Speaker 1: Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
Speaker 1: wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to
Speaker 1: conserving both. And I want to give a big shout
Speaker 1: out to Onyx Hunt for their support of this podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Lake Pipple, and on today's episode, it's
Speaker 1: Part two and the final chapter of our time spent
Speaker 1: in the woods with Supreme Court Justice Antonine Scalia, and
Speaker 1: like I alluded to in Part one, what we're gonna
Speaker 1: get into and discover today is, without a doubt, the
Speaker 1: best part of this entire story. We're gonna learn why
Speaker 1: this man was so highly respected by everyone, even the
Speaker 1: people that disagreed with him. And we're gonna learn how
Speaker 1: hunting and wild game played a lynch penroll in all
Speaker 1: of them, and how a love for the outdoors that
Speaker 1: he found through a couple of good friends down in
Speaker 1: Mississippi would stick with him until the final days of
Speaker 1: his life. This story is gonna stick with you, my friends,
Speaker 1: trust me, let's dive in.
Speaker 2: I will miss the challenges and the laughter he provoked.
Speaker 2: His pungent, eminently quotable opinions so clearly stated that his
Speaker 2: words never slipped from the reader's grasp the roses he
Speaker 2: brought me on my birthday, the chance to appear with
Speaker 2: him once more as supernumerries at the opera. How blessed
Speaker 2: I was to have a working colleague and dear friend
Speaker 2: of such captivating brilliance, high spirits, and quick wit. In
Speaker 2: the words of a duet for tennis Scalia and soprano Ginsburg,
Speaker 2: we were different, yes in our interpretation of written texts,
Speaker 2: one in our reverence for the court and its place
Speaker 2: in the US system of governance.
Speaker 1: A eulogy a speech delivered at a funeral meant to
Speaker 1: honor and celebrate the life of the person who has passed.
Speaker 1: I've heard them given. I'm sure y'all have too, And
Speaker 1: while at this point in my life I have never
Speaker 1: had to give a eulogy, I have seen the combination
Speaker 1: of pressure and gratefulness that a person endures when they've
Speaker 1: been asked to give one. It's a weighty speech, a
Speaker 1: final sendoff, a last chance to say what you need
Speaker 1: to say about a person that you love, cherish, appreciate,
Speaker 1: and likely a lot of other positive and strong emotions.
Speaker 1: And if you see or hear a person giving a eulogy,
Speaker 1: it's a safe bet that they were very close to
Speaker 1: the person they're talking about. What you just heard was
Speaker 1: a small clip from Ruth Bader Ginsburg's eulogy of Antonine
Speaker 1: Scalia at his memorial service in Washington, D C. In
Speaker 1: March of twenty sixteen. And while we're going to hear
Speaker 1: more from her in this speech later on in this story,
Speaker 1: I felt it extremely important that we hear this part
Speaker 1: at the very beginning and let it set the tone
Speaker 1: for this whole episode. You see, if you're unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she herself was on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And if you were to look at the collective works, decisions, opinions,
Speaker 1: and the sense of Scalia and Ginsburg next to each
Speaker 1: other in comparison, if you were to lay them out
Speaker 1: on a table on paper where you could see them,
Speaker 1: most would come to the conclusion that they are total
Speaker 1: and complete polar opposites of one another, with completely opposing ideologies,
Speaker 1: with completely different opinions on how laws should be interpreted.
Speaker 1: Yet they were close friends, so close that she gave
Speaker 1: a eulogy at his memorial service.
Speaker 3: How does that happen?
Speaker 1: And really, how does that happen? My friends? I told you.
Speaker 1: This story is going to stick with you, and I
Speaker 1: mean it. It has certainly stuck with me. I remember
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty one when Clay put out the
Speaker 1: Daniel Boone series on Bear Grease. That series alone is
Speaker 1: what hooked me in as a listener of his show.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in those episodes he said something along the lines
Speaker 1: of he would have ridden a mule across the country
Speaker 1: just to meet Daniel Boone, look him in the eye
Speaker 1: and exchange a few words. And I don't have a mule,
Speaker 1: but I would walk, crawl, or borrow a mule if
Speaker 1: Clay would lend me one and ride it from Mississippi
Speaker 1: to Sasketchewan, just to shape Justice Antonine Scalia's hand, because
Speaker 1: I just think he is that respectable. Let's find out why.
