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Audio Recording Interview with Johnny Stokes and his family, Bowens Mill, Ben Hill County, Georgia, parts 3 and 4

About this Item

Title

  • Interview with Johnny Stokes and his family, Bowens Mill, Ben Hill County, Georgia, parts 3 and 4

Names

  • Stanley, David, 1942- (Collector)
  • Stokes, Johnny

Created / Published

  • Bowens Mill, Georgia, August 6, 1977

Headings

  • -  Foodways
  • -  Folklore--Georgia
  • -  Personal narratives
  • -  Barbecuing
  • -  Field recordings
  • -  Interviews
  • -  Sound recording
  • -  United States -- Georgia -- Ben Hill County -- Bowens Mill

Genre

  • Field recordings
  • Interviews
  • Sound recording

Notes

  • -  Side A: part 3 of a 4-part interview with Johnny Stokes, worker at the Bowens Mill Fish Hatchery, Ben Hill County GA; Stokes's mail address is Fitzgerald GA; present at the interview are Jan Stokes (Johnny's wife) and his two sons (previous marriage) Greg and John: Jan Stokes bit by a fire ant; about calling people mister, "ever since I was knee-high to a goat"; Jan Stokes's great aunt courted Uncle Guy Fuller, "they whomped up a case again," there were too many women Guy Fuller was "a-sparkin'"; Johnny afraid he'd break someone's heart, he still has old ladies that call him up, "I'm an antique," discussion of ages; Jan Stokes's story about mint julepiana; about moonshine, Johnny Stokes has seen sites, walked up on one last year, sugar is expensive now, moonshine not profitable, most GA counties are wet now, Stokes tells of transporting moonshine with a 1948 Mercury coupe with a Lincoln engine, didn't drive over 55 or 60, from Willacoochee to Jacksonville, to the Farmers Market, a receiver there would take car and unload, Stokes had a 82-gallon tank in place of back seat, with a system for blowing out the tank in case of pursuit, and for unloading, used spirits of turpentine to mask the smell; Jan Stokes leaves; question about "touch and go" burglar in Fitzgerald; hogs in the swamp, story of being chased by female hog after he picked up pig, Stokes prefers wild hog meat, sweeter, especially barbequed; his barbeque method adds sauce after meat is cooked, for cooking, prefers southern red oak to hickory; barbeques goat and deer meat, first boils with spices, then cooks with sauce in open pan over smoking coals; inspecting the barbeque pit (fieldworker comments, "no pictures of this as yet, but it's not dissimilar from Jack Dempsey's operation in Tifton GA on a smaller scale"), uses a rectangular "sheet pan" for this method; about Stokes's sauce, "don't ask me that, no way to tell you that," Kraft barbeque sauce, half a jar of mustard, (melted in hot water), 12 ounces ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, onion and celery salts, allspice, all season, garlic, lemon juice, onion, perhaps something sweet for glaze, but this burns too easily; about cleaning hogs, freezing meat; about smokehouses, boxes with salt for curing mean, then smoke it, almost petrified it, fire usually outside the smokehouse, about the design of the "chimbley," fire regulated with shutters, "we had to make it with what we had, the art of survival"; about a hook-ended bamboo pole for catching the swing at the spot on the river called the boils; question to young John about ghosts, comments that kids at school have been in barns, saw bloody footprints and corpse in bathtub; question about hearing footsteps, Stokes says it's the old house over there where you can hear footsteps going up and down the stairs; a schoolhouse in Queensland is haunted; comments on flowers; question about rafting timber, Dutchmen used to do a lot of it, and Germans, they made "stave boats."
  • -  Side B: part 4 of a 4-part interview with Johnny Stokes and family, worker at the Bowens Mill Fish Hatchery, Ben Hill County GA: how they made kegs out of logs, floated logs down to mill and made barrels; comments on flowers and wisteria, difficult to control; about gardening, filled freezer with vegetables; story about hunting ducks, day before Thanksgiving shot a number of ducks but couldn't find all before dark, early next day, he went back, had to break ice off pond with waders, but waders got torn, so waded in, drinking Jim Beam as he did, picked up some birds and met some friends, gave them a slug, when bottle came back it was empty, stripped down in car, drove home, got out of car and nearly passed out, hadn't realized how much he had drunk because it was so cold; about making whistles; part 4 total duration about 7 minutes.

Medium

  • audiocassette

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Call number: AFC 1982/010: AFS 21193
  • MBRS shelflist: RYA 1004
  • Field project identifier: GA7-DS-C26

Source Collection

  • South-Central Georgia Folklife Project collection (AFC 1982/010)

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Digital Id

Online Format

  • audio

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that some of the materials in this collection are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions, and are therefore free to use or reuse. For example, the fieldwork in this collection is in the public domain in the United States.

However, the Library has obtained permission for the use of other materials, and presents additional materials for educational and research purposes in accordance with fair use under United States copyright law. For example, some of the recordings contain copyrighted music, and not all of the performers and other individuals who were recorded signed releases for public use of their work.

In addition, the American Folklife Center and the professional fieldworkers who carry out these projects feel a strong ethical responsibility to the people they have visited and who have consented to have their lives documented for the historical record. The Center asks that researchers approach the materials in this collection with respect for the culture and sensibilities of the people whose lives, ideas, and creativity are documented here. Researchers are also reminded that privacy and publicity rights may pertain to certain uses of this material.

Researchers or others who would like to make further use of these collection materials should contact the Folklife Reading Room for assistance. Rights assessment is your responsibility. The written permission of the copyright owners in materials not in the public domain is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Permissions may additionally be required from holders of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights). Whenever possible, we provide information that we have about copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding aids and other texts that accompany collections. However, the information we have may not be accurate or complete.

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Credit line: South-Central Georgia Folklife Project collection (AFC 1982/010), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Stanley, David, and Johnny Stokes. Interview with Johnny Stokes and his family, Bowens Mill, Ben Hill County, Georgia, parts 3 and 4. Bowens Mill, Georgia, August 6, 1977. Audio. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/afc1982010_afs21193/.

APA citation style:

Stanley, D. & Stokes, J. (1977) Interview with Johnny Stokes and his family, Bowens Mill, Ben Hill County, Georgia, parts 3 and 4. Bowens Mill, Georgia, August 6. [Audio] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/afc1982010_afs21193/.

MLA citation style:

Stanley, David, and Johnny Stokes. Interview with Johnny Stokes and his family, Bowens Mill, Ben Hill County, Georgia, parts 3 and 4. Bowens Mill, Georgia, August 6, 1977. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/afc1982010_afs21193/>.