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 2: I want you to stay a while as.
Speaker 1: I share my stories and the country skills that will
Speaker 1: help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly
Speaker 1: presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2: The airways have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop
Speaker 1: that tailgate.
Speaker 2: I think I got a thing or two. The teacher
Speaker 2: Minding your manners.
Speaker 1: Minding your manners. Man that's like biscuits and gravy, And
Speaker 1: just like good biscuits and gravy these days, sometimes they're
Speaker 1: hard to find. It was instilled in my noggat at
Speaker 1: birth that as a male member of this planet, that
Speaker 1: I was saddled with a few inherent responsibilities. Don't pick
Speaker 1: on folks, I'm all than you. Defend those that can't
Speaker 1: defend themselves, and show everyone as much respect as they'd allow. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously we're talking about manners and acting right this week,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be a little different. This is
Speaker 1: going to be my first two part episode. Next week,
Speaker 1: in part two, we're going to dig into the specifics
Speaker 1: about manners. But today I'm going to unravel a tale
Speaker 1: from my childhood that took forty six years to complete.
Speaker 1: But before I do, I want to tell you a story.
Speaker 1: A while back, I got an email from a young
Speaker 1: man who was in college in Arkansas. He was interested
Speaker 1: in coon hunting. He was from another state, had never
Speaker 1: been coon hunting in his life, but he'd listened to
Speaker 1: clayon Nuklem and I talking about it on one of
Speaker 1: Clay's Bear Grease episodes. He reached out, and his email
Speaker 1: was so kind and respectful and well thought out. So
Speaker 1: I invited them to come and go with me. And
Speaker 1: after a few days we met up and we went hunting.
Speaker 1: He pulled up to my house in a truck that
Speaker 1: looked like he'd built it himself for the parts that
Speaker 1: no one else wanted. He jumped out, smiling, shook my
Speaker 1: hand firmly, and told me how much he appreciated me
Speaker 1: taking him hunting. He didn't know his behind from fifteen
Speaker 1: cents when it came to anything about hounds or chasing
Speaker 1: combs with him, and that was all right. It was
Speaker 1: fun for me to teach him, at least what I
Speaker 1: knew about it. And anytime I get to hunt with
Speaker 1: someone that's interested in it and wanting to be there,
Speaker 1: they'll get just as excited as I do. And I
Speaker 1: really enjoy sharing it with him. It makes it that
Speaker 1: much more fun for me. And I've always said that
Speaker 1: sharing a burden with someone will lighten your load, and
Speaker 1: sharing a joy will multiply it. And I can't think
Speaker 1: of anything better to share than the love of a
Speaker 1: dog and witnessing what that's dog purpose in life is.
Speaker 1: Because I promise you, neither one of us was having
Speaker 1: any more fun than old Whalen was. Now, like most
Speaker 1: folks putting themselves through college, he didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of extra money, especially to spend on hunting equipment. On
Speaker 1: his first night out, we drove to our hunting spot
Speaker 1: and he pulled out a homemade light that attached to
Speaker 1: his head by a strap and pired by wires connected
Speaker 1: to a six volt battery that he toted it around
Speaker 1: in his hand like a rock. The wires weren't long
Speaker 1: enough for him to put the battery in his breeches pocket,
Speaker 1: and that would have drove me crazy, but he'd never
Speaker 1: said a word about it. His hunting boots were a
Speaker 1: pair of Chuck Taylor converses. He never complained about the
Speaker 1: wires coming loose causing his light to go out, never
Speaker 1: commented that he wished he had a better one, or
Speaker 1: a reference to anything about how dim it was. Never
Speaker 1: said anything about wading through water in his shoes that
Speaker 1: I know in my heart was the same pair that
Speaker 1: he was wearing in school that day. I didn't say
Speaker 1: nothing about him either, that would have been rude. He
Speaker 1: was happy to be there, and I was enjoying his company,
Speaker 1: and we had a great time. He asked a million questions,
Speaker 1: and Whaling did his job by treating a few coons.
Speaker 1: I invited him to come back again, and in a
Speaker 1: few days when his schedule allowed it, I had a
Speaker 1: light waiting for him when he got there. It was
Speaker 1: an older coon hunting light that was more or less
Speaker 1: an emergency sparis since I didn't use it, but I'd
Speaker 1: held on to it, and while it wasn't new, it
Speaker 1: was several steps above a headband and tote a battery.
