WEBVTT - Ep. 44: Where the Red Fern Grows (Part 2) - Character and Manhood 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:07.680 They said, Stuart, we've got it narrowed down. We've gone 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:10.840 through about six hundred other young man, we've narrowed it 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.200 down to four. When you're one of those four, I said, oh, 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.520 well cool. On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.440 we're on part two of our look into the cultural 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.640 impact of the book Where the Red Fern Grows by 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.960 Wilson Rawls. He drove the bus to the game where 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.479 the coon Hunters showed pop culture what was up and 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.000 made us all proud. We'll talk with the childhood actor 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.400 Stuart Peterson, who starred in the original nineteen seventy four 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.239 Walt Disney movie and learned how he got into acting 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.760 and why he got out. His reason might surprise and 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.120 challenge you, and he'll tell us if that mountain lion 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.280 fighting the dog in the movie was real. Well again, 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.560 talk with Redbone coonhound man Ronnie Smith, and we'll have 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:02.040 a discussion with Dr Sean Teuton about the key emphasis 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.280 of the book, which is that period of life when 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:10.080 an adolescent boy becomes a man, and we'll talk about 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.640 crying boys. If you haven't watched the original movie or 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.280 read the book, you ought to check it out. But 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.560 regardless you're not gonna want to miss this one. And 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.160 the irony is that his lack of education actually makes 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.520 him a bed a person. He can get his education 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.480 from the woods itself. It's mythologized in the life of 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.319 Abraham Lincoln. This is what Teddy Roosevelt thought. That's why 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.680 he went west and reinvented himself. He really wanted to 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.600 reinvigorate his masculinity in the practice of frontier life. And 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:50.559 that is really an American thing, it is. My name 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.880 is Clay Nukelem, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:58.440 where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.240 and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.960 Americans who lived their lives close to the land. Presented 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:12.040 by f HF gear, American made, purpose built hunting and 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.560 fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:28.080 places we explore. It makes me mad. Folks like that 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.320 getting such a fine hound who as I'm alive, it'll 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.280 wind up being as mean as they are. Billy and 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.320 his grandfather are watching the Pritchard brothers ride away with 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.040 a hound pup, so I would like to buy it 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.640 for you. Billy, I ain't much better off than your part. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.560 You'll have your own hands before long. I don't know, Grandpa. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:56.720 Sometimes I think God don't want me to have any Yeah, 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:02.280 so what well, I've been asking him for dogs as 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:06.880 long as I can remember. Nothing's happened yet. It could 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.400 be that you ain't doing your fair share. What do 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.919 you mean, Well, if God was in mind to get 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.799 you dogs slick as cutting line, and he'd be doing 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.520 all the work, that wouldn't be good for your character. 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:23.440 I don't want character. I want dogs. You want dogs 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.640 bad enough, Billy, You're gonna get dogs, But you want 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:35.280 his health. You're gonna have to meet him halfway. In 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.520 part one of the series, we introduced the American literary 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.240 classic Where the Red Fern Grows, and we celebrated how 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.960 the obscure pastime of raccoon hunting with hounds did a 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.760 three sixty slam dunck on mainstream culture. It's a wild 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.600 case study because the book has sold over six million 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.360 copies and has been mandatory reading in elementary schools from 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.920 Seattle to Miami since the nineteen sixties. The book was 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.880 also made into two major motion pictures, and we already 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.320 met the childhood actor Stewart Peterson, who played Billy Coleman 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.760 in the original movie. We learned a ton about Woodrow 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.480 Wilson Rawls, the author, and how he wrote the original 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.520 manuscripts on brown paper bags, and late in his life 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.600 he finally got the book published. He only wrote two books, 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.159 and both of them were after he served multiple prison 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.000 terms in two states. Our interest in his criminal life 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.240 wasn't to point fingers, but rather to paint on the 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.599 canvas of redemption as we looked into the life of 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:40.240 an ex convict that became a beloved children's author and speaker. 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:46.280 Fist bump to Wilson Rawls. American literary classics are heavy hitters. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.919 They go deep and you can't cover it all in 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.640 a short time. I want to continue digging into the 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.640 book with literary expert Professor Shaun Tuton of the University 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.160 of Arkansas. He's about to give us insight into by 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.640 such an obscure place and lifestyle could have such general 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:14.279 appeal and will learn something about novels. I've read that well. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.320 It was in the preface of this book Claire Vanderpool, 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:22.120 and she spoke of that Wilson Rawls clearly established a 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.600 deep sense of place. Why is place so significant if 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.200 you've never been there, Because most people that read this 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.160 book have never lived in the Ozarks. Why do we 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.720 why do we like that? Well? This goes back actually 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.400 actually the history of the novel itself and the rise 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.240 of the novels were written as early, I mean in 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.840 our European tradition as early sixteen o five with with 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.800 Servants wrote Doute. Robinson Cruso right by Daniel Dafoe was 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.520 written in seventeen nineteen. Both of those novels. You think 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.440 about that, what what drew? What draws readers? And the 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:52.520 why are they time? This classic? Still today we make 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.640 movies about Robinson Cruso. It's the difference, right, It's the 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.800 unusual life being offered to us. And we learned as 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.800 we as we encounter something utterly beyond our world. And 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:03.719 that's the reason why we call it the novel itself. 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.360 It means something that's new. Right. So this the novel 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.480 emerged during the These were the first novels that humans 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.000 ever wrote. Some say their earlier novels in China, but 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:16.120 in Europe this is some of the first novels during 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.520 the Industrial Revolution in England, when people had the division 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:21.520 of labor grow where they wouldn't really know about the 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.039 other lives people had. You wouldn't work in the same 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.760 place anymore, and it alienated labor. And people were dying 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.080 to know how other people live, right, And so they 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.480 saw the novel take off in that moment because people 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.280 would finally get a window into the daily life of 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.880 someone living completely different. Yes, so the whole point of 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.880 why place is so significant is if you've never been there. 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.520 That is the point is that you've never been there, 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.719 And so if you can really dive in and see 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.280 the rootedness of this human in that place, that's the 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.680 beauty of it. See that that wouldn't have been intuitive 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:59.440 to me. If you think about the introduction of the 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.240 novel was probably as powerful a moment for humanity as 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.480 the introduction of the Internet, maybe even more powerful. The 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.640 idea that made up stories written as words on a 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.120 page that could be read anywhere and could create an 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.040 out of body experience for the reader who had been 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.720 trapped in their own mind and world their whole life 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.040 was a wild concept. They didn't have television's, radio, or 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:29.800 video games. Imagine a world with no fiction books. I 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.520 don't think I've realized how much identity and instruction we 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.480 get from novels that have impacted our culture. Even if 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.920 you're not a reader, your life has been influenced by 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:46.560 fiction writing and Professor Teuton's book called Native American Literature, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.400 he said this, in reading, we enter a world where 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:55.360 actual people or characters relate experiences, perhaps extremely different from 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.920 our own. Through that process, we may come to understand 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.480 or even are some views or values of another. In 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:12.040 literature is the power to transform end of quote, Professor Tuton. 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.560 Part of the book that Wilson Rawls I think did 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.120 such a great job of showing just a window into 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:22.680 Billy Coleman's life was when he went to Talaqua. He 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.800 traveled thirty something miles upriver from where he lived, and 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.840 he went to the big city of Tallaquah, Oklahoma, which 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.480 is a real city, and it is not a big 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.240 city at all. It says that there are eight hundred 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.800 people in the city of Talaqua, which to him was 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.640 this massive place, and there's a series of things that 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:44.720 happened that It's just such a powerful literary mechanism because 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.000 by showing us the city and Billy's response to it, 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.800 we see his world and One of the things that 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.200 happens is he walks in front of down an old 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.400 downtown street where there was shops and stores and big 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.400 glass windows, and he's dops in front of a window 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.040 and he sees for the first time the full reflection 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.000 of himself in a window, and he just kind of 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.959 becomes a little bit self conscious about that. I mean, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.079 where did Wilson Rawles come up with this? I mean 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.160 that is such a powerful moment there, because you just think, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.040 holy cow, these people were so poor they didn't have 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.760 even have a mirror in their home. It's also humorous, yeah, 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.480 it's it's it's a genius passage, you know, excellent, right, 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:28.920 because the way that works as a piece of irony 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.120 and literary theory, that'd be irony. What happens is we 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.560 are drawn into into Billy's world so seamlessly, they were 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.439 not really unaware of it. We get a little description 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.240 of him, but it's a literary device to put something 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:40.400 in front of a mirror, and you're not gonna have 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.600 a mirror, you know, in the frontier kind of home 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.320 like that. When he finally sees himself, we're kind of 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.000 jarred by this, you know, and specially the ladies who 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.920 were on the sidewalk. We see that he's wild, right 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.200 because again, like I was talking about wilderness in the 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.280 notion of being uncivilized, you know, in a good way, right, 0:09:56.320 --> 0:10:01.040 you're also innocent and you're uncontaminated by society or right. 