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Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves.

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Speaker 1: From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.

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Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share

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Speaker 1: my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented

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Speaker 1: by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you

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Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast the airways had off. All right, friends,

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Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tail gate. I've got

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Speaker 1: some stories to share. Safety first. Always. I didn't get

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Speaker 1: to cover all I wanted to last week, so we're

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Speaker 1: back again with some more safety concerns and a lesson

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Speaker 1: that I will never forget. If there's one thing you

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Speaker 1: take away from these weekly ramblings, I hope it's this one.

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Speaker 1: That's why I'm sharing it today. But first I'm going

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Speaker 1: to tell you a story. It was beyond dark on

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Speaker 1: a moonless night. I was alone patrolling near where I'd

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Speaker 1: grown up in the north end of Bradley County. Working

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Speaker 1: for the Sheriff's office in rural counties will have deputies

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Speaker 1: working alone a lot. The only time two or more

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Speaker 1: of us were on duty at one time at night

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Speaker 1: was on the weekends when the call volumes increased. Now,

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Speaker 1: we lived by that old Texas Ranger creed of one

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Speaker 1: riot one ranger that wasn't not a bravado. It was

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Speaker 1: out of necessity. We were a small department covering a

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Speaker 1: big area with a budget. You couldn't operate a roadside

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Speaker 1: stand with three deputies for six hundred and forty nine

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Speaker 1: square miles. We worked alone a lot. It had been

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Speaker 1: a quiet night, with only the music radio keeping me company.

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Speaker 1: The dispatcher radio had been ominously quiet, and I was

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Speaker 1: heading to the house. This is usually a time when

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Speaker 1: everything goes berserko. That's when nine calls all at once

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Speaker 1: come in wrecks, fights, fevery, and other skullduggery type behavior

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Speaker 1: that requires the attention of the sheriff's department, and they

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Speaker 1: usually happen on the opposite end of the county that

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Speaker 1: you're patrolling. But not this night. Nothing was going on,

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Speaker 1: and I was driving down a desolate stretch of highway

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Speaker 1: with no ambient light from anywhere except for the headlights

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Speaker 1: on my patrol car. I was lost in thought, almost

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Speaker 1: hypnotized by the monotonous drone of the sound of sailing

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Speaker 1: down the road at the blistering pace of forty miles

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Speaker 1: an hour. I had the crew set at forty. That

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Speaker 1: gave me time with no traffic, to really look at

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Speaker 1: side roads and houses and churches that I passed along

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Speaker 1: the highway that might need a closer inspection. But on

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Speaker 1: this stretch there was none of those, just a straight

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Speaker 1: shot over a few rolling hills as I made my

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Speaker 1: way back toward the town, burning time off the clockets

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Speaker 1: I was getting. Towards the end of my shift, I

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Speaker 1: lost and thought I became cognizant of something in my

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Speaker 1: peripheral vision on the left side. It was like I

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Speaker 1: knew it was there, but in my car there were

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Speaker 1: colored lights and reflections everywhere. The dashlights, the lights from

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Speaker 1: multiple radios put off a glow inside the car that

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Speaker 1: reflected off of every shiny surface in there, including the windows,

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Speaker 1: like the driver's side door window. That's where what I

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Speaker 1: was seeing out of the corner of my eye was.

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Speaker 1: It was like it had been there all along, but

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Speaker 1: all at once I realized that it hadn't, and now

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Speaker 1: I knew there was something different. There wasn't a car

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Speaker 1: or a light anywhere to be seen. I looked to

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Speaker 1: my right in the passenger seat and the floorboard radio console,

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Speaker 1: and there was nothing new. No flashlight burned under a

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Speaker 1: hat or no interior light burning from a new source

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Speaker 1: that made up the reflection I was seeing on my

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Speaker 1: window on the driver's side door. By the time it

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Speaker 1: is taken to describe this so far as about as

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Speaker 1: long as it took for it to play out. So

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Speaker 1: with the last resort to actually look out the window

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Speaker 1: to see if there was something actually there, I did,

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Speaker 1: and that's when I saw a face looking back at me.

