Mule Kick Moon­shine

Carl drove a flatbed truck through the woods to the dump on a Sat­ur­day after­noon. I rode shot­gun. He was the trash col­lec­tor for Acme Vis­i­ble Records. I was his assis­tant, work­ing a sum­mer job before return­ing to UVA.

We had already clocked four hours of over­time that morn­ing when Carl said we had to make the trip to the dump. Strange­ly, he insist­ed that we punch our time cards before we climbed in the truck.

“Why clock out?” I said. “We’re still work­ing.”

In his six­ties, black hair swirled with gray, smile lines crin­kling around his crys­tal blue eyes, he pat­ted me on the shoul­der. “Just do like I say,” he said. I fol­lowed Carl’s direc­tion, but I wasn’t hap­py about it.

At the dump, Carl backed the truck up to a pit and we wres­tled bar­rels of trash to the rear of the flatbed to emp­ty them out. When we got back inside the cab, he reached under the seat and lift­ed a mason jar into his lap.

“You ever had shine?” he asked me.

Look­ing at the jar war­i­ly, I under­stood then why we were off the clock. “No,” I said.

“Fig­ured as much, you bein a preacher’s boy.” He unscrewed the lid, took a sip, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and hand­ed me the jar. “Mule Kick,” he said.

Clear as water, it gave off a faint sweet scent. I hes­i­tat­ed, wor­ried it wasn’t safe to drink.

“Go ahead,” Carl said. “I made it. It’s good shine.”

I trust­ed Carl. I lift­ed the jar to my lips.

“Go easy,” he said. “It’s pow­er­ful strong.”

I swal­lowed a tea­spoon­ful. It scorched my throat like hot can­dle wax and splashed fire in my bel­ly. At the cen­ter of my chin I felt a sting­ing sen­sa­tion. It divid­ed in two, rolled up the sides of both jaws, and explod­ed above my ears like twin mal­let blows to my tem­ples. I saw stars. When I could breathe again, I blew out hard.

Carl chuck­led. “That’s why I call it Mule Kick, boy.”

We each took anoth­er sip. It went down eas­i­er the sec­ond time, but not by much.

“The trick with shine,” Carl said, “is to know when to stop. Best set her down now.” He screwed the lid on the jar and slid it under the seat.

“You be care­ful next time you drink shine,” Carl said, as he drove us back to the plant. “A bad batch can kill you. Watch the man who made it. Make sure he sips it before you have a taste. He don’t drink it, you don’t drink it.”

Acme Vis­i­ble Records, Crozet

How to drink moon­shine wasn’t all I learned that sum­mer. Locat­ed on 60 acres along Three Notch’d Road in Crozet, Vir­ginia, Acme Vis­i­ble Records’ 600 work­ers made file cab­i­nets and print­ed busi­ness records. The Main­te­nance Depart­ment Man­ag­er was the best boss I ever had. A straight­for­ward plain-talk­er, he told me what he want­ed me to do and how he want­ed me to do it. When I screwed up, he was firm, but fair. I always knew where I stood. The exec­u­tives I worked with over the years that fol­lowed could have learned a lot from him.

He rotat­ed me through the depart­ment as a pinch hit­ter for employ­ees on vaca­tion. My last assign­ment was assist­ing the trash man, Carl. In the main room of the plant the press­es clacked away, print­ing cus­tomized busi­ness records. The press oper­a­tors dis­card­ed a lot of paper from bad runs. Carl and I had to clear it out of the way so the press­es could keep rolling. We tossed it into wheeled bins, rolled it back to a machine that scrunched it into bales, then hauled the bales out to the dock for recy­cling.

“Slow it down, boy,” Carl said to me fifty times a day. “You’re workin us out of a job, run­nin around here like a race­horse.” Carl tar­ried at every press, social­iz­ing with the oper­a­tors, josh­ing with the men, flirt­ing with the women. “Good peo­ple work here,” he told me. “Friends and neigh­bors. We got time to say a few kind words. The trash ain’t goin nowhere.”

I wasn’t good at slow. I thought we were wast­ing time, and I won­dered why man­age­ment didn’t force Carl to move along. Years lat­er, I came to under­stand it. Carl’s job was one of the few that required inter­ac­tion with every­one. His social­iz­ing was part of the glue hold­ing the net­work of employ­ees togeth­er. Work­ing with large orga­ni­za­tions over the years, I learned the val­ue of glue, espe­cial­ly when times were tough and work pres­sures mount­ed. Man­age­ment at Acme Vis­i­ble knew Carl was good for morale. Besides, despite his mean­der­ing pace, he always got every­thing done by the end of his shift.

