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Speaker 1: Also media, Harry everyone, Robert Evans here and on Thursday

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Speaker 1: September twenty fifth at eight pm, Behind the Bastards is

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Speaker 1: doing a live show. The show itself is in Portland, Oregon,

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Speaker 1: but all of the in person seats have sold out. However,

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Speaker 1: there are live stream tickets available if you go to

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Speaker 1: Alberta Rose Theater t h E A t r E

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards on just type that into Google or

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Speaker 1: whatever search engine you use. Alberta Rose Theater Behind the

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Speaker 1: Bastards you can find a link to buy tickets for

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Speaker 1: the live show. This is to benefit the Portland Defense Fund,

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Speaker 1: which helps bail people out who don't have, you know,

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Speaker 1: resources of their own, so it's a good cause. Tickets

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Speaker 1: are twenty five dollars for the live stream version of

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Speaker 1: the show, So please go to Alberta Rose Theater Behind

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Speaker 1: the Bastards and pick up a live stream show to

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Speaker 1: check it out. On Thursday September twenty fifth at eight pm.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, what time is it is? It is

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Speaker 1: it's Behind the Bastards thirty or whatever. No, not my

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Speaker 1: best effort. This is the show about bad people, the

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Speaker 1: worst in all of history, and to distract everyone from honestly,

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Speaker 1: just a disappointing introduction. I feel bad about it. The

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Speaker 1: person that I feel worse when I'm incompetent in front

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Speaker 1: of my old boss, Dan O'Brien. Dan, welcome to the show.

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Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that's me.

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Speaker 2: Don't apologize. I was hoping this was one of the

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Speaker 2: episodes where we would shake things up and not do

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Speaker 2: a bastard? Do you not do those?

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Speaker 1: Just like psych you for Christmas? Okay, what's the year?

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Speaker 2: Rats?

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Speaker 1: You want to come on for Christmas? Dan and hear

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Speaker 1: about a nice person?

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Speaker 2: Just once? Just want to hear about one nice person.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's not this week. That's not what we're doing

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Speaker 1: this week, although we are going to be learning a

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Speaker 1: lot about what it was like to grow up in

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Speaker 1: rural Tennessee in the nineteen forties, which, as a spoiler

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Speaker 1: bad it was a horrible time to be a person. Okay, Rats,

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Speaker 1: So that's gonna be fun. So Dan, who I forgot

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Speaker 1: to introduce my former boss at Cracked, one of the

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Speaker 1: best writers and mentors that I've ever had in my

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Speaker 1: life and also writer for last week Tonight with John Oliver,

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Speaker 1: where you have one uh not an oscar and not

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Speaker 1: a Tony, but the one the nimmy right you're at

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Speaker 1: Are you at two? Now?

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Speaker 2: I really hate that you're making me do this. I

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Speaker 2: am at six now.

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Speaker 1: You're at six. Jesus Christ, So did I miss four?

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Speaker 2: It's so rude that you made me do that. It's

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Speaker 2: the worst thing in the world to correct someone on.

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Speaker 2: I couldn't let it go.

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Speaker 1: No, Dan, you have to come on. We have my

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Speaker 1: friend patches on to celebrate his Grammy. We have to

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Speaker 1: celebrate my award winning friends. I love that episode.

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Speaker 2: What a what a delightful person?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh greasy yes, oh greasy will who will

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Speaker 1: be listening to this? Well, Dan, I'm proud of you

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Speaker 1: and I'm really excited to take you through really a

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Speaker 1: dark and depressing story about one of the worst police

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Speaker 1: officers that this country ever had. So do you know

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Speaker 1: anything about Buford Pusser?

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Speaker 2: Great name. I love the name. Yeah. Apart from that, no.

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Speaker 1: It's incredible. It's an amazing name. Yeah, it's almost that

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Speaker 1: he has almost the name from the Cop as, the

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Speaker 1: same name as the cop from Smoking in the Bandit.

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Speaker 1: But no, this was a real cop. Have you seen

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Speaker 1: the movie Walking Tall the original like nineteen seventy three.

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Speaker 2: No, not the original.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there was a reboot in like two

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Speaker 1: thousand and four with the Rock but like both Walking

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Speaker 1: Talls and there's actually several Walking Tall movies. It became

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Speaker 1: like a whole franchise. They're all based on a real guy,

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Speaker 1: a real cop who up until literally like a year ago,

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Speaker 1: was almost universally viewed to have been like a hero.

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Speaker 1: And his name was Buford Pusser, And.

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Speaker 2: It's a name that that were you writing a screenplay,

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Speaker 2: someone would be like, Haha, this is a fine placeholder,

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Speaker 2: but like, no one's gonna buy it for your bad

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Speaker 2: guy character.

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Speaker 1: You gotta get a real name. Yeah, yeah, I don't

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Speaker 1: even know if like Buford or Pusser is more ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: but like together, it just does not sound like a

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Speaker 1: real person.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely not no, but no, it was.

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Speaker 1: A real man and his story came out on film.

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Speaker 1: The kind of like the the shorthand version of the

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Speaker 1: story is that he's this cop who this like Tennessee

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Speaker 1: cop who declared war on this like local organized crime group,

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Speaker 1: the State Lion Gang, who were like doing running, gambling

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Speaker 1: and prostitution and a legal liquor because McNairy County was

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Speaker 1: a dry County and he went to war. He smashed

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Speaker 1: up their stills with like a baseball bat or just

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Speaker 1: like a big Sometimes you'll just see him like wielding

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Speaker 1: a log and like that's kind of Buford Pusser's like legend.

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Speaker 1: Is this cop who went head to head with the

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Speaker 1: mafia and like beat mafia guys to death with boards

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Speaker 1: basically right, Like that's the version of him from the movie.

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Speaker 2: Yes, this is Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Yes adjacent, Yes, Yes,

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Speaker 2: very much so.

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Speaker 1: And he kind of became because the movie comes out

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Speaker 1: in seventy three and because it's supposed to be a

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Speaker 1: real guy. There were a lot of news stories about

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Speaker 1: this guy's actual exploits and he is personally like the

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Speaker 1: model that you get around the seventies and eighties of

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Speaker 1: like the gritty, hard boiled cop who he breaks the law,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't play by the rules, but he gets results.

