Speaker 1: And what I don't understand, Brent, is tell me why
Speaker 1: there's not a deer head in there. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a rural community, is built out law. There's got
Speaker 1: to be a deer head in there. On this episode
Speaker 1: of the Bargarase podcast, Brent Reeves and I are hitting
Speaker 1: the two lane highways and byways of America in search
Speaker 1: of something deep in the roots system of American identity
Speaker 1: and symbolic of a way of life. We're looking for
Speaker 1: taxidermy in gas stations. Yep, that's right. We're going on
Speaker 1: a taxidermy road trip. And I've noticed the public display
Speaker 1: of bucks, bears, and ducks is becoming rarer, and I'm
Speaker 1: in search of why the American gas station at one
Speaker 1: time acted as the town square in relational hub of
Speaker 1: small communities, but things are changing. We'll talk with podcaster JB.
Speaker 1: Shrieve about how the oil and gas industry has impacted
Speaker 1: America since World War One, and we'll also talk with
Speaker 1: an expert on the tangible effects of social capital on communities.
Speaker 1: But not before we make some incredible stops and see
Speaker 1: some incredible bucks, and meet some incredible people, get a
Speaker 1: cold fountain drink and buckle up. Because we're about to
Speaker 1: roll down the road. I doubt you're gonna want to
Speaker 1: miss this one. My sixteen year old daughter got this.
Speaker 1: She's twenty eight. Yeah, she got up that morning putting
Speaker 1: on makeup. Now, I'm a what are you doing, mom?
Speaker 1: I've got to look good in my picture when I
Speaker 1: killed the deer. People don't do that. You just do
Speaker 1: not get deer like that. And low and behind seventh
Speaker 1: thirty they know more got out there, got the deer.
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by f HF gear, American made purpose built hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as
Speaker 1: the places we explore. We're walking up to Boroughs Country
Speaker 1: Smoke House, Crystal Springs, Arkansas. We'll see if they have
Speaker 1: any deer heads or bear skulls in here. Do you
Speaker 1: reckon they do? I hope they do. We'll see it
Speaker 1: smells real good. Brent Reeves and I are on a
Speaker 1: road tripping mission. We've hit the highway in search of
Speaker 1: dear head beds, bear hides, fish and ducks, and public places.
Speaker 1: The public display of taxidermy, or p d T as
Speaker 1: we'll call it, I'm convinced, is a small but important
Speaker 1: component of rural American culture. You see in the embryonic
Speaker 1: stages of America. Hunters were the first pop culture heroes,
Speaker 1: and even going back a step further, Native Americans deeply
Speaker 1: influenced early Euro American culture, and these people truly revered
Speaker 1: a good hunter before sports figures, home improvement, instagram influences,
Speaker 1: and radio stars. Hunters carried the cultural flash that people
Speaker 1: were drawn to. They had all the adventure, the wild stories,
Speaker 1: the travel, all the fun, and provided some fundamentals to society,
Speaker 1: meet and furs. To be a hunter was a noble
Speaker 1: identity that carried with it an intrinsic set of American
Speaker 1: values self sufficiency, courage, and independence. Hunters were provideds in
Speaker 1: that world. The noble head of a buck or the
Speaker 1: height of a bear displayed in a public space was
Speaker 1: emblematic of stability and sustenance in a wild place. It
Speaker 1: was a celebration of wild beauty as well. The arcs
Speaker 1: and undulations of white tail antlers couldn't be replicated by
Speaker 1: Michelangelo or the modern world's greatest sculptors. There are finest
Speaker 1: and most raw expressions of art, and there's no way
Speaker 1: around it. Antlers on the wall are symbolic of human
Speaker 1: subjugation and winning in the wilderness. And if you don't
Speaker 1: like the sound of that, try this one on a
Speaker 1: parking lot of building a car. Are all signs of
Speaker 1: man dominating nature to just not as poetic. A deer
Speaker 1: head is comparatively a really nice gesture. However, the world
Speaker 1: interprets deer heads in public places. I don't really care.
Speaker 1: I love them. I always have. When I walk into
Speaker 1: a business and I see a buck hanging on the wall,
Speaker 1: I feel a warming sensation in my spirit. I can't
Speaker 1: explain it, I just always have. I can actually remember
Speaker 1: stores from my childhood that had big deer but most
Speaker 1: of them are gone. I feel like the march of
Speaker 1: time is taking away parts of our culture, and deer
Speaker 1: heads and gas stations in public places is one of them.
Speaker 1: They're disappearing. But why, I'm in search of the answer. Remember,
Speaker 1: we've just walked into a smokehouse. Hunter Roark's family has
Speaker 1: owned and ran it for the last forty years. Burrol's
Speaker 1: Country Smokehouse was named after Burl ro Ark, Hunter's grandfather,
Speaker 1: who passed away a few years ago. He was a
Speaker 1: well spoken and stately man. He wore a long beard
Speaker 1: and leather boots up to his knee eats. Talking with him,
Speaker 1: it was hard to discern if you were talking to
Speaker 1: a backwoods trapper or a governor. I like these kind
Speaker 1: of people. I've asked Hunter to tell me about the smokehouse. Well,
Speaker 1: Burl Smokehouse, We've been here for over forty years, and
Speaker 1: my grandpa opened it and we've been voted best sandwich
Speaker 1: in the state back in the nineties. We smoked all
Speaker 1: of our own meats and cheeses, homemade bread, full of
Speaker 1: antiques and full of bear hides and elk sheds and yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of like we got lots of lots of bear
Speaker 1: pictures on the wall. This is your grandpa and uncle.
Speaker 1: And do you know anything about this bear over here?
Speaker 1: Where did that bear come from? Pretty sure that bear
Speaker 1: came from over around, you know, but we've always called
Speaker 1: it the Hawkins Lands. Yeah, that's where that one should
Speaker 1: have came from. Now there's a there's a nice white
Speaker 1: tail buck hanging out there. You know anything about that, dear? Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: Grandpa just bought it. I could make up some story
Speaker 1: for We walk up to a glass case filled with
Speaker 1: giant cinnamon rolls and above it are scores of stone,
Speaker 1: projectile points and framed glass cases. Yeah, I look at this, Brent,
Speaker 1: describe how big that is? That that's about the size
Speaker 1: of a grizzly bear Home Paul in Alaska. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can feed a small child for a week for this
Speaker 1: right here. That's what you are famous for, hunt Man.
Speaker 1: Look at those, the beef jerky and the cinnamon rolls
Speaker 1: your two best most popular items, you know, Giant cinnamon rolls,
Speaker 1: bear hide, stone points, and white tails. Man, I love
Speaker 1: this place and I love America. Could this get any better?
Speaker 1: Yes it can. We've got a big hook right here.
