmy gulped.
“Yessir, I worked all day. The horse was sick. Couldn’t get away ‘til now.”
The officer’s light flickered over the wares in the back of the ‘40 Ford coupe. “Alright...but they won’t spoil in this cool weather, son. Take it easy next time.” The cop slapped the roof.
“Thank you, officer, I sure will.” Jimmy started the big V8, holding his breath till he eased away.
The roar of the motor covered his exhale–and the clink of mason jars under the hams.
The next time Jimmy went through the Elk Creek straightaway south of Wytheville, he waited till there was just enough moon in the sky to drive without headlights.
Fast.
Moon in the jars put money in pockets, and hearts in mouths. But thanks to his daring, Jimmy always “brought home the bacon” when he ran ‘shine from West Virginia to North Carolina back in ‘43.
“Anyone want another?” I asked, leaning over the mini bar in the sunlight of today. A prim little lady raised her hand. So I poured more of the clear corn whiskey. “Got it at the ABC store. It’s not legit, but it’ll do.”
The tales continued. A retired lawyer told me about finding fault with a judge’s (fruitful) search warrant, so the law had to drop the whole case against the neighbor with the still. “The guy was real thankful, and knew what I liked. ‘Have a look in the hollow tree stump ‘round about ten tomorrow morning’ he told me, so I did. Whaddaya-know, it grew a gallon of peach brandy.”
We all laughed, sitting around on a pleasant afternoon at an upscale retirement home. You’d think that these stories would lurk halfway up some green mountainside, or flicker to life in campfire light, but stories live everywhere people do. All we have to do is ask.
I’m lucky. I go around telling stories, so sometimes people tell theirs. It seems most folk around here have legends of White Lightning. I’ll bustle in with facts and figures from the Internet, and the room raises a collective eyebrow. “Uh, yeah.” They’ve done this: cooked it, run it, drove fast, lived free. Or–at least had a friend who has.
It seems like collecting stories–of moonshine or anything– would be a specialized thing, but it’s not. It’s one of the basic elements of good living: listening to people. Sometimes I get caught up in some strange idea of needing hipster fedoras and visiting faraway cabins to hear the good ones. But, if I open my eyes and ears, they’re everywhere people are, in plain sight, where I’d do well to pay attention anyway.
A quiet man wheeled up to me after a music program yesterday. “Bet you never heard this song” he said, singing with a quavering voice of traveling to see a long forgotten love.
“Do you collect those?” I asked, impressed.
“No, I just know them.” I plan to keep listening.
–Josh
Photo from the excellent resource of Foxfire. Dig ‘em, wontcha?