Victor Kerr
Everyone in Greene County New York new Jack legs diamond. My dad knew of Jack Legs, more specifically, he knew Legs henchmen. This came about for several reasons Acra New York was blessed with having Legs summer cottage located there. Legs was named Legs because he and his girlfriend used to dance at dance contests. Legs as well known in New York city as a champion dancer. Acra the little summer town, was off the main drag but is located on a well-traveled local root. Legs was in the alcohol business among other things. Due to his wealth, he built a beautiful Catholic Church in Acra because his dancing partner Alice was Catholic.
The way my dad, a young buck in those days before he met my mother, interfaced with Legs henchmen one night. He and his best friend emulated Legs and traveled the local jet set roads dancing with all local girls. There was a speakeasy in Acra on the route toward East Windham, and dad and his best friend Walter from Cairo were in the club one night went and Walter was entertaining the crowd as usual, by playing the piano. He was a well recognized piano player and done a lot of playing for the local dandies and ladies who frequented the speaks.
Walter had finished the sequene and headed to up to the bar to collect a well-earned beer. Two men his size leaned against the bar as he approached. Is urgency to resume in the limelight, he elbowed his way between the two men. They gave way with a minimal disturbance.
He finished the next set without interruption among a lot of standing ovation. As he looked to the bar he noticed that the two men had left. When he approached my dad my dad murmured to him as he reached for refill, that the twosome were Legs bodyguards. Walter never finished the set, since he passed out with the news. Legs honeymoon with Acra ceased after a farmer who was tortured with lighted cigars on the bottom of his feet died. The farmer had been hauling beer under a load of hay and Legs was trying to get him to confess on where he got the beer.
Shortly thereafter Legs was struck with several slugs of 00 but as he left the church. The VA hospital in Albany dug out the slugs allowing him to pursue his short acting career. Legs had been a World War I veteran.
The connection to this story comes from the fact that one of dad's friend Steve had a successful trucking business. He owned and operated five big trucks. Someone convinced them to use his barn to make beer. The barn was in a remote spot and he could haul to and from it over his own property without detection. So began his short-lived career of delivering beer. Competition with the New York suppliers cause the feds to be alerted to his activities. There was a constant struggle to take over the entire prohibition business by competing gangs. Steve got caught in the pinch between these gangs.
Attorneys took all his money within two years to keep them from being deported. Steve died, leaving a small farm to his sons. The informers could have been close to Legs or any other of the competing gangs. As a small child we were happy to have Steve come to our farm in Tannersville where he with his big Morgan horses would plow our garden. We would take off our shoes following the plow to pick up the night crawlers, for fishing. My dad had Worm bins in our celler so we had fish worms all year round to sell to visiting fisherman. My sister Alice worked her way through beauty school selling fish worms.
A parallel story to these was my dad's oldest nephew was one year older than him. Claude was the second child born to a Egbert and Fanny Kerr who was my oldest uncle on my father's side. I was told that during the 20s Claude had a super sports car. It had two gas tanks. One was for fuel. The other was for alcohol. He was known to have run grain alcohol from the Notch up to Tannersville. His sports car much much faster than the police cars of the time. In fact when state troopers were assigned to Hunter Township they had to wait to get their horses. They were dressed like Canadian Mounties but had to travel on foot many times, hitchhiking with empathetic local drivers.
During the time my father and his partners hauled junk down to the river for an income. For this enterprise he used a 1½ ton truck. During the summer when it was hot, one practice was to take out the floorboards in the cab for air-conditioning. Coming into Tannersville from the East was a rather steep hill. Most drivers when they became over the hill downshifted and used engine braking to get down the hill. One day as my father approached the top of the hill from the East a trooper was trying to get a ride into town. My father stopped and picked him up and he proceeded to go down the hill and the trooper noticed that there was no floorboards. My dad explained the cooling system at about that time downshifted or lowered the timing on the truck which I think was a model a Ford. When the trooper got in he had to brace himself with his brand-new boots and spurs because of the floorboards missing. When my dad reduced the timing on the vehicle, a ball of fire shot the muffler right between the trooper's feet. After he jumped and almost wet his pants he asked to be let out quickly. After that my dad reported that other troopers had not asked for a lift.
