Holiday memories from the Shegon Inn

By Dwight Williamson

It’s Christmastime in good old Logan County and somehow Santa’s reindeer have nearly always successfully navigated our hills and mountains to visit one holler after another bringing Christmas joy. It wasn’t that long ago, though, that the “bearded wonder” had one heck of a time trying to get the local kids their proper toys. Of course, that’s been about eight years ago when the new county addressing system was being put into place and names were given to roads, alleys and streets that already had names, creating confusion for anyone with or without a navigation device, including UPS and FedEx. I guess nobody realized that all mining camp locations were given street names many years ago when engineers surveyed the coal company properties. (I wonder how many people know that “Love” street was the real name of an alley at No. 16 camp at Verdunville where I grew up.) Oh, well, I guess it doesn’t matter.

Growing up, none of that mattered. There wasn’t a street sign I can remember anywhere on Mud Fork, which today could be interpreted to mean that back then people always knew where they were going and just didn’t need the darned things. Unfortunately, most of the signs that existed back then to designate the names of communities have simply vanished.

For instance, signs that once stood along the county road that showed one that you were entering the community of Verdunville are long gone, and most people don’t even remember where they were originally located. Consequently, nearly everybody on Mud Fork thinks they reside at Verdunville, which is just not the case. Other community names like Holt and Shegon disappeared with time, but when the old Trailways bus station in Logan was in operation, those names were regularly announced over the public address system. As a young kid at the station with my mother, I remember hearing the PA announcer declaring, “Now loading for Mt. Gay, Holt, Verdunville and Shegon.”

As one of the many “Porch Sitters” that daily adorned the concrete porch of the No. 16 Island Creek company store as a youngster, I never once posed the question to my fellow compadres as to the location of Shegon. For us, people either lived at No. 15, 16, 17, and 18 camps, or maybe 19 holler, Ellis Holler, or Dempsey Branch. Everybody else on Mud Fork was considered to live at “lower Mud Fork” or at the “head of the creek.”

They say that “with age, comes wisdom.” But for this particular “Porch Sitter,” it took me until adulthood to find out where Shegon actually was, and that was only after I became old enough to drink beer – at, where else? – The Shegon Inn.

The “Porch Sitters” varied in ages, from seven-year-olds to teenagers, but it seemed as each teenager sort of “graduated” from the store porch into the realms of various other galaxies – joining the armed forces; falling in supposed love and getting married; leaving Logan County for a job in another state, or choosing to go into coal mining – there was always someone else to take one’s place as an ornament of the coveted concrete porch that featured a telephone booth.

I exited my long stay as a “Porch Sitter” as a 17-year-old when I left for Marshall University in August of 1971. From the friendly confines of the company store porch to Huntington, West Virginia (a place I had never been in my life) this long-haired Mud Forker took on what he thought was “big city” life in Huntington. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what I was to be in for. However, those wild and wonderful escapades will have to wait, for it is the Christmas story of the Shegon Inn that must now be told.

Becoming 18 years old is a pretty big deal with nearly everyone, but in 1971, which many argue was the greatest year ever for rock music, the legal age to consume alcohol was 18. I turned 18 years old October 2, less than two months after being on campus. That was not a big deal for me in Thundering Herd territory because no place “carded” students anyway. What was significant was the fact that I would now be able to go home for Christmas and be old enough to finally go to the annual Shegon Inn Christmas party and be with some of my older “Porch Sitters” at the beer joint that was better known as “John’s.”

John Mullins, the proprietor of the one-story cinderblock building, which was a converted gasoline station that still had its two gas pumps, was truly an “old school” John Wayne type individual who had served as a bar room bouncer during his days in Chicago, and for a while at what was called the Ranch House Club that was located at Monitor, after his return to Logan.

A brawny man, who always kept a .38 caliber pistol in his rear pocket and a large set of keys dangling from his belt, John loved raising and illegally fighting his gamecock chickens. No matter how many customers the man had in his business, at a certain time each day he would close the place down to go home to grab a bite to eat and to feed his chickens. Loyal patrons simply bought a beer, had a seat on an outside bench, and waited the usual hour for his return. In those days, police and constables driving by would simply throw their hands up at the beer drinkers. In fact, it was not unusual for the late Bill Abraham, when he was sheriff, to roll up to the Shegon Inn in his sheriff’s car, get out, and then buy the guys a round or two.

Times were different back then, to say the least. There were beer joints, often referred to as beer gardens, throughout Logan County. In fact, at one time, there were at least 15 establishments just in the town of Logan that sold beer. Beer joints could not sell liquor or wine, but private fraternal organizations, including veterans’ organizations and country clubs, were allowed to do so. In 1961, southern West Virginia legislators agreed to vote with the northern elected officials to allow for a new type of private club (ABCC licensed businesses of today). In so doing, northern legislators then agreed to vote to finally unblock the renaming of Marshall College to Marshall University, which the northerners had blocked since 1937.

