AGENT LEARNED ABC'S OF MOONSHINE-BUSTING

The daily routine of a state Alcohol Beverage Control agent includes more
than just arresting drunk kids, says Sgt. Ralph Goff, a 22-year ABC veteran
who has stared down the barrel of a pistol.

That time, the gunman -- an alleged drug dealer -- pulled the trigger. The
blast was so close to Goff's head that, he said, it singed his hair and one
of his eyebrows.

Goff, 55, who retires Monday, never told his wife about that one. He said
he had not wanted to worry her.

He said he has no regrets about choosing ABC as his life's work and leaves
with many good memories of his time with the enforcement agency.

The job includes arresting people making or hauling moonshine whisky,
keeping untaxed alcohol out of the state, and issuing or revoking
alcohol-sales licenses.

"That's our major thrust," Goff said.

But, he said, ABC agents also are called on to help arrest drug traffickers
and to enforce laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to people under age 18.

Smashing whisky stills and chasing moonshiners provided the most excitement
of his career -- that and facing down the alleged drug dealer, Goff said.

Goff, of west Mobile, said he earned a college degree in criminal justice
after a hitch in the Marine Corps. He said he knew he wanted to work in law
enforcement and chose the ABC because it was the first agency that offered
him a job.

In his retirement, he hopes to devote more time to fishing and to his new
hobby of flying radio-controlled scale model airplanes.

State ABC Chief Roy Houlton said Goff is a good agent who has done a lot
for the department. "He has had an outstanding career," Houlton said. "He
was a good field agent and supervisor.

"He did a lot for us in training and firearms. He definitely will be
missed. Someone with his background and experience is going to be missed.
He has been a personal friend of mine over the years."

Hunting Stills

Goff worked all over the state but spent his final years mainly in Mobile
and Baldwin counties, where he smashed his last still nearly 10 years ago.
Most local stills have been in the sparsely populated areas of north Mobile
County, Goff said.

The last one he tore apart was "up there in Mount Vernon," Goff said. "It
was the last wood-burning still we got. Most of them are propane because
you don't have to cut wood, and it doesn't make smoke."

The still was tucked away in a hollow. A thick canopy of overhanging tree
branches hid it from view. Clean, fresh water for the still came from a
nearby spring, Goff said.

Catching moonshiners was relatively easy at times, he said. Agents simply
waited near country stores and tailed people who bought large quantities of
sugar needed for the distilling process, Goff said.

In other instances, tips came from informants, he said.

"They would get mad at each other," Goff said. "It was, 'I'll get you
back,' that kind of thing. Or somebody wouldn't get their cut, or you are
messing with my girlfriend, that kind of stuff, and they would get mad at
each other and tell on each other."

Most moonshiners, according to Goff, seemed to take genuine pride in their
trade. Loyal customers preferred white lightning to legal whisky because of
the taste and the bigger kick, he said.

But, he said, there were some moonshiners wanting only a quick buck.

Some of them would throw old car batteries into the mash to make it ferment
faster, he said. Others used discarded car radiators as the still's
condensing unit, he said, a dangerous technique -- at least for the
consumer -- because coils of some radiators are held together by a soft solder.

"Soft solder has lead in it, and when that hot steam hits the soft solder,
it collects the lead, and you get a lot of lead," Goff said. "Over the
years drinking the stuff will make you go blind from lead poisoning."

Clorox In The Cans

A few years ago in central Alabama 11 people were hospitalized after
drinking white lightning laced with Clorox, Goff said.

The man who made the stuff said he had added Clorox to "give it some kick,"
Goff said. "When it was analyzed, it was 170 proof," Goff said. "And I said
to him, 'Bubba, this don't need no kick, it's already got it.' He was
mixing it in galvanized garbage cans in his back yard and pouring Clorox in
it."

Goff said he didn't taste it, but he could smell the Clorox in the liquor.
None of the 11 who got sick drinking it died, he said.

It's been more than 10 years, he said, since he chased a whisky runner.

In his experience, Alabama "shine" runners typically used beat-up,
plain-looking cars or trucks, not some shiny hot rod.

"I never saw any special cars," he said. "Most of the time, they would get
some old junk car they didn't mind losing."

He added, "If the cops got after them, they would just run it off in the
woods and jump out and leave it there."

ABC agents can confiscate vehicles used to haul illegal alcohol, Goff said.
Many times, agents discovered that seized or abandoned cars had been
registered by "shine" runners in a dead person's name.

Chasing "shine" runners, he said, was most exhilarating in the early 1980s
when he had a big Ford with a 460-cubic inch V-8 engine.

Those Fords "would fly," he said. "They were police packages that would do
140. It would get the blood to pumping. Most of the chases were short and
sweet."

During such chases, "You get this adrenaline rush, and there is no way to
explain it," he said. "Somebody said, 'Why would you do something like that
knowing it was dangerous?' Well, you don't think about that; you think
about you've got this job to do."

He noted that moonshiners, who traditionally poured their finished whiskey
into metal or glass containers, eventually switched to one-gallon, plastic
milk jugs. ABC agents have found up to a hundred of the liquor-filled jugs,
stashed inside a runner's car and trunk, Goff said.

From 'Shine' To Drugs

Nearly five of Goff's 22 years were spent as an undercover agent battling
drugs, which, he said, is more dangerous than chasing good ol' boy moonshiners.

"With the drugs, you've got people selling it that are on it, zonked out of
their minds when you are dealing with them," Goff said. "You don't know
what they are going to do from time to time. My partners and I have had
some close calls."

But, he added, "I made 347 cases and didn't lose any in court."

In the modern era, ABC agents also must devote extensive time to paperwork,
issuing licenses to sell alcohol and making sure alcohol and tobacco are
not sold to minors, Goff said.

"Mobile has a real problem with kids drinking. It's bad," Goff said. "It's
tough to go somewhere and see a wreck with kids piled up in it, dead and
torn up. It doesn't take a whole lot for them to get drunk. It just seems
to be wide open now, where we used to have a handle on it."

Law enforcement, drug abuse and public health experts have called underage
drinking an "epidemic" that threatens the safety of southwest Alabama's
teen-agers.

Experts say that teens who use alcohol are at a higher risk of dying in car
crashes, by other accidents and suicide. They also are more likely than
other teens to contract sexually transmitted diseases, get pregnant or
become alcoholics later in life.

Decline In Agents

Despite the concern about teen drinking, there are fewer ABC agents to
police alcohol consumption by people under age 21.

When Goff became an ABC agent 22 years ago, Alabama had 158 agents
enforcing the state's alcohol laws. Today, the state has 79 ABC officers,
50 of whom are entry-level agents doing the real field work, Houlton said.
With Goff's departure, Mobile and Baldwin, two of the state's larger
counties, will have only two agents between them. There would have been
three, but one agent was transferred last week, ABC officials said.

Houlton said that he is concerned about not having enough agents to cover
the state, much less Mobile and Baldwin counties.

"We are hoping to hire three or four more agents to work Mobile and Baldwin
county in a couple of months," Houlton said.