Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tail gate.
Speaker 1: I think I got a thing or two, and teach
Speaker 1: you making do with what you have in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things. Grand things are grand, newer, bigger, better
Speaker 1: and more. Who has the most things wins? Right? Or
Speaker 1: do they? That's my best dude from dateline imitation. But
Speaker 1: my question is this is bigger and better always the best? Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on the situation. I'm going to talk about
Speaker 1: it this week, but first I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: a story. This story was told to be by my dad,
Speaker 1: Buddy Rings, and I've heard him tell it several times
Speaker 1: that it made me laugh every time he did. He
Speaker 1: would have been in elementary school at the time, and
Speaker 1: I assume anywhere from six to ten years old. He
Speaker 1: never was real clear about it, but he and a
Speaker 1: group of neighboring kids were playing cops and robbers. And
Speaker 1: when I say neighboring kids, I don't mean neighborhood kids.
Speaker 1: They would have been neighboring farms. It was in the
Speaker 1: summertime and they were all running around barefootede shirtless and
Speaker 1: wearing their overalls. Now, my father grew up on the
Speaker 1: same forty acres he was living on when he died,
Speaker 1: except for being stationed at used to be called Hunter
Speaker 1: Air Force Base in Savannah, Georgia for two years and
Speaker 1: taking a job at one of the car plants in
Speaker 1: Michigan after he mustered out of the service. He would
Speaker 1: live there on that land all his life. Interesting side
Speaker 1: note on how they all moved back to Arkansas. My
Speaker 1: brother Tim, who is eight years older than me, went
Speaker 1: to the first grade in Ipsilanti, Michigan. He went to
Speaker 1: the second grade in Warren, Arkansas, the same school he
Speaker 1: our middle brother, Chuck, and I all graduated from. Dad
Speaker 1: said Tim came home from school one day while they
Speaker 1: were still living in Michigan, and while talking to him,
Speaker 1: Tim said dog instead of dog. I'm not sure they
Speaker 1: even had suffer Before he packed them all up and
Speaker 1: came home, and it was a good thing because I
Speaker 1: would be born in the spring of his second grade year.
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine saying good dog when whaling trees
Speaker 1: are raccoon. Brent, what keep your hands on the wheel
Speaker 1: up there? You're telling the story? Oh yeah, Cops and
Speaker 1: robbers anyway, there was one fellow in particular that my
Speaker 1: dad absolutely hated. He said he was mean to him
Speaker 1: and there was nothing that could make him like that boy.
Speaker 1: He was unbeaten in cops and robbers, regardless of which
Speaker 1: side he played on. He was bigger, and he was
Speaker 1: stronger than everyone else, and he bullied folks to get
Speaker 1: his way. He said they'd all whittled themselves a pistol
Speaker 1: out of wood, and had spent some considerable time doing it,
Speaker 1: making them look just as real as they could. He
Speaker 1: said that while they weren't works of art, there was
Speaker 1: no mistake in what they were, and they took their
Speaker 1: playing seriously and their props even more so. Dad said
Speaker 1: he was playing the cop and had caught and jailed
Speaker 1: every one except the main one. He was after, a
Speaker 1: boy that he hated. He said he would catch a
Speaker 1: glimpse of him occasionally, but he was never in the
Speaker 1: open long enough for him to get a clear shot
Speaker 1: at him. And all of them played by the honor system,
Speaker 1: and you knew if you'd gotten away or you hadn't,
Speaker 1: it was important to do so because the next time
Speaker 1: it might be you whose life and liberty might be
Speaker 1: at stake. He said. It was just about the only
Speaker 1: rule that that boy followed. Now, through the woods behind
Speaker 1: the barn, in the smokehouse, in the hayloft, he chased
Speaker 1: and tracked his suspect. He said it went on for hours,
Speaker 1: and finally, finally he caught a glimpse of him down
Speaker 1: by the creek near the swimming hole they cleaned out.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, this was the same swimming hole that my
Speaker 1: dad said this boy nearly drowned in once. Apparently he
Speaker 1: couldn't swim, and after jumping in the creek on a
Speaker 1: dare during the spring overflow, he was swept away and
Speaker 1: was calling out for my dad to help him. I
Speaker 1: asked my dad if he jumped in to save him.
Speaker 1: He said no. I watched him disappear down the creek,
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, if you can't swim, you are not
Speaker 1: going swimming now. He never told that story that he
Speaker 1: didn't say how grateful he was that that boy didn't drown.