Speaker 1: I'd invited my good friend Rex white and to go
Speaker 1: with us, and he brought him an old pair of
Speaker 1: hip boots that he had to say, my little buddy
Speaker 1: was overjoyed as quite an understatement. If you're unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: hip boots, they're just a rubber boot that have material
Speaker 1: swn to the top of the boot called chaps, and
Speaker 1: a strap and a buckle attached to the top that
Speaker 1: you lose around your belt. The chaps are a waterproof
Speaker 1: layer for your breeches legs, and as long as you
Speaker 1: don't wade in water that's higher than they go up
Speaker 1: your legs, you're gonna stay dry. Now, my new hunting
Speaker 1: buddy had never owned a pair of these boots in
Speaker 1: his life, and when he put them on and pulled
Speaker 1: the leggings up, he was looking at the straps and
Speaker 1: the buckles the way a caf looks at a new gate.
Speaker 2: He said, what are these for? I told him.
Speaker 1: I said, just fasten them. They'll keep you chaps from
Speaker 1: falling down while you walk. And with that instruction, I
Speaker 1: had turned back to cutting whaling loose, and the three
Speaker 1: of us stood there in conversation in the dark, all
Speaker 1: about things about coon hunting. It was good to have
Speaker 1: Rex with us. He was my coon hunting mentor, and
Speaker 1: he was helping me train whaling. In answered a ton
Speaker 1: of questions from our guest. Whaling got treated and we
Speaker 1: all three took off toward where he was. We were
Speaker 1: walking through the knee deep water, and with every step
Speaker 1: I just knew my young friend was enjoying those boots.
Speaker 1: What I didn't understan was why he kept falling further
Speaker 1: and further behind. He was almost three times as young
Speaker 1: as Rex and I and was skinning his old job's turkey.
Speaker 1: He should have been out running everyone out there except Whaling.
Speaker 1: We got to the tree and we waited for him
Speaker 1: to get there. We let him find the coon, and
Speaker 1: we cut Whaling loose again. We just stood there talking
Speaker 1: in the dark, waiting for Whaling the tree again, which
Speaker 1: in he did in pretty short order. We cut her
Speaker 1: lights back on and we three took off again, and
Speaker 1: again he fell behind. When he made it to the tree,
Speaker 1: Rex and I had already found the coon and we
Speaker 1: showed it to him. We cut Whaling loose again and
Speaker 1: once again cut her lights out, and found ourselves standing
Speaker 1: there talking in the dark. That boy never said a
Speaker 1: word about his boots. Not one complaint. My coon hunting
Speaker 1: protege turned his light back on and walked back over
Speaker 1: to have another look at the coon that was still
Speaker 1: in that tree wreck saw something that I hadn't paid
Speaker 1: any attention to. He said, well, now I know why
Speaker 1: college boy can't keep up with us. He's hobbled himself.
Speaker 1: I said, do what Rick said. Yeah, instead of attaching
Speaker 1: his bootstraps to his belt, looks like he's tied them
Speaker 1: together and told him in his hand like a set
Speaker 1: of reins to keep from falling down. No wonder he
Speaker 1: can't keep up.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I walked over to where he was standing and we
Speaker 1: looked at that koon for a minute.
Speaker 2: Just talking.
Speaker 1: All the while I was thinking of how not to
Speaker 1: embarrass him, so out of the blue, I just said,
Speaker 1: looks like these traps on your boots would come undone.
Speaker 1: Those buckles are tricky sometime, let me fix it for you.
Speaker 1: I buckled one correctly around his belt, and as soon
Speaker 1: as I did, it was like he had an extra
Speaker 1: light above his head that wasn't attached to his hat.
Speaker 1: His face turned beat red, and I could tell that
Speaker 1: he had just figured it out, and he snapped the
Speaker 1: other and I never said anything, and he never said anything,
Speaker 1: and Old Rex, he never said anything. At least we
Speaker 1: didn't say anything in front of him. It was funny
Speaker 1: and we still laugh about. But what seems second nature
Speaker 1: to some may be a mystery to others. And it
Speaker 1: thanks sure ain't a sign of someone's intelligence for not
Speaker 1: knowing that boy's smart as a whip. My friend hasn't
Speaker 1: hunted with us in a while since the school load
Speaker 1: got so heavy, And the guy that didn't have a
Speaker 1: grasp on how a bootstrap worked will finish up his
Speaker 1: master's degree in business next fall, and that'll go nicely
Speaker 1: with the law degree he finished last spring. I tell
Speaker 1: you this out of the three of us that was
Speaker 1: on that hunt that night, for if you count old Whalen,
Speaker 1: he'd be my pick to keep me out of the
Speaker 1: electric chair. Who knows, I may need that one day.
Speaker 1: But one thing's for sure. Our meeting and becoming friends
Speaker 1: was a direct result of a well written, respectful email.
