Speaker 1: Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
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 tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two to teach you
Speaker 1: know your trees. Tree identification is more important than maybe
Speaker 1: some folks think, and being able to tell the difference
Speaker 1: between a red oak and a white oak could be
Speaker 1: the difference in going hungry or coming home with a
Speaker 1: sackful of supper. Trees on the landscape tell a story.
Speaker 1: It's never too late to learn the difference, says, and
Speaker 1: it's never been easier to do it right now. Why
Speaker 1: it's easy right now because right now is when we're
Speaker 1: talking about it, and the amount of information available has
Speaker 1: never been greater. I'm challenging you to know the woods
Speaker 1: you're rambling around in. The more you know, the better
Speaker 1: it's going to help you in every pursuit that you
Speaker 1: have that takes place in the woods. No, you trees
Speaker 1: us up next. But first I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: a story. In high school at Warren, Arkansas, I took
Speaker 1: a two year forestry class at the Votech campus along
Speaker 1: with my old watermelon stealing buddy Greg Hayes. I'm starting
Speaker 1: to think this guy may have been a bad influence.
Speaker 1: But our teacher was a bona fide of registered forester
Speaker 1: and his name was Fred Burnett. It's still Fred Burnett anyway.
Speaker 1: The Warren Votech took students from all over southeast Arkansas
Speaker 1: and offered welding, construction, trade, nursing, business courses, and forestry.
Speaker 1: The forestry class was absolutely outstanding. It was also hard.
Speaker 1: We had to learn to identify seventy five different species
Speaker 1: of trees that grew in Arkansas along with their scientific names,
Speaker 1: and be able to identify them by their leaves and
Speaker 1: the characteristics of their bark, limbs, and twigs. I loved
Speaker 1: it and everything about it. The majority of the instruction
Speaker 1: weather permitting was always outside, which is where I wanted
Speaker 1: to be anyway. There were around on fifteen of us
Speaker 1: I guess in the class from four different area high schools,
Speaker 1: and like little Turkey polts following a mother hen we
Speaker 1: trailed mister Burnett all over the school campus learned about
Speaker 1: all the aspects of trees and where they grew. I
Speaker 1: remember exactly where we were standing a week into school
Speaker 1: when he looked at me and told me to identify
Speaker 1: a tree and give him the scientific name. We had
Speaker 1: just are studying this stuff, and we were at the
Speaker 1: south entrance to the school campus that doesn't even exist anymore.
Speaker 1: Beside the driveway where the votech bus was parked was
Speaker 1: a tree, and everyone in the class was waiting for
Speaker 1: me to screw it up when I said American sweet
Speaker 1: gum liquid AMBARSTI rest of Fleua, correct, said mister Burnett.
Speaker 1: And that was forty one years ago, and I remember
Speaker 1: it like it was this morning. Lucky for me, it
Speaker 1: was also the first one that I had learned. I
Speaker 1: could tell you about ten different trees before I started
Speaker 1: that class, but the scientific names, and that was the
Speaker 1: gravy of the tree ied game. We were also blessed
Speaker 1: to have a school forest about fifteen acres of mixed
Speaker 1: pine and hardwood, and that was our real classroom. That's
Speaker 1: where we made money to finance school projects and trips.
Speaker 1: Those woods are gone now and have been for quite
Speaker 1: a long time, but back then, selling firewood was our mission.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine this kind of curriculum in schools now.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong, but we had chainsaws and we used them.
Speaker 1: A lot of us had used them at home before
Speaker 1: we ever got to high school, and those that hadn't,
Speaker 1: mister Burnette taught him how to do it. We'd take
Speaker 1: turns notching and cutting trees, trimming the limbs, cutting the
Speaker 1: log into firewood links, and then take a bolting axe
Speaker 1: or splitting them all, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: and split the wood for stacking. At school. Chainsaws, bolton axes,
Speaker 1: sledge hammers, steel wedges, single and double bit axes were
Speaker 1: all at our disposal. It looked like a children's prison
Speaker 1: gang out there, and mister Burnett was the warden. Now.