Speaker 1: That's a blubber hook for whales whenever they are. It's
Speaker 1: probably three ft long with a big, big ring on
Speaker 1: the end of it where it could hang, and it's
Speaker 1: just a bit. It looks like a huge fishing hook.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they use it on the boats to pull
Speaker 1: the whale blubber up into the boat. But yeah, they
Speaker 1: hook that blubber on that hook and winch it up
Speaker 1: into the boats. That's the kind of energy I came
Speaker 1: here for. Brent reeves a blubber hook. That's where you
Speaker 1: want to eat. That's where you want to get your
Speaker 1: beef jerk. It looks like a barbelous trout hook from
Speaker 1: Moby Dick Burrows. Country spoke House is a fair Grease
Speaker 1: podcast approved business. I love a place that isn't afraid
Speaker 1: of a little p DT. And we're on the road again.
Speaker 1: Our pokes are full of goodies, and we're headed east
Speaker 1: on Highway to seventy towards Kirby, Arkansas, and we coast
Speaker 1: in on fumes into the Brady Mountain. One stop, we
Speaker 1: go in to check it out. We're looking for some
Speaker 1: p DT, the public display of taxidermy. So Brent and
Speaker 1: I just during the run out of gas and we
Speaker 1: made it to a gas station over here around Crystal Springs.
Speaker 1: And I've never been in this gas station, but it
Speaker 1: looks promising. It's kind a log cabin looking place. I
Speaker 1: just saw a guy with Nirvana shirt. Let's walk up
Speaker 1: in here and see if there's any any tax dermy,
Speaker 1: any fish anything? Oh nice? Oh, look at there a
Speaker 1: wood duck coming in hot. It's like hot, a little
Speaker 1: dust on it. It would like us coming in here
Speaker 1: with the there's a yoke for a mule, like a
Speaker 1: plow and yolk hanging on the wall. Here's some planners, peanut.
Speaker 1: Look at that right there, that's a mule deer. That
Speaker 1: is about a hundred mule deer. That's pretty odd for Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Some hillbilly from Arkansas drove out west in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: in their granddad's Pontiac. Hold that thing back and look
Speaker 1: there's a big striper. We're over here by Lake Washtall. Hey,
Speaker 1: this gas station gets an A plus rating from the
Speaker 1: Burgeras podcast. Yeah you got bait, tackle, taxidermy and fuel
Speaker 1: happy and slightly surprised to and some PDT. On our
Speaker 1: first unscripted stop. We're on the road again, and I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, this trip hasn't been planned blindly. I know
Speaker 1: about some great gas stations with big deer heads, and
Speaker 1: we're headed to one now in Kirby. But while en route,
Speaker 1: we cut through the back roads and I see a
Speaker 1: country gas station and we pull in. We're in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: little store. I have no idea if they got any
Speaker 1: deer heads. In here. It's like a big log. It
Speaker 1: looks promising. We walk into the tidy, well staffed establishment
Speaker 1: and buy a drink as our cover, I'll have a
Speaker 1: great thank you, take care, thank you struck out. So
Speaker 1: we walked in there, and we uh, we didn't. We
Speaker 1: didn't want to be rude to these sweet people. So
Speaker 1: I bought a Mountain dew and Bent bought a s.
Speaker 1: But there was not a deer head in sight when
Speaker 1: we walked in there. And what I don't know, a
Speaker 1: stand Brent is tell me why there's not a deer
Speaker 1: head in there. I mean, this is a rural community's
Speaker 1: built on laws. There's got to be a deer head
Speaker 1: in there. But this is not a bear groose approved business.
Speaker 1: It's not approved, it's not sanctioned. It's we can't sanction this.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't get behind it. Now, fair buckle up.
Speaker 1: I'm not wishing ill on these people. They had no
Speaker 1: they had no excuse. Motif it would fit the motif
Speaker 1: it would there's no excuse. It was just empty walls.
Speaker 1: Slightly discouraged. We're on the road again. We hit Highways seventy,
Speaker 1: head through Glenwood into downtown Kirby. I'm looking for a
Speaker 1: place called dun Laps. There it is Man the dun
Speaker 1: Lap Store. Three a gallon given it away, No kidding.
Speaker 1: That's the cheapest gas I've seen in weeks. So this
Speaker 1: place where in Curby, Arkansas. Here comes an ambulance pull over.
Speaker 1: So the dun Lap Store is known far and wide
Speaker 1: for having a bunch of big deer and fish, and
Speaker 1: I've never been in this store. We're looking for a
Speaker 1: woman named Sandra. Okay, Oh yeah, hello are you Sandra.
Speaker 1: I'm Clay. Thank you for for meeting with This is
Speaker 1: Brent Reeves. Reeves. Dun Laps sits on the southeast corner
Speaker 1: of the crossing of Highway eighty four and twenty seven.
Speaker 1: It's the crossroads at the center of town. There are
Speaker 1: a couple of gas pumps outside, but it feels like
Speaker 1: you're walking into a small grocery store. They've got some
Speaker 1: serious p DT. How long have you had this store?
Speaker 1: This is your businesses not to Ny two September the
Speaker 1: feet will be thirty years we've been here. Excellent, that's great. Plus,
Speaker 1: Ernie dune Lap started it in about nineteen thirty thirty
Speaker 1: six and he had it for fifty plus years. Another
Speaker 1: man had it for three years, and then we came
Speaker 1: back from Texas. We had I've worked for Mr Dunlope
Speaker 1: my whole life here. I had my fifteenth birthday in
Speaker 1: this store. So every time I go to I went
Speaker 1: to Henderson State University, and when I go, he'd want
Speaker 1: me to come back and working the summers. Tell me
Speaker 1: I picked my hours whatever I wanted to work and all,
Speaker 1: and so I I just lived here practically. As we
Speaker 1: talked to Miss Sandra. Directly to our left is a
Speaker 1: string of big white tail shoulder mounts. I try not
Speaker 1: to be distracted, maintaining the eye contact that's important when
Speaker 1: you first meet someone. But I'm ready to talk white tales.
Speaker 1: Will you give us a tour of your of brand?
Speaker 1: What kind of what kind of duck is that brands?
Speaker 1: That another it is? That's a drake Wood duck and
Speaker 1: he's uh coming in. I don't know. Squirrel, there's a squirrel, right,
Speaker 1: So it was all this stuff here when you got
Speaker 1: the store saying no. Ms. Madison Vaughan a young man.
Speaker 1: He's about twenty two right now. He started taxidermis when
Speaker 1: he's about sixteen, and so that's when it needs destin.
Speaker 1: I'm not taking real good care of it. Mad dog
Speaker 1: taxidermy if you need anything, called Madison's Madison Vaughan is
Speaker 1: his name. And then we have an elder, Hail Billy Don.
Speaker 1: How are you? Yeah? So these deer man, there's some
Speaker 1: big deer. So I'm looking at let me let me
Speaker 1: count on one, two, three, four or five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight nine ten bucks, Brent, I'm gonna say that deer
Speaker 1: right there is a hundred probably a hundred sixty seventy
Speaker 1: in deer, no doubt. Actually you know the score seventy
Speaker 1: six because it is knows the score. We had a
Speaker 1: plaque on it up here. This was Severe Counties laden deer.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Curzy killed it twenty years before that. He got this, dear,
Speaker 1: very impressed Sandor that you knew the score of that.
Speaker 1: I've heard it from him and nephew, and he was
Speaker 1: telling me, I'm pretty sure. I mean, don't I know.