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Speaker 1: Like Bauford Pusser is the origin in a lot of

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Speaker 1: ways of a lot of that mythos, Like he's not

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Speaker 1: the only person it's based off of, but he's the

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Speaker 1: real guy that a lot of that stuff gets kind

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Speaker 1: of wrapped around, Like there's a lot of Buford Pusser

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Speaker 1: and Dirty Harry, you know, like he's and it kind

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Speaker 1: of makes sense that seventy three is when this guy

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Speaker 1: in his movie get famous and blow up, because you know,

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Speaker 1: seventy three is when Nixon resigns. It's this period in which,

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Speaker 1: like crime is raising and Americans are there's just kind

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Speaker 1: of this general sense of exhaustion both at like crime

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Speaker 1: in the streets and crime at like the top of

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Speaker 1: the country. So people were kind of craving this like

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Speaker 1: just law paladined figure who didn't wait for you know,

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Speaker 1: the court system to catch up, didn't wait for the

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Speaker 1: niceties of the galer, just went right after the bad

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Speaker 1: guys and took them down.

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Speaker 2: You know, that makes a lot of sense. I do

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Speaker 2: have to say, and I don't want to note you

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Speaker 2: to death. You've You've come a long way since you

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Speaker 2: were my intern, and the podcast is great and everyone

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Speaker 2: loves it. I will say, if you're going to say

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Speaker 2: a sentence like there was a lot of Buford Pusser

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Speaker 2: in Dirty Harry, you've got to leave some air. You've

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Speaker 2: got to give some space for someone to say something

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Speaker 2: you can't barrel on through after that.

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Speaker 1: Really, I mean, you know, I kind of just thought

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe we just maybe we just let that lie. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know, I didn't I don't know, Dan, this

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Speaker 1: is These are the kind of life and death choice

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Speaker 1: people in our field have to make. I'm ready for

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Speaker 1: all your Pusser jokes and Buford jokes. He was played

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three by Joe Don Baker, which is

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Speaker 1: actually sounds more like a real sheriff's name than Buford Pusser. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so before we get into this guy's story, I want

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Speaker 1: to give you a little bit of like how he's

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Speaker 1: known in pop culture before the myth gets busted, which

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Speaker 1: really has just happened, like in the last year or so,

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Speaker 1: there's been a lot of crimes that have been reinvestigated

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Speaker 1: that Buford was involved in that has kind of tarnished

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Speaker 1: his legacy. But prior to that point, here's how the

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Speaker 1: La Times described Walking Tall, which went on to make

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Speaker 1: more than forty million dollars off of a half a

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Speaker 1: million dollar budget during his six years in office. Pusser,

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Speaker 1: known for carrying a big hickory stick he used as

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Speaker 1: a weapon, fought a gang of bootleggers and conmen who

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Speaker 1: are operating along the Mississippi Tennessee state line. He was

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Speaker 1: shot and stabbed on several occasions, killed a thieving meat

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Speaker 1: FEMA motel owner who ambushed him, and in nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: was way laid in his car by the criminals who

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Speaker 1: shot him and murdered his wife, Pauline. Almost none of

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Speaker 1: that's true, with the exceptional fact that he did get

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Speaker 1: shot and stabbed on several occasions. Everything else kind of

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Speaker 1: open for reevaluation given the more recent facts that we've got.

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Speaker 2: So I'm assuming that means like murdered thieving woman. The

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Speaker 2: parts of that that are are false. It's gonna bum

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Speaker 2: me out right right.

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Speaker 1: Yes, the murder part is true, the other parts maybe

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Speaker 1: a little less clear. His wife getting killed in an

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Speaker 1: assassination may not have been exactly how it went down,

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Speaker 1: it is worth noting. At the time, one New York

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Speaker 1: Times reviewer called Walking Tall a fascist movie, and it

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Speaker 1: kind of there's you can see that right, Like it

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Speaker 1: is fundamentally about how some people should just be allowed

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Speaker 1: to do whatever to enforce the law, even if they

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Speaker 1: have to break the law to it, and that's not

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Speaker 1: a great message. Joe Don Baker, who played Buford, describes

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Speaker 1: the film's appeal, as quote, a response to people being

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Speaker 1: sick of crime and politicians like Richard Nixon. They just

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Speaker 1: wanted to take a stick and beat up on the government.

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Speaker 1: And I think we can all identify with that urge.

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Speaker 2: I just but is it the government that Pusser is

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Speaker 2: going after in.

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Speaker 1: The moment the government he fought is that thieving female

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Speaker 1: motel owner Richard Nixon.

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Speaker 2: I'm just so goddamn mad about Nixon. I'm gonna go

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Speaker 2: in this bar and beat up some people that I've

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Speaker 2: decided our criminals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. That's a very American thing, Like I'm

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Speaker 1: angry at the government. I need to see a huge

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Speaker 1: man beat the shit out of poor people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So, as I stated, over the last few years, a

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Speaker 1: growing body of experts that started to question the official

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Speaker 1: story of Buford's life, and particularly the story of the

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Speaker 1: night his wife was murdered and he was grievously injured.

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Speaker 1: And so we're going to talk as much as we

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Speaker 1: can about but the real Buford Pusser this week. He

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Speaker 1: was born Buford Hayes Pusser, and Hayes is spelled just wrong,

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Speaker 1: hys e. That's not how Hayes is supposed to be spelled.

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Speaker 3: I'm incorrect.

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Speaker 1: I'm not happy about that. Really took me a long

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Speaker 1: time to get over. On December twelfth, nineteen thirty seven,

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Speaker 1: Tokarl and Helen Pusser at a farm in McNairy County, Tennessee.

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Speaker 1: His dad's side of the family had come over from

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Speaker 1: England in the sixteen thirties, and his grandpa had settled

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Speaker 1: in Tennessee in eighteen seventy nine after leaving Georgia, where

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Speaker 1: he had served in the Confederate military. Probably we don't

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Speaker 1: know exactly, but we know that his brother died in

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Speaker 1: a Union prisoner of war camp, so pretty likely. Now,

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Speaker 1: these guys would not have been We're not talking like

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Speaker 1: the slave owning class. These people don't have money, but

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Speaker 1: you know that, we're talking like the class of poor

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Speaker 1: whites who made up the bulk of the Confederate military.