Speaker 1: Having kids from different schools, especially those from rival schools,
Speaker 1: always put an extra dynamic of competition amongst the students.
Speaker 1: Terry was a guy from just such a school. He
Speaker 1: was a good guy, a good athlete, but always competitive.
Speaker 1: Everything was a competition to him. Terry told me that
Speaker 1: while I was pretty good with a chainsaw, that there
Speaker 1: wasn't a cut off section of wood that he couldn't
Speaker 1: split with a double bit axe. He then proceeded to
Speaker 1: demonstrate it by easily splitting a cut red oak and
Speaker 1: the pieces ready for the fireplace. Terry was a show off,
Speaker 1: but Brent was diabolical, and when he said there ain't
Speaker 1: a cut off piece of wood out here that I
Speaker 1: can't split, being at my limit of having to listen
Speaker 1: to him say how good he was at everything, I
Speaker 1: accepted his challenge and rolled him up a two foot
Speaker 1: in diameter and beautifully round cut of sweet coat. Now,
Speaker 1: anyone who knows anything about splitting wood and burning wood
Speaker 1: knows that oak cut offs split good when they're green,
Speaker 1: and great when they've been put up to dry. Sweet gum,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, do not. The twisted woven grain
Speaker 1: of the sweet gum is terrible for splitting, and it's
Speaker 1: basically useless as firewood. Whoever cut it down that day
Speaker 1: must have just been practicing, because I can assure you
Speaker 1: mister Burnett wasn't about to have us split it up
Speaker 1: and stack it for sale. But that wasn't Terry's challenge.
Speaker 1: He said there wasn't a cutoff out there that he
Speaker 1: couldn't split with a double bit axe. Well, remember Greg Hayes,
Speaker 1: my partner in Watermelon Crime, my lifelong to this very
Speaker 1: day friend, that's more like a brother. That guy, Well,
Speaker 1: I blame him for what happened next, because he should
Speaker 1: have stopped me. He knew just as well as I
Speaker 1: did that he wasn't going to be able to split that,
Speaker 1: especially with an axe. You could have loaded that thing
Speaker 1: up in a cannon and shot it through a fire
Speaker 1: truck and not knocked the bark off of it. Sweet
Speaker 1: gum doesn't split well. But Terry, he was a competitor.
Speaker 1: He knew the challenge that lay before him, and he
Speaker 1: walked around that end table size cut off, sizing it
Speaker 1: up and looking for a weak spot. He was toting
Speaker 1: that double bit axe like thor toased his hammer as
Speaker 1: he tried to stare it down. He stopped and looked
Speaker 1: up at each of us like he knew something we didn't,
Speaker 1: and he grinned and he spit on that cutoff, marking
Speaker 1: his spot. I looked at Gregg and we smiled. Then
Speaker 1: that cat slowly raised that axe above his head and
Speaker 1: with one mighty stroke, he landed that axe blade precisely
Speaker 1: where he'd planned, and was as surprised as that both
Speaker 1: of us when the axe bounced straight back, hitting him
Speaker 1: with the opposite side blade on the forehead above his
Speaker 1: left eye. It was a bang bang play. None of
Speaker 1: us had time to react. Before the love of humanity,
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to kill him. The amount of litigation
Speaker 1: that would take place in these times makes me shudder
Speaker 1: to imagine what would happen. But those times were different.
Speaker 1: He had a two hitch cut on his head that
Speaker 1: bled pretty good for a few minutes. Mister Burnett applied
Speaker 1: some galls from the first daid kit that he kept
Speaker 1: with us and took him to the school nurse and
Speaker 1: the nursing students got to work on a real live
Speaker 1: dummy instead of a plastic one. He came out of
Speaker 1: there smiling after having all those gals fussing over him
Speaker 1: and wrapped up like he been loaded in a cannon
Speaker 1: and shot through a fire truck. But that was all.
