Speaker 1: My name is Clay Neukleman. This is a production of
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f h
Speaker 1: F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear
Speaker 1: that's designed to be as rugged as the place as
Speaker 1: we explore. Ready to go, and just like that, here
Speaker 1: we are. We have we have a we have a
Speaker 1: very We've got a great group of people here today
Speaker 1: to talk about.
Speaker 2: We're gonna we're.
Speaker 1: Gonna spend a lot of time talking about two things.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about my goat hunt in Alaska.
Speaker 1: We had a film come out just this week on
Speaker 1: the Media YouTube channel, and I want to give some
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. I have some props. Oh and I
Speaker 1: kind of have a big story to tell that the
Speaker 1: film just couldn't tell.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Is as much as you would think that the medium
Speaker 1: of video would be the primary way to tell a
Speaker 1: story is not at all. Video is all hype and fluff.
Speaker 1: Who writing and podcasting is the way you tell a story?
Speaker 3: What do you think, Malco, I think you could throw
Speaker 3: in storytelling?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, but what in what form?
Speaker 3: Audio audio talking, yes, podcasts, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: guess I'm not sixty three. You know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes sometimes when I'm talking to older people, I tell
Speaker 2: them we have an internet radio program.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've explained it to many people that have been
Speaker 1: on Bear Grease. It's kind of like a radio show,
Speaker 1: but it's on the Internet and you listen to at anytime.
Speaker 1: But so, so, we made this big video about my goat,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to talk about that. But secondly, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about a podcast that I think when
Speaker 1: when when I heard the what our production team at
Speaker 1: media finished up, Like me and Josh work on the
Speaker 1: nuts and bolts and content, like we script Bear Grease
Speaker 1: in our minds and then we basically give our design
Speaker 1: to the production team that makes it, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we hear kind of with imperfection, what we think it's
Speaker 1: going to sound like, and then when we hear it,
Speaker 1: it's like like pops And I feel like this is
Speaker 1: one of the best Bear Grease of all time period.
Speaker 1: That's my personal personal I just I just loved it.
Speaker 4: I like the name of it. It kind of matches
Speaker 4: that the incredible life of Fellas Bell. It was it
Speaker 4: kind of felt like a Hollywood like one of those fantastical.
Speaker 1: Extra So we're going to talk about that. So we
Speaker 1: have doctor mister Nukem so great to see. Beautiful scarf.
Speaker 4: Thank you, my daughter got this for me.
Speaker 1: Recent we have Josh Lambridge film career see Josh, Me
Speaker 1: and Josh Rode. Twenty five miles on mules the last
Speaker 1: two days. Hog hunting for another day.
Speaker 2: And for a guy who doesn't ride mules, that's a lot.
Speaker 1: For another day. This saddle, don't don't for a second,
Speaker 1: which camera, don't for a second think that this saddle
Speaker 1: is just for show cult. George made that saddle for
Speaker 1: me in Wyoming and there was a hog laid over that.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: There's blood on the other side.
Speaker 1: Of blood on this thing. Yeah, this was This was
Speaker 1: twenty five miles in the back country two days ago
Speaker 1: and then mules.
Speaker 2: Honestly places I didn't think you could ride anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, we were some wooly places. Yep, Josh. But hey, guys,
Speaker 1: that's a different story. Sorry goats. In the Extraordinary Life
Speaker 1: of Mister Ellis got bar John Neukomb Yep, glad to
Speaker 1: be Bear's got some big films coming out from me.
Speaker 1: Me and jannist bout tell us have a have a
Speaker 1: a constant years long back and forth about semantics between
Speaker 1: whether what we make is films or episodes. I believe
Speaker 1: I make films, right, Yannis says, Clay, you don't make films,
Speaker 1: you make episodes. Episode. What I mean, like when we
Speaker 1: make these meat Eater with basically anything that goes on
Speaker 1: meat Eater because Yannis has stuff on either, I have
Speaker 1: stuff on either. I say, great film, Yannis, like when
Speaker 1: one of his stuff and he goes, Clay, I don't
Speaker 1: make films. That was just an episode. I feel like
Speaker 1: his stuff is episodes. Your stuff is films except the
Speaker 1: Bears Road Takespeare. My point exactly, I said, Yannis, I'm
Speaker 1: an artist.
Speaker 3: See I determined it by time. Yeah, episode is like
Speaker 3: twenty minutes to forty five minutes. Anything longer than forty
Speaker 3: five minutes a film.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, then I make episodes a legitimate claim.
Speaker 2: Think that's a legitimate claim.
Speaker 1: It is what I said. Yeah, it's all it's all
Speaker 1: about the genre you're inside of, because like all these
Speaker 1: like the yetty short films are like eight minutes long,
Speaker 1: and they're and they're they call them films. It actually
Speaker 1: is a. It's it's semantics that revolves around the artistic
Speaker 1: quality of the said thing, like it's intent. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like, hey, are we grilling burgers? Are we making steaks?
Speaker 1: Were making an episode? Or we're making a film? Okay,
Speaker 1: So me and Yanis have this this I call it films.
Speaker 1: Yannis is an artist. He is literally an artist. Yes,
Speaker 1: so but he Bear guy, he is. I wish he
Speaker 1: could be on the Burgers founder.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Bear has multiple films coming out in the next couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, the debut film, debut films that that he's in.
Speaker 1: That that are gonna be really great. Uh. We have
Speaker 1: doctor Malachi Nichols here. Hey, me and Josh, we are
Speaker 1: talking about you or history on the Burgrease podcast. Literally,
Speaker 1: were you on the first burgash Render.
Speaker 3: I believe that I was on the first like six man? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah?
Speaker 3: And check j just clear or something back? Jack, just clear.
Speaker 3: I just got the email.
Speaker 5: Heavily weighted with doctors today we are we are heavily
Speaker 5: wing of the crew.
Speaker 2: Here have legitimate doctorates.
Speaker 1: Doctor Malakai Nichols, doctor nukelem Ye, and then.
Speaker 2: Illegitimate Clay.
Speaker 4: He wants to he wants to put himself in in
Speaker 4: here with us and say, I am a doctor. He
Speaker 4: went through the Gary Nukelems school.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I am.
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 1: I do have a pH d in the Gary Newcomb
Speaker 1: School of Hunting hard knocks and if anybody has that, yes,
Speaker 1: that's all I got, though, that's all I got. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to have you, doctor Nichols, very to
Speaker 1: have you. So when I tell us what your doctor's in,
Speaker 1: I have a PhD in education policy education. What does
Speaker 1: that mean?
Speaker 3: I can essentially like I'm trained to be able to
Speaker 3: evaluate educational programs and educational policies and give color to
Speaker 3: the black and white numbers around research.
Speaker 1: Nice and you're a squirrel hunter.
Speaker 3: I am a squirrel hunter.
Speaker 1: It's real serious.
Speaker 3: Boys are squirrel the other day. I have to tell this.
Speaker 3: I have to tell the story. So we have like
Speaker 3: a yearly was it New Year's Day squirrel hunt with
Speaker 3: the Newcombs. And this is year two for my boys
Speaker 3: and we go out squirrel hunt. They love it. Took
Speaker 3: my youngest he's two this year old, this is four.
Speaker 3: So like a week later after the squirrel hunt, we're
Speaker 3: like preparing for like family golf, like going out to
Speaker 3: play golf, which is a big deal. It was a
Speaker 3: big deal. Once a week we usual the play off
Speaker 3: as a family. My wife included my oldest looks at
Speaker 3: me and goes, dad, you know, squirrel hunting is funner
Speaker 3: than golf. I don't want to talk about it about
Speaker 3: true story, true story.
Speaker 1: Dad.
Speaker 3: You know, squirrel hunting is funner than I love it.
Speaker 3: So we only did. We only did squirrel hunting for
Speaker 3: two mans. That was it wrapped up.
Speaker 1: I would make an I would make a shirt.
Speaker 2: Squirrel hunting is funner than golf.
Speaker 3: Dad.
Speaker 1: Quote Dad, squirrel name underneath it. Oh my gosh, that
Speaker 1: is funny story. I think you've been holding that back
Speaker 1: for me. I have you knew that it would cause
Speaker 1: too much?
Speaker 3: It would like increase the level of influence of hunting
Speaker 3: inside of my children's life. My boys have camo before
Speaker 3: I've I've had camo.
Speaker 1: It's how serious.
Speaker 3: It is so serious.
Speaker 1: Wow, that this is major. I had no idea. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I will handle I'll handle this responsibly.
Speaker 1: I may pitch in a few bones to the golf.
Speaker 1: They'll be when I'm talking to him, I'll be like, hey,
Speaker 1: golf's pretty fun too.
Speaker 3: With your dad.