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Speaker 1: You know, like that's that's Beauford's relatives.

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Speaker 2: Sure fair enough to say that they were still like

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Speaker 2: broadly supporters of the cause.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah. Although although Buford is that's

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Speaker 1: really not a thing he has an issue with. He's

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Speaker 1: actually gonna be one of the first sheriffs to appoint

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Speaker 1: a black deputy, I think the first in Tennessee, and

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Speaker 1: he has a reputation for being like pretty good on

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Speaker 1: race stuff, and in fact, none of his crimes involve

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Speaker 1: him being racist, so he might actually get a pass

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Speaker 1: on that. Just a murderer. Hey, there we go, small

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Speaker 1: victories man, Yeah, you love to see it. So Carl

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Speaker 1: and Helen. His parents had three children, and Buford Hayes

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Speaker 1: Pusser was the youngest. He was delivered by his nanny

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Speaker 1: because the doctor was late getting to their farm house.

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Speaker 1: He was delivered right as the doctor was walking away.

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Speaker 3: Question, what are is it?

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Speaker 1: Did the doctor still Bill? Because I'm guessing.

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Speaker 4: Yes, well the doctor definitely still build. But no, what

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Speaker 4: what are his siblings names?

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Speaker 2: Fantastic question?

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Speaker 1: So his brothers? His brother was John Howard and his

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Speaker 1: sister was Gallia A y l A. I. Again not

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Speaker 1: a real name, so just.

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Speaker 3: One normal had They come up with John.

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Speaker 1: John Howard that one of the kids they figured had

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Speaker 1: to have like a real person name, and the rest

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Speaker 1: the rest you can just go for broke. I don't

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Speaker 1: understand how they're spelling things. The only answer I have

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Speaker 1: is that nobody knew how to spell words properly because

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Speaker 1: you just don't. Hayes doesn't need an E anyway. Galeen

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Speaker 1: Gayla Pusser gay g A y l i A Pusser,

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Speaker 1: Gayla Pusser, Gallia.

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Speaker 2: Pusser, Gallia Pusser, Gallia Pusser. I'm so sorry elementary school

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Speaker 2: was tough.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, at least at least she didn't come up

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Speaker 1: in like the nineties. That would have really been rough.

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Speaker 3: That's actually an amazing stage name.

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Speaker 1: Gallia Pusser. Yes, it would be a stage name for

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Speaker 1: a very specific kind of performer today, but not maybe

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Speaker 1: the easiest name to grow up in Tennessee in the

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Speaker 1: forties with. Also true, So, uh, Beuford was huge. She's

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Speaker 1: going to be six foot six as an adult, and

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Speaker 1: he's noted as being a very big baby. He's got

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Speaker 1: a full head of hair by the time of his

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Speaker 1: first birthday, so this is a big kid. He's immediately

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Speaker 1: eating everything he can get his hands on. He just

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Speaker 1: turns out massive. He's just a monster from the jump now.

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Speaker 1: Most of our details on Buford's early life come from

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Speaker 1: a book written after his death by his daughter, Dwana

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Speaker 1: Pusser a d w Ana. This family cannot spell people's

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Speaker 1: names normally or give them more leaves. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what's going on. And this book is fantastic. It's so funny, Likedana.

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Speaker 1: It's not intentionally funny, because Duanna is clearly very proud

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Speaker 1: of her dad and buys into the whole hero myth

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Speaker 1: of him. She barely got to know him because, as

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Speaker 1: a spoiler, he dies pretty early. So the book is

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Speaker 1: all her talking about the different family lore that she got,

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Speaker 1: both from what she remembers from her dad telling her

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Speaker 1: and from what other relatives told her about like her family.

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Speaker 1: And she's clearly really proud of it and doesn't realize

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Speaker 1: how horrifying everything that she's saying is. And so it's

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Speaker 1: this like unintentionally terrifying narrative, and there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: humor and like her describing these awful things that are

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Speaker 1: happening to him and that he's doing as like, ah,

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Speaker 1: boys being boys, that's just how kids were back in

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Speaker 1: the day.

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Speaker 2: Was this the only book that she wrote or was

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Speaker 2: she an author or biographer by trade or anything.

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Speaker 1: I don't believe Duana Pusser wrote any other books.

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Speaker 2: Okay, it's it's very sweet to do that for your father.

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Speaker 2: Do you wanna pusr I appreciate that. I yeah, understand

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Speaker 2: that impulse very much, but I also it puts me

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Speaker 2: in the right headspace to understand how accurate this is

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Speaker 2: going to be.

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Speaker 1: Right right, And I would not view this as like

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Speaker 1: a very good work of history. I think it's more.

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Speaker 1: But it is fascinating in terms of the shit that

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Speaker 1: she is willing to admit that he did that she

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Speaker 1: doesn't see as bad. But like, I think we can

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Speaker 1: look in and be like, oh, this is obviously like

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Speaker 1: a fucking psychopath. Like this kid is is deeply, deeply

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Speaker 1: damaged and dangerous. That's going to be That's going to

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Speaker 1: be a where the sweetness in this first episode comes out.

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Speaker 1: So Dwana describes her father. She gives kind of scarce

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Speaker 1: details of his first six years of life, other than

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Speaker 1: to say he was a mama's boy who fought against

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Speaker 1: going to school at first. She describes him kind of

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Speaker 1: conflictingly as both a natural leader and someone who was

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Speaker 1: bullied from an early age, which quote is one of

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Speaker 1: the ways he learned to sympathize with the underdog. Now again,

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Speaker 1: this kid is like famously large and famously violent. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how much I believe he was like ever

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Speaker 1: the underdog at his school. He's also like a basketball

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Speaker 1: star at a local at his school. I don't know

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Speaker 1: how much bullying I think he actually endured, but maybe

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Speaker 1: Duada was convinced of it.

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Speaker 2: As someone who was famously real life bullied in middle

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Speaker 2: and high school. I don't think it was much to

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Speaker 2: do with how giant I was. That didn't make me

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Speaker 2: a target. I don't think. In fact, No, there was

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Speaker 2: an verse relationship.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the six the kid who is a foot and

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Speaker 1: a half taller than everyone and the best at sports

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Speaker 1: is usually not the underdog, right, like, usually not the

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Speaker 1: bullied kid.