Speaker 1: As we picked this back up, we're still at the
Speaker 1: property that they call Wyoming Plantation down in South Mississippi.
Speaker 1: It's a blistering hot and sunny day and I'm following
Speaker 1: behind Judge David Bramlett as he leads me to an
Speaker 1: old fire pit situation to just outside the hunting camp.
Speaker 1: Tell me about this.
Speaker 4: This fire just twenty tipped over the bars when he
Speaker 4: fell over and we got him up, sat back down.
Speaker 4: I wanted to scotch. And it's frightened us. You know,
Speaker 4: as I said earlier, you can see it headlines and
Speaker 4: times picking you in justice SCHOOLAH severally hurts in Mississippi
Speaker 4: on the deal.
Speaker 5: Was this?
Speaker 4: Ah?
Speaker 1: So y'all spend a lot of time around this fire pit.
Speaker 4: Then every night, every night we did.
Speaker 1: What about that skinning rat? Back there?
Speaker 4: Right over here? That's where were skinned to eleven?
Speaker 1: Right there, all the eleven deer in that picture? You
Speaker 1: showed me. Yes, goodness, gracious.
Speaker 4: Who who had to skin all of them? You?
Speaker 1: If you listen to the stories that these men share,
Speaker 1: it sounds like they're just telling old tales about a
Speaker 1: close friend and hunting buddy. But it cast a completely
Speaker 1: different light on it entirely when you factor in that
Speaker 1: these stories are about a Supreme Court justice. I think
Speaker 1: sometimes it's easy for us to forget the human side
Speaker 1: of public figures, celebrities, well known political figures, Supreme Court justices. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to really put a finger on why,
Speaker 1: But I just really enjoy hearing these stories of Antonine
Speaker 1: Scalia just hanging out at a deer camp with his friends.
Speaker 1: Y'all take from that what you will. In the last episode,
Speaker 1: we learned a little bit about who Justice Scalia was.
Speaker 1: We learned about how important the Supreme Court is in
Speaker 1: shaping the social and legal landscape of the United States
Speaker 1: of America. We learned that Justice Scalia was a man
Speaker 1: of brilliance, wit, and courage, but also a man that
Speaker 1: was humble, kind, and appreciated by pretty much everyone that
Speaker 1: knew him. We also learned that after turning down a
Speaker 1: few invitations to come speak in Mississippi, he finally said
Speaker 1: yes when an opportunity to fish in Turkey hunt was
Speaker 1: offered along with the deal, and that one hunt turned
Speaker 1: into a twenty year long friendship between the Justice, Charles Pickering,
Speaker 1: Wesley Breeland, and David Bramley, who all three shared with
Speaker 1: us several stories in the last episode, including a pretty
Speaker 1: comical one involving an accidental three deer morning in Justice
Speaker 1: Scalia's first ever deer hunt. And we heard these stories
Speaker 1: while sitting inside a rustic camp house at wahoam And Plantation,
Speaker 1: a place that Justice Scalia would travel down to and
Speaker 1: hunt with those guys for several years. We're still sitting
Speaker 1: inside that same camp, and that is where we're going
Speaker 1: to pick this one back up, lean in, because it's
Speaker 1: not going to take long for us to get into
Speaker 1: the good stuff.
Speaker 5: Justice Scalia, When are you would start calling? He would
Speaker 5: wrest it it up?
Speaker 1: Now what does that mean?
Speaker 5: What he mean do a lot of calling and loud calling?
Speaker 4: What would he use?
Speaker 1: He's a box call?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And so what evening? He and I Wesley had
Speaker 5: invited some friends out to this lake house to have
Speaker 5: dinner with us, and he cranked it up, and I
Speaker 5: heard in a minute way through the woods a turkey gobble,
Speaker 5: and then that turkey sort of was settling around like
Speaker 5: you could see him goblin. And after a while I
Speaker 5: heard him come and toward us. And the turkey came
Speaker 5: on up into the field. And when he got there,
Speaker 5: I said, now hold them was justice he got? And
Speaker 5: he did. He came right and for us, and I said, okay,
Speaker 5: it's justice. He slow not to shoot him, and he
Speaker 5: shot him and killed him. And then he and I
Speaker 5: walked across the pond down with that turkey after where
Speaker 5: the friends were waiting for us to come up to
Speaker 5: bust of my knowledge, that was only turkey that I
Speaker 5: knew of specifically that he himself called up and killed.
Speaker 5: So it was good that he had that experience.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's great. But another thing we didn't mention. He
Speaker 4: was tough in this way. He would get up way
Speaker 4: before daylight and be ready to go when you were ready,
Speaker 4: and he would hunt longer than you would want him to.
Speaker 4: I remember going out this several times and he said
Speaker 4: you came too early, ten thirty in the morning, and
Speaker 4: then he'd want a hunt in an afternoon. And we
Speaker 4: didn't mention that he killed a number of these Russian hogs.
Speaker 4: We have yet too, and I have a picture of
Speaker 4: that for you.
Speaker 1: As I sat there in that camp house, laughing at
Speaker 1: Judge Pickering talking about Justice Scalia quote ratcheting it up
Speaker 1: on a turkey call, and looking at the picture of
Speaker 1: the three of them with a large hog hanging up
Speaker 1: on a skinning rack, I thought I had already hit
Speaker 1: my quota on cool facts for the day. I mean,
Speaker 1: honestly I did. But that's when Judge Bramlett threw me
Speaker 1: a curveball that I did not see coming.
Speaker 4: And he took that back to Washington with him, took
Speaker 4: all that kind of wild absolutely Washington.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed was he do you know, I mean, was
Speaker 1: he just feeding other members of the.
Speaker 4: Court or he took it back for Professor Ginsburg, Justice
Speaker 4: Ginsbury's husband, who was a gold mate cook. They had
Speaker 4: New Year's donor ty every year. Yes, sir, and that's
Speaker 4: what they want.
Speaker 1: So again I'm going back to just my view of
Speaker 1: the Justice from the outside, looking at, not knowing him
Speaker 1: as a person, his friendship with like Justice Skinsburg, Yes, legendary. Right,
Speaker 1: you have these two people, and again this is my perspective. Right,
Speaker 1: you have these two people from politically almost like pretty
Speaker 1: much opposites of one another. But this grand friendship. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be hearing more from Justice Skinsburg and more about
Speaker 1: this unlikely yet legendary friendship and how in an even
Speaker 1: more unlikely manner, hunting plays into it. Well, it's time
Speaker 1: to dive into that further, and to really do it, Justice,
Speaker 1: we need to have a good understanding of both individuals.
Speaker 1: We already know who Justice Antonine Scalia is at this point,
Speaker 1: but it's time we learn more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Speaker 3: Justice Skinsburg. When you raise your right hand and repeat
Speaker 3: after me with Vader Ginsburg, do solemnly.
Speaker 2: Swear I'm Vader Ginsburg, Din.
Speaker 3: Solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution
Speaker 3: of the United States.
Speaker 6: That I will support and defend the Constitution of the
Speaker 6: United States again.
Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three. She attended college at Cornell University, and,
Speaker 1: like her colleague Antonine Scalia, attended Harvard Law School. However,
Speaker 1: she transferred to Columbia Law School and graduated from there.
Speaker 1: She was appointed to the US Court of Appeals for
Speaker 1: the DC's Circuit by President Carter in nineteen eighty and
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three she was nominated to the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court by President Clinton and shortly thereafter confirmed by a
Speaker 1: ninety six to three vote. She served on the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court from then on until her death in September of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. During her time on the Court, she garnered
Speaker 1: quite the reputation for herself, becoming well known for her
Speaker 1: sharp descents, her resilience, as she did survive several bouts
Speaker 1: with cancer, and she really became a cultural icon, earning
Speaker 1: the nickname the Notorious RBG by her dedicated supporters and
Speaker 1: for our intents and purposes, on this podcast, also known
Speaker 1: for her close friendship with her ideological adversary, Justice Antonine Scalioti.
Speaker 2: I met Nino for the first time when he was
Speaker 2: giving a speech to some unit of the ABA, must
Speaker 2: have been the Administrative Law second Law section probably, and
Speaker 2: it was on a case that had recently been decided
Speaker 2: by the d C Circuit. That was before either of
Speaker 2: us got there. And I was listening to him and
Speaker 2: disagreeing with a good part of what he said, but
Speaker 2: thought he said it in an absolutely captivating way.
Speaker 4: I think we should leave it in.
Speaker 3: Are you two ever going to agree on big issues
Speaker 3: at still maintain the friendship?
Speaker 7: Greet on a whole lot of stuff.
Speaker 3: Ruth is really bad only on the knee jerks.
Speaker 1: The unlikely and seemingly contradictive friendship became a popular piece
Speaker 1: of conversation among the news and entertainment outlets, and even
Speaker 1: got written into an opera of all things. People just
Speaker 1: couldn't seem to grasp or quit talking about why either
Speaker 1: of them were able to get along with one another.
Speaker 5: When he would start to leave down here, he would
Speaker 5: take all the game we could put in his bag
Speaker 5: to carry it back. And the reason he was carrying
Speaker 5: it back is Justice Gintensburg's husband was a cook, like
Speaker 5: to cook, and on New Year's Day he would take
Speaker 5: the game that was killed down here and he would
Speaker 5: prepare it for Nino family and for Justice Gettenberg family.
Speaker 5: So they really did have a They disagreed date greatly.
Speaker 5: They were pulled apart on their judicial philosophy, but they
Speaker 5: were close friends.
Speaker 1: So just a little fact that I can't fly past here.
Speaker 1: So some of the some of the venison that was
Speaker 1: taken off of this place was served at Justice Skinsburg's table,
Speaker 1: is what you're saying.
Speaker 4: On New Year's Day they had. They had dinner together
Speaker 4: every New Year's Againstburg's and the Scolias.
Speaker 1: Now that's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: And I shipped I shipped him venison for years really
Speaker 4: from Baton Rouge.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 4: Uh, that's how we got it up there, you know.
Speaker 4: We'd had coolers and had dry ice and shipped us
Speaker 4: from Washington.
Speaker 1: Picture this. It's New Year's Day sometime in the early
Speaker 1: two thousands, and the families of Justice Scalia and Justice
Speaker 1: Ginsburg are gathering up for their annual tradition of New
Speaker 1: Year's Day dinner, a tradition that was such a staple
Speaker 1: in their friendship, that it was talked about often in
Speaker 1: the press, and just what are they dining upon it?
Speaker 1: This special dinner wild game, the deer and the hog
Speaker 1: meat that Scalia had acquired while hunting down in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it was even shipped to him from Baton
Speaker 1: Rouge or Mississippi to DC Antonine Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Speaker 1: two of the most powerful judges in the world eating
Speaker 1: wild game together. Now, if that ain't the coolest fun
Speaker 1: fact that you'll hear all week, frankly, I want to
Speaker 1: hear what tops it, because that right there is pretty
Speaker 1: dad gone cool. I mean, really, let's ponder on this
Speaker 1: one for a second. I don't think I'm reaching too
Speaker 1: far when I say that the vast majority of listeners
Speaker 1: of this show and this podcast feed know how special
Speaker 1: hunting in the outdoors is to our lives. We know
Speaker 1: how special it is to sit down at a table
Speaker 1: for a meal that is made up of something that
Speaker 1: we went out and hunted and brought in ourselves. It's
Speaker 1: a feeling like none other, and that's not an exaggeration.
Speaker 1: And of course we know the bonds and the friendships
Speaker 1: that can be formed through a mutual love and appreciation
Speaker 1: for wild life and wild places. Of course, we know it,
Speaker 1: We've lived it, we've experienced it. The ties that bind us,
Speaker 1: my friends, the ties that bind us and I feel
Speaker 1: like I would be doing such a disservice to our
Speaker 1: shared value system if I didn't spend some time and
Speaker 1: put some emphasis on this small but paramount detail that
Speaker 1: Scalia Ginsburg friendship, that legendary friendship that is still being
Speaker 1: talked about to this very day, was regularly celebrated by
Speaker 1: the same wild game that came from the same wild
Speaker 1: places that you and I cherish so much. But this
Speaker 1: story and its unlikely outcomes, it's far from over.
Speaker 5: He was ualty, see, so he became a very excellent,
Speaker 5: a very excellent marksman show with a rifle. He was
Speaker 5: badly now when we started hunting and we did doing
Speaker 5: from wing shooting, he was not very good at it.
Speaker 5: But then with the time he quit hunting, whether he
Speaker 5: was very good of wing shooting. And he brought Justice
Speaker 5: Kagan down with him.