Speaker 1: It'll be like you sure what your hangle? That is
Speaker 1: super funny. So this week on the YouTube Media YouTube
Speaker 1: Media channel, we came out with my Alaskan goat film
Speaker 1: Mountain Goat, which is I was in Alaska in mid
Speaker 1: August of twenty twenty four with my friend and guide
Speaker 1: David Bennett's. David is a is business called Stay Keen
Speaker 1: Guide Service and he is I've known David for like
Speaker 1: over a decade through bear hunting magazine stuff, so we
Speaker 1: kind of had this relationship. But he was the guy
Speaker 1: went wolf trapping with a couple of years ago, well
Speaker 1: last winter, and David is he is just a bad
Speaker 1: to the bone Alaskan guy. I could tell stories about
Speaker 1: David that just I'll tell you one. He he multiple
Speaker 1: times he's a veteran bow hunter and he's he's killing
Speaker 1: boon and Crockett animals with his bow up there in Alaska,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to kill a boon and crocket cariboo.
Speaker 1: And he flew into this place and for the for
Speaker 1: the super cub, all that they could carry was you know,
Speaker 1: X amount of gear in him and make it out
Speaker 1: there and then make it back. And so he had
Speaker 1: limited amount of gear he could take. Went on this
Speaker 1: solo hunt, carried twelve days worth of food and gear.
Speaker 1: That's all he had. But he had, but he planned
Speaker 1: to stay just like as long as it took. So
Speaker 1: on day twelve, when he ran out of food, he
Speaker 1: just like he stayed out there without food and just
Speaker 1: killed grouse and ate berries and drank water out of
Speaker 1: the creek for nine days and finally killed this huge caribou.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is why when I.
Speaker 2: Was killing what's up? What was he killing to eat
Speaker 2: daily grouse?
Speaker 1: Grouse? Yeah, he was shooting grouse with his bow and
Speaker 1: cooking grouse over a fire and heat for nine days.
Speaker 1: That's what he did. And I mean he'll tell you
Speaker 1: that story like and like not even think it's cool,
Speaker 1: you know. And he does some really elongated moose hunts,
Speaker 1: like floating like one hundred and fifty plus miles solo
Speaker 1: in a raft down uh rivers and after after big moose.
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy just every time you around him,
Speaker 1: he'll just tell you a story that you just are like,
Speaker 1: are are you kidding? But he's been he's living like
Speaker 1: he's fifty seven, lived in Alaska's whole life, his entire
Speaker 1: life has been a commercial fisherman guide and professional trapper,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know on this mountain goat hunt mountain
Speaker 1: goats male like I live in the roughest wildest places
Speaker 1: is in North America, like period they live, and it's
Speaker 1: like that there's this like trophic scheme of where animals
Speaker 1: live based on elevation and food and whatnot, and the
Speaker 1: mountain goats just learned. I mean, their strategy is to
Speaker 1: live in the places where predators can't go because it's
Speaker 1: just too rough and cliffy, and so they're living in
Speaker 1: these like wild places. And I started that story to
Speaker 1: tell something else. So essentially, when you go hunt a
Speaker 1: mountain goat, you're going into the roughest spots in North
Speaker 1: America to get them. David Bennett's is twelve years older
Speaker 1: than me, and he was in better shape than me.
Speaker 1: And I was working pretty hard to be in shape.
Speaker 1: And I had some people ask me like what I did,
Speaker 1: And I'm not like an ultra athlete or anything, but
Speaker 1: I do work to stay in shape. And essentially, for
Speaker 1: six months, I was pounding the StairMaster with a pack
Speaker 1: with a pack on, like a weighted pack, just trying
Speaker 1: to just build up my legs. You know, yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: see you in the gym with like a camo backpack,
Speaker 1: but like it's probably hauled out like a bunch of
Speaker 1: dead animals, and you're like on the StairMaster, like walking
Speaker 1: with all these old men.
Speaker 4: Well, I think i'd like to It actually became a
Speaker 4: subject of family memes. We sent them around because the
Speaker 4: gym we go to is not like a back hunter's gym,
Speaker 4: and so like there's all these people there, they've got
Speaker 4: their fancy gear and then there's Clay running around with
Speaker 4: this nasty old backpack. It's pretty funny to us, and
Speaker 4: so we started sending the memes and we have our
Speaker 4: own little Clay doesn't know it. There's a little thread
Speaker 4: without them, and there's we have all sorts of funny
Speaker 4: statements about you know, it was veratful, very flattering, I think,
Speaker 4: like just about being.
Speaker 1: But I have a weighted vest. It's like a it
Speaker 1: looks like a swat team.
Speaker 3: Like it's supposed to be there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just looked like a homeless guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah gym fails.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, yeah, I often wondered what people thought.
Speaker 4: Just your kids, just your kids, I mean you're.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I'm sure other people thought. I had a conversation.
Speaker 1: One guy at the gym was like, that's a sweet
Speaker 1: backpack and uh and I could tell he was kind
Speaker 1: of like, what are you doing? And I said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, I said, I'm actually going on a hunt
Speaker 1: in Alaska. And so I put Wade in this thing
Speaker 1: and training trying to get walk up mountains. And he
Speaker 1: was like, for real, And.
Speaker 2: You know, there's like in my neighborhood. I can tell
Speaker 2: he's going on the trip because he's been hiking with
Speaker 2: a backpack all around.
Speaker 1: You need to ask him where he's going.
Speaker 2: I know, I need to ask him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I said, I'm hunting mountain goats and he
Speaker 1: was like, what, what's a mountain goat? And you know,
Speaker 1: I told him, like I don't know if he thought
Speaker 1: I was like not like mine thought it was the
Speaker 1: crazy guy that was just like making stuff up. But anyway,
Speaker 1: next time I see him, I'm gonna be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to.
Speaker 2: Watch this film in front of your stair mask.
Speaker 1: So the mountain goat so so. But David is just
Speaker 1: an incredible guy. There was a little part on the
Speaker 1: film where it kind of did like a bio piece
Speaker 1: on David and uh it was. It was interesting. He
Speaker 1: when he was a senior in high school, he graduated
Speaker 1: high school and he had a commercial fisherman take him
Speaker 1: back into a cove and leave him for three months
Speaker 1: with about one hundred traps, and uh and he he
Speaker 1: he stayed out there for three months and trapped. He
Speaker 1: he's he's a guy, He's the heck of a guy.
Speaker 1: And uh so my strategy on the film or on
Speaker 1: the hunt was just to was to try to kill
Speaker 1: a mountain goat with a bow, which to me would
Speaker 1: probably been the most challenging hunt that I would have done.
Speaker 1: And Frank Noska is a veteran, probably one of the
Speaker 1: most decorated bow hunters in the world. In turn, you
Speaker 1: won't see him on films and stuff, but he's he's
Speaker 1: done the Grand Slam, the Archery World Grand Slam, killing
Speaker 1: all twenty seven big game species with a bow for
Speaker 1: sure twice, and probably working on his next grands. I
Speaker 1: mean like he's like the one of the Michael Jordans
Speaker 1: of bow hunting guy that you wouldn't see on any films.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know that there's a film about
Speaker 1: Frank Noska, but I had seen an art episode. There
Speaker 1: might be an episode about there was. I saw him
Speaker 1: in a picture one time of him with a with
Speaker 1: a goat, and he was dressing a fully white suit
Speaker 1: with little ears on his hat. And so I had
Speaker 1: Josh Landbridge billmaker, make me a goat hat.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 1: I messaged frankn Osca and I said, hey, yeah, I'm monster.
Speaker 1: Our biggest mistake was making those horns that big, which
Speaker 1: was a well Frank. I messaged Frank and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: tell me about decoy and these goats. So Malachai, you
Speaker 1: dress up like a goat.
Speaker 4: I think everyone dresses left like a goat, do they?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: Okay, so.
Speaker 3: Frank.
Speaker 1: But these goats are in such remote places that anything
Speaker 1: when they see something white, they just think it's a goat.
Speaker 1: And and so I asked Frank about it, and he
Speaker 1: said he gave me some advice. He said, when you
Speaker 1: see goats that you can't stalk using train, Typically you
Speaker 1: would use terrain to stalk the goats, like you'd get
Speaker 1: behind rocks or the hill would roll and they'd be
Speaker 1: down at the bottom and you could pick over and shoot.
Speaker 1: But it's so open in some places you can't stalk
Speaker 1: goats because like they just can see you. You know,
Speaker 1: you're one hundred yards away and they're just like standing
Speaker 1: there looking at you. So that's when you use a
Speaker 1: decoy suit. And he said, he said, just start moving
Speaker 1: towards them, and if they see you and act nervous,
Speaker 1: he said, just stop. He said, just lay down for
Speaker 1: an hour. Just just wait and eventually they get okay
Speaker 1: with you and you just kind of move towards them
Speaker 1: and just evaluate like their response to it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: So that's part one.
Speaker 3: I want.