Way before the Zen phi­los­o­phy caught hold in the U.S., Carl was big on liv­ing in the moment. I was for­ev­er look­ing for­ward to the week­end, wish­ing it was Fri­day. Carl would shake his head and smile. “You’re wishin your life away, boy. Best to get the most out of what’s goin on right here, right now. Before you know it, you’ll be old like me, and you’ll wish you was back here on a Mon­day mornin, balin paper.” I didn’t believe him then. I do now.

Carl spent a lot of time school­ing me on how to get girls. Most of what he said can’t be repeat­ed in polite com­pa­ny, but one of his G‑rated lec­tures stuck with me. “Every girl’s got some­thin spe­cial,” he said, “pret­ty eyes or silky hair, a nice smile or how smart she is. Look for that part and tell her how spe­cial it is. You’ll be sur­prised how good it makes her feel because you might be the only one who ever told her.”

I put those words in Bil­ly Kirby’s mouth in my nov­el, Old Wounds to the Heart. By then, Carl’s max­im had proved to be true count­less times, not just for girls, but for every­one. Every­one has some­thing spe­cial, and all too often it goes unrec­og­nized and unmen­tioned. It helps to hear about it once in a while, and because of Carl, some­times I made some­one feel bet­ter with a few words of well-deserved praise.

Carl and I worked togeth­er fifty years ago. He’s passed on by now. Sad­ly, Acme Vis­i­ble Records has passed on, too. The com­put­er age ren­dered its hard-copy records obso­lete.

After the com­pa­ny closed its doors, the EPA found soil and ground-water con­t­a­m­i­nants in a lagoon where the plant had rout­ed its indus­tri­al waste­water. Site reme­di­a­tion began in 2011. The clean-up was still on-going last year.

I hope the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion is resolved suc­cess­ful­ly and that it doesn’t com­plete­ly over­shad­ow the company’s his­to­ry. It was a great place to work, and it pro­vid­ed a mid­dle class stan­dard of liv­ing to hun­dreds of peo­ple in the hol­lows and coves around Crozet and White Hall for a half cen­tu­ry.

Plant Demo­li­tion

Sum­mer jobs for stu­dents have all but died out now, too, I’m told. This is a shame. I learned more from sum­mer jobs than I did at UVA, invalu­able life lessons from peo­ple like Carl, one of the wis­est men I ever met.

On my last day at Acme Vis­i­ble, Carl and I walked out to the park­ing lot togeth­er. Stand­ing beside his pick­up truck, we shook hands. Those gen­tle blue eyes smiled. “Don’t ever for­get where you come from, boy.” He squeezed my shoul­der, climbed in his pick­up, and drove away.

Our paths nev­er crossed again, but Carl’s sage advice stayed with me. And I nev­er for­got.

Post Script: I changed Carl’s name for this piece, but some of my Vir­ginia friends may rec­og­nize him any­way. He was one of a kind.

One Small Step

1969 was the most impor­tant year of my life. It was cram-packed with momen­tous events.

Neil Arm­strong climbed down Apol­lo 11 Eagle’s lad­der to set foot on the moon.

A com­put­er net­work gave birth to the ARPANET, which evolved into today’s inter­net.

Ted Kennedy drove his car off a one lane bridge into Poucha Pond on Chap­paquid­dick Island, killing both Mary Jo Kopechne and his chances of ever becom­ing Pres­i­dent.

March on Wash­ing­ton

The NYPD raid­ed the Stonewall Inn, trig­ger­ing riots that led to the gay lib­er­a­tion move­ment.

A quar­ter of a mil­lion peo­ple marched on Wash­ing­ton to demand an end to the Viet­nam War.

Big-name artists enter­tained a crowd of almost a half-mil­lion peo­ple on a dairy farm in upstate New York at a rock con­cert dubbed the Wood­stock Fes­ti­val.

Wood­stock Fes­ti­val

These events changed the cul­ture of the nation and altered its his­to­ry, but I didn’t remem­ber they had occurred in 1969 until I did the research for this post. The only day of that year I remem­bered with­out prompt­ing was June 20.