Speaker 1: He brought Justice Kagan down with him. That was the
Speaker 1: last sentence we got there from Judge Charles Pickering. Brought
Speaker 1: her down to come hunting to be more specific, Justice
Speaker 1: Alena Kagan, another Supreme Court Justice. She was appointed to
Speaker 1: the Court in twenty ten by President Barack Obama, and,
Speaker 1: much like Justice Ginsburg, often had opposing ideologies compared to Scalia.
Speaker 1: As I sat there looking through photos of these men
Speaker 1: duck hunting and quail hunting with Justices Scalia and Kagan,
Speaker 1: I can't help but wonder how all this happened. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm even more impressed because Scalia has now introduced Justice
Speaker 1: Ginsburg to wild game and has now introduced Justice Kagan
Speaker 1: to hunting. How cool is that?
Speaker 5: All right? Specifics, you went duck hunting with Justice Scalia
Speaker 5: was well, yeah, you.
Speaker 6: Know, I haven't gone duck hunting yet, although that's on
Speaker 6: the trip list.
Speaker 4: But I do go, it's on the bucket list.
Speaker 6: Actually, I shoot birds with him fair, you know, two
Speaker 6: or three times a year. Now, the way this started,
Speaker 6: I'll tell you the story. I met with about eighty
Speaker 6: senators individually, and quite a lot of them, both Republicans
Speaker 6: and Democrats, ask you about your views on the Second Amendment.
Speaker 6: But because you don't say anything about your views on anything,
Speaker 6: then they ask you. They try to figure out, well,
Speaker 6: what are your views on the Second Amendment likely to
Speaker 6: be and they'll say, well, have you have you ever
Speaker 6: held a gun? Have you ever gone hunting? Do you
Speaker 6: know anybody who's gone hunting? And you know me, Jeff,
Speaker 6: I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,
Speaker 6: and this was not something we really did, you know.
Speaker 6: And so I kept on having these kindress where I
Speaker 6: would say no and no and no. And I was
Speaker 6: and find somebody said to me, you know, one of
Speaker 6: the sets of these questions, and I said, you know, Senator,
Speaker 6: I said, if you were to invite me hunting, I
Speaker 6: would really love to go. Uh And this look of
Speaker 6: total horror passed over his face. You know, has this
Speaker 6: woman just invited herself hunting with me? And I thought
Speaker 6: I've gone too far. And then I sort of pulled
Speaker 6: back and I said, well, I didn't really mean to
Speaker 6: invite myself, but I'll tell you what, if I'm lucky
Speaker 6: enough to be confirmed, I will ask Justice Clia to
Speaker 6: take me hunting. And I went to Justice Clia when
Speaker 6: I got onto the court, and I said, this is
Speaker 6: the only promise I made during my entire confirmation proceedings,
Speaker 6: so you have to help me fulfill it. And he
Speaker 6: thought it was hilarious. He thought it was a total crackup.
Speaker 6: And so there you go.
Speaker 1: Now allow me to sad bar for a second. Here
Speaker 1: to challenge all my fellow hunters, the anglers. The next
Speaker 1: time that you get a chance to take a new
Speaker 1: bee hunting or fishing, don't pass on it. I know
Speaker 1: it's not always convenient, but you really never know what
Speaker 1: the impact might be. I mean, just think about what
Speaker 1: we heard. A woman who grew up in Manhattan that
Speaker 1: knew virtually nothing about hunting. She asked one senator to
Speaker 1: take her hunting. He turns her down. And I think
Speaker 1: it speaks so much about the character of Antonine Scalia
Speaker 1: that Kagan felt confident that he would take her hunting
Speaker 1: before she ever even asked him. What a great ambassador
Speaker 1: for the world of hunting. So you were saying, you're
Speaker 1: the only man who's rode in a mule drawn carriage
Speaker 1: with Justice Kagan on a quail hunt.
Speaker 4: I say that in a jocular way, but it's true.
Speaker 4: She was a lovely person, is a lovely person, and
Speaker 4: I had such a wonderful time being with her, yeah,
Speaker 4: on those two occasions.