Speaker 1: No one got sued, No one got in trouble, not
Speaker 1: bad trouble. Anyway, mister Burnett had what I'd call a
Speaker 1: meaningful exchange of ideas with all three of us, and
Speaker 1: that was it. This wouldn't be the last adventure in
Speaker 1: that class, but that's for another time. But before someone
Speaker 1: writes in it says anything negative about the supervision or
Speaker 1: that there was a lack of it, let me remind
Speaker 1: you that we had all gone through safety training and
Speaker 1: chose to ignore what we knew were tried and true
Speaker 1: practices of safety in that setting, Mister Burnett couldn't be
Speaker 1: everywhere at once to keep idiots from causing their own calamity,
Speaker 1: just like a coach can't be to prevent an athlete
Speaker 1: from injuring themselves, or or my high school a teacher
Speaker 1: at the time. I filled a pipe full of stlene
Speaker 1: stuffed full of wet paper towels, lit it and shot
Speaker 1: them across the shop and agg class like a Roman candle.
Speaker 1: That was all on us, nobody else. Mister Burnett will
Speaker 1: go on to become the forester at a Central Arkansas
Speaker 1: military base and eventually retire as the fire management officer
Speaker 1: for the Arkansas Forestry Commission. You don't rise to those
Speaker 1: positions being inattentive or characters. He's a grandpa now, and
Speaker 1: a good man and a great influence on me, And
Speaker 1: that's just how that happened. It's been said the best
Speaker 1: deer killers probably don't know what kind of tree they're
Speaker 1: sitting in, So why does it matter. It matters because
Speaker 1: all animals operate on the three necessities of life, food, water,
Speaker 1: and shelter. Food and shelter can be provided by trees
Speaker 1: and water. Well that can be located by the types
Speaker 1: of trees that you observe. Trees are also a static
Speaker 1: identifier for a whole bunch of stuff. They'll tell you
Speaker 1: the potential wildlife that lives there. They can tell the
Speaker 1: air you're entering or leaving as different species grow in
Speaker 1: different terrain types. They can tell you the general health
Speaker 1: of the ecosystem you're operating in, and possibly be a
Speaker 1: barometer for your potential success in that space, or at
Speaker 1: least the opportunity for success. Healthy trees usually dictate healthy wildlife,
Speaker 1: but not for all wildlife. Sometimes the absence of trees
Speaker 1: is even more beneficial, or at least in that same area.
Speaker 1: And stay with me, there's no one that likes an
Speaker 1: open hardwood bottom more than me. Seeing that grand overstory
Speaker 1: of giant oak trees is both peaceful and nostalgic. It's
Speaker 1: our nature to love things and to have order, and
Speaker 1: the neat defined contrast between an open hardwood flat and
Speaker 1: a briar laden thicket is a prime example of how
Speaker 1: predators in prey coexist in the same space. One time,
Speaker 1: my dad and I was squirrel hunting and sleaning over
Speaker 1: bottoms where I grew up. Peanup was treated, and we
Speaker 1: were going to him by cutting across a thicket from
Speaker 1: one spot of timber to the next. I was sitting
Speaker 1: behind him on our big buckskin horse with the toes
Speaker 1: of my boots dug in behind the bend of his knees,
Speaker 1: and my hands were running deep in his pockets of
Speaker 1: his old army green hunting coat, and I was squeezing
Speaker 1: him as hard as I could to hang on with
Speaker 1: my face buried in the middle of his back, as
Speaker 1: we rode through a patch of briers so thick a
Speaker 1: rabbit would have had the toe to hatchet with him
Speaker 1: to get around in. We busted out on the other
Speaker 1: side and I could relax and look around. I remember
Speaker 1: telling him how much I hated those thickets, and that
Speaker 1: I wished all of it could look like the open
Speaker 1: timber we were riding in now. And I never will
Speaker 1: forget how he described it looking when he was a kid.