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Speaker 2: That guy so huge, I bet he could throw me

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Speaker 2: over the fence. Well, I suppose we'll find out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's make fun of him. Hey, basketball guy, you

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Speaker 1: like being good at sports. So family law about somebody

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Speaker 1: whose legacy became the subject of a successful series of

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Speaker 1: movies and several books is notoriously inaccurate. But the family

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Speaker 1: law of that Dwana gives is that as a kid,

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Speaker 1: Buford mostly socialized with women. Right, he writes, girl or

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Speaker 1: she writes, girls were drawn to my father. He liked

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Speaker 1: them too. As a child, growing up in the forties,

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Speaker 1: he encountered the kind of traumas you'd expect. At age eight,

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Speaker 1: he was walking with his siblings and their dog after

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Speaker 1: a rainstorm and they found the corpse of a neighbor

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Speaker 1: girl his age, who lived nearby and had drowned in

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Speaker 1: a ditch. Like this is just like a cash Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's on a walk one day after a rainstorm and

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Speaker 1: they find the dead body of one of their neighbors

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Speaker 1: by me. Yeah, it's a real stand by me kind

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Speaker 1: of moment. And Duana does describe this as upsetting to

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Speaker 1: her father, but most of her stories of Daddy are

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Speaker 1: related as light hearted humor, even when the text of

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Speaker 1: what's happening is like fucked up, to say the least.

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Speaker 1: And I'll give an example here. By the time Daddy

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Speaker 1: got to be a big boy, he was seeing the

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Speaker 1: fun of playing practical jokes. I remember hearing about when

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Speaker 1: he played on his granddaddy Bliss Harris, who had come

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Speaker 1: to stay with the family. Again, not a normal name

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Speaker 1: among these people. They had an outhouse and my great

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Speaker 1: grandfather Harris went outside to use it. Daddy knew he

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Speaker 1: was in there. He fired a shotgun and rained a

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Speaker 1: storm of pellets against the side of the outhouse. When

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Speaker 1: his grandpa came running out with his pants hanging down

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Speaker 1: below his knees, Daddy thought it was the funniest thing

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Speaker 1: he'd ever seen. Holy shit, that's not a prank. That's

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Speaker 1: just shooting it at your grandpa with a shotgun. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's not a prank. That's shooting it someone.

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Speaker 2: And it's such a it's such a rich area that like, oh,

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Speaker 2: he went into the outhouse and pranks are in the air.

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Speaker 2: I think, I bet I know where this is going.

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Speaker 2: I bet he's gonna like shake it or do something

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Speaker 2: like maybe tip over the outhouse, something with poop involved.

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Speaker 2: But it's like, no, it's just standard pedestrian gun violence.

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Speaker 1: He just fires a twelve gag.

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Speaker 2: Yet his grandfather the toilet is a non factor. Really, Yeah,

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00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:27,399
Speaker 2: that prank works in any setting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he could have shot him anywhere, and he will.

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Speaker 1: He repeatedly throughout his life, will you will you shooting

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Speaker 1: at people with guns? As the punchline of a joke

364
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:40,280
Speaker 1: like this, that's one of buford Buster's favorite gags is haha,

365
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Speaker 1: I shot you and you got scared.

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Speaker 2: Gosh, comedy was so easy back then.

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Speaker 1: It really was. I mean, you could just get up

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Speaker 1: in front of an audience fire off a shotgun and

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Speaker 1: then you know, walk off the thunderous applause and probably

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Speaker 1: some screaming Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you get a Comedy Central present special off that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say that if that's what like Joe

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Speaker 1: Rogan and company were angry about. As opposed to not

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Speaker 1: being able to say slurs. Man, you can't even fire

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Speaker 1: a twelve gage shotgun at your grandfather anymore and get labs.

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Speaker 1: People just get angry. It's this fucking new woke bullshit,

377
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Speaker 1: not allowed to shoot at people as a joke anymore. Tragic.

378
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:25,679
Speaker 1: So Dwana tells another story about Buford's childhood church. It

379
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:29,199
Speaker 1: had no outhouse, no bathroom facilities of any kind. So

380
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Speaker 1: I'm number one. It just sounds like a nightmare, like

381
00:19:32,280 --> 00:19:36,000
Speaker 1: going to church doing one of these long services. Churchgoers

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Speaker 1: just had to go in the woods nearby if the

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Speaker 1: need took them. And there was a side for men

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00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:43,600
Speaker 1: and another side for women. And Dwana goes on to

385
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:46,959
Speaker 1: relate this story. Daddy and his friend came across two

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00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:48,960
Speaker 1: little boys who were fighting, and one of the youths

387
00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:51,439
Speaker 1: had just pulled a pocket knife from his pocket. Daddy

388
00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:53,560
Speaker 1: calmly approached the kid and took it away from him,

389
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:55,800
Speaker 1: but not before the boy cut Daddy on the wrist.

390
00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:59,159
Speaker 1: Daddy's friend ran and told Papa what had happened. Papa

391
00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:02,240
Speaker 1: told the boy, why son, he'll be all right. Sure enough.

392
00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:04,639
Speaker 1: When he came back, Daddy had simply tied a handkerchief

393
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,760
Speaker 1: around his wrist and acted as though nothing had happened. So,

394
00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:10,399
Speaker 1: just like a casual knife fight at church, you know,

395
00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 1: that's the that's this the attitude towards violence. This guy

396
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:15,160
Speaker 1: grows up with.

397
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Speaker 2: A church knife fight that he was trying to break end.

398
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:24,040
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, and wound up getting stabbed. And yeah, when

399
00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:27,080
Speaker 1: his friend freaks out, his dad is like, yeah, don't

400
00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:29,160
Speaker 1: worry about it, you know, like it's just a little

401
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:31,840
Speaker 1: just got stabbed a little bit. It's barely anything, you know.

402
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:36,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so much information that the father's casual response

403
00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,440
Speaker 2: to it barely even registered the first time around, was like, oh, yeah,

404
00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:42,760
Speaker 2: that's kind of strange. I hope. The first time I

405
00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:45,800
Speaker 2: got stabbed as a child, my dad was like, that's alarming.