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.720 And then becomes clear when when he walks along very 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.439 politely and runs into the kids from the school. That 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:08.520 school is a two story schoolhouse. It's got a fire 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.280 escape that they're playing down going down the tube, so 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:13.480 it's a it's a big school. And they're not nice 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.080 to him, and and he doesn't care. He shrugs it off. 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.120 You know what, what do they what slang derogatory term 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.280 did they use when they see him? They called him 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.960 a hillbilly? Oh, cut through the heart. They called him 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.000 a hillbilly. You know what's interesting to me about that 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.760 is that these were these were kids from Taliquol who 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:38.480 were rural kids by every estimation anywhere in the world. Yes, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.920 these quote city kids from Taliquo would have been viewed 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.400 by anybody outside of this region as hillbillies themselves. They 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.600 were familiar with that term, and in a derogatory way, obviously, 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.120 because the way they used it and then they see 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.480 a real hillbilly in their mind and they're like, you hillbilly, 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.439 And I love that term. I to me, it's a 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:04.880 term of an dearmant now, but it urped Billy Man. Hey, 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:10.959 he's got to check it down. Dog business, down these 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.679 dogs along to a rich manor and he's holding for dogs. 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.840 This is the classic scene where Billy Coleman fights the 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:24.520 city kids. Mine let me buy. Hey, this guy's trying 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:31.360 to escape. Don't do that again. You want to fight? 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:40.800 Uh no, don't touch my dogs again. So in the 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.240 movie they didn't use the word hill billy, but Wilson 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.000 Rawls did in the book. I would have probably been 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.000 offended if Walt Disney had said it. At some point. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.480 I'm going to dive into the deeper meaning of the term, 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.400 because it's different than some of the other descriptors used 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.920 to define rural people. But in my book, it's got 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.640 a touch of nobility. And it sure was a fast 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.640 way to take off Billy Coleman, which was not something 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.920 you wanted to do. I had some advice that I 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.680 would have given to Wilson Rawls, but let's see what 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.319 Dr Teuton thinks and we'll cut right to the heart 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.360 of what this book is about a boy becoming a man. 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:24.960 As I read this book and looking at it from 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:29.360 a literary perspective, I'm amazed at the amount of stuff 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:34.120 that's going on that's really intriguing, From the dogs fighting 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.199 with the city kids, to the Pritchard's to win the 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.360 championship coon hunt, to the dogs dying and a red 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.120 fern popping up at the end. I mean, it's just 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.640 like it just stacked with these little subplots. If you 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:51.120 would have told me that, I would have advised Wilson Rawls, well, buddy, 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.920 you might be getting a little too complex. This is 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.160 just weaving people like in and out of so many 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.280 ups and downs. You know, you may be you may 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.560 want to simplify this a little bit. How did he 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.559 pull that off? Or is there and obviously it's that 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.080 would have been terrible advice. Is it common to have 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.480 that many ups and downs that we even to a 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:12.720 to a story. You can map a novel, you know, 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:14.760 and scholars have done this, and a good writer you 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.199 can get books on how to write a novel and 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:17.920 they'll tell you how to map it out. Often, if 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:19.240 you read a novel and you put it down, it 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:21.480 doesn't keep your interest. It's because they didn't honor that 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.200 the continuum in the novel. Novel has to have a 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.880 crisis action and a falling action. That means you have 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.199 to have conflict, and usually that conflict occurs somewhere in 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.000 the middle, and then you have maybe one more minor 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:32.920 conflict and then everything is resolved. And then the other 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.520 point is that characters have to can be flat. Around. 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:37.800 If they're flat, it means they're just um. There's people 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:39.760 walk in and out like the sheriff and can never 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.400 see again. But around character is a character that has 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.520 to grow, so by the other novel they're changed, there's 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:46.720 something different about them. At any rate. When you map 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.199 this novel, it fits perfectly to that crisis action you 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.640 got certainly you got you got the Pritchard's, you know, 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.679 the terrible death. Then you have the competition, and then 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:56.520 of course you have the cougar. But the way that 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.280 the novel ens in a beautiful resolution, if you will, 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:01.679 is is the dog's buried on the hillside. Is that 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:03.960 kind of what makes it what it is? That the 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.520 resolution at the end that it's like a bitter pill 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.280 to swallow, but also really redemptive. Yeah. Yeah, And his 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.280 father even tells him right here at the end it's 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.280 it's not He's Papa tried, Billy. He said, I wouldn't 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.600 think too much about this if I were you. It's 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.640 not good to hurt like that, I believe. I just 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.000 try to forget it. Besides, you still have little aunt. 