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 experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
Speaker 1: by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast the airways had off. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tail gate. I've got
Speaker 1: some stories to share. Safety first. Always. I didn't get
Speaker 1: to cover all I wanted to last week, so we're
Speaker 1: back again with some more safety concerns and a lesson
Speaker 1: that I will never forget. If there's one thing you
Speaker 1: take away from these weekly ramblings, I hope it's this one.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm sharing it today. But first I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you a story. It was beyond dark on
Speaker 1: a moonless night. I was alone patrolling near where I'd
Speaker 1: grown up in the north end of Bradley County. Working
Speaker 1: for the Sheriff's office in rural counties will have deputies
Speaker 1: working alone a lot. The only time two or more
Speaker 1: of us were on duty at one time at night
Speaker 1: was on the weekends when the call volumes increased. Now,
Speaker 1: we lived by that old Texas Ranger creed of one
Speaker 1: riot one ranger that wasn't not a bravado. It was
Speaker 1: out of necessity. We were a small department covering a
Speaker 1: big area with a budget. You couldn't operate a roadside
Speaker 1: stand with three deputies for six hundred and forty nine
Speaker 1: square miles. We worked alone a lot. It had been
Speaker 1: a quiet night, with only the music radio keeping me company.
Speaker 1: The dispatcher radio had been ominously quiet, and I was
Speaker 1: heading to the house. This is usually a time when
Speaker 1: everything goes berserko. That's when nine calls all at once
Speaker 1: come in wrecks, fights, fevery, and other skullduggery type behavior
Speaker 1: that requires the attention of the sheriff's department, and they
Speaker 1: usually happen on the opposite end of the county that
Speaker 1: you're patrolling. But not this night. Nothing was going on,
Speaker 1: and I was driving down a desolate stretch of highway
Speaker 1: with no ambient light from anywhere except for the headlights
Speaker 1: on my patrol car. I was lost in thought, almost
Speaker 1: hypnotized by the monotonous drone of the sound of sailing
Speaker 1: down the road at the blistering pace of forty miles
Speaker 1: an hour. I had the crew set at forty. That
Speaker 1: gave me time with no traffic, to really look at
Speaker 1: side roads and houses and churches that I passed along
Speaker 1: the highway that might need a closer inspection. But on
Speaker 1: this stretch there was none of those, just a straight
Speaker 1: shot over a few rolling hills as I made my
Speaker 1: way back toward the town, burning time off the clockets
Speaker 1: I was getting. Towards the end of my shift, I
Speaker 1: lost and thought I became cognizant of something in my
Speaker 1: peripheral vision on the left side. It was like I
Speaker 1: knew it was there, but in my car there were
Speaker 1: colored lights and reflections everywhere. The dashlights, the lights from
Speaker 1: multiple radios put off a glow inside the car that
Speaker 1: reflected off of every shiny surface in there, including the windows,
Speaker 1: like the driver's side door window. That's where what I
Speaker 1: was seeing out of the corner of my eye was.
Speaker 1: It was like it had been there all along, but
Speaker 1: all at once I realized that it hadn't, and now
Speaker 1: I knew there was something different. There wasn't a car
Speaker 1: or a light anywhere to be seen. I looked to
Speaker 1: my right in the passenger seat and the floorboard radio console,
Speaker 1: and there was nothing new. No flashlight burned under a
Speaker 1: hat or no interior light burning from a new source
Speaker 1: that made up the reflection I was seeing on my
Speaker 1: window on the driver's side door. By the time it
Speaker 1: is taken to describe this so far as about as
Speaker 1: long as it took for it to play out. So
Speaker 1: with the last resort to actually look out the window
Speaker 1: to see if there was something actually there, I did,
Speaker 1: and that's when I saw a face looking back at me.
Speaker 1: Sweet Jesus, that's a face. I looked back at the
Speaker 1: highway out the windshield, and the speed of it says
Speaker 1: I'm driving forty miles an hour. I mashed the foot
Speaker 1: feed to the floor and in an instant I was
Speaker 1: hitting sixty. I looked back out the window, knowing that
Speaker 1: I didn't really see what I thought I saw in
Speaker 1: the faces looking at me saying stop stop. But I
Speaker 1: can't hear them, but I can see them mouthing the words.