Speaker 1: It looks every bit of it. It looks every bit,
Speaker 1: but it is Severe Counties. It's the leading of all
Speaker 1: time because it won it in twift But he said
Speaker 1: twenty years before he killed that year at Gilham said
Speaker 1: he was at home and he drive in and said
Speaker 1: his neighbors told and said he'd look at it every
Speaker 1: day and said, this neighbor said you better get that, dear.
Speaker 1: Somebody's gonna get that dear. So he got it. And
Speaker 1: can you that thing's a monster. Do you see the
Speaker 1: devil horns? I've never saw this. Do you see the
Speaker 1: devil horns on it? I never knew about those. Now,
Speaker 1: what you're calling devil horn is just split. No down
Speaker 1: here on the bottom right about his high boss. See
Speaker 1: where they stick out the little yeah kickers whatever. But okay,
Speaker 1: like this, Oh, I took her, I took her picture down.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, my sixteen year old daughter got this.
Speaker 1: She's twenty eighth. Yeah, she will be Dr Carly in
Speaker 1: December third of this year. She graduates from Dr. Carr
Speaker 1: Practic in Dallas, Texas. When she was sixteen, she killed
Speaker 1: this deer. She got up that morning. Her and her
Speaker 1: brother argued. He said, no, no, you can go, you
Speaker 1: can go. He was like nine, and she said, no, Carly,
Speaker 1: you go. He didn't want to get up. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to get up. So she's up putting on makeup. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm a what are you? Didn't mom? I've got to
Speaker 1: look good in my picture. When I killed the deer,
Speaker 1: I said, honey, people don't do that. You just do
Speaker 1: not get deer like that. And lo and behind seventh
Speaker 1: thirty they no more got out there, got the deer.
Speaker 1: She calls back. I go in and tell her little
Speaker 1: brother and he and he never does is. He had
Speaker 1: a melt down, jerk that cover up over his head,
Speaker 1: had a squall and fit. I said, you get your
Speaker 1: mother out of that bed, and you got be proud
Speaker 1: for your sister. I said, she would be proud for you.
Speaker 1: So when he got to go the next time, he
Speaker 1: got the squareliest looking little horns. But he was tickled
Speaker 1: to day and that hanging in the gas station and
Speaker 1: he was do you know the score of that, dear you, Carly?
Speaker 1: I do not know me. It's probably half of that one. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess it's a high one point. I am
Speaker 1: very impressed that she knows all the stories about these
Speaker 1: dear ms. Sandra doesn't know it, but she's ascended to
Speaker 1: the ranks of some of the best storytellers of the
Speaker 1: Beargrease podcast. But she isn't through yet. My brother killed
Speaker 1: this one, and Carly had got her Sparson and shine
Speaker 1: he got his. Like A couple of years later, my
Speaker 1: husband at a day lot till dark all week long,
Speaker 1: did not see anything. They went to our lace at
Speaker 1: Pike City Park City ark saw down here long and
Speaker 1: so my brother watched NASCAR racing all day. Decided then
Speaker 1: who was gonna run over and hunt kills? This dear
Speaker 1: calls me and he's a nervous rate. He said, I
Speaker 1: think it's big. Now I don't know, maybe it don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's big. No, maybe it's not. So he said,
Speaker 1: you got a flashlight, Kim to get me and my
Speaker 1: little son, my whole son at that time was about
Speaker 1: to has a barney flash like that's all we had,
Speaker 1: and we back it in. He backed up to the
Speaker 1: tellot's hid it and I said, big my foot, Shane,
Speaker 1: Yes it was. It was gigantic. The horns were turned
Speaker 1: and it was standing up. It was great. And my
Speaker 1: niece wants to come and get that. She's his daughter,
Speaker 1: has just had a baby, and she wants to put
Speaker 1: in the nursery. So we might be looking might lose.
Speaker 1: How could this place get any better? These people want
Speaker 1: to put this dear head in their kids nursery hashtag winning.
Speaker 1: And we haven't even mentioned the bear hide hanging on
Speaker 1: the back wall of this store. I'm very impressed that
Speaker 1: you know all these stories, stories, and and and I
Speaker 1: wish we had George mccuardor George mcquarter if you're listening,
Speaker 1: you better get your deer back up here. We had
Speaker 1: come on George. We had to hang George's down through
Speaker 1: where that one's hung down. We had they went through
Speaker 1: it and then I mean literally, when we hung it down,
Speaker 1: they still touched the ceiling. That dear was just a
Speaker 1: freak of nature, and he took it. He won. I
Speaker 1: think it was a state of Arkansas for and what
Speaker 1: is it? No typical, but oh it was unbelievable. Before
Speaker 1: we leave, here's a little bit more about the store.
Speaker 1: This is such a neat store. So you got you
Speaker 1: got quite a bit of fishing tackle over here. You
Speaker 1: got pretty good. I mean it's handcut, revised, handcut. I
Speaker 1: have some ribs, Yeah, I have ribs. I have everything.
Speaker 1: We have Deli mead. All your people love our Cajun turkey.
Speaker 1: We do Deli sandwiches. We run our own hamburger, but
Speaker 1: hand dipped ospreme. We have hand dipped discres a d
Speaker 1: plus years. It's been here. Yes, Well, I gotta say, Sandra,
Speaker 1: when I walk into a gas station like this, absolutely
Speaker 1: love it because there's just there. Used to these community
Speaker 1: stores like this were like the hub of the community,
Speaker 1: which it feels like this still is, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of rare. And then I display up there there's the gardeners, pictures,
Speaker 1: there's kids. I'm sure there's no of no relation to yell.
Speaker 1: They're just part of this community. Well we are. We're
Speaker 1: all like family. Yeah, everybody's like family. Well, and and
Speaker 1: then I love coming in here and seeing deer heads where,
Speaker 1: I mean, I really do. It's just it's just kind
Speaker 1: of who we are as our Kansas dun Lap store
Speaker 1: and Miss Sandra are gonna be hard to top. In
Speaker 1: This place is certainly Bear Grease podcast approved. But our
Speaker 1: trip isn't over yet. We're just getting started. I want
Speaker 1: to understand why gas stations like dun Laps are becoming
Speaker 1: more rare. JB. Shrieved is the host of the End
Speaker 1: of History podcast. He's an author and just a smart dude.
Speaker 1: I go to him when I need answers, and I
Speaker 1: want to learn now about how the ups and downs
Speaker 1: of the oil and gas industry of affected American culture,
Speaker 1: specifically mom and pop gas stations. Here's JB. So the
Speaker 1: US is really an oil economy, like there's probably never
Speaker 1: been an economy like this in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: There hasn't, in fact, because the globe went to oil
Speaker 1: right after World War One and the British changed their
Speaker 1: navy over from coal to oil. And that's where the
Speaker 1: story really picks up. As far as when when when
Speaker 1: oil went mainstream in the global economy, well after World
Speaker 1: War Two. What happened is the U s comes back
Speaker 1: and a lot of this stuff had already started to
Speaker 1: occur in the nineteen twenties, but then the Great Depression hit,
Speaker 1: World War Two hits, and everything gets put on pause.
Speaker 1: As far as economic development. We come back from World
Speaker 1: War Two and everybody's got money in hand. There's this
Speaker 1: economic boom that's unfolded, and it kept on unfolding until
Speaker 1: the latter half of the nineteen sixties. In that economic boom,
Speaker 1: it's really a story of oil at the bottom of everything.
Speaker 1: You see oil rising and it's easy access oil for
Speaker 1: the United States, and it really changed the way the
Speaker 1: US economy works, so that it really changed our society,
Speaker 1: our culture. Well, in the not in fifties, you get
Speaker 1: an interstate system built, and so people are driving more
Speaker 1: in The interstate system came from Dwight Eisenhower came back
Speaker 1: from Germany. He saw the autobaron, he sees all these things.
Speaker 1: He's anticipating, you know, we could have World War three,
Speaker 1: and so they want to build an interstate system that's
Speaker 1: going to connect all the military bases around the country.
Speaker 1: That was the original inception, but of course it turned
Speaker 1: into something that connected trade all over the country, and
Speaker 1: so people started driving and we became a driving culture
Speaker 1: that you have the rise of fast food in the
Speaker 1: not team fifties, you have the rise uh and that's
Speaker 1: people just eating in their car on their way to
Speaker 1: in the automobile industry just took off and they were
Speaker 1: all these lots of different models of cars and it
Speaker 1: became yeah, and it's like it's not like yeah exactly
Speaker 1: gas conors. I remember on the movie Back to the
Speaker 1: Future where at one point they've got a car that's
Speaker 1: flying or something and he says, don't hit that, it'll
Speaker 1: just rip into you because it's built like a tank.
Speaker 1: Cars were built differently back then because they were heavier,
Speaker 1: we had the oil and it's cheap. It was easy
Speaker 1: to access, and so who cares about how much it
Speaker 1: costs to fill it up because it was cheap at
Speaker 1: that time. So you've got all of this going on.
Speaker 1: It's changed in the shape of the economy. And one
Speaker 1: of the big things all these gas stations start to
Speaker 1: develop as people are traveling across the country with gas guzzlers,
Speaker 1: so they've got to stop pretty frequently to fill up. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and so you can only get the price of gas
Speaker 1: so cheap. As far as that would there would be
Speaker 1: price wars throughout the nineteen fifties between these gas companies,
Speaker 1: the mom and pop shops as well as the big corporations.
Speaker 1: But they decided, you know, what we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: do is build some other kind of competitive edge. So
Speaker 1: if you watch like the Andy Griffiths Show or any
Speaker 1: show from back there in that time, you see guys
Speaker 1: come out of the gas station. They're wearing a uniform.
Speaker 1: They're gonna wash your windows, they're gonna check your oil,
Speaker 1: they're gonna check your lights, do all this stuff, and
Speaker 1: don't you dare pump your own gas. We've got that
Speaker 1: for you. It was this real customer service oriented ideal
Speaker 1: when you go to the gas station. Now we're seeing
Speaker 1: why gas stations needed a custom gas purchasing experience. I
Speaker 1: remember a gas station that was in business in my
Speaker 1: lifetime in Oklahoma that had a live mountain lion. Not kidding. Now.
Speaker 1: That gives a man a reason to stop. But you
Speaker 1: know what else will get me to do it you
Speaker 1: turn and fill up my tank, dear horns. This idea
Speaker 1: of the mom and pop like custom gas stations, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to say it any other way than that,
Speaker 1: because today I would say most of our gas stations
Speaker 1: are anything but custom and have like unique signatures of
Speaker 1: it being like a mom and pop store. Back then,
Speaker 1: that would have been common, right right, yeah, the mom
Speaker 1: and pop thing, But also it was it was really
Speaker 1: built around appealing to the customer to bring them in.
Speaker 1: So like what you're talking about with these gas stations
Speaker 1: in the rural areas. Of course, I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: big landscape, but in the rural areas, they're gonna appeal
Speaker 1: to the rural community. Right, this is where this is
Speaker 1: the town square. We want you to stop here, and
Speaker 1: even the little town I grew up in It wasn't
Speaker 1: a nice guys station, but I remember guys coming in
Speaker 1: there and they would measure their big bucks at Don's
Speaker 1: gas station, right next to the single cafe that was
Speaker 1: in town there. That was still a thing. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a nice place to hang out, but that was something
Speaker 1: that started back in the nineteen fifties with the surge
Speaker 1: of the oil economy in the US. Remember that, the
Speaker 1: surge of the oil economy. I asked JB. What broke
Speaker 1: up the mom and pop gas station craze. So the
Speaker 1: economy is booming up until the early nineteen seventies and
Speaker 1: there's this Opeque oil embargo. That's where basically a lot
Speaker 1: of the Middle East countries got together and they're going
Speaker 1: to restrict the amount of oil they were releasing to
Speaker 1: the Western world. With that, all of a sudden, that's
Speaker 1: when you start seeing gas lines. You start seeing there's
Speaker 1: a limit to gas. So the price of gases. There
Speaker 1: were people in lines at gas station trying to fill up,
Speaker 1: and that was a big thing throughout the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: and so the price of gas suddenly became came higher.
Speaker 1: When the gas prices went up, you see again changes
Speaker 1: happen in society. The type of cars we drove started
Speaker 1: to change. The muscle cars of the nineteen sixties, you
Speaker 1: still had some of the nineteen seventies, but the smaller
Speaker 1: vehicles became more prominent because it was more affordable to drive.
Speaker 1: You got the Pento, You've got the Gremlin, You've got
Speaker 1: all these little cars. Even the muscle card like the
Speaker 1: Ford Mustang, like compared to a Charger or a Leman's,
Speaker 1: the Mustang was a lot smaller, you know, that was
Speaker 1: the way it was. Lee I Coca pitched that it's
Speaker 1: gonna be an affordable muscle car. And yet these gas
Speaker 1: stations they had to find some way of bringing people in,
Speaker 1: and they started sacrificing the service at the pump stuff,
Speaker 1: and it was more we're gonna make it as cheap
Speaker 1: as we can and get you in and out as
Speaker 1: fast as we can. Because people were tired of waiting
Speaker 1: in lines. They didn't want to pay more than they
Speaker 1: had to for gas. And so the guy with a
Speaker 1: little hat disappeared. That all of that started to fade out,
Speaker 1: and so you trickle that they valued efficiencies exactly, making
Speaker 1: it as cheap as you could, and so you trickle
Speaker 1: that down to the rural community. These and a lot
Speaker 1: of that. It just became faster people were coming through,
Speaker 1: and so I would assume that's where a lot of
Speaker 1: the town square feel that you're talking about in the
Speaker 1: rural communities didn't disappear completely, but that's really where it
Speaker 1: started to be hity. Yeah. And when you think about
Speaker 1: used to go to the gas station and it was
Speaker 1: kind of a little bit of an event. Man comes out,
Speaker 1: you might, you might go in the store, and it
Speaker 1: just it took a long time. Then it became about
Speaker 1: efficiency and price, not service. And that goes right back
Speaker 1: to my deer heads. That the reason that these store
Speaker 1: owners to this day have a deer head and their
Speaker 1: store is people want to come in and see it.