Speaker 1: He's just something. When I was your age, I could
Speaker 1: run barefoot from Mount Eby to the Califorard. Y'all just
Speaker 1: gonna have to trust me on that one. That's a
Speaker 1: long way from down the river through the woods from
Speaker 1: those two places. But he said, I didn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about stepping on briars, getting hung up in BlackBerry thickets,
Speaker 1: or even slowing down to look at deer tracks. When
Speaker 1: I asked why he wouldn't slow down to look at
Speaker 1: deer tracks, he said, because there wasn't any deer in
Speaker 1: here to make them. Now, don't get me wrong. They
Speaker 1: were deer in Arkansas way before my dad was a
Speaker 1: little boy. Fernando de Soto was trapsing around here for
Speaker 1: about a year starting in fifteen forty one, and he
Speaker 1: was trading goods and visiting with the Caddo Indians who
Speaker 1: were wearing buckskins that came from here, and the meat
Speaker 1: that they ate was a large part of their diet,
Speaker 1: and I can dig it. Less than an hour ago.
Speaker 1: Alexis had me lay out a package of burger to
Speaker 1: throw out for supper tonight. Those folks knew what was good,
Speaker 1: and we do too. His point to why of the woods,
Speaker 1: the open woods looked so good to me was because
Speaker 1: we were out there to catch stuff and eat it.
Speaker 1: Now here's another side note. He was making a point
Speaker 1: about predators. But don't anyone think for a minute that
Speaker 1: he was about to eat one of the squirrels we'd
Speaker 1: kill that day or any other day. He wouldn't at
Speaker 1: one if he'd have been starving, slapped to death. He'd
Speaker 1: help me skin them and even cook them for me,
Speaker 1: but eat them, not buddy reeves, and not for any
Speaker 1: amount of money. He gave them away to neighbors, traded
Speaker 1: them to a man down the road for snake bite medicine,
Speaker 1: and anyone that wanted them. But he wouldn't eat one.
Speaker 1: And why he wouldn't eat one, that's a whole other story. Anyway,
Speaker 1: He told me, the better that we could see, the
Speaker 1: better chance we had of slipping around and getting close
Speaker 1: enough to something to catch it. It worked the same
Speaker 1: way with animals, And while that didn't endear me the thickets,
Speaker 1: it did make me realize that, you know, they were important.
Speaker 1: It's one of the necessities of life. We talked about shelter.
Speaker 1: Those thickets are where deer lay up to have their
Speaker 1: phones hidden from any and everything that was running around
Speaker 1: trying to make a bamb sandwich out of them. They
Speaker 1: also hold the brows and a million other goodies and
Speaker 1: reasons why they're beneficials to a multitude of animals found
Speaker 1: in and around them. Maybe we'll talk about thickets one day,
Speaker 1: but this day ain't it. We're talking about trees and
Speaker 1: importance of knowing the difference. You don't have to know
Speaker 1: the scientific names of trees, but it's important. It's hunters
Speaker 1: and observers, the wildlife that we understand as best we can,
Speaker 1: the environment that we find ourselves operating in. Being able
Speaker 1: to tell the difference in mass producing trees, evergreens and
Speaker 1: decideous trees that's the ones that lose their leaves in
Speaker 1: the fall is one of the best eras in your quiver.
Speaker 1: And not all decidus trees lose their leaves at the
Speaker 1: same rate or begin at the same time. If your
Speaker 1: summer scouting and you looking to hang a stand in
Speaker 1: that perfect spot where trails come together, and you want
Speaker 1: to be there for an October bow hunt in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and you choose a tree with limbs that come out
Speaker 1: at a ninety degree angle with great leaf cover, you'll
Speaker 1: be shining like a diamond and a coach. But by
Speaker 1: the time that October gets here, because the tree you
Speaker 1: select is more than likely a black gum. Now that's
Speaker 1: Nissa silvatica. It's one of the first trees in the
Speaker 1: woods to lose its leaves, and usually by October it's
Speaker 1: as barren as a ten year old dough. However, the
Speaker 1: fruit of a black gum can be made into jelly
Speaker 1: for us to eat, and animals from turkeys to songbirds.