Speaker 1: And that's something I mean. Obviously, we're here to mainly
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, Justice Scalia and him. But one
Speaker 1: thing that I I just couldn't I had to focus
Speaker 1: in on, especially with putting an episode, like we're going
Speaker 1: to doing this out. It's like in today's modern times,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's such a rift and such a
Speaker 1: divide between people that looking at men like Justice Scalia
Speaker 1: and Justice Kagan and his friendship with Ginsburg and like
Speaker 1: finding a personal friendship despite political differences. I just I
Speaker 1: always I respected that about him, then I respected about
Speaker 1: him now, and I think it's just so important to
Speaker 1: highlight it.
Speaker 5: It was. And another thing about it. You know, I
Speaker 5: told you about a bolt, how plain it was with
Speaker 5: a tar paper sighting. And here this is nice place,
Speaker 5: which it's simple, it's not opulent. He enjoyed these places,
Speaker 5: the simple. We also went to some of the nicest
Speaker 5: lodges in the nation to hunt. He enjoyed those two,
Speaker 5: but he enjoyed the simple as well as he did
Speaker 5: the opulent.
Speaker 4: And right over there is that wood stove. And he
Speaker 4: liked to split his own wood. We had we would
Speaker 4: cut wood and it would be in pieces, you know,
Speaker 4: eight inches around piece eight inches and he splitted himself
Speaker 4: with an axe. Yeah, with an axe, he'd go out
Speaker 4: there and split his own court. He wanted to split
Speaker 4: his own wood. But he had a very comfortable and
Speaker 4: find relationship with Justice Kid, and I'll say that he did. Indeed,
Speaker 4: he did with all the justices. As I said earlier,
Speaker 4: we didn't talk about any cases, but he did talk
Speaker 4: about the court a little bit, and I wanted to
Speaker 4: know his relationship with the justices. I never heard him
Speaker 4: say one unkind word about any one. He felt a
Speaker 4: camaraderie with the court and with each individual member of
Speaker 4: the court.
Speaker 1: Earlier in the episode, I mentioned the links that I
Speaker 1: would have gone through to be able to shake Justice
Speaker 1: Antonin Scalia's hand because I just have so much respect
Speaker 1: for the man, and I do feel that way strongly.
Speaker 1: But the main driving force behind why I feel that
Speaker 1: way is not because of his appreciation for hunting in
Speaker 1: the natural resources, nor his seemingly unquenchable curiosity about the
Speaker 1: world around him, or even his decisions that he made
Speaker 1: on the bench. And while I do appreciate those things,
Speaker 1: the main source of my respect for him is the
Speaker 1: way that he treated people, all people, not just people
Speaker 1: that agreed with him. He treated everyone with the same respect, courtesy,
Speaker 1: and kindness, and that's evident through the stories I've read
Speaker 1: and heard from the people that knew him from all
Speaker 1: walks of life and all kinds of viewpoints.
Speaker 2: Well, once asked how we could be friends given odd
Speaker 2: disagreement on lots of things.
Speaker 4: Justicecalia answered, I attack ideas.
Speaker 8: I don't attack people, and some very good people have
Speaker 8: some very bad ideas.
Speaker 2: And if you can't separate the two, you got to
Speaker 2: get another day job.
Speaker 4: You don't want to be a judge, at least not
Speaker 4: a judge on a multi member panel.
Speaker 5: Well, after we got the invitation to go to Florida,
Speaker 5: and then we're begin to get the invitations to go
Speaker 5: all over the next several years, we didn't hunt much
Speaker 5: in Mississippi, And just before he died, he said, I
Speaker 5: want to go back to Mississippi next year. I want
Speaker 5: to go where it all started. And he was planning
Speaker 5: to come back the spring after.
Speaker 4: He died, no kidding, he had in February.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, I remember, I remember hearing about it. I
Speaker 1: would have. That was twenty fifteen, sixteen, twenty sixteen, O Liah.
Speaker 8: This morning, his body is on its way back to
Speaker 8: Virginia after it was determined the seventy nine year old
Speaker 8: died of natural causes. The late Supreme Court justice suddenly
Speaker 8: passed away during a hunting trip to Texas over the weekend.
Speaker 8: CBS fours done so.
Speaker 1: On the morning of February thirteenth, twenty sixteen, while on
Speaker 1: a quell hunting trip in Texas, Justice Antonine Scalia was
Speaker 1: found dead. It was later determined that he had died
Speaker 1: of natural causes. And while I do find it somewhat
Speaker 1: poetic that his passing did come on a hunting trip,
Speaker 1: his death did come as a surprise to many, some
Speaker 1: of which the three men who we have been hearing
Speaker 1: from man Man And he was planning and he was
Speaker 1: planning to come back here the year that.
