Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tail gate.
Speaker 1: I think I got a thing or two and teaching
Speaker 1: hunting heritage. I went coon hunting with some folks last week,
Speaker 1: and just like every other coon hunt I go on,
Speaker 1: I spend the next few days going over in my
Speaker 1: head how my dog Whaling did and analyzing his performance
Speaker 1: against my expectations the terrible weather looming in front of us.
Speaker 1: What I expected was nothing short were terrible. What I
Speaker 1: got was nothing less than spectacling. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you all about it, but first I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you a story. Papa All builds me a boat. This
Speaker 1: episode is about hunting heritage. This story recalls a time
Speaker 1: and an event that was more related to fishing. The
Speaker 1: heritage link is on the land in which it happened
Speaker 1: and my maternal grandfather is the protagonist in this story,
Speaker 1: a man who didn't hunt. The location and farm had
Speaker 1: been in my mother's family since sometime either before or
Speaker 1: just after the War between the States. That's how it
Speaker 1: relates here. And with that said, here we go. When
Speaker 1: I was in high school, my maternal grandparents, Finest and
Speaker 1: Buless Life, were the only grandparents that I had that
Speaker 1: were living. My grandfather on my dad's side had been
Speaker 1: killed while working in a shipyard in California during World
Speaker 1: War Two, and my grandmother on that side died in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. So my only set of living grandparents
Speaker 1: were Mama Sly and Papa That's what we called them.
Speaker 1: That's what everyone called them, even my friends. Mama Sly
Speaker 1: liked to brimfish and liked to eat fish as well
Speaker 1: as anyone. Every Friday night was automatic we were going
Speaker 1: somewhere to eat fish. And I stayed with them a lot,
Speaker 1: and we'd had to Monticella, Arkansas, all to a fish
Speaker 1: place over there, or out to Ann's restaurant and warned
Speaker 1: to eat. They had good fish at Ann's, but I'd
Speaker 1: rob a bank this very second to have one of
Speaker 1: their chicken fried steaks. I done got off track thinking
Speaker 1: about victuals. Anyway, Mama sly liked fish. Papall worked on
Speaker 1: the farm and didn't hunt or fish much at all.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I don't ever remember him doing either
Speaker 1: to amount to anything. He wasn't against it, he just
Speaker 1: didn't have the patience for it. He liked farming and
Speaker 1: everything that went with it. He was always fixing or
Speaker 1: building something to make life easier on the farm. He
Speaker 1: was a voracious reader. He read national geographics from cover
Speaker 1: to cover, Western novels by Zane Gray and Louis Lamore,
Speaker 1: and popular mechanics. He was highly intelligent and mostly self educated.
Speaker 1: They bought their first VCR player that they or I
Speaker 1: ever saw, and it looked as big as a bathtub.
Speaker 1: You could load a tape in there and it sounded
Speaker 1: like you were slamming a bank vault shut well. They
Speaker 1: quit working one time and Papa took it apart and
Speaker 1: fixed it. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer
Speaker 1: to it. It was in a billion pieces on the
Speaker 1: kitchen table. Tiny screws, gears and parts were laying everywhere.
Speaker 1: No manual, no instructions, no Google, no YouTube, no help desk,
Speaker 1: but last, and not least no training in VC or repair,
Speaker 1: just brain power. I was grown and married, living on
Speaker 1: my own and didn't have enough sense to set the
Speaker 1: clock on one. It worked, but that flashing digital twelve
Speaker 1: still haunts me. I done got off track again. Papall
Speaker 1: read every night after supper and TV before he went
Speaker 1: to bed. Now, one evening he read an article in
Speaker 1: Popular Mechanics that described how to build a one man
Speaker 1: fishing boat using rudimentary materials. He loved building stuff and
Speaker 1: was assault after tablemaker and craftsmen. During his retired years.