Speaker 1: I wanted, And so me and Josh made this, which
Speaker 1: this is a leafy suit, but we we spray painted
Speaker 1: at white and so it has h y'all want me
Speaker 1: to put this on, don't you? Oh, we spray painted
Speaker 1: at white. I'll just put on the top. So there's
Speaker 1: the bottoms. But this is a first light leafy suit
Speaker 1: that we that Josh actually spray painted and it made
Speaker 1: the perfect like textured. Most of the guys where like
Speaker 1: a like a painter suit, which they work good, but
Speaker 1: let me tell you what works better. This surprised we
Speaker 1: didn't catch you in the gym wearing that too well
Speaker 1: before I got kicked up.
Speaker 4: I definitely I definitely have pictures of Clay. There's a
Speaker 4: picture that I was going to meet someone. We were
Speaker 4: going to a coffee shop to do some work, and
Speaker 4: I said, I'll be there in twenty minutes. And anyway,
Speaker 4: I think Clay was going to come and he was
Speaker 4: going to drop me off and go do something else.
Speaker 4: And I texted her a picture of Clay talking to
Speaker 4: River and her friends in this outfit. And I just
Speaker 4: text her that picture because they were all eating dinner
Speaker 4: at our house and I came down the stairs with
Speaker 4: my you know, all my stuff, and I look and
Speaker 4: there's Clay dressed in this outfit. We're supposed to leave.
Speaker 4: He's dressed this outfit and he's got his hands up
Speaker 4: like this, impersonating I guess a mountain and a scared
Speaker 4: mountain goes. I don't know, he's got his hands up
Speaker 4: like this. And so I just took a picture and
Speaker 4: I sent it to her and I said, hey, I
Speaker 4: came downstairs to this, So I think I'm going to
Speaker 4: be a little late. I'm pretty proud of that suit.
Speaker 1: I am. It was, it was, it was, It worked
Speaker 1: really great. And so on on day four, Malka of
Speaker 1: this hunt, and I could I don't know y'all cue
Speaker 1: me up if there's I just kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: give a behind the scenes look at the hunt. A
Speaker 1: lot of people ask questions about the goat suit, and
Speaker 1: but I mainly want to talk about the recovery, So
Speaker 1: bear if you have questions.
Speaker 4: Hey, can I add something about the recovery that happened
Speaker 4: before you left? Okay, So, before Clay left are we
Speaker 4: were at church and our pastor said, Clay, let's all
Speaker 4: pray for Clay, pray for his safety while he's out there.
Speaker 4: And I was like, huh, that's an interesting thing to say.
Speaker 4: He's never said that before on any of Clay's.
Speaker 2: And he's a veteran hunter and he's.
Speaker 4: A veteran hunter. Yeah, and and uh and maybe Clay
Speaker 4: wasn't even I can't remember if Clay was there or
Speaker 4: if he'd already left. When he's like, Okay, Clay's on
Speaker 4: that on that mountain go hunt. Let's everyone this week
Speaker 4: you'll just be praying for clay safety. And I was
Speaker 4: just like, well, that's interesting. I mean, that kind of
Speaker 4: stuck in my mind. And then we hear this story
Speaker 4: of this retrieval.
Speaker 1: So on the goat Malachi, I was able to get
Speaker 1: within seventy yards it by using terrain, So I mean
Speaker 1: you could have just had like normal camera on and
Speaker 1: got to within seventy yards. I really needed to be inside.
Speaker 1: I wanted a forty yard shot, but really needed to
Speaker 1: be inside of fifty for being comfortable with a bow,
Speaker 1: and so at seventy yards, I essentially just stood up
Speaker 1: in my goat suit and just walked straight towards him
Speaker 1: without anything between us and the goat never directly even
Speaker 1: looked at me. They have eyes on the side of
Speaker 1: their head, like a prey animal, and so they can
Speaker 1: see like way further behind them than we can, and
Speaker 1: the goat would just like turn its head just a
Speaker 1: little bit. I could tell it was looking at me
Speaker 1: out of the corner of its eye, but never even
Speaker 1: directly like looked at me. And basically I just walked
Speaker 1: into forty yards with this hat on and walked into
Speaker 1: forty five yards, and I was just like, this is
Speaker 1: this is it? I mean, this is as close as
Speaker 1: I need to be and drew back shoot the goat.
Speaker 1: The goat, when you shoot an animal with archery equipment,
Speaker 1: they typically they don't go far, but they run. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't just drop them the goat. Goats are always
Speaker 1: within running distance of some terrible, nasty, cliffy rocky stuff.
Speaker 1: That's their escape strategy, like if a wolf had come
Speaker 1: up there for a grizzly like, They're always like not
Speaker 1: far from being to something crazy. This goat was out
Speaker 1: in the middle of what looked like a pasture. It
Speaker 1: was real steep, but it was I mean, you could
Speaker 1: have seen this goat for like, well, we saw the
Speaker 1: goat from a long ways away. It was like, well,
Speaker 1: there he is, right out in the middle of that face.
Speaker 1: Then we got in real close and I stalked around
Speaker 1: to the goat and when I shot it, it went
Speaker 1: right towards the cliffy stuff that was right there, and
Speaker 1: it you can see it in the film. It beds
Speaker 1: down on this big snow bank and it's still alive.
Speaker 1: I put another arrow in it and it's just SLID's off.
Speaker 1: The mountain just goes down and I can't see it.
Speaker 1: We go down and the goat is like one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty feet down, wedged underneath this huge block of ice.
Speaker 1: And again this I'm not even gonna describe it. You
Speaker 1: can just watch the film and I can get down
Speaker 1: when we finally see the I can get down fairly
Speaker 1: safely to within about fifteen feet of the goat and
Speaker 1: it David is there, Dirt Myth, the cameraman, legendary cameraman,
Speaker 1: Garrett Dirt Myth Smith is there. And this is what
Speaker 1: I couldn't say on the film is that David said, guys,
Speaker 1: this is not a goat that we can recover essentially,
Speaker 1: and and and.
Speaker 2: Just because of the precarious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and and he he he warned us. He said, guys,
Speaker 1: this is the kind of stuff that when you when
Speaker 1: you fall, they don't recover your body. He said that
Speaker 1: to us. He was just like because he knew we
Speaker 1: me and Dirt were very motivated to get that goat,
Speaker 1: and he was doing his job of just saying, he said,
Speaker 1: we'll just that happens in goat hunting. Sometimes you shoot
Speaker 1: a goat that you don't recover because it just just
Speaker 1: falls into the abyss. Yeah, and that's terrible like that.
Speaker 1: In hunting like such a there's such a high priority
Speaker 1: put on recovering the animal and taking the meet out.
Speaker 3: I mean, like.
Speaker 1: Period, that's what we all want to do. And so
Speaker 1: we're very motivated to get this goat. We can see
Speaker 1: it and it's lodged up under this ice. And David
Speaker 1: and again this at this point, we weren't even thinking
Speaker 1: about filming. I mean, the film is like, we're not
Speaker 1: even making a film anymore. We're trying to survive. Dirt's
Speaker 1: camera is like way up on the mountain and here
Speaker 1: we are down here, you know, having this little discussion
Speaker 1: while in dirt. Basically, well, I get down and there's
Speaker 1: like this little shelf about as big as a car
Speaker 1: hood that I'm very safe on. But it took I
Speaker 1: had to climb down one hundred and fifty feet through
Speaker 1: this little drainage. You can see it on one of
Speaker 1: my you can see it on the film. It doesn't
Speaker 1: look near as precarious as it was. Josh is a skier,
Speaker 1: and he knows that when you take ski videos they
Speaker 1: always look yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, you think I just skied them some of
Speaker 2: the crazy Steve, and then you see the video it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: a toddler could have walked across that.
Speaker 1: This this this took every bit of everything I had
Speaker 1: to get down to here. But but I was safe
Speaker 1: and I felt like I could get back up. That's
Speaker 1: the problem with this kind of stuff is you might
Speaker 1: be able to go down something, but you got to
Speaker 1: come back up it. And so I'm sitting there, see
Speaker 1: the goat, Dirt's here, and Dirt, myth is a just
Speaker 1: he is a savage of a man. He's Dirt's probably
Speaker 1: like my height, probably like five ten ish, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And that's pushing it. And uh, he's a veteran rock climber.
Speaker 1: Steve Varnella calls him a world class hiker. He's just strong.
Speaker 1: He's raised on a ranch in Montana, and it's just
Speaker 1: an incredible guy. And and Dirt is as Dirt's brother
Speaker 1: is a professional rock climber. And Dirt has done some
Speaker 1: trips that just will blow your mind about rock climbing.
Speaker 1: So he knew his way around rocks. We had one
Speaker 1: little bit of rope and Dirt says, hey, I think
Speaker 1: I can get to that goat and put a rope
Speaker 1: on its horns. And he said, here's what you do, Clay.
Speaker 1: He said, you stay up here on this flat spot
Speaker 1: and blay me off of ballet means put a kink
Speaker 1: in the rope off of a rock.