I woke up in the Will­cox Hotel in Aiken, South Car­oli­na, feel­ing nau­seous and light-head­ed. I took a long show­er, turn­ing the hot water faucet way up, then switch­ing to cold water, then back to hot.

It didn’t help. My prob­lem wasn’t phys­i­cal. It was psy­cho­so­mat­ic. I was ner­vous about the upcom­ing main event of the day. My wed­ding.

My anx­i­ety didn’t spring from doubts about Cindy. From our first date on, I was sure I want­ed to spend my life with her.

Will­cox Hotel, Aiken, SC

The prob­lem was with me. I’d been wor­ried ever since I’d asked Cindy’s dad for her hand in mar­riage. His answer went on for an hour. He didn’t say no, but he didn’t say yes. My win­ning per­son­al­i­ty didn’t seem to bowl him over. For some rea­son, he kept pound­ing on nit­pick­ing details, like I didn’t have a job or any mon­ey or any prospects of get­ting a job or any mon­ey.

I came out of that meet­ing des­per­ate to prove my wor­thi­ness. With a new sense of urgency, I man­aged to line up a job and squir­rel away some cash before our wed­ding day, but my anx­i­ety didn’t go away. Down deep inside I knew Cindy’s dad was right to wor­ry about me. I was imma­ture and untest­ed, and on June 20, I didn’t know if I’d grown up enough to be Cindy’s, or anybody’s, hus­band.

Mid-after­noon I went to my par­ents’ room and told them I was scared sick. Mom had made clear to me long before the wed­ding that Cindy was my sav­ing grace in her eyes. For the rest of her life, she would remind me every chance she got, “You nev­er would have amount­ed to any­thing if you hadn’t found Cindy.” She had no patience that after­noon with my ner­vous stom­ach or any­thing else that might derail our mar­riage. “Get over it,” she barked.

Cindy

Dad had suf­fered from a ner­vous con­di­tion since he was a boy, so he was a lit­tle more under­stand­ing. He took me aside and hand­ed me a half-pint bot­tle of green vis­cous liq­uid, which he called nerve med­i­cine. “Take two tea­spoons of this,” he said. “It helps.”

I trun­dled back to my room. The label on Dad’s bot­tle of “nerve med­i­cine” said it was thir­ty per­cent alco­hol. Might work, I thought. I downed two tea­spoons. It didn’t help. I took anoth­er dose. Still noth­ing.

I’d drained the whole bot­tle by the time Dad drove me to the church, but my stom­ach was still doing back­flips. Sup­pose I faint dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, I thought. Worse yet, sup­pose I throw up. I’ll nev­er live it down, and Cindy will dump me for sure. The more I envi­sioned all the ways I could screw up the wed­ding, not to men­tion my whole life, the worse I felt.

Cindy with her Dad

Cindy’s family’s min­is­ter and Dad marched me into the sanc­tu­ary, and we took our places in front of a huge crowd that filled every pew on a hot-as-hell evening with sti­fling humid­i­ty and no air con­di­tion­ing. Sweat rolled down my back inside my starched white shirt as my broth­er took his place beside me as my best man. A col­lege class­mate, two friends from White Hall, Cindy’s sis­ter as the brides­maid, and three of Cindy’s friends walked down the aisle and lined up at the altar.

The organ­ist keyed the open­ing notes of Here Comes the Bride; the big dou­ble doors at the rear of the sanc­tu­ary opened; and Cindy and her dad stepped for­ward.

Cindy was radi­ant, beau­ti­ful beyond words, and she smiled when she saw me.

In that moment, I calmed down and a small seed of con­fi­dence took root inside me, des­tined to grow slow­ly, but steadi­ly, over the com­ing years.

Cindy’s dad walked her down the aisle, and she took my arm. Her hazel eyes shin­ing, she flashed that pix­ie grin I’d fall­en in love with the night we met, and we turned to face my dad.

Anniver­sary Gift

He led us through the vows. “I, Ken, take thee, Cindy, to be my wed­ded wife from this day for­ward, to have and to hold, for bet­ter or worse, for rich­er or poor­er, in sick­ness and in health, in joy and in sor­row, to love and to cher­ish till death do us part.”