Speaker 1: He built all his grandson's gun cabinets, and we all
Speaker 1: still have them. He made them out of oak and
Speaker 1: they are tremendously heavy and built to last. He loved
Speaker 1: building things for his grandkids, for babies, furniture, toys, whatever
Speaker 1: he took a notion to make, he'd make it, and
Speaker 1: not only would it work, but it would work well
Speaker 1: and better than anything that was commercially available. Now, this
Speaker 1: one man fishing boat he made for me. He surprised
Speaker 1: me with it one day when he drove up to
Speaker 1: the house. Come out here, son, I got something I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna like. Well. Ibou took the doors off
Speaker 1: the hinges getting outside to see what he'd made for me.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a clue what it could be, but
Speaker 1: if Papa had made it for me, it was going
Speaker 1: to be cool and one of a kind. We had
Speaker 1: a two acre pond less than one hundred yards from
Speaker 1: the house. It was full of fish, a big bass,
Speaker 1: brim and catfish and crappie, also bull frogs and snakes.
Speaker 1: It was a good place to fish, and I have
Speaker 1: a ton of memories catching fish, snakes, and gigging frogs
Speaker 1: there all year long. That pond was the focus of
Speaker 1: some type of activity for me, my brothers, and my friends.
Speaker 1: That day, however, it would be the launch pad from
Speaker 1: my grandpa's latest feet of engineering and the first ship
Speaker 1: in his fleet homemade boats. Y'all get you imaginary pencil
Speaker 1: sharpened and draw this out on your brain while I
Speaker 1: describe it to you. He had a big interview from
Speaker 1: one of our tractor tires inflated and two tuberfoes laying
Speaker 1: parallel to each other along the top. The boards were
Speaker 1: wide enough apart to attach a square milk crate that
Speaker 1: sat down in the doughnut hole of the inner two.
Speaker 1: He had one eighth inch plywood as decon screwed in
Speaker 1: place across the top of the tuberfores. The decon was
Speaker 1: less than three feet wide and about five and a
Speaker 1: half feet long. Now, inside that milk crate, he had
Speaker 1: a car battery and it was wired to a troller
Speaker 1: motor that he'd mounted to the front of the plywood deck.
Speaker 1: Mean you following me? I hope you are, because the
Speaker 1: best part is coming right now. Centered directly above that
Speaker 1: hole in the enter tube that housed a milk crate
Speaker 1: was a folding lawn chair. It was the old kind,
Speaker 1: with a woven synthetic webon for seating, and the legs
Speaker 1: were fashioned from U shaped pieces of aluminum stay women. Now,
Speaker 1: the rear legs were held in place using electrical conduit
Speaker 1: fasteners screwed to the decad. The front legs were free,
Speaker 1: allowing the chair to be folded down when in transport. Now,
Speaker 1: that's assuming that you'd want to take this little beauty
Speaker 1: out on the road, and who wouldn't. I could already
Speaker 1: see myself loading this unit into the back of my
Speaker 1: truck and launching my one man battleship down at Crane's
Speaker 1: Lake and getting back into places we couldn't get dads
Speaker 1: or TEMs. Illuminum boat in I would be a brim
Speaker 1: fishing ninja. A fly rod would be my semuraized sword,
Speaker 1: and crickets would be my throwing stars. And this boat
Speaker 1: my Papa built for me would be my trusty steed
Speaker 1: on which I would ride into battle. Tim lived right
Speaker 1: up the road and came down to watch the launch.
Speaker 1: Mama had walked outside and stood by my mama's sly
Speaker 1: and watched A Me and Papau unloaded it from his truck,
Speaker 1: hooked the battery cables to the terminals, and sat the
Speaker 1: whole contraption gingerly down on the surface of our pond.
Speaker 1: I unfolded the lawn chair, dropped the trolling motor into
Speaker 1: the water, and climbed aboard my ship. I knew what
Speaker 1: Neil Armstrong must have felt like when he climbed into
Speaker 1: the Apollo spacecraft flight of the Moon. I knew what
Speaker 1: Columbus must have felt like when he set out on
Speaker 1: his voice to the New World. I knew what Captain
Speaker 1: they Have must have felt like when that big white
Speaker 1: Well did a tomahawk chop to the middle of the peak.