406
00:20:45,880 --> 00:20:49,600
Speaker 2: Let's look into this. Yeah, and this will blow over.

407
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:52,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not going to say there's more than one

408
00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:55,080
Speaker 1: right way to handle your child getting stabbed in a

409
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 1: knife fight outside of church. But this is probably not

410
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:02,440
Speaker 1: the ideal way to do it, right, So, as this

411
00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,280
Speaker 1: anecdote might key you went on, CPS was not even

412
00:21:05,359 --> 00:21:07,919
Speaker 1: a gleam in Congress's collective eye at this point. And

413
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:11,199
Speaker 1: so despite all of this stuff happening, all of the

414
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:14,679
Speaker 1: violence and shootings and whatnot that Beauford is involved in

415
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:17,600
Speaker 1: before he's like a teenager, there's like, there's never any

416
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:19,600
Speaker 1: chance that anyone's going to take him or his siblings

417
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:21,840
Speaker 1: out of the house or like look into what's going

418
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:25,159
Speaker 1: on in their home environment in any way. That's just

419
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:27,800
Speaker 1: not a thing like this is this is it's kind

420
00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:29,879
Speaker 1: of important to note, I don't think this is a

421
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:33,959
Speaker 1: wildly weird upbringing for the time period right like this,

422
00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:37,080
Speaker 1: it's certainly not treated as one by anyone who lives

423
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,959
Speaker 1: around Buford. The family moves to Adamsville, Tennessee in nineteen

424
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:43,119
Speaker 1: fifty one when he is in eighth grade, or I

425
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 1: should say his mom moved there and she took the

426
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:49,240
Speaker 1: kids while Papa was away working on an oil pipeline.

427
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:52,400
Speaker 1: And the story that Dwana gives is that he refused

428
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:56,000
Speaker 1: to move and so his wife made the decision for him,

429
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 1: and he found out when he came back from the

430
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:01,040
Speaker 1: pipeline and his family was gone. It kind of sounds

431
00:22:01,080 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 1: to me like maybe she left him and didn't want

432
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Speaker 1: to kill the kids the truth, and they just got

433
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:07,760
Speaker 1: back together later. It's a little unclear.

434
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's certainly the most generous way of framing that story.

435
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:16,840
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, yeah, we wanted to be a fun surprise.

436
00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:21,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, we surprised Vappa by fleeing from him and leaving

437
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:21,679
Speaker 1: the state.

438
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:23,040
Speaker 3: Literally.

439
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 1: You know, who would never abandon their children to work

440
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: on an oil pipeline?

441
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 4: Me?

442
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 2: What do you? Yeah?

443
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 1: My parents, I would.

444
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 2: It's such a long list.

445
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, most people probably wouldn't. And among the most people

446
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:40,119
Speaker 1: is our sponsors.

447
00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 2: Ah.

448
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was trying to do.

449
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 2: There, Dan, I know the game. I'm gonna fuck with you.

450
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:54,919
Speaker 1: We're back, and Dan's fucking with me.

451
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:55,400
Speaker 4: You know.

452
00:22:57,119 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 1: Why, Dan? What did I ever do to you? Well?

453
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:03,440
Speaker 2: This episode's got me in the mood for pranks. I guess,

454
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:04,160
Speaker 2: in the mood.

455
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,719
Speaker 1: For a casual prank like shooting a shotgun at your

456
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: grandfather or getting stabbed at Cherich, classic pranks. We're going

457
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: to hear some more good pranks in this episode. So Adamsville,

458
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,400
Speaker 1: where the family moves in fifty one, is a comparatively

459
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 1: large city. There's about a thousand people there at the time,

460
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: so they're no longer just out in the sticks. And

461
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,919
Speaker 1: Buford's earliest memories of life in the big city to

462
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:34,160
Speaker 1: him involved his mom getting increasingly paranoid about crime. Dwannapuster

463
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 1: just writes, quote, being new to city life, she didn't

464
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: know what city folks might do, right, so they moved

465
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: to the city, and she's heard all of these it's

466
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 1: kind of familiar to today, where like kind of rural,

467
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,440
Speaker 1: more conservative people, hear a bunch of horror stories about

468
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: how violent and dangerous the big city is. And so

469
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,560
Speaker 1: when they get to Adamsville, she's just prepared for everyone

470
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 1: to be a monster. And one night soon after they

471
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: move there, when she's alone with the kids, someone knocks

472
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: on the and her immediate move is to threaten to

473
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 1: shoot whoever's at the door. And then that person knocks again,

474
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 1: and here's what Twana writes, quote, the noise started up

475
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: once again, and sure enough, Mama fired her shotgun through

476
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: the door and went back to bed. The rest of

477
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:17,600
Speaker 1: the night was silent. The next morning, she got up

478
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: and found the family cat stone dead on the front porch.

479
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 2: God. Incredible, I mean, thank goodness, it was just the cat.

480
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:27,880
Speaker 2: Good Lord, it was.

481
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 1: Just the cat. Yeah, then your husband didn't come back, or.

482
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 2: Or just a neighbor being like, let's welcome you to

483
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 2: the neighborhood.

484
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, I brought a pie, sorry to the cat.

485
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 2: Yeah.

486
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 1: And there's there's so much information about the character of

487
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 1: his mother because we get very little explicit, but just

488
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: from the fact that her response to noise is to

489
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: shoot through the door and then not check. Yeah, so

490
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: she doesn't open the door, she fires a shotgun through

491
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 1: it and then goes to bed like that. That's wild.

492
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,880
Speaker 2: That's if I have to get up to pee, I'm

493
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 2: not going back to bed. I'm just up and tossing

494
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 2: and turning for a while. God bless her her the

495
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 2: inner piece that she has.