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.240 That's of guys. From a man to another incipient man. 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.200 You know he's gonna become a man soon. This novel 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.120 is so full of tears. I mean, Billy cries at 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.520 anymore all the time. I thought that was a little unusual. 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.760 I did. I thought so too. But as a as 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.840 a writer, I think Wilson Rawls is trying to make 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.440 it clear there's a contrast, you know, between what a man, 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.320 how a man experiences emotions and deals with loss, from 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.280 how a boy experience emotion deals with lost. When his 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.000 father says it's this is not good for you. You You 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.040 shouldn't do that, it's kind of a bitter, like you say, 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.320 bitter sweet, right. His father is saying, like my father 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.120 would tell me, you can't cry like that. So that 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.920 that's another aspect of this novel. It's very uh, Like 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:00.920 I said, I found a little. I have to say, 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.120 if there's a critique in the novel, meanbe a little overdone. 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.480 The crying. Yeah, I had the exact same thing. I thought, again, 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.960 he's crying again, man, Yeah, he was crying at stuff 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.320 that I wouldn't have thought a kid would cry at. 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.200 But I I cried my fair share as a kid. 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.240 But I don't think I would have been known as 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:18.640 like a crier. But I didn't know some people that 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:23.280 were quote criers. I look back at a period in 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:27.360 a boy's life when he would be a few steps 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.440 away from tears at any moment, and that's pretty. That 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:35.800 is a really vulnerable, beautiful, unique period of a man. 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.640 You know what will become a man of a man's life. 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:40.400 And that's kind of the whole point of this book. 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.240 I think Wilson Rawls was just like trying to pound 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.240 at home. This is a boy. He acts like a man, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.120 he does things that a man would do, But this 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:52.440 is a boy. As a father, it's painful to watch, 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.680 you know. And I remember my father telling me, and 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:56.400 he was kind of rough about it. He'd say something 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.080 to lip in you, you can't cry. I'm a little 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.800 more gentle with my kid. My son's and yet I'll 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.520 tell them then you know, there's there's other ways to 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.800 handle this, you know, because sometimes they'll cry out of frustration. 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.120 I said, you gotta take deep breaths and we'll make 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.400 a plan. We're gonna fix it, you know. And I 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.400 try to be practical with them. But I think about 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.200 the same thing about how dad's handle boys crying, because yeah, 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.480 it evokes something in us of like, boy, you better 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:21.880 stop that, because that's not what a man does and 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.240 what we're in this mentality and movement of bringing them 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.680 to manhood. But yeah, it kind of made me wonder 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:29.720 if I was too hard on my boys, because you 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:31.720 know they're going to grow out of it, But in 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.720 the moment, you're like, man, what if this guy's years 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:36.400 old and still crying, and so you feel like you 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.440 gotta do something. You know, you better suck about kid. 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.080 But then you see, uh, Billy's dad probably manage him 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.560 the way you would hope to be managed. But I 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:48.840 bet a real ozark dad probably would have been a 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:50.920 little rougher on him. Yeah, his mom is one's getting 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.720 the whippings though too. Yeah she gets a switch and 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.480 she's she's whipped him before It's always a question in 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.920 fatherhood whether your son changes it gets be on a 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.800 difficult point his life and you think, was it because 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:03.520 I said stopped crying or did you just grow out 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.320 of it? Yeah? Exactly, because if you didn't say it, 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.920 maybe crying his whole life. So you know, you don't 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:11.159 have to be a perfect father. You just got to 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.280 be a present father. I think, yeah, that's the important partner. 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:15.920 And I never would have known that novel will be 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.679 about fatherhood. But I'm also thinking about the father. You know, 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.639 I have a feeling these good, incredible works of the 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:27.119 literature find us where we're at. Good writers find us 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.520 where we're at, and that's exactly what old Wilson Rawls did. 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.760 But why do a bunch of coon hunters like us 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:39.320 care about literary mechanisms. If I am irrationally moved by 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.480 something to the point of an impact in my life, 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.679 I want to understand why a fundamental and constant in 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:49.399 our lives is media. And by media I mean books, television, 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:54.199 social media, podcasts, basically any type of human communication that 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.920 isn't human to human. And don't say I don't take 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.680 in media clay, because your and to a podcast, right now. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:06.840 Our lives are full of media different forms, and it 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:12.000 uses natural forms of human communication to draw us into 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:17.040 being interested in something for better or worse. News agencies 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.760 often use hype and hysteria to get people fired up. 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.520 Podcasters use long form conversation to make us feel like 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.480 we're in the room. Television uses radical and often underalistic 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:34.000 circumstances to draw us into a captivating stupor. Sports engages 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.960 with our love of competition and delivers a magnetic pool 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:42.680 towards tribalism. The point is this, there are great powers 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.679 at work, and if we are aware of ourselves and 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.879 those powers, we can choose where to spend the energy 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:53.040 of our life. I'm very interested in things that control 0:18:53.200 --> 0:19:00.239 us beyond our recognition. Personal awareness and responsibility is powerful us. 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.680 Back to the central idea of this novel, which we've 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.240 declared is a boy becoming a man. I think this 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.880 issue of bringing boys in the manhood is extremely relevant, 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.840 as it seems manhood in our culture is up for 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.600 grabs on its definition of all people. To speak on 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.760 the subject, I'd like to introduce my wife, Misty Newcomb. 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.359 You would have heard her on the render. She's an educator. 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.800 She runs a private school. She's a mother of boys, 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.960 and she has some insight into the development of young boys, 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.639 which is the theme of our book. So I run. 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:42.800 I run a private school, a K twelveth private school 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:45.720 at the seventh twelfth grade level. We have a student 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:50.520 population that male. We found that parents were bringing their 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.359 young boys to us because of concerns about how modern 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:59.080 Western culture treats young boys. And there was concerns about 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.080 how they're being brought up to kind of loathe certain 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:06.760 aspects of their just natural identity. And these young boys 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.800 have a very unique biological developmental trajectory and a lot 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.800 of what we consider bad, not well behaved, not good 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.720 is actually really normal. So they're they're actually even been 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.760 studies where and just so that you understand a little 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.760 bit about academics, test scores, standardized test scores are not 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.760 subjective at all. They that's the idea behind having a 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.040 standardized test is that there's no human opinion. Grades at 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:36.160 school are very subjective, and so a teacher's opinion matters 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.800 on how they respond to essays, how they respond to 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.280 participation points, and things like that. Studies have shown that 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.399 even though boys and girls they've they've looked at a 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.520 group of boys and girls, and they don't have any 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.000 difference on their standardized test scores, but the grades that 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.320 teachers give them are different based off of whether they're 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:55.399 a boy or girl. And I don't think teachers are 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.480 sitting back there saying, you know, I don't like boys, 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.280 I'm gonna mark them off. I think that there's behaves 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.679 that boys naturally have that are less desirable in a 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.679 traditional classroom. And that's a problem, like that's that's a 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.919 problem because it's communicating that these characteristics are bad. What 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.359 you see inside of the red Fern grows, for example, 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:15.840 you see Billy just kind of running wild, working with 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:19.560 his hands and having to think through complex situations with 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.320 these these k dogs. And you know, there's not really 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.280 a lot of experiences or environments that young boys have 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.760 to develop those types of skills in modern society. So 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.000 Billy's development, now he lacked on the academic side, we 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.040 do know that. But but this idea of letting a 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:37.280 boy be a boy, yeah, is a good thing. And 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:39.840 now that I think we could get confused and we're 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.199 not saying let a kid be rebellious and not do 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.240 what you say. No, no, Billy didn't do that. But 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.200 we're not saying tell all the little guys to sit still, 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.960 put their papers, never run around, never move rocks, never 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.600 chase the cat. Never. Instincts are always something to be suppressed. 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.760 Sometimes they should be suppressed. Really, there's a lot like 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.840 if you think about just the wildness of Billy's life 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.320 and of his experience, that is extremely valuable. It's not 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.679 the only thing that's valuable. It's not the only thing 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.119 that should be emphasized. But there's an aspect of of 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:20.080 his upbringing that you, as a young man look at 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:22.600 and say, man, I'm glad I had parts of that, 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:24.520 or I wish I had that, And you want it 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.000 for your sons. You probably want it for your daughters 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.840 to hey, hey, let me say one more thing. I 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.440 will say that we had two girls and then two boys, 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:36.480