Speaker 2: And he's like to use as a brake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so he ties this little nylon rope like
Speaker 1: around his waist in a special knot, and and he's
Speaker 1: not using he's not putting his weight on the rope.
Speaker 1: He's the rope is just like safety. Like if he falls,
Speaker 1: then all his weight would be on it, and I'm
Speaker 1: I would then be the one holding it. And the
Speaker 1: the blay rock is not good like it's it's rounded,
Speaker 1: and so I keep saying, Dirt, this this rock. I said,
Speaker 1: what if the rope slips over the top, And he said, man,
Speaker 1: if you just keep pressure on it, it won't. He
Speaker 1: just understood the physics of it. He's like, the smallest
Speaker 1: amount of pressure is going to keep it from slipping over.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, okay, man, And you see it
Speaker 1: in the film. I say, Dirt, if you have any
Speaker 1: reservations about doing this, don't do it. And while he's
Speaker 1: like tying it on, he says, oh, I have reservations.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what you can't see in the film is that
Speaker 1: like this is like the scariest thing I've ever done
Speaker 1: in my life. I mean for real, like no acting, no,
Speaker 1: like we weren't. It was just I was petrified.
Speaker 3: What's the time frame like from shot second shot to
Speaker 3: like him putting on the rope.
Speaker 1: Two hours, yeah, to.
Speaker 4: Get down there and get set up, and him coming
Speaker 4: back up. What's the time?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you even know? Two and a half hours?
Speaker 1: Three hours? It was like a three probably a three
Speaker 1: hour window, and in the film that's like four minutes.
Speaker 1: So it's like this build up. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of us talking about it with David, like how are
Speaker 1: we going to get down there? And him okay o.
Speaker 1: The other thing that he did that he would tell
Speaker 1: us later is that is that he he reached his
Speaker 1: wife who was back home, and said, David said, stay
Speaker 1: by the phone, stay by your phone, don't leave the house,
Speaker 1: and have the coastguard on dot justike, look up the
Speaker 1: coast not the coastguard. Look up the Yeah, the coast guard,
Speaker 1: the coast Guard, that's what because it was that's the
Speaker 1: he said, look up their number and just be ready.
Speaker 1: He said, don't leave the house until you hear from me.
Speaker 1: Stay by your phone.
Speaker 3: He had that.
Speaker 1: I mean, he David was worked up about it. But
Speaker 1: David also he trusted Dirt. He trusted us to not
Speaker 1: do something stupid. And so this we would all learn later,
Speaker 1: you know. And and so Dirt shimmies down and gets down,
Speaker 1: and what you can't tell in the film, there's just
Speaker 1: no way to describe it, is that goat if it
Speaker 1: had not lodged right under that ice in that rock,
Speaker 1: it would have tumbled eight hundred feet and you can't
Speaker 1: see it. It looks like it just kind of like gradually
Speaker 1: slopes down. But I told Misty it wasn't like a
Speaker 1: vertical face like Wiley Coyote. Like if you'd have jumped,
Speaker 1: you'd have just been in the air. It was one
Speaker 1: of these deals where you would have fallen and you
Speaker 1: would have you would have been dead within fifty feet,
Speaker 1: but you would have just went but you would have
Speaker 1: ended up eight hundred feet down, like zero chance of survival.
Speaker 4: Wow, are you going to tell about like what it
Speaker 4: sounded like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Dirt gets down and ropes the goat, and
Speaker 1: when he does, it's just like, holy cow, he did it?
Speaker 1: He when he This wasn't on film, because I'm belaying
Speaker 1: like the part of the film that that is on
Speaker 1: that you do see is just when I had a
Speaker 1: second to just film with my phone, Dirt when he
Speaker 1: went down, and I'm like full scale pulling the slack
Speaker 1: out like I'm putting pressure on him just a little bit.
Speaker 1: He had his foot on the rock and he would
Speaker 1: kick into the ice bank and get a foothold and
Speaker 1: then like jump down. I mean, he was like doing
Speaker 1: some super technical stuff. And when he finally gets down
Speaker 1: and once he's like under the ice, like he's kind
Speaker 1: of safe because he can kind of brace up against
Speaker 1: the ice in the rock. And he gets the rope
Speaker 1: on the goat. I tightened the rope up on the goat.
Speaker 1: Can't budget, Like, can't even budget. He grabs the goat
Speaker 1: by the horns and yanks it out of the ice,
Speaker 1: and mean, just like brute adrenaline strength. He yanks it
Speaker 1: out of the ice. And I pulled a slack out
Speaker 1: of the rope and I'm holding it, and he climbs
Speaker 1: back up and like holding onto the rope and me
Speaker 1: and him both pull the goat and it's too heavy.
Speaker 1: We get it halfway up this little face and we're
Speaker 1: just like, can't do it, can't do it. And so
Speaker 1: so I belay the goat. The goat's hanging on the side,
Speaker 1: and I say and I say, dirt, We've got to
Speaker 1: gut the goat.
Speaker 3: We've got to.
Speaker 1: Get his guts out what we can't get him out?
Speaker 1: And Dirt actually said, okay, do you think you can
Speaker 1: get it now that the goat's up a little closer.
Speaker 1: And I just said, Dirt, I can't.
Speaker 4: And for this, I'm very proud of Clay.
Speaker 1: I just said, I just said, Dirt, there's no way
Speaker 1: I can't do it.
Speaker 4: Do you tried for a second, didn't you know?
Speaker 1: I mean I just and and he said, no problem.
Speaker 1: He said, I'll do it, give me your knife. So,
Speaker 1: so the goat is hanging on this cliff face like
Speaker 1: like probably like eight feet from where it was.
Speaker 2: What's that stand up next? When you when when you
Speaker 2: have an animated part, stand up? Okay, the goat.
Speaker 1: The goat is hanging on this cliff face, probably eight
Speaker 1: feet from where it was lodged, and we've pulled it up.
Speaker 1: So Dirt goes back down there and it's standing here
Speaker 1: ice shoot here cliff face behind him. I'm up there,
Speaker 1: and he guts this goat like it's hanging from a
Speaker 1: tree limb. And when he guts the goat, I get
Speaker 1: butterflies in my stomach telling the story. The guts just
Speaker 1: like fall out, just like they would if you're skinning
Speaker 1: a deer up in a tree, and the guts confirm
Speaker 1: the physics of what we believed would happen. Those guts
Speaker 1: just went, I mean they it's not like he had
Speaker 1: to like kick them. The guts just went just off
Speaker 1: the side of the mountain. And it was just like
Speaker 1: this little water shoot, you know. And but now the
Speaker 1: goat weighs like thirty probably thirty pounds less. He shimmy's
Speaker 1: back up. He he did it. He put the rope
Speaker 1: over his shoulder and I'm just kind of like scrambling
Speaker 1: to just grab whatever I can and he just like
Speaker 1: takes off and we worked together, but he did the
Speaker 1: most of it, pull this goat back up on this little,
Speaker 1: you know, hood car sized shelf, perched up on this
Speaker 1: on this mountain, and I mean we were just like
Speaker 1: we just just hugged you. You can see the celebration. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's not on the celebration that I've told many people,
Speaker 1: anybody that would sit long enough to listen, like you
Speaker 1: lovely people. When he got back up there, I wept,
Speaker 1: like wept like a child. I mean not because the
Speaker 1: dang goat. I mean some people cry, you know, like
Speaker 1: it wasn't a celebration that I.
Speaker 2: Got the goat, just a sense of relief.
Speaker 1: I just raw emotion, just like I grabbed his hands
Speaker 1: and we prayed, and I thank God that dirt was safe.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm serious, I just bawled. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you know there's no video of that. Uh and uh
Speaker 1: and then and we were for the most part out
Speaker 1: of the woods sort of, and I mean and then
Speaker 1: it took another hour. We processed the goat right there
Speaker 1: on the mountain, had our bags, we deboned it, took
Speaker 1: everything out, and then we had to get out and
Speaker 1: and and and that was that was the child I was.
Speaker 1: So I had been in this suit sitting in basically
Speaker 1: water for two and a half hour. That little rock
Speaker 1: sheef just had like a just like a trickle of
Speaker 1: water coming out and I had to sit in it
Speaker 1: to blay. And so like I I'm wet on the backside,
Speaker 1: the wind is blowing, it's cold, and I was shaken
Speaker 1: from cold and from just nerves. And then we got
Speaker 1: to go back up and I got to carry meat,
Speaker 1: and uh, a couple of times on the way up,
Speaker 1: I kind of just like froze and panic and you
Speaker 1: can see my legs shaken them in one part of
Speaker 1: the film. But it's like, so we get the goat out,
Speaker 1: everything's fine.
Speaker 4: He needs to say, we make stired a pretty good
Speaker 4: apple pie from the Nukeom Farm.
Speaker 1: And no, it was not fun. I mean, like not
Speaker 1: even remotely. Like I mean, it's cool that we documented it,
Speaker 1: you know, and like now we can celebrate this experience.
