Pop was born on a farm a few miles SW, Clay County, Arkansas, on 8 August 1897. The  son of Mary Ellen Wooten (6 October,1877 - 18 July,1964) and Aden Herman McClure (25 March 1876 - 29 March 1900). Mother was born at Thurber, (Erath), Texas on 4 June, 1910. The daughter of Annie Lizzie Rice (1878 July-August 1913) and Theodore C. Crain (12 July 1974-5 May 1929). 

Pop was small for his age (small for his size, as they used to say), while growing-up and he also contracted polio at an early age. I'm not sure what kind of farm chores he was able to perform, but they would have been limited, because the muscle of one leg was severely atrophied and was considerably shorter than the other one. Uncle John Vangilder recently told me that he did help with the removal of stumps from the farm, so that the crop could be planted. This is evidently when Pop split open his normal foot between the metatarsal with an axe. The axe went all the way through the foot without cutting the sock. The fact that the sock was made of silk would account for the material not cutting. Consequently, he was able to walk for only a short distance and then usually with the aid of a cane. 

At school one of the larger boys frequently carried Pop on their shoulders, because of his disability and to prevent the other boys from taunting him. Pop even worked as a cowboy for an unknown period of time while he lived in Texas, which must have been very uncomfortable due to the smallness of the buttocks on one side. 

Bootleg Whiskey and Leaving Texas  

He said that he dealt cards in a saloon much like the one depicted on Gunsmoke. He also helped Uncle Johnny Chaney (mother's brother-in-law) and others make and sell homebrew and bootleg whiskey. 

Pop once destroyed two kegs of whiskey when he and mother were living with Willie Chaney (Uncle Johnny's brother), the meek one of the Chaney family, who lived down a long dirt road between Midland and Odessa at this time. A car was driving very fast up their lane. So Pop knocked the bungs from two kegs to allow the whiskey to flow out on the ground. I'm sure that they were highly pe'od when they discovered that the car was driven by a friend. 

The reason that the family had to leave Colorado City, Texas was because Pop had killed a man over a disagreement in a card game. The owner of the saloon gave Pop some money and a car and advised him to return to his home in Arkansas. The sheriff there at the time was Dick Hickman, a good friend of Pop's. Men from the sheriffs department bought their bootleg whiskey from them. So the sheriff gave Pop time to leave the state, before he started going through the motions of apprehending him. This was still the "wild and wooly west" and a killing was no big deal. 

Pop was unable to enlist in the army during the First World War, so he worked in a powder plant. For entertainment there, two men would bare knuckle fight for a pocket watch. (prize fight) 

Being free of charge, the rods (freight trains) were the only affordable mode of transportation for many of the travelers during this period of our history. Times were tough, so many of the homeless were frequently Hobos (hey, bo, was a vagabonds greeting) and rode the rails. Pop awoke one morning in a cemetery, after one of these rides. He evidently had a snoot full or else he would not have spent a night in a graveyard. I'm sure that he slept in some very unusual and less desirable places during these early travels. 

When they first returned home (to Arkansas), Pop attempted to farm a portion of the Vangilder farm for about two years, without success. He wasn't able to follow a plow, so he hired his Uncle Erbie McClure to do this type of work. Erbie was good at breaking horses, but he couldn't seem to get the hang of farming. Erbie would ask Pop what he wanted him to do and Pop would tell him that he wanted him to get his rear out in the field and do some plowing.  Uncle Erbie, Aunt Lottie an Grandmother Ellen Wooten McClure Vangilder.

Pop was able to survive by bootlegging on the side. The family moved about thirty-five miles north, a few miles over the Missouri State line. Settling about 1/2 mile west of the St. Francis River Bridge on Missouri State highway 53 southeast of Qulin, on the south side of the curve. We think that one of farmers there must have offered Pop work there or else needed someone to help make moonshine. He once fell from a tree, when he went to sleep while he was guarding their still and watching for revenuers (federal alcohol enforcement agents), receiving only a small gash, which quickly healed. Uncle John didn't know why the family had relocated there. 

Moving to Missouri and Living Conditions 

The family lived in a terrible small share-croppers shack with a dirt floor and the only window was a very small one in the door. The shack wasn't big enough to cuss a cat in. Our ramshackle shack had ramshackle down-and-out, by the time that I was capable of noticing such things. 