Speaker 1: It's something that the community can kind of get around
Speaker 1: and there's stories about these deer and it it initiates conversation.
Speaker 1: And it feels like today most of our gas station
Speaker 1: experiences anyway, it's about efficiency. Yeah, the community get aspect
Speaker 1: really got lost. And we're talking about gas stations. You
Speaker 1: can trickle up throughout the whole economy. The pleasant social
Speaker 1: experience of buying gas was traded for efficiency and cheap prices.
Speaker 1: Now that sounds like America. And now with prepay fuel,
Speaker 1: the idea is you don't even have to go into
Speaker 1: the store, you don't even have to interface with another
Speaker 1: human to buy gas. I'd be the first to want
Speaker 1: to pay less for something, but when you really think
Speaker 1: about it, what did we lose by paying less and
Speaker 1: what did we gain? Later in this episode, we'll talk
Speaker 1: with an expert on the idea of social capital, which
Speaker 1: is basically our networks of relationships. Will learn about the
Speaker 1: tangible contributions of this thing called social capital. Would it
Speaker 1: be true this this is anecdotal, but it feels like
Speaker 1: it would be correct. Is that when it became about
Speaker 1: price and not service and not a unique experience going
Speaker 1: to a mom and pop gas station that might have
Speaker 1: some attractions, then the big corporations, the big franchises were
Speaker 1: able to win in the gas station war because they
Speaker 1: can have a thousand x X gas station, and then
Speaker 1: the mom and pop store got And that's why when
Speaker 1: you drive around rural Arkansas, Oklahoma, rural anywhere, it's littered
Speaker 1: with old gas stations. It's like ghost towns. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and so am I right? And that that's what happened.
Speaker 1: It really is because it became more efficient and even regionally,
Speaker 1: if you go into the Northeastern United States, you're gonna
Speaker 1: see different chains that dominate in the Northeastern United States.
Speaker 1: In the Western u s there's different chains than in
Speaker 1: what we see in the southern US. But those chains
Speaker 1: took over, and that's really what it is. JB. I
Speaker 1: want to make an appeal to the people in power
Speaker 1: that own gas stations in rural America. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're in an urban place and you don't think your
Speaker 1: customer base would identify with this, that's okay, But it
Speaker 1: bothers me to go into a rural gas station and
Speaker 1: not see a deerhead, JB. Or a fish. Just give
Speaker 1: me a fish. Is that too much to ask? When
Speaker 1: it doesn't sing well, I mean even singing fishes a
Speaker 1: hat tip, we're singing deer go. This is all making sense.
Speaker 1: It's making me appreciate more of the place that's like
Speaker 1: dun Laps that are still in business. But now we're
Speaker 1: on the road again, headed to Dirk's, Arkansas to meet
Speaker 1: up with Mr Clifton Ward. He's seventy seven years old
Speaker 1: and he's got a wall full of deer and turkeys
Speaker 1: hanging in the VP Quick Track gas station the highway beneath.
Speaker 1: This feels good and I can't wait to see these deer.
Speaker 1: So we're at the VP gas station and Dirk's Arkansas.
Speaker 1: We're fixing going here and meet Clifton Ward. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: You got your money? Brent's been buying me stuff at
Speaker 1: every gas station? Are you? Are you? Mr? Mr Clifton
Speaker 1: Clay Nukelen, pleasure to meet Brent Reeves. Thank you for
Speaker 1: meeting us. So you used to own this gas station?
Speaker 1: Is that right? We'll be old the answer. Yeah, ninety
Speaker 1: six told him to ninety six. We'll show us you're
Speaker 1: dear in here. We walk in the door of a
Speaker 1: modern gas station. Honestly, it's not one you'd expect to
Speaker 1: see a bunch of deer heads hanging in. But we
Speaker 1: are pleasantly surprised. Mr Clifton doesn't own this story anymore,
Speaker 1: but his deer are still here. The owner. He didn't
Speaker 1: mind the mountain stand on the wall, and I haven't
Speaker 1: took him down it's this time. But my wife even
Speaker 1: didn't when we put him up, But after a while
Speaker 1: she just couldn't believe at the interest people coming in.
Speaker 1: Oh my good this, Oh my good, miss. So it
Speaker 1: became a draw for people to come down here to
Speaker 1: see these deer and the elk and be bad. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't drawn. So let's see we got we just
Speaker 1: walked in here. We got a couple of big elk.
Speaker 1: We got one to three, four or five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight big deer, two full gobbler amounts, some turkey beards
Speaker 1: and spurs. Looks good in here. Oh there's another deer
Speaker 1: over there. So, uh, Clifton, did all these deer come
Speaker 1: from down here in this part of the world. This
Speaker 1: one was a Montana deer. Let's rest of them our
Speaker 1: count I pick out the biggest buck on the wall
Speaker 1: and ask for the story. Tell me about that, dear, Well,
Speaker 1: it was way bag. I'm an old school deer hunter now.
Speaker 1: From little kid up, we hunted, but it was well
Speaker 1: life back then. No Arterillory till I was growing. You know,
Speaker 1: there was ten of his kids in the family, the
Speaker 1: first five of the boys, and I number five. So
Speaker 1: it was trickled down the line. Four years. Goody actually
Speaker 1: made be on money and brought your own weapons. So
Speaker 1: I've still got the first weapon every bought. Mr Clifton
Speaker 1: hesitates as he looks at the tall time and buck.
Speaker 1: He stares at it as if he's never seen it before,
Speaker 1: and then he tells me the tactic he employed to
Speaker 1: kill it road hung. We really like the road hunt
Speaker 1: in this country. I used to not not anymore because
Speaker 1: the way laws chain, but drove went on job side.
Speaker 1: I was working on him. He was in the clear
Speaker 1: cut that I was working on. Garry was so unfortunately
Speaker 1: I got him. I'll take an honest man any day
Speaker 1: over any other variety of man. And to clarify, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of clear cuts and pine plantations down
Speaker 1: here on private land. They used to drive the roads
Speaker 1: looking for deer and cuts. Honestly, it's not a lot
Speaker 1: different than glassen for deer out west. Now let me
Speaker 1: let me. I want to look. I want to describe this, dear.
Speaker 1: This is probably this is a pretty tight rack, probably
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen inch wide deer, but just sky, just huge times.
Speaker 1: Do you know that any measurements on that, dear, I
Speaker 1: don't never had a major. I would imagine that dear
Speaker 1: is in the one seventies, do you uh no, No,
Speaker 1: Maybe I think he's a low ball on it. I'm
Speaker 1: an official measure, so that doesn't mean I'm right. Hey,
Speaker 1: how are you? Man? Well, I was down here at
Speaker 1: the request of your son to meet this guy right here. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. It's a small world, and this is the
Speaker 1: biggest unscripted coincidence of our road trip. Not five seconds
Speaker 1: after we were guessing the buck score, Jack Johnson walks in.
