Ardell and the Beer Story

Ardell tells the following story about a lesson learned. He says that he and Fay learned how to make beer from Fay's brother, Guy. They brewed up a batch of beer and stored it at Dad's mom's home in Blazer. She had a little cellar under the porch and that's where they kept it.

Dell says that somehow a group of kids from McCammon found out about it and came and stole the beer. Ardell was really mad about that. He says that there were about five of those kids. He goes on to say: "Instead of using my smarts, and getting a group of my own, I met them outside and one of the kids was a boxer. He had taken boxing in school. But he seemed to be the ring leader, and he and I got into a fight. The last thing that I remember before I passed out is that at the same time my brother came running out. Howard Williams ran in and told my brother Don that I was having a fight and he better come and help. (Howard was the son of his sister Florence Williams, Ardell's sister) Just as he came out the door, one of those kids....hit me behind the ears with something and I just passed out."

But before I passed out, I heard my brother say something to the effect of, 'Who started it?'...The kids opened his mount and Don hit him in the nose sideways and broke his nose and knocked him flat as a pancake. He reached over and got another one, and then they started to run. I had a welt behind my ear. That's the last I could remember. "They took me home and I lost my bridgework, and my mouth was all cut up, and I can remember my mother getting after me saying I shouldn't be doing those kind of things. If I hadn't made beer I wouldn't have gotten in trouble..." This is their mother: