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.
Speaker 2: That will help you beat the system.
Speaker 1: This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat
Speaker 1: Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2: The airways have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop
Speaker 1: that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two
Speaker 1: to teach you. Three stories that just hiddent fit. This
Speaker 1: whole podcast is based on stories and experiences from my life,
Speaker 1: and they usually follow a theme or a common topic.
Speaker 1: But there's a few I've collected over the years that
Speaker 1: seem to just be in a category.
Speaker 2: All their own.
Speaker 1: I've struggled on how they them for quite a while,
Speaker 1: and it would be a stretch to build any relevant
Speaker 1: lesson or episode with any of these individually. So I thought,
Speaker 1: what better way to include them than to just let
Speaker 1: the stories speak for themselves. I think they're pretty good,
Speaker 1: So that's what we're doing. Three stories this week whose
Speaker 1: only common denominator is yours true. Gather around, kids, I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you some stories hunter, possums, and church
Speaker 1: Let's get to it. I hate rats. Hate is such
Speaker 1: a strong word, and yet in the context of rats,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to really capture my overly strong aversion
Speaker 1: to rodents or anything that resembles them. Living in the
Speaker 1: country on a farm, you going to sea rats and mice.
Speaker 1: And that's something else that I never really understood. Why
Speaker 1: are there separate names for rats and mice? In a
Speaker 1: mouse just a little rat in this category of creepy things,
Speaker 1: size doesn't matter. In my opinion, A mouse is just
Speaker 1: a rat in training, kind of like a minor league
Speaker 1: rat waiting to get his shot in the big leagues
Speaker 1: of creepiness. Now, my brothers and I used to wage
Speaker 1: war against rats on our farm. We had two chicken
Speaker 1: houses where my family raised seventy thousand chickens for egg production.
Speaker 1: We owned our own egg processing business, and my grandfather
Speaker 1: sold eggs wholesale to different stores in Arkansas. Tons of
Speaker 1: chicken feed is what attracts them, and the rats caught
Speaker 1: the devil from us. We chase them in an old
Speaker 1: chicken house that now housed farm equipment. There was irrigation
Speaker 1: pipes in there and piles of tomatoes sticks that were
Speaker 1: kept in there waiting for spring when we'd start planting
Speaker 1: and staking tomatoes in the fields. Now, the rats would
Speaker 1: almost always make a run for the irrigation pipes that
Speaker 1: were stacked along the wall, so that worked our benefit.
Speaker 1: One of us would bang on the end of the
Speaker 1: pipes that the rat just entered, and the other two
Speaker 1: would stand on the other end of the pipe, and
Speaker 1: that rat would poke his sinister little head out of
Speaker 1: the opposite end of the pipe, and one of the
Speaker 1: Reeves boys would strike him soundly about his cranium with
Speaker 1: a rat stick. This was great sport and one that
Speaker 1: required some pretty good handed eye coordination. It's not the
Speaker 1: easiest thing to do. Apparently, the rats took great exception
Speaker 1: to being rat sticked, and would sometimes after a near miss,
Speaker 1: turn around in the pipe and with tremendous speed and dexterity,
Speaker 1: shoot out the other end at a blistering pace and escape.
Speaker 1: It was during one of these occasions that I think
Speaker 1: my loathing of rats developed. I was the little brother,
Speaker 1: and I rarely got to participate on the rat sticking
Speaker 1: the end of the pipe. I was always stuck in
Speaker 1: the position of banging on the pipe waiting for my
Speaker 1: brothers to give them a good smashing on the other end.
Speaker 1: More than once I remember one or both of my
Speaker 1: older brothers missing the rat with their sticks, only to
Speaker 1: have the rat jump on me as it retreated from
Speaker 1: the pipe to safety. Gives me the shivers just now
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Possums are marsupials.
Speaker 2: I know this.