Speaker 1: Jack is a veteran official Boone and Crockett and Pope
Speaker 1: and young Score. And he doesn't even live in Dirk's.
Speaker 1: He was just randomly passing through. Wild Man. I want
Speaker 1: to see what Jack thinks this buck scores. Hey, this
Speaker 1: is a guy we absolutely need to what do you
Speaker 1: This guy's an official score big time. This is what
Speaker 1: he's scored, dear for forty years. Guests on this big
Speaker 1: dear gross score had that measure. He's the one. That's
Speaker 1: what I told Mr Clifton, and he shook his head. Hey,
Speaker 1: his his guest counts, man counts. We both agreed the
Speaker 1: buck would easily gross in the one seventies. That's a
Speaker 1: big pine thicke. At Whitetail. Here's Mr Clifton giving us
Speaker 1: a little more history on deer hunting. He had just
Speaker 1: brought up one of his old hunting buddies. I always
Speaker 1: grew up. I grew up with dogs and so I
Speaker 1: had dogs and he didn't. But we got the dog
Speaker 1: hunting quite a lot. We did a little dog running.
Speaker 1: A lot of that goes on in this country. This
Speaker 1: is part of Arkansas. It's legal run dogs still, he is, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've made hunters, but later years trying to do better.
Speaker 1: Yea quitting dollar running. And I was in the army,
Speaker 1: of course, unfortunately made back in Vietnam. Okay, But after
Speaker 1: that I started trying. We had a count started. I said,
Speaker 1: what was I start buck hunting. I'll try to tell
Speaker 1: my buddy. And then I told him I still to
Speaker 1: six point or better. He wouldn't agree to it, and uh,
Speaker 1: I said, He said, you let us fine go. He's
Speaker 1: I'll take him. I said, no, come on now. He
Speaker 1: and I. I turned the dogs loose and they went
Speaker 1: a different way. He run around picking me up and
Speaker 1: we cut him off. And it's a big clear cut
Speaker 1: that you see across. It's in the afternoon sunshine, and
Speaker 1: it's a buck. It's probably two fifty yards running. Look
Speaker 1: pretty big. He shoots and mrs I don't miss we'll
Speaker 1: get over and it's forking one. You broke your own
Speaker 1: rule first rating out of the box, but but I did.
Speaker 1: I later went to eight pointer better and put my
Speaker 1: dogs left him in the pen. I had twelve good
Speaker 1: running dogs didn't turn him loose, so I started hunting
Speaker 1: eight pointer better. The idea of regulating the size of
Speaker 1: the bucks that he killed was revolutionary for the time.
Speaker 1: Mr Clifton was basically the Mark Kenyon of Howard County,
Speaker 1: Arkansas in the nineteen seventies. And he's about to give
Speaker 1: us a tip for our next stop. I love it.
Speaker 1: Anytime I go into a gas station with the deer horns,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is where I want to buy my gas.
Speaker 1: I was traveling Handler's, Oklahoma one day and Stationers Section.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I had to had to miss that place,
Speaker 1: Antlers Aler's, Oklahoma. Somebody told me we needed to go there.
Speaker 1: I don't have any idea if it's still there anymore.
Speaker 1: How far is that from here? Do you know? Right
Speaker 1: at hunter Moms one, we got enough gas to make it. Antlers,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma and back twice station you can buy after the tip,
Speaker 1: we're on the road again. And the Dirk's Quick Trip
Speaker 1: Store is one d Bear Grease Podcast approved and you
Speaker 1: guessed it. We're headed towards Antler's, Oklahoma, but not without
Speaker 1: checking out a few gas stations along the way. All Right,
Speaker 1: we've driven to Hayworth, Oklahoma, from from Dirk's. We're in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma now. We were told that there were some big
Speaker 1: Bucks at a gas station Hayworth. Let's go see if
Speaker 1: we can find it. Hey, are you buying drinks this time?
Speaker 1: And it's probably my turn in I've been buying him
Speaker 1: every time we walk into a small, promising looking rural
Speaker 1: gas station. How are you good? Is this is this
Speaker 1: your store? Who's that? Oh? We were told you had
Speaker 1: some big deer down here? Are these your deer? Are
Speaker 1: they really? You killed him? Bingo? There at least five
Speaker 1: deer on the wall, and the one in the middle
Speaker 1: is a big main frame ten point. What do you think, Brent?
Speaker 1: That one in the middle, that one? Do you know?
Speaker 1: What's that? Dear? Score? Big mainframe ten point? We had
Speaker 1: never had him scored. The one on this end was
Speaker 1: rough fast, It was like one fifty something fantastic Bucks.
Speaker 1: And the one in the middle was way bigger than
Speaker 1: the one that they thought scored one fifty it's probably
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty five inch deer. We approve of
Speaker 1: the PDT of this store and we're on the road again.
Speaker 1: And as we roll through Idablle, Oklahoma and route to Antlers,
Speaker 1: we see a big, beautiful gas station with a marketing
Speaker 1: campaign giving a significant and odd nod to the wild.
Speaker 1: We pull in with our fingers crossed. We're in a
Speaker 1: place called gas Squatch. They have about a forty ft
Speaker 1: sign out front, a big sasquatch sign. That's a beautiful
Speaker 1: gas station would shake shingles huge place. There's not a
Speaker 1: dear head in here. It's gonna be upsetting. Let me
Speaker 1: say that again. These boys have a forty foot big
Speaker 1: foot as their sign on the highway. We walk through
Speaker 1: big glass doors and are hit in the face with
Speaker 1: extremely cold air. There are sasquatches everywhere, there's sas I
Speaker 1: do give them credit for the big sasquatch over there.
Speaker 1: Him not a deer head insight, though, is there? Brother?
Speaker 1: I see a car in here, Well, you're gonna give
Speaker 1: him a small amount of credit. They do have a
Speaker 1: pretty nice selection of antique cars in the gas stations,
Speaker 1: actually a very nice selection. But you know what that
Speaker 1: doesn't count for it doesn't count for deer head. It
Speaker 1: ain't This place is not sanctioned. This place it's cute.
Speaker 1: God a that is a sweet trans am. I don't
Speaker 1: know this place is cool. It is not Bargeras podcast
Speaker 1: to prove they've done a nice job. We wish him
Speaker 1: the best. But you know what, you should have had
Speaker 1: a dear head in here. It could have been one
Speaker 1: if they had one deer head hanging right up there.
Speaker 1: Even the buffalo. I'm gonna take a picture of this
Speaker 1: for Gary nucom and says cougar on the car. Gas
Speaker 1: squatch is a nice place, and I'm sure somebody in Idabelle,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma would be glad to display their buck in this store.
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody can make this happen. But regardless, we're on
Speaker 1: the road again. Within a few miles though, we do
Speaker 1: a U turn when we see a gas station called Hanks.
Speaker 1: It's got a buck on the sign. We walk inside.
Speaker 1: We are pumped because we can see bucks from the road.
