New Book Rumrunners and Moonshiners of Old Florida

 

The sheer number of moonshine stills in the area that could produce a lot of smoke depending on what was used to fuel the fire lends credence to those who say it was just a giant still operation. Even today hikers walking along the national forests in Wakulla don’t have to look hard to find the traces of the era’s hidden enterprise of bootlegging and moonshining. The old timers carry it with them like a badge of honor and proudly proclaim to anyone who asks that “Yes, their folks had a moonshiner.”
 
   Helen Strickland is the president of the Wakulla Historical Society and a lifelong resident of the region. Her family once owned a gas station in Wakulla, on a popular intersection. Her family would watch cars go by on the road and her parents could tell if the owners were shiners during the 1950s and 1960s. They would sometimes even shout out “There goes a shiner or a bootlegger.” Her parents could tell because often how the shiner’s cars were built seemed to give them away.  “Often their tires were just giant and if they had shine in the trunk it would just weight down the entire structure of the automobile. Just how it was seating you could tell they were going to make a run.”

 
According to Strickland, there were bootleggers everywhere in Wakulla and in the entire panhandle for that matter.  As a child growing up after prohibition Helen Strickland would take walks in the forests and rivers of the community and like relics of a bygone era, she would find the stills, jars, jugs, and even cooking locations. These old bootlegger trail pickups were commonplace. Old habits die hard in the Panhandle, as Helen noted in recalling a quick and cheap method the elderly would employ to get intoxicated. A tradition that stems from long before prohibition.
“Older people would also take corn cobs and hide them in clocks and allow them to ferment. Then after a while, like four or five months they would eat them.”
Apparently, they would just chew on these old cobs, sometimes all day long, and it was like having a continual glass of shine.

People who lived along the rivers during prohibition lived very modest and simple lives. They hunted for duck and fished for mullet and jack fish. They grew cotton, corn, or peanuts and grew their own fresh vegetables. They traded for what they could, and although on occasion they had to sadly part with their hard-earned cash, as John Schafer explains, the only real cash crop in the area was moonshine.
Stills along the swampland were regularly moved and removed, and people in the know would wear special badges or pins to identify themselves. If you operated a still you needed a pin. If you were going to take a look at a still or wanted to make a purchase, you had to wear a pin.

“Everyone it seems wore a badge,” said Jabot Williams a local shiner
“If you didn’t have a badge they would pull a gun on you, and there were a lot of shootings.”

To avoid detection when purchasing ingredients, still operators got creative, going to every other store in a community to buy one item here and another there to avoid suspicion. However, this tactic seldom ever worked because shiners would buy ten pounds of sugar at a time at these stores. Agents would track the increases in sugar sales per grocery store to determine if there were shiners in the area. When approaching their stills from the main roads, shiners would take a different path each time to not wear down a trail. If a still is left in one place for too long, it will certainly attract the attention of wild animals. Wild hogs, the police discovered, love sugar mash. So, they learned to track their swine friend’s paths in the wilderness. Likewise, the shiners learned to also trust the movements of the wild hogs. If they heard a hog nearby, they knew the agents weren’t far behind.

New Book Rum Runners and Moonshiners of Old Florida

Travel back to one of the most colorful and captivating periods of Florida history, a time when the rebellious spirit of Old Florida challenged the federal government. When Prohibition ended legal production of spirits and ordinary citizens turned to a life of crime. Robert Buccellato the author of Florida Governors: The lasting Legacies and Jimmy Carter in Plains, shines light on a forgotten time of bootlegged liquors, corrupt rural sheriffs, crafty moonshiners, and panhandle traditions that back centuries.

Rum Runners and Moonshiners of Old Florida

I'm so excited to present the official book cover to my new book "Rum Runners and Moonshiners of Old Florida"

Goes on sale the week of January 10th 2019.