The tra­di­tion­al vows are archa­ic and old-fash­ioned, I guess, but they seemed right to me back then. They still do. And we’ve lived by them through good times and bad.

I kissed the bride and we walked down the aisle, out the big dou­ble doors, and on into the next fifty years.

June 20, 1969, to June 20, 2019, 600 months, 18,262 days, three chil­dren, six grand­chil­dren, count­less cher­ished mem­o­ries.

A half-cen­tu­ry behind us. For­ev­er still to go.

The Jacobs Home

On the morn­ing of April 10, a vis­i­tor to the home of Irwin and Alexan­dra Jacobs found them lying in bed, both dead from gun­shot wounds. They had lived for 40 years in their home on Lake Min­neton­ka in Min­neso­ta. High school sweet­hearts, they had been mar­ried for 57 years. They had five chil­dren and eight grand­chil­dren

The med­ical exam­in­er deter­mined that Irwin shot Alexan­dra and then turned the gun on him­self. One of Irwin’s friends said Alexan­dra “had been in a wheel­chair for the last year or so and had signs of demen­tia. Irwin was . . . dis­traught over her con­di­tion.”

I’m still reel­ing from the news. I’d known Irwin Jacobs since 1983, when he made a bid for Kaiser Steel and hired me to eval­u­ate the company’s labor prob­lems.

When he called me, I wasn’t sure I want­ed to rep­re­sent him. He was a high-pro­file “cor­po­rate raider” with a mixed rep­u­ta­tion. The busi­ness press dubbed him “Irv the Liq­uida­tor” for break­ing com­pa­nies apart and sell­ing off the pieces. Exec­u­tives, who feared he’d fire them if he gained con­trol, fought his takeover bids ham­mer and tong. In those bat­tles, he gave them no quar­ter. His ene­mies con­sid­ered him a no-holds-barred street fight­er, uneth­i­cal and at times law­less.  

Irwin in the 1980’s

Irwin’s hard­scrab­ble back­ground gave cred­i­bil­i­ty to the street fight­er image. When he was in grade school he worked for his father, a Russ­ian immi­grant who col­lect­ed old burlap bags from Minneapolis’s grain ele­va­tors, repaired them, and resold them. When Irwin was 18, he drove a truck­load of reclaimed bags past a burned-down ware­house and won­dered what had been done with the items stored inside. That inspired him to launch a busi­ness with his father’s help sal­vaging fire and flood-dam­aged goods. Those ear­ly expe­ri­ences taught Irwin “to throw noth­ing away” and “to look for val­ue where oth­er peo­ple did­n’t see it,” lessons that lat­er served him well in the dog-eat-dog cor­po­rate takeover are­na.

In the 70’s, he pur­chased small under­val­ued com­pa­nies, often out of bank­rupt­cy, reor­ga­nized them, and sold them for big gains. Those deals fueled invest­ments in even larg­er com­pa­nies. He made runs at Pab­st Brew­ing, Dis­ney Pro­duc­tions, and Avco, sell­ing out to high­er bid­ders in each case. By 1983, this recy­cler of burlap bags with no for­mal edu­ca­tion beyond high school had accu­mu­lat­ed a net worth of $200,000,000.

Alexan­dra Sculp­ture Court­yard Rib­bon Cut­ting

When I met him, I saw no hint of the press’s shady char­ac­ter. Grant­ed, he was a lit­tle rough around the edges. His gram­mar wasn’t per­fect; he loos­ened the knot in his tie when he got excit­ed; and his shirt­tail wouldn’t stay tucked in. But I liked him from the out­set. A big man with a boom­ing voice, a win­ning smile, and a great sense of humor, his bound­less opti­mism was infec­tious. He want­ed an hon­est assess­ment of Kaiser Steel’s dis­putes with the Unit­ed Steel­work­ers.  I spent two months eval­u­at­ing those issues and gave him my con­clu­sions. Some­one came along and out­bid him, and he sold out.

I thought I’d seen the last of him, but the fol­low­ing year he hired me again, this time to con­duct an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion of an LA based com­pa­ny he owned. A Texas lawyer alleged that the company’s in-house attor­neys made him pay them bribes for assign­ing him legal work. Through a con­vo­lut­ed scheme set up by the in-house lawyers, they paid the Texas lawyer back for the bribes with com­pa­ny funds so he didn’t lose out. The Texas attor­ney thought the company’s Gen­er­al Coun­sel (GC) was the mas­ter­mind behind the embez­zle­ment scheme, but he had dealt exclu­sive­ly with a junior in-house lawyer and had no proof of that.  