Speaker 1: So there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 1: dear seven freedom mounts one just buck mount How big
Speaker 1: is that shoulder? Man? That that dear I'm guessing don't
Speaker 1: forget that crazy looking bobcat. Oh yeah, we gotta. I
Speaker 1: don't know about everybody else, but rat's hand. Oklahoma at
Speaker 1: one time was home to some big deer. I'll see that.
Speaker 1: Are a lot of deceased deer here. Yeah. One of
Speaker 1: the ladies in the station shows us stacks of pictures
Speaker 1: of deer from years past. Tell me what city we're
Speaker 1: Reptan Oklahoma, Rettan, Oklahoma. And so this gas station used
Speaker 1: to be, uh, the check station, and then did Oklahoma start?
Speaker 1: And so it kind of it kind of killed the
Speaker 1: vibe at the gas station. Pictures here from two thousand
Speaker 1: to yah, we got two thousand two. Actually they go
Speaker 1: back and thinking for the nineteen nineties. I'd say I'd
Speaker 1: say we have several hundred white tail photos here, easily
Speaker 1: going all the way back twenty five plus years. I've
Speaker 1: always loved gas stations with deer photos, and we're looking
Speaker 1: at a few two hundred inch deer in these polaroids.
Speaker 1: I love it. But it's time to head out. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you guys, We've we've done what we came to do.
Speaker 1: Tell tell the who now, who's dear are these? Tell him?
Speaker 1: Tell him that we approved this gas station. There's two
Speaker 1: random people, but probably always asked about him. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm you're just gonna have to come back and talk
Speaker 1: to the man that owns the place, because I don't
Speaker 1: really know much about deer or hunting them. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of people that come in here
Speaker 1: and they'll just walk around and look at these and
Speaker 1: look at the pictures. Yeah, just like you did. All right,
Speaker 1: thank you. We're on the road again and we're almost
Speaker 1: to Antler's, Oklahoma. We've been told there's something here we've
Speaker 1: got to see. But on our way, our travel is
Speaker 1: halted in sobriety and we pull off on the side
Speaker 1: of the road and Brent teaches me something. So we're
Speaker 1: running down the road over here, and we came upon
Speaker 1: a funeral procession on the beautiful Friday afternoon. We've pulled
Speaker 1: off the road. I noticed you took your hat off. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's well, that's just a sign of respect for the
Speaker 1: family they mourning the loss. And I have never seen
Speaker 1: it done any other way. Really, Now, see what you
Speaker 1: did there instructed me a little bit. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: instinctively taken my hat off when I pulled over on
Speaker 1: the side of the road. Well, it's a sign of respect.
Speaker 1: You know, you take your hat off when you walk
Speaker 1: into somebody's house, when you're meeting a lady, you know,
Speaker 1: you stand up, shake somebody's hand. There's little things, you know.
Speaker 1: It tells people what kind of folks you are, where
Speaker 1: you come from. After the last car with their lights
Speaker 1: on passes, we're on the road again and we pull
Speaker 1: into the big parking lot of the Chuck Tall Travel
Speaker 1: Plaza in antlers. We walk in in our mouths drop bingo.
Speaker 1: Oh my, what do we have here? Mr Branton? We
Speaker 1: have got a humongous bu that is by far the
Speaker 1: biggest book we've seen all day. Yeah, that's bigger than
Speaker 1: Miss Sanders. Right there, that's a Boon and Crockett. That
Speaker 1: is a net typical gotta be hundred and eighty five
Speaker 1: hundred ninety inch deer. Holy cal The deer has a
Speaker 1: Choc Tall Plaza polo shirt over a live mount with
Speaker 1: its own name tag. What's his name called? He's called
Speaker 1: Howard Bucks. But that's a real that's not a replica.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at those antlers. That is a main frame
Speaker 1: six by six. Wow, way to go, Choc Tap Plasma.
Speaker 1: I really wasn't expecting it because this this is not
Speaker 1: a mom and cop place. This is like a big
Speaker 1: This is like mechanical sliding motion sensor doors, CAO very
Speaker 1: busy place. Christmas in Yeah, and they have the one
Speaker 1: of the finest typical white tails seen a long time.
Speaker 1: It's it's huge. Here take my picture by this, dear.
Speaker 1: After making a bit of a spectacle, we head back
Speaker 1: towards Arkansas with our spirits full. This has been an
Speaker 1: incredible road trip. The one on one interactions that we've
Speaker 1: had with people about these deer heads is notable. Misty
Speaker 1: nuke my wife, is doing her doctoral thesis research on
Speaker 1: the idea of social capital. I want to get some
Speaker 1: insight from her because I feel like this whole deer
Speaker 1: head in the gas station thing is part of a
Speaker 1: bigger equation. Here's Misty ms Nukem talk to me about
Speaker 1: how social capital relates to us losing our town square
Speaker 1: mom and pop gas stations that always include a good
Speaker 1: deer head or two. Okay, Well, first, I think it's
Speaker 1: important to understand what social capital is. So social capital
Speaker 1: would be like the connections that people have and the
Speaker 1: networks of connections that people have that provide value in
Speaker 1: a community in the same way that human capital. Think
Speaker 1: about having people that can can work at a factory.
Speaker 1: That factory might be more likely to locate in a
Speaker 1: certain area if it has people who will work for
Speaker 1: the ways that factory plays. That's a value in a
Speaker 1: commodity in that community. Social capital it relates to the
Speaker 1: connectivity of the people inside of a community, and that
Speaker 1: also provides huge value. And economists have taken to there's
Speaker 1: a lot of research out there that has emerged in
Speaker 1: the late nineties and onward that looks at the social
Speaker 1: capital and says, well, does it actually provide any economic
Speaker 1: benefits because a lot of times we judge whether something
Speaker 1: is valuable or not in terms of economic economic contribution.
Speaker 1: It provides to community. So and it does. And it
Speaker 1: provides value to two kids, it provides value to to
Speaker 1: the economic welfare. I've studied how how that's connected to
Speaker 1: academic achievement inside of communities, and so so there's all
Speaker 1: these different ways that just the presence of certain things
Speaker 1: and and and certain opportunities for people to connect can
Speaker 1: build a community and can increase the not just the
Speaker 1: sense of identity that people in that community have, but
Speaker 1: identity is a huge part of it, but also can
Speaker 1: actually provide tangible benefits in terms of So so you're saying,
Speaker 1: the more places that a community has where people can
Speaker 1: actually often physically connect, like at a at a gas station,
Speaker 1: yes there are that community is going to be stronger financially, academically,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a community that for whatever reason didn't
Speaker 1: have that social capital, didn't have those meeting places, didn't
Speaker 1: have that sense of community. It become more alienated, it
Speaker 1: would become more isolated, and trust social trust would diminish
Speaker 1: in that community. And when that when that is lost
Speaker 1: or when it diminishes to a certain point, then there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that become harder for that community.
Speaker 1: So it's not necess sairly a one to one correlation,
Speaker 1: but there there is a strong correlation between tangible impact.