496
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, she just as soon as she shot, she was

497
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 1: like calmed out that like, yeah, spiritually cleansed her, had

498
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 1: got her into that yog state. She was able to

499
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:24,439
Speaker 1: reach Nirvana after murdering the family cat. And you have

500
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,439
Speaker 1: to imagine again this is all related as these funny

501
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: anecdotes by Dwana that has to have an impact on

502
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: the kid. Your mom shooting the family cat to death

503
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,160
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, ranting about crime. Now,

504
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: the fact that his mom is so paranoid about crime

505
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 1: in this period of time would not have been out

506
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: of place for the time in the area. The end

507
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: of World War two had brought an economic boom to

508
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: the whole country, and obviously Tennessee and Mississippi and the

509
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: border regions of those states, which is where the Pusser

510
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: family lives, Like we're included in that boom. But all

511
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: of that money also brought in organized crime. Now traditionally

512
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 1: in the region, like the big hub of sin and

513
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: vice had been Phoenix City, Alabama, But in the mid fifties,

514
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: the attorney general of the state was assassinated by mafia

515
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: related guys and the governor declared martial law and sent

516
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: in the National Guard to like actually deal with like

517
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 1: the organized crime problem in Phoenix City. And this cleared

518
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,479
Speaker 1: out Phoenix City, but it sent all of these guys

519
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: who had been set up there fleeing for other areas,

520
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: and a lot of them wound up settling on kind

521
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:31,479
Speaker 1: of like the state line in McNairy County right around

522
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: where Adamsville, is right. So that's kind of like the

523
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,439
Speaker 1: inciting incident to why there was a surgeon crime in

524
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: and around Adamsville in this time, as all of these

525
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,239
Speaker 1: guys had been cleaned out of Phoenix City, Alabama, and

526
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: so they'd had to relocate.

527
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 2: The consistency of criminals where they get kicked out of

528
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 2: their town and they can start over and do whatever

529
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,439
Speaker 2: they want, and they just decide to still do crime

530
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 2: is genuinely admirable. If I was just to flee and

531
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 2: go somewhere else, I would just like be a different guy.

532
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: I don't know, Dan, Like when the old place, when

533
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: crack fell apart, we all wound up getting jobs writing

534
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 1: and doing comedy of some sort. I imagine it's the

535
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: same if you're like a pimp where you get busted, like, well,

536
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: this is what I have ten years experience doing, you know.

537
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 2: That's true.

538
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of similarities between pimping and internet comedy.

539
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: Dan absolutely mostly hats Yeah, that's ninety percent of it.

540
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 2: And famously neither is easy.

541
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: Neither no, no, but they are both necessary. Obviously we

542
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 1: could go on. So in the nineteen ninety book The

543
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: State Line Mob, author W. R. Morris, and that's if

544
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: you're looking at like a broader history of organized crime

545
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: in the Southeast, the State Line Mob is a good

546
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: book for that. W. R. Morris writes that this crackdown

547
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 1: basically causes a criminal diaspora and a significant number of

548
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: gangsters settled in the state line joints when authorities closed

549
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 1: the gambling casinos and whorehouses in Phoenix City. So that's

550
00:27:58,040 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: a part of what and part of why they picked

551
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: this state line is that in McNary County is still

552
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: a dry county, like alcohol sales are illegal, which means

553
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: when they're kind of looking where are we going to

554
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: go from Phoenix, they're like, well, we can still bootleg

555
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: in McNairy County, you know, So that's an easy choice.

556
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: Like there's a whole extra business here that doesn't exist

557
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: in most of the country because the state's still trying

558
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: to keep a lid on this. So there's money for

559
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 1: you know, making moonshine and smuggling booze. Again, see the

560
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: documentary Smoking in the Bandit if you want to learn

561
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: more about smuggling alcohol through dry counties. But over the

562
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: course of the late nineteen fifties, a guy named Jack

563
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: Hathcock and his wife Laura Luis Hathcock came to run

564
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: the State Line Gang or the State Line Mafia, which

565
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: is kind of the loose term for all the different

566
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: criminal groups at this area. It's kind of like right

567
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: where Tennessee meets Mississippi along US Route forty five, that's

568
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: where all these folks are based.

569
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 2: You are presenting me with an inevitable showdown between Pusser

570
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: and half.

571
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: I am I am yes, yes, No. The woman who

572
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: is said to have ambushed him, that he had to

573
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: kill is Laura Louise Hathcock, right, excellent. No, So the

574
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: half Cocks and the Pussers famous family feud.

575
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 2: As they were the first time they were writing history,

576
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:22,479
Speaker 2: and so I was like, we just we simply can't.

577
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 2: I know what's the past, and all of our names

578
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 2: are different. Just make it half Field and McCoy. Just

579
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 2: do something else.

580
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: That would be like the studio note. If you were

581
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: trying to do a movie about these people in the

582
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: modern like trying to reboot it, they'd be like, Okay,

583
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: we got to change the names for one thing. The

584
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: audience can't watch the rock. And that's why when they

585
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: did the Two thosand and four reboot, the rock was

586
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: not named after the actual sheriff. They're like, we can't

587
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: have this guy called himself Pusser on screen for an

588
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: hour and forty minutes. That's not gonna work for anybody.

589
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 2: Right, we're aiming for a PG thirteen here. We can't

590
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 2: have Pusser said more than once.

591
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: We've gotta lock that down. And people would just be

592
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: confused about Buford because that's not a name that we

593
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 1: let kids have anymore. Yeah, so Jack had been raised.

594
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 1: Jack Hathcock had been raised in McNairy County, the same

595
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: as Buford, and like many of his peers, he grew

596
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: up drinking hard and fighting regularly. His father had been

597
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: an alcoholic who was brought load at an early age

598
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: by the jake leg, which is a kind of paralysis

599
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: caused by drinking poisonous moonshine. Since prohibition had hit right

600
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: when Jack Hathcock was a teenager, he immediately it's like

601
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: I was saying earlier. His whole like CV is crime.

602
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: Like from the time he's like fifteen, he's smuggling liquor,

603
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: he's running moonshine. He's literally like selling moonshine to his classmates.

604
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: In his grade school when he's in like seventh or

605
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: eighth grade, so a career criminal. He left home before

606
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: turning eighteen for a very good reason, which is that

607
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: his father shot his twin brother to death and he,

608
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: I guess got the message, like I'm out of twins. Holy,

609
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take this as a warning. Oh man's got

610
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: a taste for killing people who.

611
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 2: Look just like me. I gotta get out of here.

612
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: Probably time to bounce. And I do love the idea

613
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: of a guy for whom crime is like it's like

614
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: being a child actor, but like, yeah, yeah, the mafia

615
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: version of that where like, yeah, from the time he's

616
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: like twelve years old, you know, he's getting inculcated into

617
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 1: the life.