Speaker 1: But it when I think about that hunt, it is
Speaker 1: not fun like it was. It was all I wanted.
Speaker 1: So I watch the whole film, I me her YouTube.
Speaker 4: When I tell people the story, all the people in
Speaker 4: my life say, why didn't they just leave the goat?
Speaker 1: Yeah, good question. Well we we just didn't want to
Speaker 1: the dedication dedication as it goes. But uh yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's the story. Should I take this off for the
Speaker 1: rest of the probably she.
Speaker 2: Might be a little distracting you. And that very handsome leaf.
Speaker 1: Suf get it off. Is that the same leafy suit
Speaker 1: that uh didn't I give you that leafy suit?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the first light leafy
Speaker 1: top for Father's Day. You should be you should be grounded. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's kind of funny that we had
Speaker 1: to talk about that but I the Ellis Bell podcast,
Speaker 1: to me, is way more unique than a film like
Speaker 1: this for real, for real, what you wouldn't know again,
Speaker 1: like backstory that that was recorded with Ellis Bell last week,
Speaker 1: we said on it for like, we worked on it
Speaker 1: the next day and produced it in two days and
Speaker 1: it came out this week. How did you find him?
Speaker 1: The farm? Arkansas Farm Bureau podcast called agra Culture, it's
Speaker 1: a regional farm Bureau insurance podcast, had done a podcast
Speaker 1: with Elsbell and he actually told a lot of the
Speaker 1: same stories. And I meant to publicly thank the guys
Speaker 1: at farm Bureau because they actually helped me get in
Speaker 1: touch with Elsbell, Steve Eddington and so big things to them.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't have I didn't know Elis Bell. But
Speaker 1: when I heard him on their podcast, which it was
Speaker 1: There's there's a shorter Yeah, I think it's a two
Speaker 1: part podcast. I think, yeah, they do some cool stuff.
Speaker 1: I listened to them, and they do some really cool stuff.
Speaker 2: And they talked about him being part of the Arkansas
Speaker 2: Agricultural Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: Fame and and he's told some of the same stories
Speaker 1: he told us. But so that's how I know him.
Speaker 1: That's how we met him.
Speaker 3: You know, I love it when somebody can tell their
Speaker 3: own story. I think that's really valuable and unique, especially
Speaker 3: when it's in their own words and their own perspective.
Speaker 3: Could you lose that, Like it's somebody else telling the
Speaker 3: first person to count and so hearing his you know,
Speaker 3: hearing the years and his voice and hearing the history
Speaker 3: and like how he perceived things. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: really interesting, Yeah, really interesting.
Speaker 1: What what stood out to you, Malca.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm I think I was impacted by his mom
Speaker 3: and the story about his mom getting her clothes on
Speaker 3: and going to help, like the only white family in
Speaker 3: that region during that area, and him being like, that's
Speaker 3: a white woman, Miss Jones is a white woman, and
Speaker 3: his mom looking at she's a human being, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? And how like at eighty seven he
Speaker 3: remembers that, yes, you know what I mean, and it just,
Speaker 3: I don't know, real impacting the to see how influential
Speaker 3: you as a parent have on your children and your
Speaker 3: response will shape them, even like she probably didn't even
Speaker 3: think twice about that response, right, like totally forgot about it,
Speaker 3: But like that shaped his perception and how he saw
Speaker 3: people for the rest of his life and for him
Speaker 3: to remember that, I just think it's super cool.
Speaker 1: Well, and she did that in the early nineteen four Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was four or five years old, he told us.
Speaker 1: And I mean at the probably the peak of the
Speaker 1: Jim Crow era in the South and hear this woman
Speaker 1: in the privacy of her own home, with no knowledge
Speaker 1: that this was going to be broadcast. Yeah, eighty three
Speaker 1: years later. Yeah, that she she did what she did.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's a high level of character. I
Speaker 1: think that that that story to me was like the
Speaker 1: the the Yeah, it was got a high point in it.
Speaker 1: And because how much it impacted him. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: on the on the Farm Bureau podcast, I think mister
Speaker 1: Ellis like was almost crying when he told that story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I first heard it, because he told that story
Speaker 1: on their podcast too, and yeah, that was that was something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was a good one. Also liked the
Speaker 3: story and how his pride could God in the way
Speaker 3: of the airplane. And I can't remember the phrase that
Speaker 3: he used or you used around like I just chose
Speaker 3: a different path.
Speaker 1: The guy the crop duster told him change your pattern.
Speaker 3: Yeah, change your pattern. And I'm just thinking it's a
Speaker 3: I don't know. I am. There's been a few times
Speaker 3: saying the last year that I've gotten to sit and
Speaker 3: listen to older men talk about their lives and their journey,
Speaker 3: and there's something like super I mean, the word I'll
Speaker 3: use is like sweet and genuine when a guy towards
Speaker 3: the end of their life can look back and see
Speaker 3: a story and grab a principle and like cherish that
Speaker 3: principle and be willing to give it to somebody else.
Speaker 3: And so like that principle of like, man, just change
Speaker 3: your pattern. You don't have to be right, you don't
Speaker 3: have to like prove your point, just change your pattern,
Speaker 3: and like you'll stay just standing up and up. I know,
Speaker 3: I'm just I value older men who have processed things
Speaker 3: and whether it was right or wrong, right, what they've
Speaker 3: gone through and been able to package in a way
Speaker 3: yeah that's exportable to other people. And being willing to
Speaker 3: export it to other people. Yeah, without some sort of
Speaker 3: token and reward back. I don't know, it's just a
Speaker 3: I like that change of pattern.
Speaker 1: Man, he had the kind of the architectural stories of
Speaker 1: his life and on a nice little platter. Uh and
Speaker 1: and and again I knew that because Josh didn't. Josh
Speaker 1: was the one who did that interview, and you didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily like team up, like, hey, tell us what you
Speaker 1: told them.
Speaker 2: No, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was no reference to that, and he
Speaker 1: he he told those same story. It's like, these are
Speaker 1: key moments. When I was five years old, I saw
Speaker 1: the sharecropper crying, and it's almost like that informed him
Speaker 1: of like, oh, there's some injustice in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: a four year old boy knew that this grown man
Speaker 1: cry and it impacted him. And then when he heard
Speaker 1: why I mean it obviously it wasn't until he was
Speaker 1: an adult that he understood the bigger picture of really
Speaker 1: what was happening. But he remembered it, the stuff with
Speaker 1: his mother, the airplane. He just had so many just
Speaker 1: little nuggets that he could just like tell the story on.
Speaker 1: But mister, what stood out to you?
Speaker 4: Well, I think you know, as I was listening to it,
Speaker 4: it's just so interesting. It's kind of like what my
Speaker 4: like I said, hearing people talk about their story. These
Speaker 4: are things that like we study. I teach a class
Speaker 4: that we talk about the Great Migration and the social
Speaker 4: impact that had for people. But to hear someone we
Speaker 4: study the impacts of integration on kids' test scores and
Speaker 4: on in college, That's what we did, and I worked
Speaker 4: for a department that looked at that from a public
Speaker 4: policy perspective. But then to hear someone who went through
Speaker 4: it share it, it's it's just a it's just a
Speaker 4: very different a very different animal, and I think it
Speaker 4: it solidifies those experiences. And you know what what you're
Speaker 4: talking about when we when you think about memories and stuff,
Speaker 4: you think about the way that people process information, is
Speaker 4: you fit it inside of a category of how you
Speaker 4: of information you already know and so we already we
Speaker 4: know the history on this stuff. We have the we
Speaker 4: we've read the books, we've you know, talked to people,
Speaker 4: and so we're fitting that into a paradigm based on
Speaker 4: we know how these things end, we know how where
Speaker 4: they're at right now. We know, uh, we've been able
Speaker 4: to extrapolate ideas about how how these decisions were made.
Speaker 4: And this guy was experiencing it firsthand, just from a
Speaker 4: just experiencing the emotions of it, the what he could see,
Speaker 4: what he could how he felt about his mom being
Speaker 4: wrapped up real tight going out into the into the roads.
Speaker 4: I mean just to hearing him describe that his mom,
Speaker 4: how she was dressed that night, and how she was
Speaker 4: and how he couldn't sleep because of what he was
Speaker 4: thinking about. I just thought it was very meaningful to
Speaker 4: hear him him share that that story and hear it
Speaker 4: from not what we already know, not from what the
Speaker 4: history books say, but hear at firsthand, from the sights
Speaker 4: that sounds, the the experiences of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he touched on two things that I think many
Speaker 1: people would be familiar with, but yeah, to hear to
Speaker 1: personalize the story. And number one was the Great Migration,
Speaker 1: you know, which are so many factors. I mean, we
Speaker 1: just touched We didn't go into it, but like you know,
Speaker 1: people leaving the South, you know which which he is
Speaker 1: you get you get the sense that he saw that
Speaker 1: happening and he didn't want he didn't want to go.
Speaker 1: He wanted to stay here and make it here, and
Speaker 1: he built a life that that did that. The second
Speaker 1: thing was that he saw and brought out was which
Speaker 1: is I don't know if it's controversial, it feels controversial,
Speaker 1: but about how desegregation and integration was difficult on black communities.
Speaker 1: Like to hear him say that, like he wasn't talking
Speaker 1: from an academic perspective. He wasn't like quoting some author
Speaker 1: he'd read about in a book. He saw it. He
Speaker 1: grew up in these communities and watched them disintegrate. What
Speaker 1: did you think about that?
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, as Missy said, like I knew that,
Speaker 3: Like I've researched that, and I've seen the data and
Speaker 3: around how that did have an impact on the number
Speaker 3: of black teachers, the number of black administrators, number of
Speaker 3: black leaders, and how it really did have a I mean,
Speaker 3: it had an impact. So it was interesting to hear
Speaker 3: somebody's first person perspective about it, and it I think
Speaker 3: it kind of it It makes me think about just
Speaker 3: like the impact of policy. Right. Something that somebody once
Speaker 3: told me, like when I was going through grad school
Speaker 3: is like, if you want to ever like be a
Speaker 3: part of policy baking, the best thing that you can
Speaker 3: do is like, you know, think of your policy, but
Speaker 3: walk ten fifteen years in the future and then walk
Speaker 3: backwards and like think about like what is what is
Speaker 3: your policies? Adjust like what did it touch? Who was winning?
Speaker 3: Who is losing? And it it makes me think about
Speaker 3: how you know policies and when I say, policies. I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking about what are the words, edicts, structure systems
Speaker 3: that you're built to help govern society. That's when I
Speaker 3: think about policy, like it it's messy, right, and you
Speaker 3: can have like the best intentions of oh man, I
Speaker 3: see this injustice, we should do this policy and this
Speaker 3: will fix it, right, But it's just messy, right because
Speaker 3: and I think it just continued to kind of make
Speaker 3: that a reality for me of like policy, even though
Speaker 3: with the best intentions, you know, it might have adverse
Speaker 3: impacts and it will touch people's lives and I don't
Speaker 3: have like a solution to that, but it's just the reality.
Speaker 1: Well, do you remember mister Earl Jasper who we had
Speaker 1: on the Missisippi River episode who I asked him about
Speaker 1: integration And it's almost like sometimes policy impacts generations differently,
Speaker 1: because I mean, like generations later obviously was better for
Speaker 1: these people, but maybe that generation that that took it
Speaker 1: right in the face. I mean it was like super tough.
Speaker 4: Well, and I think you've got to kind of clarify
Speaker 4: a couple of things. I think there's integration, and integration
Speaker 4: was good and necessary, Like there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 4: People couldn't drink from water fountains in public places that
Speaker 4: you know, American citizens could not drink from public water
Speaker 4: fountains the same water fountain. That policy needed to change,
Speaker 4: but that wasn't the only thing that was changing. And
Speaker 4: so the implementation of that idea that people should be
Speaker 4: people should have equal access to things. I remember, and
Speaker 4: this has been almost fifteen years ago, and I was
Speaker 4: on this in Fort Smith and I was interviewing a
Speaker 4: woman who lives through that. And I've heard this both
Speaker 4: ways because I've talked with a good friend of mine
Speaker 4: who was busted in It was I think Michigan. He
Speaker 4: was bussed to his school, and he would say being
Speaker 4: able to be busted to that high quality school. He
Speaker 4: was a black guy, a black teenager was bussed to
Speaker 4: what had previously been an all white school, and he says,
Speaker 4: like made all the difference in the world in his
Speaker 4: life having access to that high quality school. So that
Speaker 4: you know, and their bussing is controversial as a paul,
Speaker 4: but he would say that was the difference maker for him.
Speaker 4: I was talking to this woman in Fort Smith and
Speaker 4: she was saying, you know, the integration of schools came
Speaker 4: as a result of the separate but equal doctrine that
Speaker 4: will have separate schools, but they'll be equal. And they
Speaker 4: were not equal. They were not equally funded, they were
Speaker 4: not equally resourced. And she said they should have just
Speaker 4: funded us. That was her perspective, is they should have
Speaker 4: just because when they integrated the schools, they didn't. They
Speaker 4: didn't say, hey, anyone can go to any school. They
Speaker 4: said the kids at the black school can now come
Speaker 4: to the white school. And for some people that would
Speaker 4: have been a great solution. But what one of the
Speaker 4: unintended consequences that I don't think people realized what happen
Speaker 4: is that they would lose their black leaders in the
Speaker 4: in the school. There wouldn't necessarily be a place for
Speaker 4: them at the school. That kids would get targeted and
Speaker 4: are are you know what's the word I'm looking for,
Speaker 4: malici when they put you in a lower level class? Yeah, ah,
Speaker 4: I'm having a blank out. So they wouldn't let those
Speaker 4: kids in the ap classes, and so there would be
Speaker 4: kind of like this subtle tracking, that's what it is.
Speaker 4: So there would be the subtle segregation within the school.
Speaker 4: So it's it's it's tricky because you don't want to
Speaker 4: say integration was a bad thing. It is wrong to
Speaker 4: say people can't have access to the same things. But
Speaker 4: there are unintended consequences and there were for those those
Speaker 4: communities and how they well.
Speaker 1: And I think if even aside from understanding even the details,
Speaker 1: just hearing him say what he said, like I didn't
Speaker 1: even need the vo vo being voiceover, I didn't need
Speaker 1: to like expound on it, just like hearing him say
Speaker 1: that just kind of it just gives you a different perspective. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's all. That's what a story like
Speaker 1: this does. It just gives you a different perspective on it.
Speaker 1: That's that's really powerful and just kind of tells itself,
Speaker 1: tells the story itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Josh, Well, I was just gonna say, listening to
Speaker 2: you guys, after spending time with him, you know, spent
Speaker 2: a grand total of like three and a half hours
Speaker 2: with him, the one thing that you pick up on,
Speaker 2: and I think it's communicated in the podcast, is the
Speaker 2: fact that a there was some incredible generational continuance from
Speaker 2: his mother and father to him, because you see it
Speaker 2: in the fact that even though this man endured significant
Speaker 2: challenges and in segregation, in discrimination, it. There's no there's
Speaker 2: no air of embitterment in him, like he's not an
Speaker 2: embittered man, or there's no sense that he's a victim
Speaker 2: like he in no way does he he carried this
Speaker 2: victim mentality. He does recognize the challenges that were there,
Speaker 2: But what it did is it filled him with determination
Speaker 2: and drive and a sense of like, I'm going to
Speaker 2: be the best that I can be and not let
Speaker 2: any of this stuff hold me back. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 2: I mean that that's incredibly hard to do. But I
Speaker 2: don't know that he would have had that without the
Speaker 2: the the input from his mother and his father and
Speaker 2: hearing those stories of even like his dad going to
Speaker 2: get the loan from the from the bank and and
Speaker 2: then going to see the Lindsay boys, and I mean,
Speaker 2: those things showed him the way that you could navigate
Speaker 2: life and still be successful.
Speaker 1: You know, he said, he said, he said, I didn't
Speaker 1: spend much time worrying about what people did wanted me
Speaker 1: to do or not do. Yeah, which was somehow he
Speaker 1: he was able to like not let the status of
Speaker 1: the country and I think that's that would be hard
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like he didn't focus on the issues he focused
Speaker 2: on his destination, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and the guy, I mean, the story he tells
Speaker 1: is a phenomenal story. I mean, just from from going
Speaker 1: to I mean in the best poverty, I mean just
Speaker 1: in the back of a wagon, yep. To the success
Speaker 1: that he had I mean, and granted, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: talking partially about just like career and financial success, which
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways to evaluate success, which which
Speaker 1: he would as well. But I mean just just an
Speaker 1: incredible story. I wanted to even think about the technology
Speaker 1: of him riding in a wagon, I mean, in the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, four decades after the Malot was born, they're
Speaker 1: riding around and wagons pulled by mules. And then him
Speaker 1: being a pilot on an instrument rated airplane that he
Speaker 1: could fly at night, fly over all over the country.
Speaker 2: He bought his airplane in nineteen seventy two and it's
Speaker 2: the airplane he still has today and he just takes
Speaker 2: immaculate care of it.
Speaker 1: That's incredible, Yeah thing, yeah, yeah, bar what stood out
Speaker 1: to you? I think, first off, I really like this
Speaker 1: like style of Bear Grease podcast where you're just like
Speaker 1: it's like an interview with one person just about like
Speaker 1: their whole life nice and like something like this, like
Speaker 1: you know, like he condensed like eighty seven years of
Speaker 1: his life into like these like key points, these key moments,
Speaker 1: some like core memories and stuff, and like you know,
Speaker 1: like you can get all that in like one hour.