Speaker 9: Yes, yes, he was. All said that he was coming
Speaker 9: the first week of April, I believe.
Speaker 1: And I think it's pretty incredible that he acknowledged that
Speaker 1: this is where it all started and that's why he
Speaker 1: wanted to come back here.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, well he enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: The last time I talked to him on the phone,
Speaker 4: he said he was coming back the next year, and
Speaker 4: that was, as I say, two thousand and thirteen, and
Speaker 4: he said this, he said, I miss it him saying
Speaker 4: that if he said I want to come back, I miss.
Speaker 1: It, and I apologize if I asked some some hard questions.
Speaker 4: What did it mean.
Speaker 1: On a personal level. I want to ask all three
Speaker 1: of you all this on a personal level, what did
Speaker 1: his friendship mean to you?
Speaker 5: Well, you always like to be exposed to greatness and
Speaker 5: being a friend Nino with being related to greatness. And
Speaker 5: then there was a warmth there. I mean, aside from
Speaker 5: the factory to the great individual. We came to where
Speaker 5: we enjoyed being around one another and with our wives,
Speaker 5: and so it was a personal loss of a good
Speaker 5: friend and a great man.
Speaker 9: Oh it was really unique. That's coming from where I
Speaker 9: came from. Even know on a personal level a man
Speaker 9: of that statue was unique, and to be able just
Speaker 9: to sit down and talk to it. And we spent
Speaker 9: a lot of time together. Turkey Hunt talked about a
Speaker 9: lot of things, and just to know somebody that had
Speaker 9: the knowledge that he had, he knew something about everything.
Speaker 4: Well, you admired his knowledge about as well, she said,
Speaker 4: many things, his curiosity about life in the South. If
Speaker 4: you want a friend, you got to be a friend.
Speaker 4: And I tried to be a friend of him, and
Speaker 4: I think I was. He was most certainly a friend
Speaker 4: to me, and I think about him all the time.
Speaker 1: To this day. Yes, Sir, I sat in that old
Speaker 1: camp house for over an hour with those men, listening
Speaker 1: to stories that just kept coming, one after the other,
Speaker 1: most of them about Scalia, some of them not. Some
Speaker 1: of them would make me laugh, some of them would
Speaker 1: make me smile, some of them flat out made me
Speaker 1: wish I could have been there to see it in person.
Speaker 1: And all of them let me know without a shadow
Speaker 1: of a doubt that these men were friends of Antonine Scalia,
Speaker 1: and he was a friend to them. I've always believed
Speaker 1: that you can tell a lot about a person by
Speaker 1: the way their friends talk about them, and I have
Speaker 1: no doubt after hearing the words of so many that
Speaker 1: Antonine Scalia was a beloved man by everyone that knew it,
Speaker 1: And frankly, I think there's a lot we can learn
Speaker 1: from it. Courage, integrity, how to be a friend, how
Speaker 1: to separate ideas from people, how to stay curious, and
Speaker 1: to not be afraid to offer wild game to someone
Speaker 1: or take them. Honey, man, what a guy.
Speaker 6: He'll go down in history as one of the most
Speaker 6: important Spreme Court justices ever and also one of the greatest.
Speaker 7: With him, a piece of my own life is carried
Speaker 7: to the grave. Yet our eyes are upon thee. We
Speaker 7: believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
Speaker 7: the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. God
Speaker 7: bless you, brother Nina, God bless you.
Speaker 2: We were different, yes, in our interpretation of written texts,
Speaker 2: yet one in our reverence for the Court and its
Speaker 2: placed in the US system of governance.
Speaker 1: I want to thank all of you for listen thing
Speaker 1: to Backwoods University as well as bear Greece in this
Speaker 1: country life. If you enjoyed this series on justice, Antonine Scalia,
Speaker 1: share it with someone this week, maybe someone you haven't
Speaker 1: talked to in a while, or heck, maybe a relative
Speaker 1: that you don't talk to anymore because you argue too
Speaker 1: much about politics. If Scalia and Ginsburg can be friends,
Speaker 1: anyone can and stick around because there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: more on the way.