Speaker 1: The coons, bears and squirrels and a bunch of others
Speaker 1: love them. Deer not so much. They'll feed on the
Speaker 1: seedlings and the leaves up to a point. Then, as
Speaker 1: the sample of matures the leaves lose they're attraction, the
Speaker 1: deer bove on to something else, and the other animals
Speaker 1: I mentioned take advantage of what the deer crossed off
Speaker 1: their menu. Also, the black gum tree is very susceptible
Speaker 1: to heart rots, which can cause them to become hollow
Speaker 1: over time, but with there wood being so strong, they
Speaker 1: can still live for a long long time. This creates
Speaker 1: shelter and dens for mammals, birds, tree dwelling critters, bats,
Speaker 1: and spaces for honey bee hives. All of that in
Speaker 1: one tree. That's just one of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: different species of trees that are native to Arkansas. In
Speaker 1: Louisiana and Kansas, you're looking at about the same number. Well,
Speaker 1: you say to yourself, I hunt out west, and there
Speaker 1: ain't many trees out there anyway, and thanks, you ain't
Speaker 1: enough to make a different to any kind of plans
Speaker 1: that I'm going to make when I hunt out there.
Speaker 1: Well guess what it should make a difference. Because New
Speaker 1: Mexico and Arizona they sport over one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: different species. In Utah that's close to two hundred and fifty. Obviously,
Speaker 1: all of them ain't providing food for game. But you
Speaker 1: have to remember that shelter is just as important, and
Speaker 1: it's one of those three basic requirements for life. So
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. Speaking of shelter, my friend MARAE. Means,
Speaker 1: who is the Large Carnivore Program Coordinator for the Arkansas
Speaker 1: Game and Fish he told me once when they were
Speaker 1: due and some bearden studies now bearding studies, when they
Speaker 1: locate a breeding age seals that have been radio collared
Speaker 1: and they hit them with the old razzle dazzle knockout
Speaker 1: shot and get all the biological data they can muster
Speaker 1: from her in any cubs she may have betta and
Speaker 1: I went on one this past March, and man, what
Speaker 1: an experience it was. Anyway, Myron and his merry band
Speaker 1: of biologists, veterinarians, and technicians tracked a collared sound down
Speaker 1: in South Arkansas, where it's common for mama bears to
Speaker 1: use tree cavities to den in since the areas are
Speaker 1: prone to flood. I guess this old gal was prepping
Speaker 1: for the big one, because Myron said she was located
Speaker 1: over eighty feet high in a huge bald cypress tree.
Speaker 1: That's tax odium to stitch them for you folks keeping score,
Speaker 1: and just some more gibbers for those that ain't. But
Speaker 1: bears are funny creatures and I dig them. Now. I
Speaker 1: can't speak much about the trees out west, but I
Speaker 1: can talk about those I find here. Orcus alba, the
Speaker 1: white oak Man. It's a blessing and a curse all
Speaker 1: rolled up in one. Now. How could something that produces
Speaker 1: nature's best acorn, preferred by animals and humans alike be
Speaker 1: a curse. Wait a minute, did I say humans? I
Speaker 1: sure did. I mentioned the Caddo Indians earlier. Well, that's
Speaker 1: just one tribe of Native Americans that were trading deerskins
Speaker 1: and others such plunder to the Sodo and his crew
Speaker 1: while towding a lunch bucket full of acorn based groceries
Speaker 1: to the meet and greet. My friend Rick Spicer is
Speaker 1: a flint napping, acorn eating bushcraft teaching guru. If there
Speaker 1: was such a thing as a human Swiss Army knife,
Speaker 1: mine would have a Rick Spicer blade in it. Y'all
Speaker 1: check out Rick's Instagram page at packrat Bushcraft and give
Speaker 1: it a fallow. I'll share a link to it on
Speaker 1: mine and post up his step by step method in
Speaker 1: the recipe he uses to make cinnamon acorn bread Cinnamon
Speaker 1: acren bread. Y'all know I'm gonna try tow, so you
Speaker 1: might as well join me, all right. The Curse of
Speaker 1: the White Oak Acorn is mainly to bear hunters hunting
Speaker 1: over bait. I don't have the energy to fuss with
Speaker 1: folks about baiting or not baiting. I ain't what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Save it for another day and somebody else
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about is how white oak acorns can
Speaker 1: absolutely ruin a baited bear hunt. Simply put, when they