Release date January 19th 2019 (The 100th Anniversary of the 18th amendment) 

Special thanks to my brilliant wife Stephanie 

My friend Adam Baumel is running for NY Assembly. Please help him out and share

Adam Baumel for NYS Assembly

https://www.baumelfor64.com/

This is my best friend Adam Baumel
He is quite possibly one of the kindest most decent and honorable men I’ve ever known. He’s also a shameless socialist Democrat running against a painfully foolish and unqualified Republican in a devoutly conservative district.
He’s also a veteran who dropped out of school so that he could serve his country in the Navy in a time of war.
He’s my son‘s godfather and is always the first phone call I receive whenever anything meaningful in my life takes place.
He is now officially the Democratic nominee for New York’s state assembly seat 64, running in a seat that was tailor-made so that only Republicans could win. Running in the district that doesn’t usually even get a Democrat to run against the Republican. And here is walking the streets giving people a choice.
Encourage all of you to look him up join his Facebook group like his posts and share this.
Because this is how we win, running everywhere and running with values — with Adam Baumel.

Jimmy Carter in Plains by Robert Buccellato

The following are new promotional images for the Book Jimmy Carter in Plains by Arcadia Publishing

Dear Jim

Jim Williams was my friend. I can't claim that I was the nearest or the dearest to him. But, we got along very well during the three and a half years we communicated with one another. I would fit our phone interviews awkwardly into lunch hours or breaks during my day job. Whenever I had a day off for a holiday, I would schedule a prolonged interview with him, knowing that he would be at his family's real estate office regardless of the day. We would plan to talk for an hour, it would always turn into two or three. If I needed to get somewhere in the afternoon, I would always get there late. He always made me want to stay on the phone.

We would always stay on the phone for hours chatting, he was so colorful, so open and modest that each conversation was like a marathon deeper into his humanity. He was a farmer, veteran, family man, devoted husband, outstanding citizen, a mentor to me, great conversationalist, and thoughtful public servant. He was state senator during Florida's Golden Age, who once stood up to a Police Chief who attempted to fire a deputy for of all things giving Jim Williams a ticket.  When Dempsey Barron the legendary Senate President tried to manhandle Williams and Bob Graham outside of the senate chambers, ho coldly informed him that "If he ever touched him like that again they were going outside!"

When at a Campaign rally during his first senate race, a jolly Claude Kirk approached him and informed "You're a great guy. But, we're gonna kick your a**!" He smiled at him and told him to bring it on. He was a man who went to war a hawk and who learned to love peace when he earned his Bachelor's degree later in life. He was a furiously loyal friend to Reubin Askew  and the two men had the most caring friendship of any Florida gubernatorial ticket. Trust me on that, I've known a few of them.
He was also blessed with quality that has become rare in politicians, he was kind. Again many politicians try to project kindness, and a lot of them are openly very decent people. But, Jim Williams like Reubin Askew were kind at their core. Decency was marrow deep in them.

When Askew was looking to replace his first Lieutenant Governor, most everyone thought he would ask Bob Graham to be his running mate in 1974. When Askew called Williams to meet him at the Governor's mansion, Williams said no because he had been working all day. The Governor finally got a yes out  of the state senator after it was agreed that Williams didn't have to wear a suit. After losing the democratic primary to Bob Graham, Williams took what he considered the greatest job he ever had in public office, deputy Secretary of Agriculture in the Carter White House.  "I had to have senate approval and I got my own car!" Williams would say with a laugh.

When I told him once I was going to see Carter teach Sunday School he told me to say hi, before mentioning, "He probably won't know who the hell I am."

Jim Williams always looked with amazement that many within his old Senate district looked on Buddy Mackay with such distrust. As some kind of left wing nut. "I'm the freaking liberal!"
And, Yes he was, a shameless Liberal. He grew to dislike the Republican mentality and looked on the tea party with total amusement.  He called himself a "Dove" openly and with total conviction believed in loving your fellow man. He called me his friend and it was an honor that I will always hold dear in my heart. Next only to my Grandfather and Reubin Askew, this man has shaped my political identity.