Speaker 1: I've got a death grip on the steering wheel, and
Speaker 1: with all the force I can muster, I took my
Speaker 1: foot off the gas and I crammed the brakes of
Speaker 1: the pavement on that crown VIC and the face disappeared,
Speaker 1: shooting out front of my car in the opposite lane
Speaker 1: like a jet, except there wasn't a jet. It was
Speaker 1: a motorcycle with no headlight. I threw the car and
Speaker 1: park and stepped out onto the highway as the lightless
Speaker 1: rider made a U turn and drove back to me,
Speaker 1: A small, dim flashlight stuck between him and the gas
Speaker 1: tank that was shining up under his chin, lighting him
Speaker 1: up like a Halloween punkin. He scared the living daylights
Speaker 1: out of me. But I knew him, and he didn't
Speaker 1: live far from where we were, just a few miles
Speaker 1: but a long way driving in the dark. Hey, Brent Man,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to see you. I'm trying to make it home.
Speaker 1: My lights went out. I don't even have a tail light.
Speaker 1: Can you follow me home so don't get run over?
Speaker 1: I can, but you're gonna have to give me a minute.
Speaker 1: You scared me to death, he said. I think he
Speaker 1: was ever going to see me. I thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna have to knock on your window. Now now I
Speaker 1: have no idea what would happen had he knocked on
Speaker 1: my window, but me turning to see someone staring back
Speaker 1: at me like Vincent Christ. It scares me to think
Speaker 1: about it. I turned the spotlights on my bar light,
Speaker 1: and I followed him all the way home until he
Speaker 1: parked his motorcycle in his front yard. I went back
Speaker 1: out on that dark portion of the highway, expecting nikobot
Speaker 1: a crane to try to kill me at any time.
Speaker 1: But I didn't waste any time getting home, not that time,
Speaker 1: not that night. And that's just how that happened. It
Speaker 1: only takes one Now, that statement applies to so many
Speaker 1: things when gauging success and failure, spending a whole season
Speaker 1: hunting a big deer and having him put the old
Speaker 1: rastle dazzle on you every time you think you get
Speaker 1: him figured out. Then you go home thinking that I
Speaker 1: should have done this or I should have done that.
Speaker 1: But then one day it all comes together. Now you
Speaker 1: put in the time to effort, the heartbreak of almost
Speaker 1: getting him but always coming up short, until the day
Speaker 1: you don't, BINGO, you got him. The story of that
Speaker 1: struggle will live forever, and so will that deer, because
Speaker 1: something remembered and shared with like minded souls is immortal.
Speaker 1: Now you flip the script and finally get the chance,
Speaker 1: only to mess it up, and that story will seemingly
Speaker 1: live longer. Same applies to not paying attention or simply
Speaker 1: ignoring the clues that would normally have a prudent person
Speaker 1: taking corrective, evasive, or some type of cautionary action. But
Speaker 1: that describes a prudent person, not a fourteen year year
Speaker 1: old hunter on opening the morning the rifle season. Now,
Speaker 1: we built this stand as a temporary stand. Two years
Speaker 1: before this one. We were going to put in a
Speaker 1: bigger and better permit stand in that little clear where
Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt that morning, but we never did.
Speaker 1: I told one brother, Tim and Joe Bryant at supper
Speaker 1: the night before that I wanted to hunt there. Joe
Speaker 1: was Tim's brother in law, but he was a brother
Speaker 1: to us all. But this was back when we camped
Speaker 1: in an old surplus canvas army ten. We heated it
Speaker 1: with a propane heater like your grandparents had in the
Speaker 1: house of the five foot propane tank, both of which
Speaker 1: were positioned inside at the center of the tent hole.