Speaker 1: Wuad because only seconds after settling into the captain's chair
Speaker 1: of the USS. Papa, I was upside down in the pond,
Speaker 1: looking up at the surface of the water and on
Speaker 1: the bank. I could see my mama and my mama,
Speaker 1: my brother Tim, and my Papa all looking for me,
Speaker 1: like I just disappeared in a magic show. Why did
Speaker 1: Tim have to be here? I would never hear the
Speaker 1: end of this. Weighing my options a ridicule against just
Speaker 1: staying on the bottom of the pond. I let the
Speaker 1: lack of auxyens down there make my decision for me,
Speaker 1: and I surf as much to the delight of everyone.
Speaker 1: My boat floating aimlessly upside down, just off the bank
Speaker 1: with the troller motor buzzing like I saw with the
Speaker 1: lumber man. Papa waited out to get me, But like
Speaker 1: the rest of the onlookers, he was laughing so hearty
Speaker 1: he hardly catch his breath. Son, he said, between laughing
Speaker 1: and trying to breathe, our center of gravity was off.
Speaker 1: I know how to fix it, no, sir, not for me.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna swim out there and get this thing back
Speaker 1: for you, and I'm gonna help you load it up.
Speaker 1: But I have sat in the last in or two
Speaker 1: boat I will ever sit in That was forty years
Speaker 1: ago and I still haven't. And that's just how that happened.
Speaker 1: Hunting Heritage. You know, I can make this whole podcast
Speaker 1: about hunting heritage, and maybe in a way I already
Speaker 1: have to a certain extent, But this week it really
Speaker 1: came home to me in a special way. You hear
Speaker 1: me talking each week about stories and events that evolved
Speaker 1: me and my family and friends, and this week will
Speaker 1: be no different for you. But it was for me,
Speaker 1: and at the time I didn't even realize it. My
Speaker 1: friend Brad Clark called me. He lives in Mississippi, and
Speaker 1: you heard me talk about him when I was doing
Speaker 1: my duck hunting episodes. You also heard me talk about
Speaker 1: his lifelong friend, Randall Widmore, who you didn't hear me
Speaker 1: mention was Randall's younger brother, Wade. Now Randall and Wade
Speaker 1: are the sons of the late Dick Widmore, all from Tennessee,
Speaker 1: but Wade now lives in Texas. Their father, Dick Widmore,
Speaker 1: is a legend in places where folks put importance on
Speaker 1: good dogs and more so revere good men, and mister
Speaker 1: Widmore was placed highly in both categories by those who
Speaker 1: knew him. Now back to the phone call from Brad.
Speaker 1: He wanted to know if my fellow coon hunting added
Speaker 1: coonhound trainer, CEO Sunspot Hunting Lights and part time spiritual
Speaker 1: advisor Michael Roseman could take Brad, Randall and Wade coon
Speaker 1: hunting on Michael's lease when Wade came up for a
Speaker 1: duck hunt. What make a plan and commit ourselves to
Speaker 1: go on coon hunting? You bet we can. They didn't
Speaker 1: actually need me for any of it. Michael's got one
Speaker 1: of the best dogs around and it's his lease. Pretty
Speaker 1: sure they keep me around in case they need to
Speaker 1: blame something on somebody or comic relief. Regardless, I was
Speaker 1: happy to be in the mix and was looking forward
Speaker 1: to going coon hunting with the boys. Randall and Brad
Speaker 1: are partners on a coon hound and they can hunt anywhere.
Speaker 1: But where Michael hunts now was for years mister Whidmore's
Speaker 1: coon hunting lees. All three of those guys grew up
Speaker 1: hunting with mister Whitmore, and it's a great place to
Speaker 1: train young dogs because of all the coons that are there.
Speaker 1: I know I've talked about it before on here and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I will in the future. But that's what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about this week, Hunting heritage. That's the binder
Speaker 1: and the thread that keeps the tapestry going is we
Speaker 1: knit out, living our lives and sharing our experiences. Every
Speaker 1: person adds a thread of experience or a memory to
Speaker 1: the never ending project that tells the story of that
Speaker 1: place and those people. Michael and I hunt a lot
Speaker 1: by ourselves on that property. Normally it's just me and
Speaker 1: Michael and our dogs wailing and Heck, yes, this dog's
Speaker 1: name is Heck. It's a long story anyway, regardless of
Speaker 1: who's there or who isn't, and it's just me and Michael.