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Speaker 1: Sweet Jesus, that's a face. I looked back at the

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Speaker 1: highway out the windshield, and the speed of it says

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Speaker 1: I'm driving forty miles an hour. I mashed the foot

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Speaker 1: feed to the floor and in an instant I was

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Speaker 1: hitting sixty. I looked back out the window, knowing that

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Speaker 1: I didn't really see what I thought I saw in

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Speaker 1: the faces looking at me saying stop stop. But I

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Speaker 1: can't hear them, but I can see them mouthing the words.

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Speaker 1: I've got a death grip on the steering wheel, and

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Speaker 1: with all the force I can muster, I took my

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Speaker 1: foot off the gas and I crammed the brakes of

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Speaker 1: the pavement on that crown VIC and the face disappeared,

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Speaker 1: shooting out front of my car in the opposite lane

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Speaker 1: like a jet, except there wasn't a jet. It was

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Speaker 1: a motorcycle with no headlight. I threw the car and

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Speaker 1: park and stepped out onto the highway as the lightless

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Speaker 1: rider made a U turn and drove back to me,

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Speaker 1: A small, dim flashlight stuck between him and the gas

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Speaker 1: tank that was shining up under his chin, lighting him

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Speaker 1: up like a Halloween punkin. He scared the living daylights

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Speaker 1: out of me. But I knew him, and he didn't

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Speaker 1: live far from where we were, just a few miles

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Speaker 1: but a long way driving in the dark. Hey, Brent Man,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad to see you. I'm trying to make it home.

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Speaker 1: My lights went out. I don't even have a tail light.

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Speaker 1: Can you follow me home so don't get run over?

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Speaker 1: I can, but you're gonna have to give me a minute.

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Speaker 1: You scared me to death, he said. I think he

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Speaker 1: was ever going to see me. I thought I was

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Speaker 1: gonna have to knock on your window. Now now I

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Speaker 1: have no idea what would happen had he knocked on

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Speaker 1: my window, but me turning to see someone staring back

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Speaker 1: at me like Vincent Christ. It scares me to think

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Speaker 1: about it. I turned the spotlights on my bar light,

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Speaker 1: and I followed him all the way home until he

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Speaker 1: parked his motorcycle in his front yard. I went back

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Speaker 1: out on that dark portion of the highway, expecting nikobot

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Speaker 1: a crane to try to kill me at any time.

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Speaker 1: But I didn't waste any time getting home, not that time,

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Speaker 1: not that night. And that's just how that happened. It

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Speaker 1: only takes one Now, that statement applies to so many

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Speaker 1: things when gauging success and failure, spending a whole season

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Speaker 1: hunting a big deer and having him put the old

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Speaker 1: rastle dazzle on you every time you think you get

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Speaker 1: him figured out. Then you go home thinking that I

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Speaker 1: should have done this or I should have done that.

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Speaker 1: But then one day it all comes together. Now you

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Speaker 1: put in the time to effort, the heartbreak of almost

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Speaker 1: getting him but always coming up short, until the day

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Speaker 1: you don't, BINGO, you got him. The story of that

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Speaker 1: struggle will live forever, and so will that deer, because

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Speaker 1: something remembered and shared with like minded souls is immortal.

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Speaker 1: Now you flip the script and finally get the chance,

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Speaker 1: only to mess it up, and that story will seemingly

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Speaker 1: live longer. Same applies to not paying attention or simply

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Speaker 1: ignoring the clues that would normally have a prudent person

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Speaker 1: taking corrective, evasive, or some type of cautionary action. But

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Speaker 1: that describes a prudent person, not a fourteen year year

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Speaker 1: old hunter on opening the morning the rifle season. Now,

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Speaker 1: we built this stand as a temporary stand. Two years

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Speaker 1: before this one. We were going to put in a

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Speaker 1: bigger and better permit stand in that little clear where

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Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt that morning, but we never did.