Speaker 1: You regular listeners are starting to jump ahead right now,
Speaker 1: aren't you. You're thinking of that idiot blew the tin
Speaker 1: up or something. Well, I did it and needed to
Speaker 1: anyone else. And all the years we camped in that
Speaker 1: old ten before we built the camp. I don't remember
Speaker 1: one instance or we nearly blew up anything accidentally. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm just giving you some background and context as to
Speaker 1: how we hunted. If we could brave the cold and
Speaker 1: sometimes the heat that comes with the opening week of
Speaker 1: gun deer season in Arkansas, along with cooking in a
Speaker 1: separate visc queen wrapped cooking shack complete with a gas
Speaker 1: stove and another gas bottle attached with only coal and
Speaker 1: lanterns is light. And the bathroom we all used being
Speaker 1: a designated direction from camp and not a structure. Then
Speaker 1: a little wobbly homemade deer stand surely wouldn't stop us
Speaker 1: from hunting. Well, it wouldn't me. Tim and Job both
Speaker 1: told me they wouldn't sit in it. But what did
Speaker 1: they know. I was fourteen. I knew everything I needed
Speaker 1: to know at this point in my life. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why they was even sending me to school. I
Speaker 1: should have been teaching it somewhere. Check that ladder and
Speaker 1: if it's rotten or shows any signs of being rotten,
Speaker 1: just sit under it. You can still see that opening
Speaker 1: where the deer cross. That was the last thing Joe
Speaker 1: said to me that morning before we all headed out
Speaker 1: to our stands. I told him I would, but I
Speaker 1: had no intentions of sitting on the ground. Deer hunters
Speaker 1: shoot deer from deer stands. Felt more confident in a tree,
Speaker 1: regardless of the fact that people have been killing deer
Speaker 1: from the ground since they decided to add them to
Speaker 1: the menu. And that was when the first folks set
Speaker 1: foot here in this part of the world. Regardless of
Speaker 1: how you believe they arrived. I was letting my desire
Speaker 1: to do what I wanted to do cloud my judgment
Speaker 1: on what I should do. I got to the stand
Speaker 1: way before daylight and found it without much trouble. The
Speaker 1: dim decealed flashlight burning just bright enough to keep me
Speaker 1: from wandering off the fence line, and I was following
Speaker 1: on my left side until I got to the out
Speaker 1: and once I got there, I would hang a one
Speaker 1: point eighty inside that fence and walk back less than
Speaker 1: eighty yards to where the stand was. I walked up
Speaker 1: to it, and I'm not sure what you've pictured in
Speaker 1: your mind at this point as to what this thing
Speaker 1: constructed of, so allowed me to elaborate. There were two
Speaker 1: ten foot sweet gum poles cut that served as the
Speaker 1: front legs. They were both identically on about the size
Speaker 1: of my forearm. Four tube fours were nailed together in
Speaker 1: a square shape three feet by three feet and covered
Speaker 1: with plywood. Now this would be the floor of the stand.
Speaker 1: It then sat on the ends of the gum poles,
Speaker 1: and each of them nailed to the front two corners
Speaker 1: of the stand that would face the clearing. The back
Speaker 1: of the floor was leaned up against it nailed to
Speaker 1: two standing trees on the fence line that would serve
Speaker 1: as a backrest and help conceal my outline. It was
Speaker 1: like an extra long legged night stand. The ladder was
Speaker 1: gum poles cut to fit across the gap in the
Speaker 1: two trees that served as the back legs, and they
Speaker 1: were nailed about two feet apart. And I hope that
Speaker 1: offers a good visual of the engineering marvel that I
Speaker 1: was about to entrust my life to the one. Both
Speaker 1: my older brothers just told me not to climb yet,
Speaker 1: but I do better. I shined that light up the platform.
Speaker 1: No washing nests underneath, that's good. The milk crate was
Speaker 1: still there. That was served as my throne for the
Speaker 1: morning's festivities. That's also good. I grabbed the left front
Speaker 1: leg and I gave it a shake to test of sturdy,
Speaker 1: and I says, I looked up into the darkness and
Speaker 1: a big ball of leaves rolled off that platform and
Speaker 1: into my face. I spat out while I didn't swallow,
Speaker 1: and I shook it again. That seemed all right to me.
Speaker 1: I walked around to the backside and all the rungs
Speaker 1: were still attached. That's another good sign. Knowing full well
Speaker 1: there wasn't a round chamber in that thirty thirty attames
Speaker 1: I was shooting, I checked it anyway, just to make
Speaker 1: sure safety first. Remember usually I stepped on the bottom
Speaker 1: rung and it didn't even make a sound when it
Speaker 1: broke in. Two hm. That's not good. The last thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was what Joe had told me
Speaker 1: after supper the night before, just hunt on the ground. Now,
Speaker 1: I was fixing to get in that stand if it
Speaker 1: was the last thing I did, and it almost was.
Speaker 1: I held on to that tree that was serving as
Speaker 1: the left rear leg and stepped on to where the
Speaker 1: nails held that sweet gum rung in place. The bark
Speaker 1: in the wood of the cross pieces compressing under each
Speaker 1: as I climbed higher to the top, pulling myself up
Speaker 1: with my left hand while holding the rifle of my right,
Speaker 1: my feet placed on the ends of the nails that
Speaker 1: were poking out of the trees. Finally, at the top,
Speaker 1: I laid the rifle down in front of the milk
Speaker 1: crate and I grabbed the other tree on my right
Speaker 1: side and swung my legs off the nails and onto
Speaker 1: the platform as gently as I could, slowly adding my
Speaker 1: weight to the structure. And the final test for stability
Speaker 1: solid as a rock, MOI bo ain't know? All is good.
Speaker 1: I aised down on the mill crate. I put that
Speaker 1: rifle on my lap and I leaned back against one
Speaker 1: of the trees. I just used to get in the
Speaker 1: stand and sweat walls left of the leaves off the
Speaker 1: floor with my foot, and when I kicked them off,
Speaker 1: I felt the stand shake back and forth a little bit.
