And it's tatertot hot dish!

Can imagine the delaying tactics that a classic Minnesotan long goodbye would cause to an invading military? You could cause delays of up to several hours just saying goodbye!

And about 13 guns per person, although admittedly the people are scattered far and wide

Ha which this reminds me of a story my dad told us when we asked if there was a shortcut through where we were going in the Ozarks. It was a time before phones.

"Peopleproblems, you don't take shortcuts around here. You stick to the main roads, follow the signs, and make darn sure you have a map. When I was in college, engaged to your mom, we were on our way back from doxable university and we decided to do that, cause my friend (has a name), said he knew of one. We went with it - we came up to a stop sign, and this old beat up truck pulled up next to us. A short ugly looking thin as bones guy with a beard and no hair, with his unfortunately worse looking daughter. He gets out of the truck after he places his shot gun on the dashboard drunkenly steps on over to us and says 'One o' yee need to murry my daughter. She ain't purty but she cook and clean real good. I don care wheech one o' y'all does, but we got e'rything ready. Jus follow us on down 'ere.' My friend says something stupid, I can't remember what, but his response was what I won't forget: 'I ain't given yee a choice.' As he heads back to the truck my friend just says 'Gun it!' and the little Gremlin I was in worked the hardest it ever had. Once we got back on the highway there was a mix of laughing and crying as we were facing a real shotgun wedding."

We were young at the time, so he left the sad part out. Around there incest/rape was a known thing, and she had probably gotten pregnant. He was likely trying to find someone to marry her so he didn't get the blame, she didn't get the problems associated with being a single pregnant mother in hillbilly land, and the whole problem is solved. And he'd do it at gun point if he had to.

Why you doing things the hard way? Guy I buy from is an old family friend and he'll meet you in a parking lot somewhere or you can ask to swing by his house.

I have a feeling that they may mean real moonshine, not the stuff listed as moonshine in stores. Although it may not be considered "in public" I know a guy here that just left flyers at a local bar for his moonshine and would come by a few times a week and everyone knew which nights they'd be around. He'd reuse gallon jugs that used to have water, or those cheap punches you'd buy in stores. Most people would by a pint or quart though. He'd flavor some, but getting a gallon of it plain just basically tastes like slightly off grain alcohol.

At the end of the day, whatever was getting sucked out of the plastic bottle into the alcohol was likely just as bad for us as the alcohol itself.

I stopped going to bars, and cut back drinking by a long shot, but I'm sure if he's not around still someone likely took his place.

There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

Oregon is unique in that early on they were anti-slavery because they were so racist that they didn't want black people in the state even as slaves.