The folks were able to keep body and soul together and make ends meet by picking cotton from daylight till dark. Pop also removed (skinned as my brother Claudie would say) the bark from trees for Boeving Bros. Cotton Co., when he didn't have cotton to pick. I haven't the foggiest notion what these naked trees were then used for. The smaller ones may have been used for mine props, because a lot of them were loaded into freight cars on the rail-road between our place and the cotton gin after we moved into Qulin. 

Pop continued to make bootleg whiskey on the bank of the St. Francis River and gamble with cards. I never knew of him shooting craps, cards were his game. Dice was my brother Glenn's forte, when he was with a group of boys either picking cotton at home or cherries at Traverse City, Michigan. He told Pop that it was easier than breaking his back picking cotton or his neck on a shaky ladder while picking cherries. Anyway Pop said that he would fall through the door and sleep there the rest of the night. Too dog-tired to even eat. 

Perk Shirley tells of Pop doing a little moonlighting when his family was hungry. He would make like Snuffy Smith, by warming the handle of a broom under his arm-pit and the passing it through the window of a chicken house to borrow a chicken. The chicken would be attracted by the heat from the broom handle and would then move from its perch to the handle of the broom and Pop would pull out the chicken and immediately choke it to prevent it from disturbing the other chickens and waking the owner. The neighbors knew who was taking their chickens, but would never begrudge a person from borrowing a chicken, when his family was starving. 

Living Conditions 

Guy Scott (Aunt Jullean Crane's father) and Bumper Kelm were instrumental in helping the family move into town. The first night that Guy and some other men came to our shack (it was more like a small shed) to gamble. He decided then and there that something had to be done to help a family living under such primitive conditions. So after returning home he told his wife Margaret of the situation there and that he planned to do something to help the crippled man with a young child-like wife, two barefoot boys and a baby (that was me) living in a shack that wasn't big enough to swing a cat in. I was born in this shack on * Jan.1930, but have always celebrated * Jan. 1929 and still do. I wasn't aware of my official birth date until I located my birth certificate after Pop's death. It could be said that they didn't have a pot to put water in or a window to throw it out of, at this point in their lives. They didn't have diddly squat! 

Guy fixed-up one of the old railroad section houses, by removing the broken window panes and necessary materials from the dining room and kitchen and installing them in the new panes and patching the cracks in the walls and floor of the living room. 

There were originally 32 of these houses used to house the people working on the railroad, when it was being laid through this part of the state. These houses were built about 1912 by the Iron Mountain Railroad. Pop subsequently purchased two of these houses for $25.00 each. These same houses could be rented for $6.00 a month, which was a great deal of money during the depression. Most families had to settle for renting by the month. These houses were very basic, with a living room, kitchen, dining room and an unscreened front porch. In later years the porch was screened and some of us kids slept there on a pallet during the summer months. It was cooler than our bedroom, because we didn't have fans and the cross current ventilation was very poor. 

Our pump was on the north side of our house, where our back porch was later added. In those days most people kept a dipper attached to the pump or close to it, to be used for a drink of water. Everyone used the same dipper, which was usually enamelware or granite, as some people called them. Most of them were mottled blue & white and occasionally a white one with a red trim. (Aunt Pat has one of the old fashioned pumps and a white enamelware dipper with the red trim decorating her front yard in the Bluff.) Many people also had dishes of enamelware, which wasn't practical, because they chipped so easily. Pop preferred a gourd dipper, which was even less sanitary than the enamel ones. 

Many homes also kept a two gallon galvanized water bucket of water close to the pump for drinking and priming the pump when the leather of the pump dried out too much. This was years before most of the families at home had electric pumps and the manually operated pumps would lose their prime if they weren't used quite often, especially at night. 

Some of the people refused to use these dippers and buckets, because everyone used the same dipper. Some of the people would even pour the water that they didn't drink back into the bucket. Most of the people didn't give a second thought to this practice. 

When we first moved into our house, our beds were located in the living- room and dining-room This move must have taken place in 1930. A screened- in-back porch, bedroom, bath and garage were added in years to come. 

The heat for our house came from the pot belly heating stove in the living room, if a house had more than one room, the parents always slept in the front room as the living room was called. The stove was banked at night with the damper cut way back, so there was actually very little heat at night and none at all in the rest of the house. 

Everyone in our family slept in gowns at this time. This was before most homes were insulated, so the inside of the houses were not a great deal warmer than the outdoors temperature and when there were three brothers sleeping in the same bed. I'm sure that you will take my word for it, it didn't make for the most pleasant night sleep. 

If Glenn felt a cold spot in his share of the bed, he would roll either Claudie (born 1934) or myself into the cold spot. Clever, that one! And it was almost as bad when he threw his big heavy leg across us with hair that felt like steel wool. Claudie and I got some of our best sleep after we got to school, Glenn could sleep through an Oklahoma thunderstorm. 

Our father had a minimum of education, but he was a good business man. Mrs. Nentrup, our notary public typed all of his legal paperwork. He realized early on that he was limited due to his physical disability so he choose a vocation that would enable him to sit, such as an all night card game or supervising a bartender or two and a rack boy. 

Pop accepted a position as a card dealer for Shady (his name alone should have discouraged anyone from playing cards in his establishment) at his gambling/saloon in Poplar Bluff. 

Pop once bought a meal for a black man, who worked for Shady as a "gofer" (a pimp, as Claudie would call him today) and gave him two dollars, because one of the customers had embarrassed him. 

Pop was a generous person, who freely helped those who were down-on-their- luck. Having experienced this himself, many times. The lack of hard cash during the depression (the dirty thirties) and his love of cards, surely played a part in him accepting this position at Shady's. 

Pop Starts Business in Qulin 

There were several individuals who helped Pop get his start in the business world. Uncle Johnny VanEaton (not really an uncle) sold Pop a bushel of black-eyed peas for a small amount of money and Pop in turn resold them at a slight profit and continued to do this until he was able to purchase the necessary ingredients for making bootleg whiskey. The whiskey was sold by his assistant who peddled it on the train that passed through Qulin. The assistant would always restock his supply whenever the train stopped at home and conceal it in a long overcoat with many pockets. This and selling out of his pocket so to speak continued until he had saved a substantial amount and with a loan from Kirt Adkins (who was about as near to a Godfather as we had at home), Pop was able to start his first business, which was a gambling saloon. 

I still wonder who bought all the booze, because it seemed that just about everyone bootlegged at this time. A man in Oglesville became a millionaire during prohibition. 

To furnish electricity for the business and house Pop had a Delco generator installed between our house and the tavern a few years after we moved into town,. The Delco generator replaced gas lights with mantels for the tavern and old fashioned kerosene (coal oil) lamps for the house. The building was initially lit by gas lamps with two arms that curved down with a mantle at the end of each arm. These lamps were suspended from the ceiling. They worked on the same principle as the Coleman lanterns of today, without the glass globes. So we had to be extremely careful not to touch the mantle when lighting them or the mantle would disintegrate. The REA (rural electrification association) was extended from Poplar Bluff in the late Thirties. 

The bar was always located in the front portion the building, where home- brew and moonshine (rot gut, white lightning or Sneaky Pete as some people called it) were dispensed. There were a half dozen poker tables in the rear two-thirds of the building, and a small room on the south side of the building, which was initially used for shooting craps (dice). There was a divvy box at each table that the winner would insert a quartet into. This was how Pop received the revenue to operate the gambling portion of this operation. 

The back portion of the building was later used as a dancehall and then as a pool-hall. There were three pool tables and a snooker table in the rear portion of this building. Also a small room opposite the tavern bar that was a cafe managed by my Aunt Lilly, my mother's sister. This smaller room was used as a cafe by Aunt Lillie (mother's eldest sister and Pop's second wife) years after prohibition. 

The interior walls, ceiling and special handmade seats that were built for the tavern and cafe and the benches for the pool-hall portion were made of knotty pine (lower right corner in photograph below) were blow torched to accentuate the grain of the and the knotty pine There was a highly lacquered masonite bar that ran the length of the tavern portion of the building. 

There was a pen ball machine, slot machine (one arm bandit) located in the bar portion of this building that tokens were used to play. They would be exchanged for cash when the person hit the jackpot. There was also a jukebox we called a beetle organ. 

Pop and another one or two of his friends which included; Walter Hollowell, Guy Scott, Fatman, the Lancaster brothers Ed, Chill, and Shorty, and others would occasionally play cards in the liquor store which was added in later years. 