Speaker 1: A guy named Robert Putman wrote a book in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties called Bowling Alone. He was looking at this
Speaker 1: concept of social capital and he used bowling and bowling
Speaker 1: alleys as a as like a way to actually look
Speaker 1: at And there used to be people who would gather
Speaker 1: on Thursday nights and they would they would bowl together
Speaker 1: and have being part of a league connected them to
Speaker 1: a community and connected them to people. Yet those sweet
Speaker 1: bowling shirts probably it's really half of the half of
Speaker 1: the there's been bowling alleys have been known to house
Speaker 1: a few good deer heads. Yeah, you you probably should
Speaker 1: have done I should have done that. You might have
Speaker 1: even found more. But so that the and his idea
Speaker 1: was that people are bowling alone now like the league's
Speaker 1: have diminished. There used to be Thursday night bowling and
Speaker 1: people would go and that provided a source of meaning
Speaker 1: and a point of connectivity where they were actually, you know,
Speaker 1: building a sense of identity. But it also provided connections
Speaker 1: for those people that might help them get better jobs,
Speaker 1: that might help their kids. It's not us about identity,
Speaker 1: but that is a piece of it. It also provided
Speaker 1: that community a sense of trust, like, well, I know
Speaker 1: Bill down you know for the bowling alley. We play
Speaker 1: against each other on Thursday nights, and so so you know,
Speaker 1: I I trust him, and I know his son's a
Speaker 1: good kids. So I'm going to hire on my job.
Speaker 1: But it also says, well, because I care about Bill,
Speaker 1: I also care about his son. And when I see
Speaker 1: him driving too fast on the road, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: Bill and tell him, and that's gonna keep his his
Speaker 1: child safer. And so these connections you have provide benefits
Speaker 1: not just in allowing you to network, but also but
Speaker 1: they do allow you to network, but they also provide
Speaker 1: benefits and building a sense of community trust and a
Speaker 1: sense of community awareness. And yeah, I mean I could
Speaker 1: go on and know him, but those those things. Strong communities,
Speaker 1: strong families actually contribute to child welfare in a number
Speaker 1: of ways. And you can look at future outcomes for
Speaker 1: kids and see, even if the child themselves had a
Speaker 1: rough home life, being in a community that had really
Speaker 1: solid homes is one of the major predictor of that
Speaker 1: child's future success. Bowl and alone and gas stations without
Speaker 1: deer heads are negative social indicators. Who knew. Well, we're
Speaker 1: on the road again, headed home, but we see a
Speaker 1: store I just can't pass by, So we pull in.
Speaker 1: All right, this place is Brittingham Grocery, Oklahoma. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: see they got a buck over there. Yeah, they got
Speaker 1: a nice But I greet the owner of the store
Speaker 1: as I walk in. He's a kind man and very
Speaker 1: interested in what we're doing. I tell him my hypothesis
Speaker 1: that taxidermy in gas stations seems to be going out
Speaker 1: of style and that we're trying to change that. And
Speaker 1: I asked him about the deer hanging in the store.
Speaker 1: Now this is this is your business. So you're a
Speaker 1: gas station, and so tell me what you know about that, dear. Well,
Speaker 1: we had a good customer who lives a few blocks
Speaker 1: away from here. His name is Zack Morgan. He killed
Speaker 1: this deer about I guess four years ago, and then
Speaker 1: he he just right and he just donated or put
Speaker 1: it up there. You know, Zach knew what. Zach knew
Speaker 1: what was going on. He's like, if I kill a
Speaker 1: big deer, now are we in? Are we in britting Ham, Oklahoma? No,
Speaker 1: you are in the Moyers, Oklahoma, bretting him. Is the
Speaker 1: name used to be or still you can call it
Speaker 1: the name of the store? Tell me your name. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I didn't Shaquille. And so when he brought the
Speaker 1: deer to you, what did you think? You were like,
Speaker 1: that's that's normal, this is good. What did you think cool?
Speaker 1: I mean we have seen other people too. I mean
Speaker 1: like one time we had so many fishes here, big
Speaker 1: fish people brought and they hanged there, and I guess
Speaker 1: for some reason he needed it back and he took
Speaker 1: it away, and probably that's what it is. Yeah, I guess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people do bring you know, those horns also sometimes and
Speaker 1: they left it. We had few. I don't know where
Speaker 1: they add now. But if you had fuel before, would
Speaker 1: you consider putting more in here? Do you think you
Speaker 1: need some more? Yeah? If anybody brings it, welcome to
Speaker 1: bring it in. Yeah, let's go. Let's go analyze this
Speaker 1: dear brand. So there's one big, heavy horned eight. I
Speaker 1: mean like a tall racked, very heavy all the way up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the times are thick like bananas. The right eye guard
Speaker 1: it looks like it's about eight inches. I would easily
Speaker 1: say that's a mid one forties, maybe even point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree, he's hun sure, big wind, big win. This
Speaker 1: is a Bar Grease Podcast approved business. Good job, Mr.
Speaker 1: We're on the road again and we're headed home. We've
Speaker 1: met some incredible people and have seen some great gas
Speaker 1: station bucks. I've always loved a good gas station, and
Speaker 1: it hurts me when I don't see a buck on
Speaker 1: the wall in a place that I know should have one.
Speaker 1: It just seems negligent to me personally. I think it's
Speaker 1: a public validation of a way of life that I love.
Speaker 1: But on a broader scale, a big buck on the
Speaker 1: wall is a celebration of conservation and wild places. It's
Speaker 1: a public tribute to the American model of wildlife conservation.
Speaker 1: These beasts are so common they're hanging in common places,
Speaker 1: not just in museums. At one time, it was believed
Speaker 1: American big game was going to go completely extinct, and
Speaker 1: they began to collect antlers and horns so that future
Speaker 1: generations would be able to see the animals that used
Speaker 1: to live here. I also believe that a big buck
Speaker 1: in a public center is a platform for building community
Speaker 1: and relationship. When you see a buck on the wall,
Speaker 1: it should initiate curiosity, conversation, and intrigue. I rarely walk
Speaker 1: past a mounted buck without taking a genuine gander and
Speaker 1: sending a conscious thought. War is the circumstances of the hunt,
Speaker 1: the person that killed it, in the wild place from
Speaker 1: which the beast was hun. In some small way, maybe
Speaker 1: it gives us a platform to build social capital with
Speaker 1: those in our community. I also learned that our lives
Speaker 1: are impacted by unseen forces like the oil industry, and
Speaker 1: it impacts us in odd ways bigger than just how
Speaker 1: much we pay for our fuel. Our society is changing,
Speaker 1: but the things we truly value, we will find ways
Speaker 1: to hold onto them. And hey, here's an idea. If
Speaker 1: you've got a relationship with a gas station, lend them
Speaker 1: one of your dear heads. You'll probably find that most
Speaker 1: store owners are like Mr Shakil and happy to display above.
Speaker 1: Long live the PDT and long live the Beast. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening to bar Grease. I look forward
Speaker 1: to talking about all this stuff on the bar Grease
Speaker 1: Render next week. Be sure to check out all the
Speaker 1: Burgrease merchandise on the Meat eater dot com and check
Speaker 1: out first Lights new waterfowl apparel line. See you next week.