Noodling for Flatheads

Moonshine, Monster Catfish, and Other Southern Com

Burkhard Bilger

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN:
  9780684850115
• eBook ISBN:
  9780743205641
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: North American History

The Old South is slow to give up its secrets. Though satellite dishes outnumber banjo players a thousand to one, most traditions haven't died; they've just gone into hiding. Cockfighting is illegal in forty-eight states, yet there are three national cockfighting magazines and cockpits in even the most tranquil communities. Homemade liquor has been outlawed for more than a century, yet moonshiners in Virginia still ship nearly one million gallons a year. Some of these pastimes are ancient, others ultramodern; some are illegal, others merely obscure. But the people who practice them share an undeniable kinship. Instead of wealth, promotion, or a few seconds of prime time, they follow dreams that lead them ever deeper underground. They are reminders, ultimately, that American culture isn't as predictable as it seems-that the weeds growing between its cracks are its most vital signs of life.
In these masterfully crafted essays, Burkhard Bilger explores the history and practice of eight such clandestine worlds. Like John McPhee and Ian Frazier, he introduces us to people whose spirit of individualism keeps traditions alive, from a fifty-something female coon hunter who spends 340 nights a year in the woods to a visionary frog farmer and a man whose arms are scarred by the eighty-pound catfish he catches by hand. A fluid combination of adventure, history, and humor, Noodling for Flatheads is evocative, intelligent, and wonder-fully weird-a splendid antidote to the sameness of today's popular culture.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Noodling for Flatheads
• Enter the Chicken
• Moonshine Sonata
• Mad Squirrels and Kentuckians
• The Mall of the Wild
• Send in the Hounds
• Low on the Hog
• The Rolley Holers
• Acknowledgments
• Permissions