Their serious card games were played in our dining room for many years until he had a small cement basement built under the back porch, with a trap door for an entrance. We were never sure why he went to so much trouble or expense, but I'm sure that everyone in the family wished that he had done it many years sooner. You can imagine how noisy a bunch of card players can be and appreciate just how little sleep we were able to get with the players vocalizing their frustrations and elation's. It was bad enough when one of them would pound the table, but it really jerked our chain when someone slapped the table with the palm of their hand. Anyway, we certainly couldn't go to school the next morning and tell the teacher that we didn't get any sleep last night because of an all night card game. Aunt Lillie was usually called on sometime during the night to fix sandwiches and coffee. 

Bill Brent, who was later to become the sheriff of Butler County at Poplar Bluff for a number of terms, managed the crap table when the business was first started. Many years later Pop was arrested for gambling in our house, but never served any time. His long time friendship with Bill Brent evidently had a lot to do with him not being held. 

Glenn would open the beer-joint or joint as most of us called it, by sweeping, putting the place in order and building a fire during the winter months. Pop would relieve him in time for school. Thank goodness that I never had to open the tavern during the winter months. As cold (a three dog night) as it was in our bedroom, it was certainly a whale of a lot better than opening a cold beer tavern. Pop sold 3.2% alcohol content beer instead of 5%, so he was able to be open on Sundays. 

Glenn and I started tending bar at ten or twelve years of age. A task at which I always felt a little uncomfortable with. I remember one night when Pop had gone to Poplar Bluff and I was tending bar alone and a fight broke- out. I was afraid that they might injure themselves or do some damage to the tavern. Fortunately, Guy Scott was there to help me herd them outside where they continued their disagreement. We enjoyed watching them roll around on the ground and make an ass out of themselves, once we got them outside. Then too, there was always the possibility that the state man (alcohol inspector) might pay us an unexpected visit, while I was tending bar by myself and this would have been a fine and automatic suspension of Pop's beer license. Claudie being the youngest didn't tend bar, although he did rack pool balls. 

My first remembrance is helping Pop cap bottles of home-brew in the kitchen of our house. I was about five at the time, so I'm sure that I was more of a hindrance than help. The fermentation of home-brew is unstable and infrequently a bottle would explode. The legal beer would sometimes explode when it was placed in the beer box containing icy cold water on an extremely hot day. 

Pop worked long hours, six or seven days a week, depending on which business that he was in at the time. Generally opening between six thirty to seven thirty in the morning but never before drinking a cup or two of coffee with pet milk in it while sitting on the side of his bed. He would close for the night at nine or ten during the week and extend it to midnight or later on Saturday night, which he referred to as "drunk night," cautioning us to be careful on this particular night. He also told us that he didn't want us to bolly fox around, which is a first cousin to lollygag. 

Pop owned a hand-gun and a blackjack (sap), that he always took with him between the house and his place of business each day. He also had a persuader, which was an 18" length of fire hose with a metal inner lining. Which he didn't hesitate to use if the drunk became too rambunctious, of which he was exposed to many during his lifetime. I never knew of him having to use the gun, just showing the length of hose was enough to discourage most of them. 

Our dad took several trips when we were quite young, once returning with a crate of fruit and nuts from California, I can remember a few trips that I took with him. On one trip we attended boxing matches at Cape Girardeau or St. Louis. He also took me to the "Cat's Eye", a popular tavern/dancehall midway between home and the Bluff, a little south and west of the Hargrove Bridge. I often wondered where such a progressive name such as this came from in the mid thirties. It sounds like a name that the beatniks or the recent hippies would use. 

After Uncle Raymond Crane (mother's brother) moved from Texas in 1931, he became a bartender for Pop for a number of years. He was paid $2.00 a week with room and board for working about 82 hours a week. So slave labor wasn't reserved for the blacks only during the depression. Jobs were few and far between.. This gave Pop someone else that he could boss, a position that he dearly loved. He would have been a great Drill Sergeant. He now had a bar keeper, that he could relay on and trust to take care of the tavern, without being ripped-off. 

Uncle Raymond's bed was in the kitchen when he first moved in with us. This was prior to the bedroom, bath, garage and back porch being added. He awoke one morning with company in his bed not to his choosing. It was a snake that had entered through a mouse hole in the floor. Believe me, it didn't take him long to dispatch the snake and close the hole with a patch from a tobacco can and a few tacks. Uncle Raymond had a very sensitive stomach (sour stomach) since childhood and this didn't surprise any of us, when we saw how much pepper that he smothered his fried eggs with each morning. 