Speaker 1: I made that sweeping motion again, just to make sure
Speaker 1: I wasn't imagining it, and the old pucker factor jumped
Speaker 1: up to about seven. Hey Brent, don't do that anymore,
Speaker 1: that was what my innerself said. Not Hey Brent, you
Speaker 1: should get down while you can still walk without crutches. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it would take my inner self just about as long
Speaker 1: to wise up about life as it did my outer self,
Speaker 1: and according to my track record, that was still almost
Speaker 1: a score and a half away from happening. Daylight came
Speaker 1: and I sat motionless, moving only my head slightly as
Speaker 1: I scanned a little clearing where I knew something was
Speaker 1: going to happen. Birds were singing, Squirrels were knocking acrons
Speaker 1: out of the trees, and the woods were awake. And
Speaker 1: I was dozing off from having to sit so still.
Speaker 1: A door in the yearland walked out across the opening
Speaker 1: on the right side of my standing. That was the
Speaker 1: last thing I remember as I dozed off. I don't
Speaker 1: know how long I slept, but I woke up just
Speaker 1: in time to see the ground rushing up towards me
Speaker 1: at the speed of light. While my brain was swimming
Speaker 1: in my glasses trying to solve the equation of what
Speaker 1: was going on. Impact with the earth gave me the
Speaker 1: answer I was so desperately trying to figure out, ah gravity,
Speaker 1: That's what was happening. Gravity and carelessness, two forces, when combined,
Speaker 1: can potential create catastrophic results. Now I didn't have the
Speaker 1: wind knocked out of me and it didn't even hurt.
Speaker 1: I was lucky because it could have It could have
Speaker 1: killed me, But a funny story came out of that.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the case with a friend of mine on
Speaker 1: the East Coast. He was a good friend who helped
Speaker 1: me get my started outdoor filming. I and a couple
Speaker 1: others in him traveled out west on big private film
Speaker 1: project a couple of years in a row, and he
Speaker 1: taught me a lot about running a camera and how
Speaker 1: to film a hunt. He was always a phone call
Speaker 1: away to answer questions and give advice. Now he spent
Speaker 1: more time in the tree than most squirrels and produced
Speaker 1: some of the best outdoor hunts that a lot of
Speaker 1: you grew up watching, just like I did. But he
Speaker 1: hated safety and harnesses and he rarely wore them. The
Speaker 1: last time we filmed together was a September el khunt
Speaker 1: in the Rocky Mountains, and he told me to film
Speaker 1: a hunter at a water hole that we'd actually hung
Speaker 1: two stands in. He hunted there the day before. When
Speaker 1: I asked him if he'd left his safety strap of
Speaker 1: the tree, he said, you know, I didn't even bring
Speaker 1: one with me, you use one if you want. I
Speaker 1: was shocked, and I asked him if he ever warm me.
Speaker 1: He said no, not if I can help it. That
Speaker 1: bothered me, but it didn't influence my desire to not
Speaker 1: wear one. Two years and a month later, I got
Speaker 1: the call that he'd fallen out of a tree stand
Speaker 1: and he was dead. And I miss him, and I'm
Speaker 1: still sad about it. And I never climbed a tree
Speaker 1: that I don't think about him never. He died ten
Speaker 1: years ago. When my son Hunter was a teenager, the
Speaker 1: hard and fast rules to always have your safety equipment.
Speaker 1: If you don't have it, you don't climb the tree. Now.
Speaker 1: He learned that the hard way one day when he
Speaker 1: forgot his. We turned around and went back home. The
Speaker 1: trail camera pictures from that morning driving home all that
Speaker 1: we'd missed by him not being prepared when we got
Speaker 1: there that afternoon. But we lived to hunt another day.
Speaker 1: It only takes one. I was lucky with my one.
Speaker 1: My friend wasn't. Now is the time of year when
Speaker 1: we're all getting ready to chase those white tells them.
Speaker 1: From the bottom of my heart, I'm asking you to
Speaker 1: please where your safety artists. If not for you for
Speaker 1: the folks that love you. It's just that simple. It's easy,
Speaker 1: it only takes a minute, and it's up to us
Speaker 1: to set the example for the little folks to follow.
Speaker 1: Let's make sure we set a good one. Safety first always.
Speaker 1: That's how we're going to close this one. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Y'all, look out for one another,
Speaker 1: help folks when you can, and be safe getting around
Speaker 1: out there. This one's for you, Mike. This is Brent Reeves.
Speaker 1: Sign it off. Y'all be careful,