618
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a nepo crime baby, for sure. There's just

619
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 2: no way around it.

620
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: Obviously, you know, running liquor and you know, murdering people

621
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: and doing illegal gambling is a lot healthier for a

622
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: teenager than being a child actor. But yeah, absolutely so.

623
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: Jack and Luis meet in nineteen thirty seven. They get

624
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: married soon after, and they're married for like twenty years,

625
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 1: and for a while it seems to be a really

626
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: good marriage. The two operate a growing assortment of illicit businesses.

627
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: They go from basically nothing to running four or five

628
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: large businesses on the state Line. And yeah, the organization

629
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 1: that they control comes to be known as the State

630
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: Line Mob. And while they're building their empire, while they're starting,

631
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: because they've got like a hotel and they've got a

632
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: couple of different roadhouses and bars, they've got a couple

633
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: of brothels, and they're gambling at all of these facilities, obviously,

634
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: And while they're building, you know, from nothing into having

635
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: an empire into being like very influential, powerful criminals. Young

636
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: Buford continues to make his way through school. He gets

637
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: his first job at age twelve, working at a general store.

638
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: He is tall for his age. He towers over most

639
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: of the other boys in town, and his primary character trait,

640
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: aside from violence, is that he drinks milk constantly and

641
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: is convinced that it's why he turns out bigger and

642
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 1: stronger than everyone else, which I guess maybe actually he

643
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: might be right on that one, if the milk ads

644
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: from the nineties I remember were accurate. And he gets

645
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 1: into the normal huge guy hobbies. He's into football, he's

646
00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 1: into basketball, he plays he's good at football, but he

647
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: doesn't like it as much as he likes basketball, which

648
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: did surprise me because his other favorite hobby is constantly

649
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: every other boy that he can fight in his school.

650
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: His daughter would later write that had it not been

651
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: for athletics, she didn't think her father would have graduated.

652
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: And then she related this anecdote from one of his

653
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: high school teachers. And this is the teacher talking. I

654
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 1: whipped Buford Pusser. I came into my classroom one day

655
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: and found two holes about the size of your head

656
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: and the top of my desk. Buford was standing on

657
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: my brand new desk wrestling with four or five other boys.

658
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: As they tugged and pulled on him. Bufford's weight had

659
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: sent him sinking knee deep through my desk. After the

660
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: dust settled, I brought him around to the front of

661
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: my desk and tore him up with my paddle. And yeah,

662
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: just a lot there too, both. Number one, your brand

663
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: new desk. How does a boy sink through the time?

664
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 4: Like?

665
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 1: What the fuck shit material is your desk made out of?

666
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: Right, there's I'm having I'm not sure which out house

667
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 2: to point my gun out. I don't know which twin

668
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 2: to shoot here because like his teacher, for starters, is

669
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 2: way too preoccupied with their desk. That's like too much,

670
00:33:58,120 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 2: too much affection for their desk.

671
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, not the like the literal brawl that's happening in

672
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: their classroom, but it does say a lot about the

673
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: time that like fighting. Huh yeah, you know what, the

674
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: punishment for that is getting beat.

675
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:14,400
Speaker 2: Maybe some violence will beat that at of you.

676
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, violence the violence out of you. Buford. So,

677
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: he and his friends, as we've established, love to play pranks,

678
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 1: and these are almost exclusively the kinds of pranks that

679
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:27,359
Speaker 1: would get you a criminal record. Today. Buford's childhood buddy

680
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,400
Speaker 1: Paul Wallace recalled one Halloween where Buford and he and

681
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: several of their friends borrowed a neighbor's wagon from his barn,

682
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: towed it to a nearby town like the town over,

683
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: basically took it apart, carried the pieces up to the

684
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: roof of the general store, and then reassembled it on

685
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 1: the roof of the general store in that other town.

686
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:48,760
Speaker 2: Okay, I, which.

687
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: Is at least creative and nonviolent.

688
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 2: That does resemble a prank to me. That's that's the

689
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 2: kind of prank I can get behind, because uh, It

690
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: just creates a little bit of in the world. And

691
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 2: there's like a victim, but not like a like a

692
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 2: victim victim, you understand, not like a hospitalized victim.

693
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: Right, No, one's like killed or maimed or injured. There's

694
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: no permanent property destry. You've created a conundrum for somebody,

695
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: but it's an amusing one. This will be the only

696
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:22,760
Speaker 1: real prank that he ever plays. Buford spent the summer

697
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: of his junior year working on a pipeline in Oklahoma

698
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: with his father, And this is actually something. He begged

699
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: his mom for permission to go work on an oil pipeline,

700
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: and she only agreed on the grounds that once he

701
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: came back for class in the fall, he'd have to

702
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: work extra hard to get his grades up to passing.

703
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 1: So working on an oil pipeline is like his reward

704
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: for promising to study harder. Yeah, very different time and

705
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: a very different kind of person.

706
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was Sonic the Hedgehog for me. That was

707
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 2: my pipeline.

708
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, if I guess it was Warhammer forty miniatures

709
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: for me.

710
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

711
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:00,120
Speaker 1: So yeah, we had similarly difficult upbringings. To Buford know,

712
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: I would say those are like equal experiences playing Sonic

713
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: the Hedgehog or gluing models together, and working on an

714
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 1: oil pipeline in the forties or fifties. Yeah, so he

715
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: comes back from the oil pipeline and he's as good.

716
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: He follows up with his promise to his mom. He

717
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,359
Speaker 1: does put in more work. His grades go up well

718
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 1: enough that he's able to pass. However, the final months

719
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 1: of his time in public school also saw a continued

720
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: escalation in the severity of the violent encounters that he

721
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: had with his classmates. His friends later recalled that Beauford

722
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: and his crew had a feud with a group of

723
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 1: boys from the nearby community of Savannah, and this other

724
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,880
Speaker 1: gang of boys was led by a kid named nicknamed

725
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: Big Red Hubbard. Both crews would drive through each other's territory,

726
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: speeding and heckling each other to try to provoke a fight.