Shoot Out in Pop's Bar 

We were thankful Uncle Raymond, wasn't on duty at the time of the big shootout One of Pop's first part time bartender was shot and killed during the early years of operation. He was Melvin (Kneestob) Floyd, the son of the family that lived behind us. The gunman fired several rounds. One shot killed Melvin, one pierced the front door, Pop and the town constable. (this hole could be seen until the tavern was torched several years later) 

Pop wasn't aware that he had been wounded until he entered our living room, with a gallon of bootleg whiskey in each hand. He than proceeded to tell mother what had happened and that he had broken the rest of the bottles of home-brew and whiskey on the outside of the gambling portion of the building. I can remember Mother becoming excited when she noticed that there was blood on Pop's pant leg. He was so hyped during the excitement only minutes before, that he was unaware that he had been injured by the gunman. 

The bullet wound was less severe than it could have been, because the bullet was deflected by the large heavy skeleton key that he had attached to a belt loop on a key ring. The key was bent double by the bullet, before it entered the thigh muscle of his normal leg possibly preventing the bone from being shattered. Dr. Cook was unable to remove the bullet, because it was so deep seated and also he was concerned that it might damage too much of the soft tissue. So he cleaned and bandaged the wound and Pop lived with the bullet next to the femur bone for the rest of his life. 

Our town constable at the time was informed of the disturbance and came to investigate the situation. It didn't take him long to determine that it was one dangerous place to be. So he hightailed/hotfooted it back home with a hole in his ear. The County Sheriff was then notified and the gunman was arrested. 

My mother, Beulah, died at the Lucy Lee Hospital in the Bluff on 21 Dec. 1938, giving birth to the second set of twins. Aunt Lillie obtained her divorce from Uncle Johnny at Piggott, Arkansas. Aunt Lillie married Pop on 20 Aug. 1939, less than a year after Mother's death. 

In the early days the jobbers generally had a helper, (who did all of the donkey work) who was usually a black who did most of the unloading of beer and sodie pop, as we called it then. The main reason that we enjoyed their arrival was that they always setup a free round of drinks when they first arrived and again just before they left, a practice that hasn't been done in years. 

Our dad invested a lot of hours playing the card game of "ole sol" (solitaire), after he opened the liquor store, during the slack periods. To help maintain hand dexterity, he would move the quarter from the bottom of a stack of quarters to the top, with the thumb of his right hand. 

Dad was an avid card player, who seemed to be addicted to it. He didn't always win, once losing his car and pocket watch, shortly after moving to town. Kirt Adkins liked Pop and was somehow able to convince the other players that they should return his property to him. 

On another occasion he lost his tavern on a ball game. Baseball was very big during the depression. Many of the men at home played on a diamond in front of the Hollowells on Sundays, before the high school was built. 

Walter Hollowell (Booger's dad) was always the catcher for the local team. Pop owned a team a few years after we moved into town. Which probably meant that he sponsored the team by purchasing the necessary equipment. I rather doubt that it was the St. Louis Cardinals! 

Another time he lost his shirt at the Purple Crackle, a gambling house across the Mississippi River from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, being a good businessman, he was able to get a loan and with some backing from Kirt Adkins, and was soon back in business. 

Slot machines (one arm bandits) were legal in Missouri during the first few years that Pop operated his tavern. Tokens were used with a hole in the center of them, that could be redeemed for cash from the cash register, when a person hit the jackpot. Which I did once and won enough to purchase a new pair of bib overalls at Joe Hefners store. Barb's Uncle Eddie McLaughlin bought the slot machine from Pop a few years after we were married. This machine is probably still floating around somewhere in the Battle Creek, Michigan area. 

Punch boards were very big when we were kids and were to be found everywhere to include grocery stores, service stations, cafes, drugstores, lunch counters at the five and dime stores and of course taverns and honky tonks. They were made of cardboard about one inch thick and the chances were punched out with a punch similar to the key used to open a sardine can. The chances were anywhere from a dime to a dollar and a person could win anything from a big goose egg to a few dollars. Many businesses also had grab bags. The price range was about the same for the grab bags. A person might select a bag that contains a small trinket, taffy or perhaps a nice piece of jewelry. Grab bags can still be seen occasionally, but the state and federal government is missing out on a lot of revenue by not bringing back punch boards. Everyone enjoyed taking chances with these and they would be more popular and a persons chances of winning would certainly be much better than with the lotteries of today. 

