The other night while working my weekend job (bullfighter) a fellow came up to me and asked if I was the same guy who writes "that newspaper column."

I am, so I said, "Yes."

"My wife gets a real kick out of it," he said. "Are those stories true?"

"Absolutely," I lied.

Then he asked a question I hear a lot: "Where do you come up with that stuff?"

I've never had a good answer for this, but the question got me thinking, which I do from time to time, despite a significant body of evidence to the contrary. The ideas I get from living day to day, like everybody else. But the ability to put them down every week in 650 words or less ... that I get from my Grandpa Seeley, "Milt" to his contemporaries.

My grandfather died several years back and he was never a writer, but he could tell a story better than anyone I've known before or since. Having lived an amazing life, he had many good stories to tell.

However, my favorite, by far, is the story I came to think of as..."The Day the Still Exploded."

Milt was a young man, not long out of his teens, and working as a "shanty boy" in Michigan's then-untrammeled north woods. It was the height of the logging era, and many a young man with a strong back and a desire to make a buck spent months out of every year deep in the state's northern forests, sawing trees and moving them via waterways and rail to mills farther south.

My grandfather was a popular guy in camp; even back then he could tell a story, and times being what they were, this was a skill of some importance.

Conditions were at best rugged, and the weeks and months living in tents and shanties took their toll on even the hardiest logger. Little heat, no women, no entertainment, bad food and bunkmates unafraid to express themselves through excessive flatulence ... these factors and more made for a hard, hard life.

The only bright spot in an otherwise dark forest was the little shed located just north of the logging camp. Inside that shed was a small fire. Small, but to the loggers, very important. For directly over that fire perched a still, which manufactured whiskey - very bad whiskey - 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The men took shifts tending the fire, day and night. The job was a simple one; add wood to the fire when needed, occasionally sample the whiskey to make sure the network of tubes and vials were in working order, stay awake.

My grandfather's turn in the rotation came ‘round on a particularly cold late-November day. A muscular west wind sheared the last leaves from the oaks as the season's first real snow peppered the shanties.

Sitting there, alone in the semi-darkness of the still shack, Milt added bits of wood to the fire, sampled the product, checked the still's pressure gauge, added more wood, sat, sampled the product, added more wood.

As the day drew on and the cold increased, Milt found himself sampling the product with increasing regularity and adding more wood than was strictly necessary, in an effort to warm the interior of the shack.

He was working so hard at the job, especially the "sampling" part, that he soon grew tired and dozed off. If he'd been awake, he might have noticed the still's pressure gauge slowly creeping into the red.

His fellow loggers were just returning to camp when the shed exploded. Splintered wood, shards of metal, twisted copper tubing and my grandfather all flew through the air with equal velocity.

When he came to, hours later, Milt found he was missing his right index finger, and was no longer the most popular man in camp.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or moonshine recipes, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429.

I don't know how many folks watch those afternoon talk shows-those programs which feature first-name hosts like Phil, Geraldo and Jerry. I suppose they must generate a fair-sized audience, though. They're on year after year after year.

If I live to be a hundred, I'll never understand it. At what point in our sociological evolution did Former U.S. Ambassadors Who've Been Abducted by UFOs and Forced to Watch Reruns of "The Waltons" become news? But I'm not writing here today to criticize the fluff these programs attempt to pass off as "critical issues." I'm not even here to gripe about the simplistic answers these hosts dispense in response to complex questions.

I'm here to deliver a warning-a warning to Phil, Geraldo and Ophra. And Sally, too, I suppose: There's an usurper in your midst.

It's true. I met him recently at a tavern not far from my house.

He was standing at the bar ordering a shot and Coke when he first spoke to me. I was watching football on the bar's big screen TV at the time.

"Got any money on the game?" he asked.

It took a moment before I realized he was talking to me. "What?" I asked.

"Any money," he replied. "on the game?"

"No," I said. He was a big guy, sporting a Carhart jacket and John Deere seed cap. He seemed friendly enough, but I had the distinct impression he could crush my little skull like an aluminum Bud can in one of his calloused, working-man's hands. I've discovered through years of painful experience it's best not to share too many of my condescending, city-bred opinions on sports, politics or religion with gentlemen of this particular genus, and size.

And I sure wasn't going to make the unmanly admission that the only reason I was watching the game was that the bartender wouldn't change the channel to Star Trek.

"I got ten bucks on Buffalo myself," he said.

"Um."

"You think they're going to go all the way?"

If John Deere here had ten bucks riding on them, you can bet I thought so. "Seems like they could," I said, even though I had no idea if "going all the way" meant Buffalo would play in the Superbowl or lose their collective virginity.

"Darn right," he said. "Hey! I'm Jake. Lemme buy you a beer."

Now, I've never been adverse to free beer and I had some time to kill, so I accepted. During the next few hours, the conversation between Jake and me rolled freely between sports, women, religion, gays in the military and Washington politics. And on every topic, Jake had an opinion-a strong opinion. More than that, he had the same thing all talk show hosts seem to have: answers.

Sure, they were for the most part answers that made little real sense, but when you're 6'4" and weigh in at about 330 pounds, you don't have to be a talk show host to share your opinions with whomever you please. Little folk-like me-tend to nod and smile a lot, which is-for the most part-exactly what I did.

By the time I left the bar, however, I had gained a genuine respect for Jake and his simple answers. Here in my hometown was a man who-with but the addition of an expensive haircut and wire-rimmed glasses-could easily be hosting a talk show of his very own. After all, Jake seemed to have every bit as good a grasp on the world and its problems as do Phil, Geraldo, Jerry and Sally.

Let me give you some examples of our dialogue:

• ISSUE: OIL SHORTAGE

JAKE: Shoot! Now that we're not fighting with the commies anymore, we should just get together with the Ruskies and take the oil we want.

ME: But wouldn't that go against many of the basic philosophical doctrines upon which America was founded?

JAKE: (A glowering stare.)

ME: No, I suppose it wouldn't at that. Good idea Jake.

• ISSUE: GAYS IN THE MILITARY

JAKE: They'd be okay if somebody just bought 'em a subscription to Playboy or something.

ME: (laughing) Do you honestly believe that reading a girly magazine is going to change an individual's sexual orientation?

JAKE: (Slams beer down on table, looks into it menacingly.)

ME: Um, I don't know if that's true or not, but that's certainly how I feel.

• ISSUE: NATIONAL HEALTH CARE

JAKE: If people wouldn't get sick in the first place, we wouldn't need national health care.

ME: Are you implying people wind up in the hospital because they want to be there?

JAKE: Do you want to be there?

Once again, I was forced to admit Jake had a valid point, forced being the operative word. Anyway, you get the idea.

Although I spent several tense moments during our conversation fearing for my life, I came away from the encounter liking Jake, and I still maintain he would make a great talk show host. I bet he would get better ratings than Phil, Geraldo and Jerry, too. I, for one, would definitely tune in just for the chance to see a Danahue-esque triple-axe-murderer parolee bemoan the fact that the "system" has failed to rehabilitate him. Like all talk show hosts, Jake would have a solution.

Sometimes the simplest answers are the best.