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Speaker 1: I told one brother, Tim and Joe Bryant at supper

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Speaker 1: the night before that I wanted to hunt there. Joe

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Speaker 1: was Tim's brother in law, but he was a brother

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Speaker 1: to us all. But this was back when we camped

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Speaker 1: in an old surplus canvas army ten. We heated it

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Speaker 1: with a propane heater like your grandparents had in the

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Speaker 1: house of the five foot propane tank, both of which

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Speaker 1: were positioned inside at the center of the tent hole.

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Speaker 1: You regular listeners are starting to jump ahead right now,

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Speaker 1: aren't you. You're thinking of that idiot blew the tin

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Speaker 1: up or something. Well, I did it and needed to

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Speaker 1: anyone else. And all the years we camped in that

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Speaker 1: old ten before we built the camp. I don't remember

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Speaker 1: one instance or we nearly blew up anything accidentally. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: I'm just giving you some background and context as to

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Speaker 1: how we hunted. If we could brave the cold and

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Speaker 1: sometimes the heat that comes with the opening week of

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Speaker 1: gun deer season in Arkansas, along with cooking in a

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Speaker 1: separate visc queen wrapped cooking shack complete with a gas

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Speaker 1: stove and another gas bottle attached with only coal and

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Speaker 1: lanterns is light. And the bathroom we all used being

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Speaker 1: a designated direction from camp and not a structure. Then

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Speaker 1: a little wobbly homemade deer stand surely wouldn't stop us

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Speaker 1: from hunting. Well, it wouldn't me. Tim and Job both

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Speaker 1: told me they wouldn't sit in it. But what did

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Speaker 1: they know. I was fourteen. I knew everything I needed

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Speaker 1: to know at this point in my life. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure why they was even sending me to school. I

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Speaker 1: should have been teaching it somewhere. Check that ladder and

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Speaker 1: if it's rotten or shows any signs of being rotten,

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Speaker 1: just sit under it. You can still see that opening

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Speaker 1: where the deer cross. That was the last thing Joe

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Speaker 1: said to me that morning before we all headed out

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Speaker 1: to our stands. I told him I would, but I

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Speaker 1: had no intentions of sitting on the ground. Deer hunters

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Speaker 1: shoot deer from deer stands. Felt more confident in a tree,

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Speaker 1: regardless of the fact that people have been killing deer

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Speaker 1: from the ground since they decided to add them to

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Speaker 1: the menu. And that was when the first folks set

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Speaker 1: foot here in this part of the world. Regardless of

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Speaker 1: how you believe they arrived. I was letting my desire

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Speaker 1: to do what I wanted to do cloud my judgment

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Speaker 1: on what I should do. I got to the stand

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Speaker 1: way before daylight and found it without much trouble. The

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Speaker 1: dim decealed flashlight burning just bright enough to keep me

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Speaker 1: from wandering off the fence line, and I was following

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Speaker 1: on my left side until I got to the out

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Speaker 1: and once I got there, I would hang a one

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Speaker 1: point eighty inside that fence and walk back less than

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Speaker 1: eighty yards to where the stand was. I walked up

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Speaker 1: to it, and I'm not sure what you've pictured in

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Speaker 1: your mind at this point as to what this thing

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Speaker 1: constructed of, so allowed me to elaborate. There were two

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Speaker 1: ten foot sweet gum poles cut that served as the

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Speaker 1: front legs. They were both identically on about the size

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Speaker 1: of my forearm. Four tube fours were nailed together in

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Speaker 1: a square shape three feet by three feet and covered

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Speaker 1: with plywood. Now this would be the floor of the stand.