Speaker 1: Manners can be a key that unlocks adventure and knowledge.
Speaker 1: I like to think we taught him a few things,
Speaker 1: and if he didn't teach me anything, he definitely reinforced
Speaker 1: some stuff. Being happy with what you have, living within
Speaker 1: your means, prioritizing your budget, and working hard toward a
Speaker 1: better life is the best way to succeed. He may
Speaker 1: not have been able to afford a new truck, a
Speaker 1: new light, or even a new pair of hunting boots
Speaker 1: at that time, but he will, and those good manners
Speaker 1: they didn't cost him a nickel, but it paid his
Speaker 1: way into a lifetime of a standing invitation.
Speaker 2: To hunt with me whenever he wants. And that's just
Speaker 2: how that happened.
Speaker 1: There's a ton of lists and books that describe the
Speaker 1: proper etiquette for different situations and the manners associated with them.
Speaker 1: It was just a part of growing up for me.
Speaker 1: While I could be considered semi feral, how I acted
Speaker 1: in any place I found myself was a part of
Speaker 1: my home training, just like reading and writing in school
Speaker 1: was saying please, thank you, You're welcome, Yes, ma'am and no, sir.
Speaker 1: I do it a lot out of habit, but to
Speaker 1: the folks that hear it, it tells them that I
Speaker 1: value them as a neighbor. And they may not be
Speaker 1: my next door neighbor, but in the scope of humanity,
Speaker 1: we're all neighbors to some degree. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: when or why the decline in teaching children manner started,
Speaker 1: but it's not hard to see that it has. And
Speaker 1: to me, manners are a direct result of the amount
Speaker 1: of respect you have for others and yourself. Now, I've
Speaker 1: had grown folks around my children when they're talking to them,
Speaker 1: and one of my kids would say yes, ma'am and
Speaker 1: the adult would say, oh, you don't have to say
Speaker 1: yes ma'am to me, and that's when I would say, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: they do. It's not a statement about your age. It's
Speaker 1: a sign of respect for you as an adult. I
Speaker 1: was taught that just like every generation in my family before.
Speaker 1: I asked my oldest daughter about what her memory of
Speaker 1: manners training was in our family, and she gave me
Speaker 1: the example that I just quoted you. She gave me
Speaker 1: another one that when I or any other adult asked
Speaker 1: her a question and she said yes or no, that
Speaker 1: I'd always say, I'm sorry what you say, and she'd
Speaker 1: correct it by using the appropriate term of respect by
Speaker 1: adding sir or ma'am while I tried to set her
Speaker 1: on fire with my eyeballs. She still has good manners,
Speaker 1: and I still get compliments from folks about how kind and.
Speaker 2: Respectful she is.
Speaker 1: She cuts hair for a living, and if you'd like
Speaker 1: to get some compliments, you ought to look her up
Speaker 1: and let her skills turn your head into something new.
Speaker 2: And your parents could be proud of.
Speaker 1: Now, back at the beginning, I teased you about a
Speaker 1: story that took forty six years complete. She's part of it,
Speaker 1: and here it is. There was never a time when
Speaker 1: my mother got called to the school for any reason
Speaker 1: as a result of my behavior that the first question
Speaker 1: out of her mouth wasn't was he disrespectful? One time
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of was in the sixth grade. I don't
Speaker 1: remember if it was before or after the time I
Speaker 1: hopped a train with an accomplice, leaving school and the
Speaker 1: rest of those suckers for a day of freedom and cigarettes.
Speaker 1: But on this day, because of a minor classroom coup
Speaker 1: i'd orchestrated, I and another friend who would remain a
Speaker 1: friend of mine for the rest of his life, found
Speaker 1: ourselves in the principal's office. Our teacher, Miss mary Anne Mobley,
Speaker 1: had left the room and put our classmate Amy Ashcraft
Speaker 1: in charge of setting on her stool and taking names
Speaker 1: and writing them on the chalkboard of those of us
Speaker 1: she caught talking. Now, Miss Mobley hadn't been gone long
Speaker 1: enough for a cat toilick it's behind when my old
Speaker 1: pal Donald started talking to me. The sound of chalk
Speaker 1: hitting the chalkboard made me look up and seeing Amy
Speaker 1: writing Brent and Donald real pretty like girls writing on
Speaker 1: the chalkboard.
Speaker 2: Doo.
Speaker 1: But I hadn't been talking, not loud anyway, I was
Speaker 1: mostly listening. But regardless, having your name on the board
Speaker 1: was doomed. I knew what that meant. Miss Mobley had
Speaker 1: warned us, get caught talking and you're headed to the office.