Speaker 1: But I also never heard him say there was anyone
Speaker 1: else with him when it happened, which makes me wonder
Speaker 1: who dared him to jump in in the first place.
Speaker 1: Back to the story, Dad said he'd tracked him down
Speaker 1: to the swimming hole, and he had slipped up behind
Speaker 1: him without him knowing, and he hopped off the bank
Speaker 1: holler and stick him up. As his bare feet settled
Speaker 1: into the sand bar where his suspect had been eluding capture,
Speaker 1: he got the drip on him. He was caught. Dad said,
Speaker 1: his pistol sticking out of his rear pocket, and he
Speaker 1: reached over and snatched it out of its holster, And
Speaker 1: now he had him a double gunpoint. He haulered for
Speaker 1: the other boys to come witness how he captured him.
Speaker 1: After all this time, the unbeatable had been beaten, the
Speaker 1: uncatchable had been caught. He said. They were knocking leaves
Speaker 1: off the trees, running to the swimming hole to watch
Speaker 1: the process. That said, there was a log that lay
Speaker 1: on the ground that ran out into the creek, and
Speaker 1: he told his prisoner to have a seat on it
Speaker 1: while they waited on everyone to get there, and after
Speaker 1: they did, Dad said, I told him that for all
Speaker 1: his crimes, that they weren't even going to bother with
Speaker 1: a hanging, that he was just gonna shoot him and
Speaker 1: get it over with. That's my dad, the tightwad, saving
Speaker 1: money by taking out the middleman. Anyway, he said, I
Speaker 1: asked that joker if he had anything to say before
Speaker 1: I shot him. The boy looked up at him and said,
Speaker 1: do you mind if I smoke? Now? The first time
Speaker 1: he told me this story, I said, smoke, he said.
Speaker 1: My dad said, yeah, smoke. Most all of us chewed
Speaker 1: or tobacco or dip snuff or smoked. And I told him, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can smoke, and I'll have one too. So, being
Speaker 1: the Southern gentleman and honoring the last requests of the doom,
Speaker 1: along with wanting a cigarette himself, my dad allowed his
Speaker 1: captive to reach inside the bib of his overalls and
Speaker 1: take out his Tobacca sack of papers. He wrote them
Speaker 1: each a cigarette, stuck one in my Dad's mouth, and
Speaker 1: reached back in the bill of his overalls and whipped
Speaker 1: out a little gun he'd whittled that my dad didn't
Speaker 1: know about him. He pointed at my dad and said, paw,
Speaker 1: he got away again, and that's just how that happened.
Speaker 1: Make him do with what you have, my dad, and
Speaker 1: all his power was, including a non swimming undisputed Cops
Speaker 1: and Robbers champion that he hated for making do with
Speaker 1: what they had. They didn't have toy guns, so they
Speaker 1: made themselves some. He told me that he would run
Speaker 1: around pushing the metal ring with a Prince Albercan nailed
Speaker 1: to a stick, and I couldn't figure out what in
Speaker 1: the world he was talking about. So when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, he made me one. He took a one
Speaker 1: inch by one inch to made a stick, and then
Speaker 1: he centered and nailed a flattened tin Prince Albercan to
Speaker 1: one end of the stick. He then bent each side
Speaker 1: up that hung over the edge upwards, so that when
Speaker 1: you rolled that metal ring, the wings for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, on that Prince Albercan would steer the
Speaker 1: ring in any direction you wanted. All you had to
Speaker 1: do was run along behind it, guiding it around in
Speaker 1: the dirt. And he was right. It was fun. And
Speaker 1: I made a bunch of those things after he made
Speaker 1: me the first one when I was little a young
Speaker 1: and can put a lot, a lot of miles behind
Speaker 1: one of those things. It burned up lots of energy.
Speaker 1: They grew up making do with what they could find,
Speaker 1: and they passed that lesson on to us. My uncle
Speaker 1: Jim Ray, Dad's little brother, told me about one of
Speaker 1: the boys that he played with that made what they
Speaker 1: called a tractor, and they made it out of sticks,
Speaker 1: a washer, an empty wooden spool, and a rubber band.
Speaker 1: Now I had never heard of such, so after he
Speaker 1: had told me about it, I did one Internet search
Speaker 1: and there it was d iy wouldn't spool race car?
Speaker 1: If you search that up what I just said, you'll
Speaker 1: see the video I saw and how to make one.
Speaker 1: In the video, they used tape and plastic spools in
Speaker 1: a paper clip, but the end result was the same.