Speaker 1: So that was the first thing I thought was, you know,
Speaker 1: just like from like a Bear Grease podcast perspective, I
Speaker 1: like the story, yeah, style podcasts, nice podcast critique, yep.
Speaker 1: But then I think one of the big points that
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting was like you started out the
Speaker 1: beginning of the podcast with him talking about how like
Speaker 1: people would go up to the north and they'd come
Speaker 1: back with like these new cars. Yeah, and like even
Speaker 1: from like such a young age, like he never viewed
Speaker 1: the you know, like the new cars his success or
Speaker 1: that was never his like driving force was the material things.
Speaker 1: But then like you see, like you know, throughout his
Speaker 1: career he acquired all that stuff anyway just through like
Speaker 1: kind of like living that life or like the what's
Speaker 1: the verse that talks about like the you know, like
Speaker 1: your heart, everything flows from the heart. It was like
Speaker 1: his heart wasn't too, It wasn't after the material things.
Speaker 1: It wasn't after big success but it all kind of
Speaker 1: came with just that like heart posture that he lived
Speaker 1: with throughout his whole life. Like they were just kind
Speaker 1: of additional to him.
Speaker 2: Success was a constant path of progression, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, It wasn't it wasn't this. When I get this,
Speaker 2: that will be success. Like he just always felt at
Speaker 2: the next level he needed to keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like the material things were like a
Speaker 1: byproduct of like his true like goals and progression in
Speaker 1: his career. So that was the main thing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that it was very interesting how well he
Speaker 1: like remembered his childhood, like how clear those memories were
Speaker 1: to him, and how well he described him. Yeah, was
Speaker 1: really interesting to see him at like eighty seven years
Speaker 1: old talking about all those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, overall, I thought it was a good podcast.
Speaker 1: He's a good storyteller. Yeah, like he knew. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are stories he's told one hundred times, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but like he it carried a good story. You don't
Speaker 1: realize it when you're spellbound under the story. But it's
Speaker 1: karen a set of values and knowledge that the storyteller
Speaker 1: is trying to impart and his stories did that you know,
Speaker 1: they were just like they did it. They were poignant,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's pretty rare. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: pretty rare to sit down with somebody and you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, like we said, he was interviewed for like
Speaker 1: three hours and you heard about forty minutes of him talking,
Speaker 1: and so obviously this didn't encompass the whole man's life,
Speaker 1: but it's just kind of what made sense for what
Speaker 1: we had. I bet there wasn't a person that listened
Speaker 1: to podcast that didn't smile when they heard him telling
Speaker 1: the coon hunting story.
Speaker 2: He was he was in tears, laughing so hard telling
Speaker 2: that story. He's like, he is the scariest note of
Speaker 2: my life?
Speaker 1: Did you smile when you heard it?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: I was like listening to while I was working on
Speaker 1: a bow. I like really couldn't even hear what he
Speaker 1: was saying, but it was just how hard he was laughing.
Speaker 3: Was like funny, I feel his pain. Where are we going?
Speaker 3: We want to go over there night?
Speaker 4: You serious?
Speaker 3: I don't hear dogs coos.
Speaker 1: Was falling out of them. Oh that was so good.
Speaker 1: That story was like a minute long. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: so short, but it and but it was just so funny.
Speaker 1: Because he thought it was so funny, you know, I
Speaker 1: had to include that. Obviously he wasn't like a big hunter,
Speaker 1: you know, but that that was so funny, it like
Speaker 1: a second face. Anything else stand out to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was trying to. I was trying to think
Speaker 3: about some of the other other things, you know. I
Speaker 3: really appreciated his the story about him going to that
Speaker 3: shareholder shareholders meeting and like you know, like immediately being
Speaker 3: like faced with resistance and then something inside of him
Speaker 3: saying like talk say something, say something, and how like
Speaker 3: that there's a response to him saying something I don't know. Again,
Speaker 3: I think that's like a powerful thing because we we
Speaker 3: live in a society where like people might say something
Speaker 3: like online yeah right, but like never in a place
Speaker 3: of where like your words can you have to stand
Speaker 3: by your words? You're standing up in the shareholders meaning
Speaker 3: you can't shrink back behind like a you know, a
Speaker 3: covered name or what you know what I mean, you
Speaker 3: gotta like this is what I believe. And I just
Speaker 3: appreciated that that aspect of him when he recognized this
Speaker 3: is a moment where I can like say what I see,
Speaker 3: you know, and not you can And because the CEO responded,
Speaker 3: you knew there was a level of truth of what
Speaker 3: he was saying. Right, if he would have stand up
Speaker 3: and said something that was like outlandish, the CEO would
Speaker 3: have been like to sit down, but like because he
Speaker 3: was like on the mark, like I see all this,
Speaker 3: but why aren't you supporting black schools? And I just
Speaker 3: appreciate people who can recognize the moment it's time to
Speaker 3: say something and then having the capacity to like implement
Speaker 3: what they said. You know, I think that's some people
Speaker 3: can stand up and say something, but it takes a
Speaker 3: real guy or a lady to be able to take
Speaker 3: that vision of what you're saying and like implement it
Speaker 3: inside of their life.
Speaker 1: And I mean, obviously the story is so much more
Speaker 1: complex than what was told in digitally went from the
Speaker 1: CEO having a to hour conversation with him to him
Speaker 1: creating bell Agtech, which has been around for like I think,
Speaker 1: I said, twenty years. He has helped all these kids
Speaker 1: go to school.
Speaker 4: Fun facts, I know someone. I mean I'm ninety percent
Speaker 4: sure because I was listening when they were talking about that.
Speaker 4: Because of how he described it, I thought, I think
Speaker 4: that's I know someone who went to one of these
Speaker 4: this AG outreach program that was in one of the
Speaker 4: schools over there in the Delta, and he ended up
Speaker 4: going to Pine Bluff graduating. He is a very successful
Speaker 4: business owner here in northwest Arkansas now and if I
Speaker 4: said the name of the business, everybody would know what
Speaker 4: it was. Everyone from around he.
Speaker 1: Went to I mean I remember them, yes, through his program.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they would talk about that basically. Oh no, he
Speaker 4: got hooked up with this AG outreach program to help
Speaker 4: young black kids go to become get involved in agric worture. Yeah,
Speaker 4: well he's it's interesting because he's not actually in an
Speaker 4: AAG field, but because of that, that was kind of
Speaker 4: a stepping stone for him to get connected to something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, going back to like the components of the
Speaker 1: story when when mister Ellis said, the CEO stood straight up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a big, tall guy. Yeah, he's a good
Speaker 1: storytelling And you didn't know what was about to happen.
Speaker 1: You know, you were just like, is he gonna tell
Speaker 1: him to sit down and shut up? And he says,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you, and then you still
Speaker 1: don't really know, like is he gonna get in trouble
Speaker 1: you know? Or is he gonna and then and then
Speaker 1: the story goes on. That was so good. That was
Speaker 1: so good, mon Santo being the Uh. Now, when I
Speaker 1: hear the name mon Santo, I hear doctor Nucle's got
Speaker 1: a head out. Yeah, she's so so important, she has
Speaker 1: things she has to do. When I hear mon Santo,
Speaker 1: I think of like, big bad corporate. What are we
Speaker 1: doing here?
Speaker 3: Let's just meeting her?
Speaker 1: Okay, I hear big bad corporate ag But anyway, sounds
Speaker 1: like I don't know much about him. But that word
Speaker 1: to me is usually a negative thing. Here it was
Speaker 1: a positive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a great story. I mean, a man
Speaker 2: who's made the most of his life. You know, those
Speaker 2: those are people to be to be just honored and emulated,
Speaker 2: you know. I think people can hear his story and
Speaker 2: use those characters and qualities and the and you know,
Speaker 2: not have to do things the hard way. When you
Speaker 2: hear someone who's actually already journeyed through difficult times, you
Speaker 2: can glean things to apply to your own life that
Speaker 2: keep you from having to do that. And I think
Speaker 2: this is a great story that fits that.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Makes you want to pull stuff from older.
Speaker 2: People, absolutely, you know, absolutely.
Speaker 3: It just makes you want to sit down and tell
Speaker 3: me that because when you're young, like when you teenager,
Speaker 3: high school, like, and you're around older family members, like
Speaker 3: you don't recognize the value of like what they have. Yeah, like,
Speaker 3: let me let me hear about your story, Like tell
Speaker 3: me more about when you when you moved to Alabama
Speaker 3: and bought a farm, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 3: you don't. And that's any crop of life, any race.
Speaker 1: That's why it's such a blessing when someone lives into
Speaker 1: their late eighties and is still really competent and able
Speaker 1: to really tell a story because twenty years, like I
Speaker 1: think about my grandparents, Like what if I, at age seventeen,
Speaker 1: had interviewed my grandfather, Lewin Nuklem about his life. I mean,
Speaker 1: right now, it just seems like such a miss. It's like,
Speaker 1: what were we thinking that we didn't put a video
Speaker 1: camera in front of this guy and talk to him.