Speaker 1: start falling, a black bear will crawl over a mountain
Speaker 1: of doughnuts to eat one acre. Your bait will die
Speaker 1: deader than disco literally overnight. Knowing the trees in your
Speaker 1: bear hunt area is crucial. If the acrons start falling early,
Speaker 1: you may have to swap it up and change up
Speaker 1: your tactics from standing hunting to more of a spot
Speaker 1: and stalk. By knowing tree I D. Knowing your trees,
Speaker 1: you can look for a stand of white oaks, check
Speaker 1: for bear sign, focus your efforts where you're likely to
Speaker 1: cross paths with the bear or the bears that have
Speaker 1: abandoned your bait. Now, I know I've been talking about
Speaker 1: bears and and white oaks, but that's only example. Your
Speaker 1: target species could be focusing on the acorns of red oaks,
Speaker 1: pinoaks for salmon fruit, or beech tree masts whatever. Late winter,
Speaker 1: when the acorns are all but gone and there's no
Speaker 1: frogs or crawfish or bugs around for coons to eat,
Speaker 1: we'll go to areas where we know there are groups
Speaker 1: of deciduous holly trees. That one's called alex decidua. Some
Speaker 1: folks call it apossum haul or a winterberry tree. That's
Speaker 1: probably the best name for it, because they'll have fruit
Speaker 1: when everything else is gone, and when that's the case,
Speaker 1: we'll be treating in those spots on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: A lot of you may know that before I turned
Speaker 1: to a life of fighting crime that I worked in
Speaker 1: the woods managing timber. For those that didn't, I used
Speaker 1: to work in the woods managing timber. Tree I d
Speaker 1: was crucial and allowed me to do my job cruising timber,
Speaker 1: which is taking a survey of the mertionable timber on
Speaker 1: a particular property, either by measuring every tree on it
Speaker 1: or through a measured sampling of designated intervals. Required me
Speaker 1: to tally the different types of trees to estimate the
Speaker 1: value of the timber on that land. You should be
Speaker 1: doing the same now every time you hit the woods,
Speaker 1: but not for removing timber, but for removing whatever you're
Speaker 1: chasing out there, or at least finding what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: Everyone I hunt with is always looking for sign, and
Speaker 1: I'm the same. But maybe just as important as a
Speaker 1: sign you're seeing is where it's located and what's around it.
Speaker 1: Are they just passing through to get to an area
Speaker 1: of food or shelter. The shelter doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: a place where they sleep. Shelter can be described as
Speaker 1: a secure place in which you know they breed or
Speaker 1: they rest. How about a like a big oak flat
Speaker 1: or a pine ridge where a gobbler has a strutting
Speaker 1: zone or white tails bed during the middle of the day.
Speaker 1: Of course, you can substitute elk and deer or whatever
Speaker 1: you're after. All I'm saying is to observe the terrain,
Speaker 1: what's growing there, the environment, the wind, everything that you
Speaker 1: can file in the old noodle data bank for retrieval
Speaker 1: when you run across it again, you know somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Being able to easily identify the trees and what uses
Speaker 1: them will make your scouting quicker and more effective. When
Speaker 1: all things are the same, it may be the difference
Speaker 1: in setting up in a sweet gum grove or a
Speaker 1: bunch of white oaks. Now, I'll close out with this
Speaker 1: story here that demonstrates the necessity of tree I d
Speaker 1: Back in my timber management days, me and mister Leon
Speaker 1: were marking timber to be cut and We're half a
Speaker 1: mile from the truck when I found a forty pound
Speaker 1: pine knot covered in dried gray mud. For those unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with a pine knot, it's the rich heart or sapwood
Speaker 1: of a pine tree. Some folks call a lighter fine.
Speaker 1: It's used for killing and starting fires. And where I
Speaker 1: grew up it was gold. Everyone that had a fireplace
Speaker 1: picked it up all year long, regardless of where they were.
Speaker 1: See a pine knot, pick up a pine knot and
Speaker 1: told it home. It was common practice and basically the
Speaker 1: law of the land. A man with a fireplace or
Speaker 1: any reason to build a fire was judged by the
Speaker 1: amount of pine knots that he had piled up at home.