Another time returning from a junk hall down by the river he was coming up the mountain from Palinville toward Haines Falls. It was late in the evening and halfway up the mountain was a free-flowing spring. It was where all drivers knew to stop if there vehicle had low-water. As he approached the water tank someone stepped out with a flashlight and pointed in his eyes. My dad had carried a pistol with him in the truck for many years. He carried it because he brought money back from delivering the junk. When the flashlight approached the vehicle from the driver side he was confronted with a pistol pointed at him. The person behind the light turned out to be a young state trooper. When he recognize he was under cover by a gun, he dropped the light and put his hands up. My dad got out of the truck slowly and had the individual pick up the light and determined it was a state trooper. He lowered his pistol and handed the light to the trooper. Dad explained he thought he was being robbed. The trooper said the reason he was there is that they had heard about several people being robbed at this location at night. My dad gave the trooper a ride up the mountain and told him on the way that he should not be shining the light people's eyes because most of the tourists were armed.
Another incident on the mountain was the time they were resurfacing the highway. The mountain has several sharp curves and one side of the road was closed. This time my grandmother Alice was riding on the passenger side with my father. Previously when she was riding with him they had come around a turn rather abruptly. The door on her side wasn't properly fastened however she luckily had her elbow out a little window due to the warm weather. As he came around the turn the door swung open and she clinging to the door swung out over the highway. When the turn straightened out the door closed and she swung back to her seat the door closing firmly. During this incident she never made a comment.
The next incident involving them happened was when the highway was being paved with concrete. To control traffic they gave a flag to the last vehicle allowed down the highway on the one way road. As my dad approached the signalman he got the flag and headed down the highway thinking that the way was clear and so the vehicle picked up speed. After two turns, looking ahead he spotted a cement truck coming up the same lane that they were on. With no other recourse, 50 feet from the oncoming truck my dad swung over to the other lane where they had put poles across the highway,. They had put the poles on the highway to hold the straw down to keep the cement from freezing at night. Of course they ran over a half a dozen those poles. When my dad swung back onto the highway behind thecement truck. Shortly thereafter Grandma Alice remarked that they sure don't take the bumps of these new highways. I don't know what these builders are coming to. At that point my dad nearly ran off the road to stop from laughing.
One other incident on that mountain road involved a friend of the family Gene Constable. Jean and his brother were World War II veterans but they grew up working around my dad because their dad wasn't always present. Gene was well-known for high-speed driving. As you can imagine in those days, the roads were not in tip top condition but it didn't matter. It was 27 miles from Tannersville to Hudson New York. At the time Jean had a girlfriend in Hudson . There were several stoplights as well as this winding mountain road between Tannersville in Hudson. Also there was a Hudson River Bridge which had a speed limit. It was rumored that Gene could make it from Tannersville to Hudson in under 45 minutes. Twice in this effort Jean ran off the mountain and over the hill down into a gorge of about 150 feet knocking down a lot of small trees. This was in front of Molly Smith's tourist stop. Although his cars were left there Gene escaped miraculously,, with very few injuries. And in those days very few traffic tickets.
My dad took Gene and a lot of the young guys swimming, as kids before the second world war. After the war Gene came to work with us at the time I did. At the time my dad was painting houses and we were working in a cellar of the house one day. One man in town had gotten special disability due to a poisoning. He had been washing himself in gasoline after painting with oil paint. So my dad's rule was to clean up with kerosene which did not penetrate the skin. After painting one would wipe oneself off with a damp kerosene rag. This night after painting and the seller with a spray gun Gene and I and my dad all had microscopic dots of white paint that had come through our T-shirts. Gene was in the bathroom with the kerosene rag wiping off the paint drops and finally exploded through the kitchen yelling as he ran toward the back barn. My dad heard this ran after him with a towel wet with water. He thought that the kerosene had burnt Gene's skin and was running with water to catch him to wipe the kerosene off. When he caught up with him, Gene was still ranting raving and my dad asked if the kerosene was burning. No Vic said Gene, it's not the kerosene. All those years you made us eat aspargress, carrots and spinach commenting that it would put hair on our chests. I just saw your chest and you don't have any hair on it.
Another incident with Gene was when we had the strawberry shortcake dinners in June at the fish and game club as a fundraiser. At this point Gene was in love with my cousin, Wilberta Sweet who came from Ohio for a visit. The women made the shortcake and we went down to the Hudson River near Palenville, and pick the strawberries fresh for this occasion. We always had cows and so we made our own whipped cream to go on the strawberry shortcake. When the shortcake was served, Gene remarked that he was not eating any white stuff on there no matter what. My dad said you're going to try a teaspoon or you're will ware it. After a teaspoon full of whipped cream, Gene exclaimed my God I've been missing out on this all these years. Yes my dad said and we determined later that Jean had probably been exposed to sour cream as a kid rather than whipped sweet cream. Thus when he saw it he thought it was going to taste sour. After that strawberry shortcake with whipped cream seemd to vanish whenever Gene was around. Later on he and Wilberta were married and lived together for long time.