Speaker 1: My uncle Jim Ray said they cut little notches in
Speaker 1: the edge of the spool so theirs could get some
Speaker 1: traction to move around in the dirt that they were
Speaker 1: playing in. Making do with what you have and really
Speaker 1: making something fun. I watched that video and I thought,
Speaker 1: I gotta make one that's about as country as it gets.
Speaker 1: But you and I both know that that stuff's not
Speaker 1: limited to country living. People everywhere do the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's just the examples that I have to relate to.
Speaker 1: You all come from country living. It's the only place
Speaker 1: I've ever lived. Now, y'all may have been doing the
Speaker 1: same thing in the middle of Chicago, which I must
Speaker 1: admit was a far away land compared to South Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and a lot of folks down here thought that apparently,
Speaker 1: which reminds me of another story that I was told
Speaker 1: by an old time policeman during the early years of
Speaker 1: my career. He was showing me the ropes and telling
Speaker 1: me old war stories about his life on the job
Speaker 1: and when he was a rookie back in the late sixties,
Speaker 1: he'd been assigned to work with an old veteran police
Speaker 1: officer who was near and rich Reim. While on patrol,
Speaker 1: they stopped an out of state vehicle for speeding. The
Speaker 1: old veteran said, stay here, junior, and let me show
Speaker 1: you how we do this. He told me he stood
Speaker 1: at the right front fender of the patrol car and watched.
Speaker 1: His old veteran walked up to the window and spoke
Speaker 1: with the driver, obtained his driver's license, and upon returning,
Speaker 1: he motioned for him to get back in the patrol car.
Speaker 1: As he walked back to get his ticket book, he said,
Speaker 1: the old policeman told him, now, you keep a good
Speaker 1: eye on this man. He's up to something. I was
Speaker 1: going to give him a warning for the speeding, but
Speaker 1: after he lied to me, I decided not to. My
Speaker 1: friend asked him what he lied about, and the old
Speaker 1: man told him. Well. I asked him where he was
Speaker 1: coming from, and he told me Chicago. My friend asked him, why,
Speaker 1: how do you know he's lying about that. The old
Speaker 1: veteran slowly turned over and looked at him and said,
Speaker 1: you got to be paying attention, junior. You got to
Speaker 1: look for clues, and so you have some idea of
Speaker 1: what you're dealing with. If he's telling me he's from Chicago,
Speaker 1: why does the license plate on his car say Illinois? Anyway,
Speaker 1: While on the subject of places up north, like the
Speaker 1: state of Chicago, I think about wintertime scenes from stories
Speaker 1: and television with kids riding sleds down hills. And we
Speaker 1: didn't frequently have snow when I was growing up, and
Speaker 1: if we did it, it didn't wasn't a lot and
Speaker 1: it didn't last long. But we sure didn't have any
Speaker 1: sleds around. But I remember one winter when a big
Speaker 1: ice snowstorm came and knocked out all the power. Now
Speaker 1: we didn't have electricity for over two weeks, and there
Speaker 1: was no roads open and no place to go. But
Speaker 1: we couldn't leave anyway because someone had to look after
Speaker 1: all the livestock. Now, we had a big buck stove
Speaker 1: insert in the fireplace that my mama cooked on and
Speaker 1: we all slept in the living room that had joined
Speaker 1: to catch and I don't ever remember being cold during
Speaker 1: the day. We'd play outside after the chores were done,
Speaker 1: and my brother Tim said we were all going sledding
Speaker 1: down goat House Hill. That hill was located across the
Speaker 1: county road from our house, and it was more of
Speaker 1: a bluff bottom than a hill. The lad just dropped
Speaker 1: off into a creek bottom there, and there was a
Speaker 1: tractor trail that went right down to the steep gray
Speaker 1: that was covered in ice and snow about eight inches thick. Now,
Speaker 1: we had the location in the right conditions, but like
Speaker 1: I said, we didn't have any sleds, and you couldn't
Speaker 1: have found a sled in Bradley or Cleveland County that
Speaker 1: was designed for snow. But What we did have was
Speaker 1: tomato boxes, stacks of waxed cardboard tomato boxes that were
Speaker 1: bundled and stacked flat in the barn, waiting to be
Speaker 1: folded into the shape of a box of tomatoes. Next summer,
Speaker 1: when we packed them full and took them to market,
Speaker 1: Tim was the first to try. He sat down on
Speaker 1: the carboard on top of that hill, pushed off and
Speaker 1: vanished from sight. It was like he had shot out
Speaker 1: of a cannon down that hill. It was about a
Speaker 1: forty yard ride, counting the coasting at the bottom and
Speaker 1: the terrace road that shot you into space if you
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to maintain enough speed to make it there. Now.
