So, ladies, this has me thinking... What family tall tales have been passed down among the women of your family? I'll start, cause one of ours came up in conversation yesterday. A Hillbilly Intervention One of my great aunts was married to a man with a considerable drinking problem. She finally solved it by waiting until he'd passed out cold in bed one night, tying him down, and proceeding to beat him black and blue with a piece of stovewood. This is always the final story when we get in a family discussion of alchoholism, and I've never been sure if its a caution against marrying a drinking man or a suggestion on what to do about the problem! Hmmm...maybe that's why women aren't known for their tall tales. We've never strung this one out with a lot of windy details, but just jump right to the point. Ingrid

There seems to be about only one story that I ever heard, since my family was distanced from my Mo. family by divorce in the 1920's. But I did hear this one. Seems my Gr. Granddad was a teetotaler. But some of the relation had a still back in the hills. He would get wind the revuners were around and gonna make some raids on the stills. He would go out to the relations still and take the coil and hide it. Logic was the revuners could not make a case if they found a still with no coil as anyone knew you could not make moonshine without one. By the way I did have an occassion to taste that wicked moonshine on a vacation trip to Mo. with my Grandma in 1965, and it was enough to fry the hair off a frog, ever see frogs with hair? Now you know why. Nancy