Speaker 1: Going to the office back then was the one way
Speaker 1: ticket to get in your ham smoked, unless you was
Speaker 1: buying a pencil or going home for pukin after a
Speaker 1: wild ride on the Merry Go Round. Your fate was
Speaker 1: sealed when you crossed the office threshold, as mine often was.
Speaker 1: I looked at Donald, and, being a highly decorated veteran
Speaker 1: of getting my hand smoked at the office, I said, Buddy,
Speaker 1: I ain't taking no whooping this time. I ain't done
Speaker 1: nothing wrong much. I had been to the office on
Speaker 1: multiple occasions for very deserving reasons, but this time I
Speaker 1: was mostly innocent and I was taking a stand. Donald said, well,
Speaker 1: I ain't taking one neither, and that's just how easy
Speaker 1: our sixth grade non violid insurrection was planned miss Mobley,
Speaker 1: God bless her. It was her first year to teach,
Speaker 1: and she got.
Speaker 2: Me and Donald in the same class.
Speaker 1: Long story short. When the principal got the report of
Speaker 1: mine and my coc and the spirits aleds transgressions, he
Speaker 1: told me to assume the position and get ready for
Speaker 1: three licks with his paddle. I said, no, sir, I
Speaker 1: didn't do nothing wrong, and I'd like to call my mama.
Speaker 1: He looked at me like I had lost my mind
Speaker 1: and was smiling when he said, well, here, Brent, just
Speaker 1: use my phone. I thanked him and thought to myself,
Speaker 1: jokes on you, pal. She fished to wipe that smile
Speaker 1: off your face and clean your plow when she gets here,
Speaker 1: for you and everybody here have wronged her.
Speaker 2: Baby boy.
Speaker 1: I called her at he work at the Warren Bank.
Speaker 1: I told her what I had just told y'all, and
Speaker 1: she said I'll be there in just a minute. I
Speaker 1: hung up, and Donald said I won't call my mama too. Sure, son,
Speaker 1: go right ahead, was the principal's answer. He was smiling
Speaker 1: even bigger. Now My mama and Donald's mama got there
Speaker 1: at the same time. As fate would have it, they
Speaker 1: both walked in the off and the principal said, Hi, Betty,
Speaker 1: sorry to get you.
Speaker 2: Away from work. What Brent wanted you here?
Speaker 1: He said the same thing Donald's mama. He told her
Speaker 1: why I was there. She looked at me, and I
Speaker 1: told her what I had been accused of, and she
Speaker 1: looked at him and said, was he disrespectful to you
Speaker 1: or miss Mobley? And they both said, oh, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: She looked at me and said, were you talking? And
Speaker 1: I said no, ma'am. She was looking at me with
Speaker 1: that same stare that I would later use on my
Speaker 1: oldest daughter when I tried to set her on fire
Speaker 1: with my eyes for having bad manners. The silence was deafening.
Speaker 1: She kept staring at me, and the truth came out, Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: but I was just whispering. The principal gave me three
Speaker 1: licks with that paddle, and then my mama gave me
Speaker 1: three more. Donald received the same fate. Now, I've told
Speaker 1: that story a million times, but what always stuck out
Speaker 1: of my mind in that situation and the countless others
Speaker 1: that lay ahead of me along the story journey of
Speaker 1: my education, that my mama always wanted to know first
Speaker 1: how I'd acted toward my teachers or administrators before being
Speaker 1: told what I had supposedly done. Now I forgave Amy
Speaker 1: Ashcraft for writing my name down after a few days.
Speaker 1: She was just doing what she was told to do,
Speaker 1: and I knew better. Later that same year, I read
Speaker 1: Where the Red Fern Grows, and I brought a jar
Speaker 1: from home and I set it up on my desk
Speaker 1: and I taped a piece of paper to it that
Speaker 1: I'd written by Brenda Kundog Fund. Amy's was the only contribution.
Speaker 1: She dropped a quarter in there, and as she walked away,
Speaker 1: I told her that if I ever had a daughter,
Speaker 1: I would name her Amy, and she.
Speaker 2: Laughed at me.
Speaker 1: Mss Mobley would teach for forty more years before retiring,
Speaker 1: and while I was somewhat a rebellious child, she never
Speaker 1: gave up on me. That year, the sixth grade was
Speaker 1: a tough time for me. I was sorting through a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of things, and it would have been easy
Speaker 1: for her, a first year teacher, to just let me
Speaker 1: coast along, but she didn't. She held me accountable, and
Speaker 1: she let me know that she cared about me. I
Speaker 1: acted like a clown in her first year teaching and
Speaker 1: she didn't deserve that, and I never forgot it, and
Speaker 1: to this day I still feel guilty about it. Last year,
Speaker 1: my oldest daughter, whose name is y'all say it with me, Amy,
Speaker 1: had just started fixing hair in my hometown and called
Speaker 1: me and said, Dad, you'll never guess who's hairy.