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Speaker 1: It then sat on the ends of the gum poles,

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Speaker 1: and each of them nailed to the front two corners

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Speaker 1: of the stand that would face the clearing. The back

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Speaker 1: of the floor was leaned up against it nailed to

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Speaker 1: two standing trees on the fence line that would serve

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Speaker 1: as a backrest and help conceal my outline. It was

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Speaker 1: like an extra long legged night stand. The ladder was

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Speaker 1: gum poles cut to fit across the gap in the

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Speaker 1: two trees that served as the back legs, and they

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Speaker 1: were nailed about two feet apart. And I hope that

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Speaker 1: offers a good visual of the engineering marvel that I

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Speaker 1: was about to entrust my life to the one. Both

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Speaker 1: my older brothers just told me not to climb yet,

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Speaker 1: but I do better. I shined that light up the platform.

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Speaker 1: No washing nests underneath, that's good. The milk crate was

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Speaker 1: still there. That was served as my throne for the

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Speaker 1: morning's festivities. That's also good. I grabbed the left front

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Speaker 1: leg and I gave it a shake to test of sturdy,

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Speaker 1: and I says, I looked up into the darkness and

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Speaker 1: a big ball of leaves rolled off that platform and

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Speaker 1: into my face. I spat out while I didn't swallow,

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Speaker 1: and I shook it again. That seemed all right to me.

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Speaker 1: I walked around to the backside and all the rungs

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Speaker 1: were still attached. That's another good sign. Knowing full well

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Speaker 1: there wasn't a round chamber in that thirty thirty attames

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Speaker 1: I was shooting, I checked it anyway, just to make

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Speaker 1: sure safety first. Remember usually I stepped on the bottom

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Speaker 1: rung and it didn't even make a sound when it

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Speaker 1: broke in. Two hm. That's not good. The last thing

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Speaker 1: I wanted to do was what Joe had told me

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Speaker 1: after supper the night before, just hunt on the ground. Now,

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Speaker 1: I was fixing to get in that stand if it

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Speaker 1: was the last thing I did, and it almost was.

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Speaker 1: I held on to that tree that was serving as

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Speaker 1: the left rear leg and stepped on to where the

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Speaker 1: nails held that sweet gum rung in place. The bark

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Speaker 1: in the wood of the cross pieces compressing under each

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Speaker 1: as I climbed higher to the top, pulling myself up

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Speaker 1: with my left hand while holding the rifle of my right,

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Speaker 1: my feet placed on the ends of the nails that

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Speaker 1: were poking out of the trees. Finally, at the top,

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Speaker 1: I laid the rifle down in front of the milk

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Speaker 1: crate and I grabbed the other tree on my right

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Speaker 1: side and swung my legs off the nails and onto

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Speaker 1: the platform as gently as I could, slowly adding my

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Speaker 1: weight to the structure. And the final test for stability

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Speaker 1: solid as a rock, MOI bo ain't know? All is good.

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Speaker 1: I aised down on the mill crate. I put that

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Speaker 1: rifle on my lap and I leaned back against one

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Speaker 1: of the trees. I just used to get in the

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Speaker 1: stand and sweat walls left of the leaves off the

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Speaker 1: floor with my foot, and when I kicked them off,

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Speaker 1: I felt the stand shake back and forth a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I made that sweeping motion again, just to make sure

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Speaker 1: I wasn't imagining it, and the old pucker factor jumped

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Speaker 1: up to about seven. Hey Brent, don't do that anymore,

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Speaker 1: that was what my innerself said. Not Hey Brent, you

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Speaker 1: should get down while you can still walk without crutches. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: it would take my inner self just about as long

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Speaker 1: to wise up about life as it did my outer self,

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Speaker 1: and according to my track record, that was still almost

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Speaker 1: a score and a half away from happening. Daylight came

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Speaker 1: and I sat motionless, moving only my head slightly as

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Speaker 1: I scanned a little clearing where I knew something was

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Speaker 1: going to happen. Birds were singing, Squirrels were knocking acrons

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Speaker 1: out of the trees, and the woods were awake. And

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Speaker 1: I was dozing off from having to sit so still.