Speaker 1: This one was a monster, and it was all mine.
Speaker 1: Mister Leon had eyes like a hawk when it came
Speaker 1: to find the pine knots, and it was like he
Speaker 1: had a radar. He'd find them, and I'd wind up
Speaker 1: being the one that towed them back to the truck
Speaker 1: for him. After all, I was the youngster and the crew,
Speaker 1: and I respected him for his age and his service
Speaker 1: in World War Two. This day, it was hot, and
Speaker 1: we'd been in the woods all day long. We were
Speaker 1: still a half a mile walk through a sea of
Speaker 1: briars from the truck. I'd taken the lead shot in
Speaker 1: the asthmus with my compass and was breaking a trail
Speaker 1: for both of us when I spied the end of
Speaker 1: the mother of all pine knots poking up from a
Speaker 1: patch of green briars. Mister Leon saw me pull it
Speaker 1: up and throw it over my shoulder. We'd walked from
Speaker 1: minute or two when he stopped whistling and said, what
Speaker 1: you got there, son. Luckily he was behind me and
Speaker 1: couldn't see me rolling my eyes and making a face
Speaker 1: at the dumbest question I was going to hear all day,
Speaker 1: my pine knot? Oh? Is that right? With a hen sarcasm,
Speaker 1: I said, I believe it is, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: end that with old man, but I didn't. He started
Speaker 1: back whistling, and we kept walking and fighting through the
Speaker 1: briers and the heat toward the truck. Now, I got
Speaker 1: to tell you that pine knot was killing me. I
Speaker 1: was swapping shoulders more than I was walking. It was
Speaker 1: over one hundred degrees in that thicket, and the only
Speaker 1: air turning in there was when I was walking, swapping
Speaker 1: shoulders with my prize or mister Leon's whistling. I wanted
Speaker 1: to check, but I knew he'd pick it up and
Speaker 1: told it about fifty yards before my conscience made me
Speaker 1: take it away from him and told it for him anyway.
Speaker 1: Still a quarter from the truck, he stopped whistling again.
Speaker 1: He said, you really gonna tote that all the way out? Now?
Speaker 1: Did he think I couldn't do it? I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: As bad as I wanted to fling that pine knot
Speaker 1: past his ear and almost miss him, I was bound
Speaker 1: and determined to have it at the truck. When I
Speaker 1: got there. The last one hundred yards was the worst.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. Rain would have had a problem hitting
Speaker 1: the ground in there, it was so thick. But we
Speaker 1: broke out of it right beside the truck, and I
Speaker 1: immediately dropped that pine knot. He stopped whistling and said,
Speaker 1: you run a good line back to the truck. Soh
Speaker 1: nob he had to say that. Mister Leon wasn't very
Speaker 1: complimentary to anyone about anything. His usual response to a
Speaker 1: question or observation was usually negative. But I always tried
Speaker 1: to look past that because of all that he'd been
Speaker 1: through in the war. He was a genuine hero to me,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I felt real bad about
Speaker 1: the way I'd been thinking and acting. As we walked out,
Speaker 1: even though he couldn't see it, he poured and handed
Speaker 1: me the first drink from our water keg. I looked
Speaker 1: at him and said, mister Leon, do you want this
Speaker 1: pine knot? He took a big long drink of water
Speaker 1: and he filled his cup again. He drank it down.
Speaker 1: He turned away from me and chunked it back over
Speaker 1: his shoulder, hitting me dead in the chest with a
Speaker 1: watered up paper cup, and said, that ain't no pine knot.
Speaker 1: That's a big red oak. Lim turn it over and
Speaker 1: look at the bark that was on the end you
Speaker 1: had pointing towards me. He was whistling again when he
Speaker 1: sat down in the cab of the truck. It pays
Speaker 1: to know your trees. Thank y'all so much for listening.
Speaker 1: I truly appreciate you allowed me a little time to
Speaker 1: run around in your head. Every week, I promised to
Speaker 1: do my dead level best not step on anything import
Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves, sign it all. I'll be careful