Irwin, 2009

The fifty-year-old GC was a for­mer pres­i­dent of the bar asso­ci­a­tion and a pil­lar of integri­ty in the legal com­mu­ni­ty. Irwin’s com­pa­ny paid him a half-mil­lion dol­lar annu­al salary and he sat on its Board of Direc­tors. It seemed unlike­ly he would risk his career on a bribery scam, and there was no doc­u­men­ta­tion impli­cat­ing him.

When I ques­tioned him, he put up a good front and denied every­thing, but I thought he was lying. Sub­se­quent events con­firmed my sus­pi­cions and trig­gered an under­cov­er inves­ti­ga­tion run by the U.S. Attor­ney.

At the FBI’s direc­tion, I spent a week talk­ing with most of the company’s out­side attor­neys, ask­ing them if they’d paid kick­backs to get legal assign­ments. They all denied pay­ing bribes. Sev­er­al of them then called the GC in a pan­ic and made incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments on phone lines the FBI had tapped.

Mean­while, the junior in-house attor­ney, who had dealt with the Texas lawyer, agreed to coop­er­ate with the inves­ti­ga­tion in exchange for immu­ni­ty. In a taped meet­ing with the GC orches­trat­ed by the U.S. Attor­ney, he offered to take the fall for the kick­backs and keep the GC out of it for a $100,000 bribe. In a sec­ond taped meet­ing in Encino’s Bal­boa Park late at night, the GC hand­ed the junior attor­ney a paper bag full of cash. He sound­ed crazy on that tape, and he talked about doing harm to Irwin and me.

Irwin and his fam­i­ly

The next day, the GC snapped, bought a rifle at a Big 5, and holed up in his house. The FBI man­aged to take him alive, but the arrest­ing agents said that the rifle mis­fired and that he begged them to turn him loose and let him run so they could shoot him in the back. A sui­cide note in his pock­et blamed his trou­bles on “Irwin and his fleas.”

When the GC was released on bail, Irwin insist­ed on hir­ing round-the-clock body­guards for me. In hind­sight, I don’t think I was in any real dan­ger, but at the time I wasn’t sure and Irwin refused to take a chance, so for a cou­ple of weeks two big hulk­ing guys with guns were my con­stant com­pan­ions.    

The GC even­tu­al­ly pled guilty. At his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, big name lawyers filed let­ters attest­ing to his good char­ac­ter, and his defense attor­ney argued he should be giv­en pro­ba­tion and no jail time. When the judge sen­tenced him to five years in prison, he faint­ed.   

I worked with Irwin off and on for the next decade. I felt as close a bond with him as with any client I ever rep­re­sent­ed, but when I left the prac­tice of law in 1993, we lost con­tact. I was busy try­ing to help turn around a strug­gling com­pa­ny and I didn’t keep in touch. He bought an inter­est in the Min­neso­ta Vikings, and I saw him on tele­vi­sion in the own­ers’ box every so often. Each time, I thought about call­ing him, but I nev­er did.   

When the news of the mur­der-sui­cide broke on April 10, I hadn’t thought about him for a long while. Since then I haven’t been able to stop think­ing about him.  

He didn’t deserve to go out this way. He was gra­cious and gen­uine, a straight-up good guy, who was fun to be with, even in the most stress­ful times. His great­est joy was his fam­i­ly. He glowed when he talked about his kids, and he was par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of a grown daugh­ter who had cere­bral pal­sy. He bragged to me about her inde­pen­dence and how she lived and worked on her own.

Irwin and Alexan­dra

He met his wife, Alexan­dra, when they were sev­en­teen, and he was crazy about her. An accom­plished stu­dio artist, she was his first and only love. 

Irwin’s friend said he couldn’t stand to watch her go away. Demen­tia is a cru­el descent into hell. I’ve lost three friends to it. I don’t know how their loved ones found the strength to con­front the unfath­omable heart­break and loss, but in each case they per­se­vered with hero­ic courage, sta­mi­na, and love. Irwin couldn’t do it. I won’t blame him or judge him for that. No one should.

I blame myself, though, for los­ing touch with some­one who meant a lot to me.