Pop Builds a Movie Theater 

A theater was added to Pop's business ventures in the late thirties. I can't remember if Uncle Raymond helped with the construction of this building, but I do recall him helping with the crew that poured the cement for the front of the building. It was during a hot summer day and he developed the worst blistered back that I've ever seen while working without a shirt. I'm sure that Aunt Jullean will attest to this. This was when westerns were king and Roy Rogers was king of the cowboys. 

Live Performances: 

The Wilburn Brothers appeared at the theater quite often, as well as Slim Rhodes, Speck and Slim's wife Zella Mae, who had a daily radio program on KWOC. The Wilburn brothers and Speck are still active in Nashville. 

Pop moved a small building from behind the theater to the front center of his lot to be used as a liquor store, the last twelve or so years of his life. The tavern had become too much of a hassle, after so many years and that smoky old poolroom didn't help either, while keeping a second eye out for the law. Pop enjoyed attending the open air wrestling matches at Poplar Bluff, during the summer months and movies at Campbell whenever he could get away. He especially enjoyed the continuing serials each week. There were serials with Gene Autry, Red Rider and Little Beaver, Clyde Beatty of the circus and many others. My all time favorite was "the fighting marines". Most of these episodes took place in the jungles and always left us wanting to return next week for the next installment. it gave us something to talk about and to look forward to all week long. Movies were our second favorite topic when we were picking cotton only when there were none of the girls around, everyone enjoyed westerns and we all went ape when a new Tarzan movie was released. 

Everyone at home (Qulin) called Pop by the nickname of Crip. Even some of the mail came addressed to Crip or Cripp Mc Clure. Brother Claudie once learned that Pop's nickname was not to be used by his children. Pop didn't believe in the boarding house reach (both feet on the floor at all times) at our dining table. When Claudie asked Pop for the butter and called him Crip Pop quickly and firmly informed him that his friends could call him Crip, but that his children should address him as Pop or some form thereof. Only moments later Claudie had forgotten the reprimand once again calling him Crip when asking for another food item. Pop instantly back-handed him out of his chair and against the wall. Claudie picked himself up sheepishly and returned to the table with very little to say during the rest of the meal. (which isn't easy for him, because he was our court jester. Claudie wasn't being disrespectful, just a cocky kid who was full of something and something. 

Glenn had all of the class "he was the one who wore the boxer shorts" and I was the old maid of the trio). He was a big boy of twenty-one, but would never have considered hitting Pop. Which was wise in every way because I'm sure he would have regretted it later. Pop couldn't get around fast and he had a large stomach, but his upper torso and arms were well developed. He could really put a hurt on a person, once he got his hands on them. Pop had a very colorful and salty vocabulary that would curl a persons hair and he was a recovered alcoholic but he never wanted us to swear or drink even after we were grown. He was very strict and would not tolerate back-talk from any of us and he would use anything within reach, if we didn't "hop to". 

Living through the Depression Years
Facts of the "Depression" era 

For many reasons, most men seemed to drink during Prohibition/depression. The great depression alone was excuse enough and when you compound it with the fact that the booze was forbidden nectar that was enough to entice most men. 

Herbert Hoover was our 31st President in the early days of this Prohibition era and was blamed for the problems caused by it. It was a period of unemployment. Some of the men said that living was easy, but making a living was hard! 

Some of the phrases used to describe his administration were: a Hoover Hog, was a rabbit shot for food, crow for a Hoover Chicken. Hoover shoes, were for shoes with holes in them. When a person would have to place a piece of cardboard in their shoe (it was said that they were on their uppers) and would use wire to wire-on the soles of their shoes, when they came loose. Hoover blankets, for old newspapers used as blankets by the homeless. I can recall hobos coming into the tavern to warm themselves, with newspapers wrapped around their arms, legs and covering their upper body under their clothes to help retain body heat. 

It was a very difficult period in our history and we were fortunate that Pop was able to get established during this time. He was a recovered alcoholic, having quit drinking when we were preschool. Due to D.T.'s (delirium tremens/tremors) which had reached the final stage. When a person experiences snakes or spiders crawling all over their body. Pop said that just recalling these frightening episodes were enough to discourage him from taking the next drink. Most alcoholics never reach this stage. This is why Pop was able to relate and empathize with the many drunks that he came into contact with in his line of work.