Speaker 1: Rats are rodents, I know this as well. I also
Speaker 1: know that possums closely resemble rodents, and Brent's Guide to
Speaker 1: Wildlife possums are known as really big rats. I don't
Speaker 1: like them. My son Hunter, who was almost three when
Speaker 1: this all happened, and we were watching television one night
Speaker 1: and heard something on the back porch. Our lab had
Speaker 1: a habit of knocking over the garbage can where I
Speaker 1: kept her dog food, and she would gorgeousself eating until
Speaker 1: the food was gone or she exploded. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what the holding capacity of a labrador is, but I
Speaker 1: must say that a sixty five pound dog with ten
Speaker 1: pounds of dog food sitting in her belly is neither
Speaker 1: attractive nor safe for kids walking barefoot in the yard.
Speaker 1: For several days. When I heard something on the back porch,
Speaker 1: I knew that lab had gotten into the feet again.
Speaker 1: I was rushing to catch her so I could scold
Speaker 1: her and maybe circumvent the labrador land mines that would
Speaker 1: be accumulating in strategic places around the yard. The hunter
Speaker 1: was right on my heels. He knew the plight of
Speaker 1: the labrador land mines all too well, and was anxious
Speaker 1: for me to correct this bad behavior. I snatched the
Speaker 1: back door open, turned on the porch light, and at
Speaker 1: the same time expecting to catch my retriever face first
Speaker 1: in the dog food. But much to my astonishment, apossum
Speaker 1: jumped from a can onto my leg, ran down across
Speaker 1: my foot, and made tracks for the backyard. The contents
Speaker 1: of the profanity that fell from my lips at that
Speaker 1: moment would have made a sailor blush. To say the
Speaker 1: possums scared me would be like saying Einstein was pretty
Speaker 1: good at math. I slammed the door shut and retrieved
Speaker 1: a pistol from the gun cabinet, catching my nemesis at
Speaker 1: the edge of the yard, I sent him to really
Speaker 1: big rat heaven. Now back in the house and still
Speaker 1: somewhat shaken from the whole experience, I made the statement
Speaker 1: I hate possums, a quote I was to find out
Speaker 1: later that was not lost on select members of the household.
Speaker 1: The following Sunday, we sat in church. In our small town.
Speaker 1: The local radio station would broadcast a church service from
Speaker 1: the local churches, alternating each week from church to church.
Speaker 1: This was our Sunday to be on the radio, and
Speaker 1: at the beginning of each Sunday service, the children were
Speaker 1: all He asked to come down front and Brother Bill Leslie,
Speaker 1: which sat with him on the floor in front of
Speaker 1: the pulpit, and delivered a short message. During the message,
Speaker 1: it was not uncommon for the kids to just spontaneously
Speaker 1: tell things and to him and to the rest of
Speaker 1: the congregation about recent events that had occurred in their lives.
Speaker 1: It was pretty entertaining. Hunter was no exception to this,
Speaker 1: and people anxiously awaited each Sunday for him to recite
Speaker 1: some folly that he had witnessed his father participate in.
Speaker 1: Brother Bill told me the Hunter probably did more to
Speaker 1: raise the attendance in church than he did. But on
Speaker 1: this Sunday, Hunter was sitting in Brother Bill's lap. He
Speaker 1: was so handsome, sitting there in his little suit, looking
Speaker 1: like a little angel. The height of his head, put
Speaker 1: his mouth in direct line with Brother Bill's lapel Mike,
Speaker 1: this would prove to be my undoing. Everything was going smoothly.
Speaker 1: Brother Bill had delivered his children's sermon, and all the
Speaker 1: children were attentive and quiet. Hunter looked like he might
Speaker 1: even be nearly fallen asleep, when all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he sat straight up in Brother Bill's laugh and said,
Speaker 1: me and my daddy hate possums. The whole sanctuary roared
Speaker 1: with laughter. Brother Bill was fighting to regain his composure
Speaker 1: and laughing hysterically at the same time. It's a moment
Speaker 1: that I'll never forget. I couldn't if I wanted to,
Speaker 1: for every little blue haired old lady would remind me
Speaker 1: of it each Sunday for years to come. By the way,
Speaker 1: we had a record attendance the following Sunday.
Speaker 2: And that's just how that happened, all right.
Speaker 1: This next story is entitled the Day my friend shot Jesus.
Speaker 1: Now I've been blessed. I've been blessed with friends. Not
Speaker 1: the people you know and see at work, are the
Speaker 1: ones you've known all your life. But I'm talking about
Speaker 1: real friends. My grandpa used to say that a man
Speaker 1: can live a long life and have many acquaintances. But
Speaker 1: if he can go to his grave saying he had
Speaker 1: just one friend, he can say he was blessed. One
Speaker 1: of my good friends fancied being a policeman. He discovered
Speaker 1: this ambition after tolding that the local saw mill for
Speaker 1: several years and was hired by the city Police Department,
Speaker 1: where I was working as a dispatcher at night and
Speaker 1: on the weekends while I occasionally attended college. We had
Speaker 1: been friends a long time. He was actually closer in
Speaker 1: age to my two older brothers, but our families had
Speaker 1: known each other since before I was born, and he
Speaker 1: and I had developed a close friendship after I had
Speaker 1: graduated high school. Now he is everything someone wanting a friend.
Speaker 1: He's low, honest, has a wonderful sense of humor, and
Speaker 1: is my idea of what the father and a husband
Speaker 1: should be. I respect him, and his relationship with his
Speaker 1: family and his wife is a model for anyone to follow.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: One day I stopped by his house to visit before
Speaker 1: he went back to work on the evening shift at
Speaker 1: the police department. I walked up to the front door
Speaker 1: and I found it open, and I could see him
Speaker 1: sitting in a chair in his living room. He was
Speaker 1: in full uniform, staring at his pistol that he held
Speaker 1: in his hand, and he was alone in the house.
Speaker 1: Now I knew his children were at the babysitter and
Speaker 1: his wife was at work. But he had a strange
Speaker 1: look on his face. And I immediately said something was wrong. Hey, Bud,
Speaker 1: I said, and I opened up the glass door, trying
Speaker 1: not start him. He said, come on in. He never
Speaker 1: looked up from that weapon. I had never seen him
Speaker 1: like this. I was very concerned. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do or what to say. You okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to hell, he said. He never looked up. I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe what I just heard. My mind was racing what
Speaker 1: to do next.
Speaker 2: You're what?
Speaker 1: I asked it as calmly as I could, and he
Speaker 1: just said, in the same low, monotone voice again, I'm
Speaker 1: going to hell. I thought he'd lost his mind. I
Speaker 1: wish I had asked a question from outside the door
Speaker 1: before I came inside, because if he had gone around
Speaker 1: the bend, at least I would have had somewhere to
Speaker 1: run on the outside of the house. Inside with what
Speaker 1: I thought now to be a crazy man, I felt
Speaker 1: that I was pretty well in line to go somewhere,
Speaker 1: with the hospital being my first choice and the funeral
Speaker 1: home being the last. But he sat there in the
Speaker 1: chair and and not moving, not blinking, and just staring
Speaker 1: at his pistol. I called his name, I said, put
Speaker 1: that gun up and tell me what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, it was like he was awake.
Speaker 1: He placed his revolver in his hostry and looked up
Speaker 1: and he looked at me right in the eyes, and
Speaker 1: he said, I shot Jesus.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I just looked at him, and I said, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make exactly sure who we were talking about.
Speaker 1: He said yes, and he said it not unlike a
Speaker 1: small child. This had gone from bad to worse. I
Speaker 1: could see the evening news with his and my picture
Speaker 1: on it. Anchorman would say, Brent got killed today by
Speaker 1: his buddy, a raven lunatic who also busted a cap
Speaker 1: in Jesus just before ending it all. Now, my situational awareness,
Speaker 1: it's at an all time high right now. I was
Speaker 1: tuned into every sound, every breath, every movement that he made.
Speaker 1: I heard an old clock slowly ticking from the mantle,
Speaker 1: as if announcing the countdown to my own demise. The
Speaker 1: silence was deafening, and the a tension so thick everything
Speaker 1: seemed to be in slow motion. I could feel my
Speaker 1: heart racing, and my mind leaped from one cent to
Speaker 1: another as I lived over and over all the bad
Speaker 1: things I had done and not made amends for. I
Speaker 1: was going to die in my friend's living room. He
Speaker 1: was going to kill me, and I've only lived eighteen years.
Speaker 1: I wanted my mama. I mustered up all my strength
Speaker 1: and I said, well, did you kill him? He said no,
Speaker 1: I didn't kill him. Do you think I'm crazy? I
Speaker 1: said yes, I do think you crazy. No, tell me
Speaker 1: what's going on. I don't understand any of this. He said,
Speaker 1: follow me, and he got up and he started walking
Speaker 1: towards the back of the house. At this point I
Speaker 1: thought about running out of the front door and calling
Speaker 1: the chief of police, but I followed the confessed killer
Speaker 1: of the Son of God to his bedroom, where he
Speaker 1: pointed to a picture his wife had hanging on the
Speaker 1: wall beside their bed. And the picture stood Jesus Can
Speaker 1: on a cloud with a three fifty seven magnum hole
Speaker 1: right through the center of his chest. The smell of
Speaker 1: gunpowder still hanging ominously in the air. I was practicing
Speaker 1: my quick draw. I thought my gun wasn't loaded, and bang,
Speaker 1: I shot. Jesus, Now I'm going to Hell. I fell
Speaker 1: on the floor laughing. I was relieved that he hadn't
Speaker 1: gone crazy and that he would more than likely not
Speaker 1: take my life that day. Dude, you ain't going to hell,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be something when your wife sees
Speaker 1: that picture. He didn't last long as a policeman. It
Speaker 1: just ain't for everybody. He went back to work at
Speaker 1: the saw mill a few months later. I asked him
Speaker 1: about I asked him about this from time to time
Speaker 1: when I seen him, but I always make sure he's
Speaker 1: unarmed when I do. Fall River, Kansas. I was reminded
Speaker 1: of this last story when a picture popped up on
Speaker 1: my Facebook memories the other day. It remains one of
Speaker 1: my favorite moments from my travels around this great nation
Speaker 1: of ours. It also reminded me that you can find things,
Speaker 1: good things, if you look just a little harder than
Speaker 1: the effort it takes to scroll on your phone. There's
Speaker 1: good everywhere, and it's not hard to find. Six years ago,
Speaker 1: last week, I was filming a hunt near Fall River, Kansas.
Speaker 1: Fall River is in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing there.
Speaker 1: It was like a Western movie set. Businesses faced each
Speaker 1: other down seventy yards of main street and at the
Speaker 1: end of the street there was nothing, nothing on either
Speaker 1: side past it.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: There was nothing else, or so I thought. But this
Speaker 1: was Fall River, Kansas. It was way after dark when
Speaker 1: we pulled into town to find some type of festival,
Speaker 1: with the street blocked off by a crowd of people,
Speaker 1: lawn chairs and picnic tables. They were laughing, talking, and
Speaker 1: children were running and playing. A band was playing from
Speaker 1: the sidewalk. A few children and one older couple was
Speaker 1: dancing to Luke and Box Texas, says my friend and
Speaker 1: I asked a kid walking beside the street where we
Speaker 1: could find something to eat. He pointed and said, the
Speaker 1: fire station has barbecue. Well, we just pulled off the
Speaker 1: road and made our way along the sidewalk, smiling and nodding,
Speaker 1: and returned to the greetings that we received from everyone
Speaker 1: who turned to watch us as we walked toward the
Speaker 1: fire trucks. The man we spoke to you, he said, man,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we're not serving anymore. We're out of food.
Speaker 1: I thanked him and started to walk away when he
Speaker 1: yelled for Dan. Now Dan approached us, and the man
Speaker 1: explained that we were hungry. We introduced ourselves, explaining that
Speaker 1: we were from Arkansas, had been hunting, and that we
Speaker 1: were about to die of starvation. Well, Dan said to
Speaker 1: follow him, and we did. Man, it turned out to
Speaker 1: be the best thing that we did all day. He
Speaker 1: opened up a huge cooking trailer and was yelling over
Speaker 1: the music for people to do this and get that,
Speaker 1: and warm of food that had already been packed away
Speaker 1: and put away to feed his friends from Arkansas. We said, no, man,
Speaker 1: we don't want you to go in any trouble. But
Speaker 1: Dan wasn't going to hear anything of it, and neither
Speaker 1: were the folks that were working at a feverish pace
Speaker 1: preparing our food, all the while laughing and talking and
Speaker 1: asking us about where we were from and about our
Speaker 1: families back home. Dan told us that we had stumbled
Speaker 1: upon the fifty first annual free Fall River Barbecue, an
Speaker 1: event held the third week concept wan Eyver and sponsored
Speaker 1: by the local merchants and farmers and ranchers and one
Speaker 1: or two corporations. It was free for anyone and everyone
Speaker 1: from the communities for miles around were invited. Fall River
Speaker 1: boasted a population of around one hundred and sixty folks.
Speaker 1: According to Dan, there were easily twice that number there,
Speaker 1: including the two deer hunters from Arkansas, whose lives Dan
Speaker 1: had saved by stoking the fire back up on his grill.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: Four merchants remained where there once was over twenty, he said.
Speaker 1: And they can't really make a living.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: What they give because they appreciate what a little business
Speaker 1: they get, and they want to give back to Fall River.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I looked around at the people who were there, and
Speaker 1: there were mostly old folks and very young. The obvious
Speaker 1: missing demographic were the folks in their early twenties to
Speaker 1: late forties, the ones that had to stay on the
Speaker 1: farm or to leave to make a living. It appeared
Speaker 1: that a lot of them had left. A kind of
Speaker 1: made me a little sad. I knew that I was
Speaker 1: looking at more than a festival, though. This was a
Speaker 1: gathering of families, whether by blood, friendship, lifestyle, community, or
Speaker 1: the common bond and love of days gone by that
Speaker 1: are now more of an exception rather than the rule.
Speaker 1: It was one big family, and they had invited me
Speaker 1: and my friend to join them as members. Dan and
Speaker 1: the good people of Fall River fed my appetite with
Speaker 1: some of the best food I have ever eaten, and
Speaker 1: my soul with a hope that maybe things aren't as
Speaker 1: bad as they're made out to be. If I could
Speaker 1: find something as incredible as this by accident, what could
Speaker 1: I find if I really tried? And we thanked Dan
Speaker 1: and his wife and all the people that stopped their
Speaker 1: celebration to go back to work.
Speaker 2: To feed us.
Speaker 1: And we were tired. We were running on very little sleep,
Speaker 1: and we still had several miles ago before we could rest.
Speaker 1: We were anxious to get back to camp, and Dan said, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't leave yet. Why not, He said, you'll miss
Speaker 1: the fireworks. Well, I'll tell you I wouldn't have missed
Speaker 1: them for all.
Speaker 2: The deer in Kansas. Well there.
Speaker 1: It is an episode of misfit stories that I just
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out how to tell any other way than
Speaker 1: to just dump them all out in the middle of
Speaker 1: the floor and let you all wait around in them
Speaker 1: and see what you thought.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed them.
Speaker 1: I sure enjoyed telling them. They are the stories that
Speaker 1: I've told folks for years because I like to hear
Speaker 1: them too. I thank you so much for listening. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think. Be kind to one another.
Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful
Speaker 2: The