Speaker 1: But nobody did that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Nope.
Speaker 1: And so it's you know, it's like twenty years after
Speaker 1: something is gone, do you realize that you should have
Speaker 1: done it? And that's the beauty of these older people
Speaker 1: that are still really able to talk because I mean
Speaker 1: what if a guy like Ellis Bell had only lived
Speaker 1: into his seventies, we wouldn't be doing this podcast. True,
Speaker 1: Like his long life is what made us to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this has extreme value. You know, we need to capture this,
Speaker 1: you know, and that that doesn't happen. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: we needed to start interviewing people that we don't think
Speaker 1: are very interesting and then maybe twenty years from now
Speaker 1: they will be.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: That'll be a new business model. Yeah, oh, that's our
Speaker 1: new business model. Let's build a business for twenty years
Speaker 1: from now by doing someone's boring.
Speaker 2: Let us interview this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who do you think you are going to care
Speaker 1: a bit about tomorrow? We want to talk to him.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Christy had the forethought right before her grandmother died. She
Speaker 2: was like ninety two to just sit down with her
Speaker 2: for thirty forty five minutes until you I'll just tell
Speaker 2: us about your life and it's it's really valuable.
Speaker 5: She recorded audio recording why isn't this a bear grease podcast?
Speaker 5: Probably ought to be in a dirt house with a
Speaker 5: dirt floor, had dirt floors. She she helped her husband
Speaker 5: cut wood for a living. I mean she was an incredible,
Speaker 5: incredible woman. Yeah, Oma vaughn.
Speaker 1: Ye made the best cat had biscuits in Southeast Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Yep, ye that right, absolutely every single day.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Next Bar Grease podcast. There you go, MA, Like,
Speaker 1: how do how do you think we handled the material?
Speaker 1: This is always real. It's tricky to me.
Speaker 3: I I almost when I listened to it, I almost
Speaker 3: texted to you because I thought you hit it on
Speaker 3: the head when you said Southerners valued the individual black
Speaker 3: person but didn't value despise the race, and Northern despise
Speaker 3: the individual but loved the race. I mean, it's it's true,
Speaker 3: you know. And I think I think that was the
Speaker 3: first time I've ever heard it articulated. I know, I
Speaker 3: know that that's the reality. I've read the books, you know,
Speaker 3: I've done all the stuff, and I just think I appreciate,
Speaker 3: like at least talking about it. I saw something today
Speaker 3: and I thought it was a good like capture this
Speaker 3: post talking about like, you know, engaging in policy discussions,
Speaker 3: and it said like they have two models when they
Speaker 3: go into a room and try to develop a policy.
Speaker 3: The first model is like name the elephant in the room, right,
Speaker 3: And well, it's like name the thing that you don't
Speaker 3: want to talk about, Like, name the biggest if you're
Speaker 3: making a policy, Yeah, if you're making a policy, like
Speaker 3: let's talk about the elephant in the right, what's the
Speaker 3: elephant in the room. The second is like embrace the cactus,
Speaker 3: like talk about the things that are a little prickly, right,
Speaker 3: And if you're able to do that, you're able to
Speaker 3: move forward and make a good policy. And I just
Speaker 3: think race is still an elephant in the room in
Speaker 3: like our country, And I just think being able to
Speaker 3: engage and talk about the prickly stuff, I think it's
Speaker 3: it's something that we all need to do because it's
Speaker 3: only like when you're when you really have to engage
Speaker 3: in face? Are you? Like you? Does it like really
Speaker 3: provide you with the mirror of like do I think
Speaker 3: like that? You know what I mean? Like do I
Speaker 3: have a little bit of that mentality? And you know,
Speaker 3: I appreciate people who can who have a platform and
Speaker 3: do it in a respectful way. And I just think
Speaker 3: you did, you know, like even the subtleties of like
Speaker 3: if you hear me out some of the things you said,
Speaker 3: like if you hear me out, if you allow me
Speaker 3: to be vulnerable with you, if you allow me to
Speaker 3: say it.
Speaker 1: I was nervous as heck. Josh would tell you. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like this fell in our lapse in a way,
Speaker 1: like I wasn't trying to like make a podcast about
Speaker 1: race in America. I mean, it's not even a very
Speaker 1: good time. I mean, it doesn't sound to me like
Speaker 1: a great time to even be talking about that. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't like this was calculated also learned well. I
Speaker 1: mean I knew this, but it wasn't calculated that this
Speaker 1: is black history. But favor like this was this just
Speaker 1: we got access to this guy, we went and did
Speaker 1: it and we made this, and I was nervous as
Speaker 1: a cat. I mean, this is a hunting podcast. We
Speaker 1: could talk about killing deer, like we don't have to
Speaker 1: tread on this kind of stuff. But I love it
Speaker 1: because I to me, it's it's interesting to me. It's
Speaker 1: the kind of conversations that just make you think about
Speaker 1: your own elf. I think, and there's there's a in journalism,
Speaker 1: there's a there's something that I don't understand that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to navigate through it. It's like when you just
Speaker 1: say something that's true, that's really not your opinion, it's
Speaker 1: kind of edgy. For instance, like when I described how
Speaker 1: I lived in Arkansas my whole life, just like mister Bell.
Speaker 1: We have a common story and that we're both from Arkansas.
Speaker 1: And I lived in a place where there were no
Speaker 1: black people when I was growing up, like literally like
Speaker 1: and and here he lived in a place that was
Speaker 1: primarily black, and you know, and and when when I
Speaker 1: tell people about Arkansas, I sometimes tell him that just
Speaker 1: because it's interesting. And it still kind of blows my
Speaker 1: mind sometimes of how geographically we have still segregated in
Speaker 1: a way. And that sounds wild even saying that, as
Speaker 1: risky as it is to talk about this stuff, but
Speaker 1: it's like, this is just the truth, you know. And
Speaker 1: I mean, that's something that we all know is true.
Speaker 1: We ought to be able to at least acknowledge it
Speaker 1: and talk about it. But uh, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I love I love that we can
Speaker 1: we can have these kind of discussions.
Speaker 3: You know. I think they're beneficial. I think they are.
Speaker 3: I think they're beneficial to have them and being able
Speaker 3: to talk about them with your you know, your friends,
Speaker 3: with your family, with your kids, with your children. I
Speaker 3: think That's one of the reasons. Like, you know, my
Speaker 3: my oldest girls fishing with.
Speaker 1: Josh right an, he didn't like fishing better and squirrel
Speaker 1: hunt though.
Speaker 3: Does he? I don't know. He caught. He caught too.
Speaker 2: And if you got him, I got him hooked, if
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And if you ask him that, I will politic again,
Speaker 1: Hey man fishing.
Speaker 3: If you ask them, they'd be like, hey, I heard
Speaker 3: you caught a fish. She'd be like a cult too.
Speaker 3: I'll let you know a call too. But like I
Speaker 3: I I want them, my boys to not like be
Speaker 3: defined by their race, right I purposely put them in
Speaker 3: situations that society might tell them like that might that
Speaker 3: might not be your lane, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And it's just a way that it's preparing me to
Speaker 3: like be able to talk about the realities of society
Speaker 3: and when we live because you you know, we go
Speaker 3: to the golf course and I am, you know, probably
Speaker 3: one of two people black people at the golf course.
Speaker 3: But like it provides a space to talk about that
Speaker 3: with my boys and with my wife, and you know,
Speaker 3: I just think there's more people that need to need
Speaker 3: to have that that level of strategic interaction inside of
Speaker 3: this space, and you gotta got a platform to do it.
Speaker 3: So you did talk about coon hunting, so you yell
Speaker 3: us did Yeah, you checked off the box. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this was a hunting podcast.
Speaker 2: Well, his story, you know, we talk of The tagline
Speaker 2: for the podcast is find Relevance and Things Forgotten yep.
Speaker 2: And then the last line is to tell stories of
Speaker 2: people who live their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, yep, he did it, no doubt, no doubt. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: this has been fun, A lot of fun. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Thanks for coming, Malcom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll clears again.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Well until next time. Is there anything else
Speaker 1: we're supposed to tell people before?
Speaker 3: I think we got it.
Speaker 1: We got the bear Newcomb's got two films coming out
Speaker 1: in the next couple of weeks. The media YouTube that
Speaker 1: bears on it's me and Barrack together. So it's not
Speaker 1: they're really good bear hunting, bull of them. I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to. It's gonna be good. Yeah, and we've been, uh,
Speaker 1: we've been. By the time you watch those films, most
Speaker 1: of those bears would have already been eating.
Speaker 2: We had we in our camp. We had Mountain Goat
Speaker 2: and mountain goat and bear meat.
Speaker 1: Yep, great, yeah, it was great. All right, Keep the
Speaker 1: wild places wild because that's where the bears go. Mm
Speaker 1: hmmmm