Speaker 1: He'll tell a story of another time when he was
Speaker 1: hunting there with other people or even mister Widmore. Some
Speaker 1: of them I've heard before, but I always enjoy hearing again.
Speaker 1: Some are new to me, but they all make me
Speaker 1: feel closer to that land and closer to the people
Speaker 1: he's talking about by hearing the stories from someone who
Speaker 1: was there. Here's a case in point from my family.
Speaker 1: My great grandfather on my father's side died in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, that's two years before I was born, but
Speaker 1: my dad told the story that my brother Tim reminded
Speaker 1: me of today when we were visiting on the phone.
Speaker 1: In October. Every year when all the crops were in, Grandpa,
Speaker 1: Uncle Ev, Uncle Dob, and Uncle Bob and I'm sure
Speaker 1: a laundry list of others at different times would go
Speaker 1: down to the Saline River and have squirrel camp. So
Speaker 1: they didn't have a tent, so they fashioned a camp
Speaker 1: out of tar paper and they'd stay for several days.
Speaker 1: Dad's first recollection of being involved was when he was
Speaker 1: ten or eleven years old, and they wouldn't allow him
Speaker 1: to go because he was in school. But what he
Speaker 1: did have to do was to hitch a waggon up
Speaker 1: to the mule and ride it several miles down where
Speaker 1: they were camped to pick up the squirrels and all
Speaker 1: the other game that they killed and skin out to
Speaker 1: be taken back home to put in the family freezer.
Speaker 1: He said he had to make that trip three or
Speaker 1: four times during the week, depending on how long they
Speaker 1: were staying down there and how good the hunt was.
Speaker 1: Now I know where that spot is where they camp.
Speaker 1: My brother knows where that spot is. I will never
Speaker 1: go by there or talk about that place without seeing
Speaker 1: my dad as a little kid driving a mule drawn
Speaker 1: wagging down the dirt road by himself, going to see
Speaker 1: what the men folks had got on their hunt, then
Speaker 1: making that sad trip back home with all the game
Speaker 1: because he had to go to school the next day.
Speaker 1: And in my mind, I could see my great grandpa
Speaker 1: standing beside that tarpa for camp and his coat and overalls,
Speaker 1: a fire crackling in the background, watching my dad drive
Speaker 1: away while checking his pocket watch and figuring the time
Speaker 1: in his head when that boy ought to be getting home. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that happened, but I know that
Speaker 1: that's what I'd have been doing if i'd have been
Speaker 1: to him. Heck, if i'd have been him, i'd probably
Speaker 1: let him lay out of school. I used to take
Speaker 1: my son hunter with me for a week every year
Speaker 1: in Missouri to turkey hunt. He'd do his lessons every
Speaker 1: day in the afternoon once we came in from hunting.
Speaker 1: Then the school put an end to that, wouldn't excuse
Speaker 1: him anymore for missing school. But I never go there
Speaker 1: that I don't think about something that he said or
Speaker 1: did when we were there together. And I've been going
Speaker 1: every year for over twenty years or better, and hunter
Speaker 1: hadn't been back in ten. But just like that place
Speaker 1: in the Saline River Bottoms and in Missouri, I'm connected
Speaker 1: to that place and that heritage by the first hand
Speaker 1: experience and the stories of the places I've seen. And
Speaker 1: I say all of that because a heritage of hunting
Speaker 1: is connected to the land and to its people, my ancestors,
Speaker 1: and the Saline River Bottoms, my son, and my friends
Speaker 1: in Missouri, Michael, mister Whitmore, Brad, Randa Wade, and a
Speaker 1: coon hunting who's who of others have hunted that property
Speaker 1: along the White River that we were hunting that night.
Speaker 1: Michael's nephew r Jay was riding with us the other
Speaker 1: night when we met Brad and Wade at the legendary
Speaker 1: Dick Whitmore camp on the Cash Bio near Augusta, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: The best part of that recent coon hunt was the
Speaker 1: addition to Cooper Wade's six year old son No. Coop
Speaker 1: had been on a coon hunt recently with his daddy,
Speaker 1: Brad and Randall, but he'd never been on that property
Speaker 1: where his grandfather had hosted so many people for so
Speaker 1: many years and hunted some of the best dogs in
Speaker 1: the country. It's pretty cold that night, and if we
Speaker 1: hadn't already had the hunt set up to take Wade
Speaker 1: on his visit up from Texas, we may not even win.