During what would be our final conversation he talked about how odd it was that he was in his eighties as both his parents died before sixty. He spoke about wanted to throw away all his awards, yet his kids weren't letting him. Being that I have four of my grandpa's awards at my house I told him it wasn't gonna happen. Then I told him about my new book (the one on Jimmy Carter) and he said he was proud of me. In that moment I had a deep respect and admiration for that kind old man, that I didn't think possible. I then had to go pick up my wife from work, as always on a Jim Williams call, I was running late.

Me and the Family in the Wakulla News

Robert Buccellato of Crawfordville is an author, as well as Historian for the Clerk of Court of Leon County.
He has published three books to date, “Florida Governor’s Lasting Legacies,” “Finding Dan McCarty,” and “Jimmy Carter in Plains: The Presidential Hometown.” The latter tells the fascinating and inspiring story of Jimmy Carter’s surprisingly successful campaign and 1976 victory of becoming the 39th President of the United States.
The book describes how growing up in the small town of Plains, Ga., shaped the man, and how together he and his community of supporters, known as the Peanut Brigade, changed the nation through an unprecedented hands on approach to politicking.
It walks you through the presidency, highlighting those things that set Carter apart from presidents before him, such as his position on civil rights and his eventually winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Buccellato also describes the inevitable changes the town of Plains underwent as a direct result of the influx of tourists and media attention surrounding the campaign and presidency. Much effort went into preserving the small town’s charm despite it’s growth during this period.
The book is not only well written, but it is also artfully illustrated with an array of old photographs to support and enhance the story.
From the moment you meet Buccellato, it is obvious that he has a great appreciation for history.
More importantly, he is a story teller who enthusiastically imparts bits of historical whimsy to anyone who will listen.
When asked what inspired him to write this book or why Jimmy Carter, he generally answers that he was largely influenced by his grandfather, a 20-year legislator in the Florida House of Representatives during the Golden Years of Florida Politics.
However, in a speaking engagement and book signing at the Gwinnett County Public Library in Atlanta earlier this year, he admitted that upon further reflection, the answer actually runs deeper than that. Carter, as a peanut farmer from South Georgia, beat all the odds and became a huge success who “has the ability to make things that seem extraordinarily impossible not only possible, but easy, with hard work and determination,” he says.


“And that feeling that you and your community can run, and win, a presidential campaign, is something, I think, that speaks to the best of our system,” Buccellato says. “And it’s still evergreen, this possibility of improving and helping to evolve our system.”
An avid supporter of preserving the “pockets of history across the country, because many have been lost” Buccellato says that upon entering Plains, one sees “miles of hill and tree, people feel they’ve stepped back in time to a lifestyle of day’s past.”
In fact, he has been known to compare Crawfordville to Plains.
When asked about this, he readily offered noteworthy similarities between the two towns. For instance, the old world feel of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s is still present in both places.
In Plains, it’s in the preservation of the old Train Depot that acted as campaign headquarters, largely because it had the only public restroom in town.
Here, the sense of old Florida can be found in the beach bungalows and white sand beaches.
Additionally, both towns have what he described as a detached sense of community, still supporting a feeling of “the leisurely agrarian lifestyle and a freedom from being plugged-in.”
The book mentions that shortly after the election, Plains received its first traffic light.
This brought back memories of growing up in Crawfordville, during a time when there was only one traffic light.


Buccellato has been writing since around the age of 12, beginning with fiction and later focusing on non-fiction. Originally from Hollywood, Fla., he moved to the panhandle in 1998.
After attending FSU, he married his wife Stephanie and welcomed their son Croston to the family last year.
In addition to his family, career as historian and numerous book publishing’s, Buccellato manages book signings, radio shows and speaking engagements, as well as a YouTube channel and a Florida history blog.
He is currently working on writing his fourth book, a biography of Jimmy Carter.




here is the link folks
http://www.thewakullanews.com/content/%E2%80%98preserving-pockets-history%E2%80%99