Whiskey Wade
Whiskey Wade is known far and wide up in the eastern side of the Smokey Mountains for his 4th of July Pig Pickin’ and Bluegrass Jamboree. I am here to tell you it is a party not to be forgotten. Samantha Jeanne and I have made it a habit to partake in the festivities for the past several years. The first time I ever showed up, Wade waddled on over and greeted me with a curt “Hey, how you doin’? Now who the hell are ya?” with one big bushy eyebrow raised over a glazed eye in greeting and the other eyeball glaring, daring me to say anything but, “I’m just fine ‘n dandy, how are you?” Mountain men do that. It’s this cautious social animal wildlife thing they’ve got going on – happy and jovial on one side and threatening you with the other side. If you don’t believe me, go watch reruns of Grizzly Adams. He does it all the time. Anyways, I was fine that day – I just pointed straight at Samantha Jeanne’s brother, Randy, who happens to be a close personal drinking buddy of Wade’s – spit out “I’m with him” and hefted up the case of Budweiser we’d brought as a host gift. Actually, it’s not really a gift at all – it is the cost of admission to the shindig. If you give Wade booze, he’ll pretty much forgive 90% of your mortal sins, even the ones you haven’t committed yet, right there on the spot. With that said I’m sure you can guess why they call him “Whiskey” Wade.
Now, all this meetin’ and greetin’ is happening on a Saturday and you need to understand that for ole Wade the party started on Thursday. See, it’s a local tradition to go “sit with Wade” while the pig is cooking. Anybody who knows anything about cooking a pig – and let’s face it, that only includes good ole boys with at least three generations born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon – will tell you that it’s not a quick activity. On Thursday, Wade picks up the pig from the butcher and sits around comparing the size and quality of this pig with all the other pigs he’s cooked. It’s just a sad state to ponder alone, so several of Wade’s buddies come over to help with the task, armed with cases of canned Budweiser and lawn chairs. This lasts through the night. On Friday, the fire is tendered and readied and the pig set on to cook in between more Budweiser guzzling and mountain men bonding. You have to tend a pig real close while it’s cooking, thus the reason all those men sit right there and babysit it. Fortunately, for us all attending the 4th of July party, Wade’s wife, Jeannie, sneaks out to the roasting area behind the barn at some point in the night and turns the garden hose on Wade, blasting his 5 fat rolls apart with the force of the ice cold spring water. This, of course, not only wakes him up to check the pig but serves to spiff up his personal hygiene at the same time.
I’ll never forget the first time I went to Whiskey Wade’s pig pickin’. There we were – me, Samantha Jeanne, her little brother Mikey and the rest of her family and assorted personal acquaintances – standing around taking bets on whether it was going to rain or not when, up above me, I heard a voice. No, it wasn’t God, although after a few beers I will admit that the thought did fly across my mind. “Dayyyy-ummm” is what I heard. Of course, there ain’t a woman alive who doesn’t like to hear that – and they’re lying to you if they say they don’t – so up I looked to see what possibilities awaited. I later found out that he was the fiddle player for one of the bands. Long tangled curly hair blowin’ in the breeze, hangin’ onto the door of the hayloft for dear life so he wouldn’t fall out. He was a portrait of the perfect macho hillbilly man of all macho hillbilly men – or so he thought. Lord, after watching the boy fall down the loft ladder 3 rungs at a time a little later, I remain to this day amazed that he didn’t pitch out that loft window head first. He was, of course, looking down my scoop neck tee shirt. I allowed myself to be flattered for about 1 second until I realized the original reason he was leaning out of the top of the barn was to spit a jaw full of Red Man chaw down below. I moved out of the way with lightning speed.
Now I have to tell you that there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that compares to watching a bunch of 350 pound shirtless hillbilly men sloggin’ and cloggin’ to bluegrass music on uneven ground. See, Wade built this little stage on the back of his barn. He’s got it all rigged up with electrical outlets and extension cords and deer spotlights to accommodate whatever bands he hires to entertain us all. The only problem is that the back of the barn faces a hill. So there we perch with bellies full of slow cooked pig with all the fixins, lawn chairs and coolers, on the best flat spot on the hill we can find. Over to the side a ways. Out of the way of drunk fat hillbilly men rolling down the hill. I know what you’re thinking. It’s ok, they eventually stop rolling when they reach the porch – which is kind of handy because then they can grab hold of a porch post and pull themselves back upright. Then, everybody up on the hill starts screaming down at him “Hey, gemme a bearrr while yur down thar!” And back up the hill he climbs, cradling four ice cold Budweisers like salvation depended on it. Maybe it does.
Back to the fiddle player… this boy was beyond drunk. Up on to the stage he stumbles with his band. He’s dancing with one foot and shaking his curls around and puffing that macho man chest out, because everybody knows that all the girls go for the fiddle player. As a matter of fact, that’s how my grandparents met. Up in Anson County around 1920 or so, my granddaddy – and I didn’t know this until just a few years ago – was the lead fiddle player in the best bluegrass band in the county. I’m sure my grandma fell for him fast and stole him away from all the other church social of-marriageable-age groupies. Of course, my grandma was not known for her pleasing personality and my granddaddy drank a lot, from what I’ve been told. He never played the fiddle again. But I’m not here to tell you about my family tragedies…
So anyway, this boy was awful. He kept dragging the fiddle bow over the strings, and I think he nearly poked himself in the eye a few times. He was so bad that the rest of his band soon started looking at him like they were ready to pounce and kill. Of course, this was all highly entertaining to Samantha Jeanne and me. Being the charitable women that we are, we decided to give the poor boy the benefit of the doubt and theorized that he couldn’t play because he was so drunk. Two hours later he still couldn’t play and he hadn’t had anything else to drink so we were forced to face the fact that the boy just plain sucked as a fiddle player. After this brutal realization, we went back to watching drunk fat men roll down the hill and taking bets on how long it was going to take for Jeannie to finish off her jar of homemade cherry wine and start rolling down the hill with Wade.
All in all, I have to tell you that Whiskey Wade’s 4th of July Pig PIckin’ and Bluegrass Jamboree is one of the highlights of the year. As a matter of fact, it’s just a little too intense to be able to handle more than 3 or 4 years in a row. This year, Samantha Jeanne and I decided we needed a break. So, little brother Mikey came to hang with us girls for the weekend. We traded the whole pig for some ribs on the grill – and I will be the first to testify that was some Class A good eating. Like all the men in Samantha Jeanne’s family, Mikey sure knows how to handle his meat. I’m sure we’ll all be satisfied from that feast for weeks.