Speaker 1: They say the worst day fishing beats the best day working,
Speaker 1: and I can't argue with that. But the worst night
Speaker 1: hunting in bitter cold will never beat a good night's
Speaker 1: sleep in a warm bed. Luckily for us, this wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be the worst night hunting. I told Michael
Speaker 1: when we popped up on the levee, and it's side
Speaker 1: beside with RJ in the middle and the dogs in
Speaker 1: the box and Brad, Wade and Coop falling behind us.
Speaker 1: And there's that if we could see one coon tonight
Speaker 1: on the outside of a tree, we'd be successful. Coons
Speaker 1: down here don't stir around much when the high temps
Speaker 1: dipped below freezing. Our frigid weather doesn't usually last more
Speaker 1: than a few days, and the coons pretty well lay
Speaker 1: up in the dens and waited out. Now they'll come
Speaker 1: out to eat a little or get a drink, but
Speaker 1: they don't ramble far from the den trees, So that's
Speaker 1: where we normally tree when it gets real cold. Is
Speaker 1: in a den. If you can't see all the way
Speaker 1: up in the hole, then you can't see the coon.
Speaker 1: And seeing the coon is what we're that's what we're
Speaker 1: out here for. So, like a lot of my efforts
Speaker 1: over the last fifty seven years, I expected the whole
Speaker 1: hunt to be mostly an exercise in freezing futility with
Speaker 1: occasional bouts of despair. But I also like to have fun,
Speaker 1: and being outside is fun to me. Being with my
Speaker 1: friends is even better. Throw in a pack of coon
Speaker 1: hounds and a kid, and that'll make even the worst
Speaker 1: of times good. I still live by the motto my
Speaker 1: dad told me when I was a kid, if you're
Speaker 1: doing something that ain't fun, you make it fun. So,
Speaker 1: in spite of everything that was working against us weather wise,
Speaker 1: I was determined to have a good time, which, if
Speaker 1: you know me, is what I'm always trying to do.
Speaker 1: We treat a couple den trees and Whaling bade one
Speaker 1: in a hole. Then Whaling and Heck we both treed
Speaker 1: one each on the outside of the trees where we could
Speaker 1: see him, and Hex's coon was in a good spot.
Speaker 1: It was easy to see and to shoot out and
Speaker 1: to bring home, so we waited for Brad, Wade and
Speaker 1: Cooper to get there before we did, and I watched
Speaker 1: as we all shined our lights and Wade showed his
Speaker 1: son Cooper the coon that was fueling Hext's excitement. RJ
Speaker 1: knocked that coon out of the tree with a brand
Speaker 1: new twenty two rifle that Michael had given him for Christmas.
Speaker 1: He made a good shot and we were all proud
Speaker 1: of him for it. Then we all walked over and
Speaker 1: Wade picked up that coon and he showed it to Cooper.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the first coon that Coop had ever seen,
Speaker 1: but it was the first one he'd seen in that
Speaker 1: place where his grandfather had hunted. And this hunt was
Speaker 1: the first time Wade had been back on that property
Speaker 1: since mister Whidmore passed away a little over six years ago,
Speaker 1: which coincidentally is just how old Cooper is. There's a
Speaker 1: lot there in that story, and heritage is just part
Speaker 1: of it. Thank y'all so much for listening and being
Speaker 1: a part of this country life family. And it is
Speaker 1: a family. Someone called me everyone's favorite uncle the other day.
Speaker 1: I like that and it made me smile. Hold on
Speaker 1: to your memories and the folks and the places they're
Speaker 1: made from. That's the fabric of life's quilt that we're
Speaker 1: constantly sewing. The more folks you let add to it,
Speaker 1: warmer it gets. That's where the heritage lives until next week.
Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful to
Speaker 1: be done anything enter