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Speaker 1: A door in the yearland walked out across the opening

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Speaker 1: on the right side of my standing. That was the

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Speaker 1: last thing I remember as I dozed off. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how long I slept, but I woke up just

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Speaker 1: in time to see the ground rushing up towards me

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Speaker 1: at the speed of light. While my brain was swimming

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Speaker 1: in my glasses trying to solve the equation of what

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Speaker 1: was going on. Impact with the earth gave me the

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Speaker 1: answer I was so desperately trying to figure out, ah gravity,

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Speaker 1: That's what was happening. Gravity and carelessness, two forces, when combined,

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Speaker 1: can potential create catastrophic results. Now I didn't have the

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Speaker 1: wind knocked out of me and it didn't even hurt.

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Speaker 1: I was lucky because it could have It could have

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Speaker 1: killed me, But a funny story came out of that.

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Speaker 1: That wasn't the case with a friend of mine on

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Speaker 1: the East Coast. He was a good friend who helped

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Speaker 1: me get my started outdoor filming. I and a couple

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Speaker 1: others in him traveled out west on big private film

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Speaker 1: project a couple of years in a row, and he

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Speaker 1: taught me a lot about running a camera and how

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Speaker 1: to film a hunt. He was always a phone call

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Speaker 1: away to answer questions and give advice. Now he spent

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Speaker 1: more time in the tree than most squirrels and produced

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Speaker 1: some of the best outdoor hunts that a lot of

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Speaker 1: you grew up watching, just like I did. But he

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Speaker 1: hated safety and harnesses and he rarely wore them. The

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Speaker 1: last time we filmed together was a September el khunt

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Speaker 1: in the Rocky Mountains, and he told me to film

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Speaker 1: a hunter at a water hole that we'd actually hung

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Speaker 1: two stands in. He hunted there the day before. When

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Speaker 1: I asked him if he'd left his safety strap of

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Speaker 1: the tree, he said, you know, I didn't even bring

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Speaker 1: one with me, you use one if you want. I

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Speaker 1: was shocked, and I asked him if he ever warm me.

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Speaker 1: He said no, not if I can help it. That

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Speaker 1: bothered me, but it didn't influence my desire to not

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Speaker 1: wear one. Two years and a month later, I got

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Speaker 1: the call that he'd fallen out of a tree stand

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Speaker 1: and he was dead. And I miss him, and I'm

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Speaker 1: still sad about it. And I never climbed a tree

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Speaker 1: that I don't think about him never. He died ten

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Speaker 1: years ago. When my son Hunter was a teenager, the

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Speaker 1: hard and fast rules to always have your safety equipment.

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Speaker 1: If you don't have it, you don't climb the tree. Now.

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Speaker 1: He learned that the hard way one day when he

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Speaker 1: forgot his. We turned around and went back home. The

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Speaker 1: trail camera pictures from that morning driving home all that

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Speaker 1: we'd missed by him not being prepared when we got

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Speaker 1: there that afternoon. But we lived to hunt another day.

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Speaker 1: It only takes one. I was lucky with my one.

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Speaker 1: My friend wasn't. Now is the time of year when

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Speaker 1: we're all getting ready to chase those white tells them.

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Speaker 1: From the bottom of my heart, I'm asking you to

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Speaker 1: please where your safety artists. If not for you for

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Speaker 1: the folks that love you. It's just that simple. It's easy,

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Speaker 1: it only takes a minute, and it's up to us

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Speaker 1: to set the example for the little folks to follow.

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Speaker 1: Let's make sure we set a good one. Safety first always.

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Speaker 1: That's how we're going to close this one. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for listening. Y'all, look out for one another,

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Speaker 1: help folks when you can, and be safe getting around

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Speaker 1: out there. This one's for you, Mike. This is Brent Reeves.

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Speaker 1: Sign it off. Y'all be careful,