Speaker 2: I'm scheduled to do today.
Speaker 1: Of course I had no idea, but when she told
Speaker 1: me it was Miss Mobley, I got a little emotional.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen her in over forty years, but I
Speaker 1: hadn't forgotten her. I told Amy that I wanted to
Speaker 1: pay for it, and I did over the phone. I
Speaker 1: told her that when Miss Mobley got there, not to
Speaker 1: say anything to her about it until she was finished
Speaker 1: fixing her hair. Then I wanted to tell her who
Speaker 1: her daddy was and that I loved her, and that
Speaker 1: I was very thankful for her not giving.
Speaker 2: Up on me that year.
Speaker 1: Regardless of the trouble I got into, she never quit me.
Speaker 1: That probably wasn't the first time I'd made Miss Mobley
Speaker 1: cry through something that I had done, but it's the
Speaker 1: only one she ever deserved. In episode one twenty seven,
Speaker 1: Know Your Trees, I briefly mentioned an incident in high
Speaker 1: school where I took it upon myself to cram a
Speaker 1: water wet paper towels in one end of an industrial
Speaker 1: grade steel pipe that we used a practice cutting within
Speaker 1: a satelene torch. I went to the open end, and
Speaker 1: with that unlit torch, I released an unknown amount of
Speaker 1: a satelene gas into my homemade cannon. I don't remember
Speaker 1: where my watermelon stealing buddy was, but I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was his idea to do it. Probably anyway, when I
Speaker 1: sparked that flint striker and lit the gas, it shot
Speaker 1: that water wet paper towels across that shop like a
Speaker 1: shooting star. It was also so loud that the principal
Speaker 1: heard the explosion from his office on the other end
Speaker 1: of the school. My agri teacher, who should have been
Speaker 1: given a medal for working in a combat zone every
Speaker 1: day with a class full of hooligans, stepped out of
Speaker 1: his office and said, I don't know who did it,
Speaker 1: but somebody's in trouble.
Speaker 2: That quote was good.
Speaker 1: That quote was sent to me by my friend Johnny Nolan,
Speaker 1: who listened to the podcast and reached out to me.
Speaker 1: He was also standing in the general vicinity of me
Speaker 1: when I did it. He and a couple of others,
Speaker 1: along with yours truly, were standing there trying to look
Speaker 1: innocent when the principal came running in, expecting to see
Speaker 1: the street to tell Aviv, and focused his gaze from
Speaker 1: clear across that shop on me and the boys around me.
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm as good as dead, But no one squealed,
Speaker 1: not a one. We all went to the office and
Speaker 1: I fessed up. But I'm pretty sure that they all
Speaker 1: got a few leaks as well. I know, Johnny did.
Speaker 1: They dispatched justice back in those days with a shotgun method.
Speaker 1: If you shoot into the covey enough, you're bound to
Speaker 1: hit the right bird. And the ones that had no
Speaker 1: hand in it, well, they probably got away with something
Speaker 1: that sometimes, so it pretty well evens out. They called
Speaker 1: my mama and she came up there again, and there
Speaker 1: we all sat, looking like we were all waiting for
Speaker 1: our turn in the electric chair. She said, come on,
Speaker 1: and we walked into the principal's office and sat down.
Speaker 1: He told her that I more or less had built
Speaker 1: a bomb and set it off in shop class, and
Speaker 1: I swear to my soul. The first question she asked
Speaker 1: wasn't did I kill anybody or did anybody get hurt?
Speaker 1: It was you guessed it was he disrespectful. I believe
Speaker 1: in my heart the only reason she let me live
Speaker 1: from the sixth grade until I graduated school was because
Speaker 1: of my manners. It pays to be polite and respectful.
Speaker 1: I thank you all for list and those have left
Speaker 1: reviews and shared our podcast with others. Man, we're hearing
Speaker 1: from folks from all over the world England, Germany, Australia, Scotland, Finland, Norway, Africa, Japan,
Speaker 1: even outer space places like California. Catch part two next
Speaker 1: week and be good to one another. It really don't
Speaker 1: get more country than that. Think a teacher and teachers,
Speaker 1: y'all be thankful you weren't teaching in the Warren School
Speaker 1: District from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: Here in my reign, beffonger.
Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves signing off.
Speaker 2: Y'all be careful wh