Speaker 1: We spent a couple of days there, up and down,
Speaker 1: over and over until we beat all the snow in
Speaker 1: the ice away. But we were making do and it
Speaker 1: was fun. The other night, I was feeling a bit
Speaker 1: nostalgic and decided to go coon hunting using an old
Speaker 1: carbyde light I bought off eBay that was just like
Speaker 1: my first hunting light. And what I paid for this one,
Speaker 1: I could have outfitted a squad of coon hunters back
Speaker 1: in the day, but they sold them at Johnson's Hardware
Speaker 1: and warned, and for about twenty dollars, coach Bobby Johnson
Speaker 1: could have you seeing in the dark with a light
Speaker 1: and a can of carbide. I found source for some carbide,
Speaker 1: and about a week of waiting on the mailman, I
Speaker 1: was in business. It was a couple of nights before Christmas,
Speaker 1: when the girls were all taken care of and no
Speaker 1: pending Santa El's chores to knock off the list, and
Speaker 1: me and old Whalen we hit the woods. I fastened
Speaker 1: my light to a cap and off we went like
Speaker 1: a heard of turtles to some public hunting ground not
Speaker 1: far from my home. I posted the video of my
Speaker 1: carbide light hunt over on my Instagram page, and I
Speaker 1: got a message from a guy saying, you ain't that old.
Speaker 1: There were all kinds of battery operated lights when you
Speaker 1: were a kid, and he was right, there were a lot.
Speaker 1: They also made cadillacs then, too, and I couldn't afford
Speaker 1: one of them either. I was making do with what
Speaker 1: I could afford anyway. The plan was to cut wait
Speaker 1: and loose, wait for him the tree, walk to him,
Speaker 1: and find that coon using nothing other than my carbide light,
Speaker 1: just like I used when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: guess what. That's just what happened. Whaling struck a track,
Speaker 1: told it at a piece, and then he tried. Within
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes of getting that hand out of the box,
Speaker 1: I was looking at the glowing eyes of a mass
Speaker 1: bandido and listening to Whaling tell the world, at least
Speaker 1: anyone who was listening where that coon was. In less
Speaker 1: than forty five minutes, we were back at the truck,
Speaker 1: having accomplished what I'd set out to do. And I
Speaker 1: do have a confession to make that I that I
Speaker 1: didn't talk about in the Instagram video. I had one
Speaker 1: of my I had one of Michael Rosevean's Ben oakheadlamps
Speaker 1: in my vest pocket as a safety valve, but just
Speaker 1: like the video showed, I never used it. It was
Speaker 1: a coon hunt from my youth, from start to finish.
Speaker 1: And I'm going coon hunt tonight. But I'm not going
Speaker 1: to use that old carboy light. I'll be supporting a
Speaker 1: new sun Spot Copperhead. I don't have to make do anymore,
Speaker 1: not not for coon uting the lights, but making do.
Speaker 1: It's good for you. It teaches your resilience, It gives
Speaker 1: you the drive to work harder for the things you
Speaker 1: want or need to make your life easier or better.
Speaker 1: Like the question I ask at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: whole episode, is newer, bigger, and better always the best? Well,
Speaker 1: of course, it ain't a ten year old truckle get
Speaker 1: me to where I want to go as good as
Speaker 1: a new one. And that old carbide light I used
Speaker 1: the other night let me see a coon in a tree.
Speaker 1: I just think being nostalgic and going back and doing
Speaker 1: the things you did back when you were making do
Speaker 1: with what you had certainly make you appreciate where you
Speaker 1: are even more. I know it has for me. That's
Speaker 1: what I want you to think about this week. Think
Speaker 1: about what you had to make do with, and if possible,
Speaker 1: put yourself in that spot again like I did with
Speaker 1: that old light, and see what you think. I bet
Speaker 1: it'll be good for you, and it'll surely be a
Speaker 1: good teaching point for the little folks. I thank y'all
Speaker 1: for listening, and I hope you'll share this with other
Speaker 1: folks you think that might like it. iTunes reviews really
Speaker 1: help get our show out to others as well. If
Speaker 1: you have time to do one. Don't ask me how
Speaker 1: it works, but all the computer nerds tell me to
Speaker 1: do it anyway until next week. This is Brent Reed
Speaker 1: signing off. Y'all be calling