So it was that beer joints slowly began to disappear. However, John Mullins could be seen daily through the only window at his place as he sat behind the bar; a setting that sometimes served as a barber shop and even a dental facility. When business was slow through the day, he would cut a man’s hair and even pull a tooth, all free of charge to any brave soul that could sit still long enough in one of his chromium stools.

One daily patron, who shall remain unnamed, was suffering from a severe tooth ache one day when he agreed to allow the unlicensed dentist to use his pliers to yank the aching tooth. After giving poor Paul a shot of illegal liquor that he kept hidden away, John began to pull and twist on the man’s tooth, while the ailing patient screamed in terrible pain.

Finally, after much work as he held the man’s head in a headlock, John displayed the extracted tooth to the patient and gave him another shot of liquor to help ease the pain. When Paul finally quit spitting blood, he informed John that he had in fact pulled the wrong tooth.

As youngsters, the Porch Sitters had walked the railroad tracks and roadway going by the Shegon, always wondering what lay behind that one window that during the night showed a dimly lit and smoke filled bar where very few females ever ventured and the sounds of “Blue Christmas” could be repeatedly heard from the juke box at every Christmastime. We also knew it was a strictly forbidden hide-a-way until one became of legal drinking age.

To finally walk into the daunting land and order a Stroh’s beer proved to be an uneasy task for me. But, once you showed John the ID that proved you now were eighteen, the answer was always the same. “The first one’s on me,” he would say.

Two pool tables, a juke box that played three songs for a quarter, a nickel pinball machine, and a gas warm-morning stove, plus, a bar and an outside toilet, that was about all there was in the place. To the left of the bar was located the pickled eggs, pickled Penrose sausages and pickled pigs’ feet, as well as potato chips. In the middle of all the surrounding glory, finally, it felt like I was on the road to real manhood, and just in time for the Christmas party.

It was a packed house when I made my way through the only entrance into the cinder blocked structure the night of the party. There were many men, both young and old, standing around in a thick cloud of cigarette smoke; some guys just talking, while others played pool – all to the music of “Blue Christmas.”

There were no decorations, snacks or special foods provided like most Christmas parties, but Joe Dress, the owner of Aracoma Beverage Co. at the time, always provided John with some special homemade wine for his party, and it was shared with all.

As the night grew older, the jukebox was continuously cranked louder and louder until nobody understood what the other person was saying, and it didn’t even matter. Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May,” Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” mixed in with some Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and George Jones, soothed the soul, especially after the continuous playing of “Blue Christmas.”

There was one 45 rpm record on the jukebox, however, that usually only got played at Christmastime, and only after John Mullins started really feeling his oats. It was a warped record that made no sense when it was played. And, when John, who used the word “buck” at the end of everyone’s name when he addressed them, would decide the time was right, he picked out someone to close the only fresh air opening to the beer joint, and we knew what that meant. “Kenny-buck” (as an example), close that opening back there.”

We always knew what came next. “Larry-buck, play some of that ‘psycheedlelic’ music for us,” John would say. He never ever knew the record he thought was psychedelic music was simply a warped piece of plastic. I guess we just didn’t have the heart to tell him so. Besides, it at least took his mind off of “Blue Christmas” and the woman in Chicago who he had caught cheating on him many years before.

I must end this writing now for fear of incriminating myself and others. But, for those few of us who are left to remember, we know the secrets that were a part of the Shegon Inn and the man who ran the place with an iron fist, John Mullins. Like, John, who met his maker in a most unusual way, we shall take those secrets to the grave with us.

For those readers who may be wondering why I chose this story for Christmas, well, there is a valid reason behind this old Porch Sitter’s tale. You see, there are no more beer gardens left where younger people often sat and listened to the stories of older men, who often related their mistakes and adventures in life to a usually tentative audience. Indeed, from coal mining, to gardening, to divorces and just about every topic in life, young people, 18 and a little older – who could have been at any time drafted into a Vietnam wasteland – were made to feel a part of the grown-up society.

It used to be that one was considered a man at the age of 18 and the legal drinking age was 18 for beer/wine and 21 for liquor until 1972, when it was lowered to 18 for all beverages. It was then raised to the age of 19 in 1983 and then raised to 21 for everyone in 1986.

An in-depth look at history will reveal that after years of that law being enforced since 1986, we have created an insidious MONSTER that is killing particularly our younger generation at an unprecedented level. It comes in the forms of pills, powder and liquids, and it does way more damage than a typical hangover.

I believe I speak for all of the “Porch Sitters” from the past and present, when I say, “Merry Christmas to you and yours.”

Dwight Williamson is a former writer for the Logan Banner. He is now a Magistrate for Logan County.

*Published with the author’s permission.

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