727
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 1: Like they'd drive past, and they'd all be like piled

728
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: in one guy's vehicle. They'd throw some shit at you

729
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 1: and like try to get you to follow them or something. Right,

730
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 1: And one day after they drove by, like Beauford runs

731
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: off after them. And then when he comes back a

732
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 1: few minutes later, he's got like a wound on his leg,

733
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 1: and he tells his friends that he had been stabbed

734
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: by in the leg by a member of Big Red's crew.

735
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: Now this was a lie. Buford had cut himself taking

736
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: down a volleyball net earlier, and just I guess, had

737
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: saved up the injury, had avoided talking about it until

738
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: Big Red's crew went by, and then he runs off.

739
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: I think he probably reopens the cut and is like, look,

740
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:30,720
Speaker 1: they fucking stabbed me, and he does this. His daughter's

741
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: explanation is that he decided to lie and say that

742
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 1: they had stabbed in him because the lie would be

743
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: then quote, the foundation for some future mischief. And this

744
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: is what one of his friends, Paul Wallace, this is

745
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 1: how he describes the mischief that comes later. A few

746
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: days later, Buford told his mother that I wanted to

747
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: borrow his daddy's shotgun to go squirrel hunting. Those squirrels

748
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: just happened to live in Savannah and liked to playpool

749
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: and drive fast. Buford spotted the car of the Savannah

750
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: squirrels and let go with nine shots into the back

751
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,240
Speaker 1: of that car. It was like a Wild West show.

752
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: We then drove off a little down the road and

753
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: hid next to the river bottom near the levee. We

754
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 1: were sure that any minute we'd hear police sirens. But

755
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 1: nothing happened and nothing was ever said. Man.

756
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 2: As much as we've established that half Cock was a

757
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 2: born crook, this big giant pusser is a born cop.

758
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 2: That is some very sophisticated cop creation of reason to

759
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:31,839
Speaker 2: do violence against people you don't like, that has some

760
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 2: really early instincts that will pay sweeping dividends for him

761
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 2: down the line.

762
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is amazing that, Like his immediate instinct as

763
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: a kid is like, I have to first set up

764
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: a justification for this is some kind of self defense,

765
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to do what is just to

766
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: drive by shooting right right, And I feel the need

767
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: to emphasize he fires nine shots out of a shotgun. Shotguns,

768
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 1: especially in that day, most of them, the biggest probably

769
00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 1: aren't going to fit more than like six maybe seven

770
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,320
Speaker 1: shells in the tube, Like that's kind of the max,

771
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: and it was probably less. I don't know exactly what

772
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 1: he had. What I'm saying is that they he reloaded

773
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: to continue shooting into their car at some point, Like

774
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,359
Speaker 1: this was not like a spur of the moment thing.

775
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: This was like planned with malice aforethought, right. Yeah, he

776
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: is seventeen or eighteen, and he's done his first drive by,

777
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: so that's good.

778
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 2: Holy coach.

779
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,479
Speaker 1: And yeah, as you said, like a very copstyle drive by. Yeah,

780
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 1: and these again, this anecdote, like all these others, is

781
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: described by his daughter as like boys being boys, and

782
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: they could drive by shootings. Not boys being boys, Absolutely not.

783
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: But it is going to graft precisely to his adult

784
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,399
Speaker 1: life and the primary allegations against him as a law man,

785
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 1: Like he is already the guy he's going to be

786
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 1: his whole life at seventeen. And I guess you have

787
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:52,799
Speaker 1: to respect consistency. I don't know if respect is the

788
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: right word, but he's certainly consistent.

789
00:39:55,920 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, but he's consistently Like shit, yes, I'm not gonna

790
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 4: respect that.

791
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 2: I feel like it makes me a hypocrite to like

792
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 2: the the criminal hustle and for some reason not his

793
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 2: cop hustle. But I guess I'm okay being a hypocrite

794
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 2: in this direction.

795
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, criminal hustle is like because there's

796
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 1: usually something beyond it behind, just like violent nihilism, like

797
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 1: a desire to make money or you know, have access

798
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: to substances that aren't normally legal, as opposed to this

799
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: guy just wanted to shoot some other kids, potentially to

800
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: death for the crime of like yelling at him as

801
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: they drove past.

802
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 2: Right, It's the difference of people who are doing crimes

803
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 2: because they recognize, like, this system is rigged. Yeah, everyone's

804
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 2: everyone's robbing everyone. I'm gonna do it too, and Pusser

805
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 2: being like, the system is rigged and it's great and

806
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:47,280
Speaker 2: it's one of the riggers.

807
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna figure out how to rig the fuck

808
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: out of this thing. I love shooting people. I shoot

809
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: my grandfather with a shotgun. You think I won't shoot

810
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: someone else. So Beauford is drawn to crime from an

811
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,320
Speaker 1: early point in his life, not just the violent crime,

812
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: but you know, the gambling and drinking and that sort

813
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: of stuff. He and his little gang of buddies started

814
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: traveling to the state Line in high school and they

815
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: would drive as a group to partake. They'd go to

816
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:16,280
Speaker 1: these brothels and these roadhouses. They'd drink and they'd gamble

817
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: and they'd horer, and you know, they're paying into the

818
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 1: state Line mob, right, Like that's who's running all of

819
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:25,799
Speaker 1: these businesses. So they are consumers of you know, these

820
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: different illegal ventures while he's a teenager. Buford's daughter would

821
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: later insist they mostly went just to stand around in

822
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: gowk as school boys do. And if you believe that

823
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: I've got a bridge to sell you, yeah, I just

824
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: went to the the brothel casino to look. I just

825
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 1: wanted to gock a little bit, you know, like boys do.

826
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: Do you want to?

827
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 2: I don't think you know much about brothels. There's not

828
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 2: like a looking part. Yeah, there's there's there's mostly the

829
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:54,959
Speaker 2: going in part.

830
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 1: Oh, you boys are just here to gk. Come on

831
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: in gock away. So Beauford graduated Adamsville High School in

832
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:04,839
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, and he immediately enlists in the US

833
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: Marine Corps. Now I think fifty six the draft was

834
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: still on, So this is probably one of those like

835
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: had to like enlisting gave me a degree of choice

836
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 1: as opposed to, you know, waiting to get drafted. The

837
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:20,240
Speaker 1: Tennessee and he does not have a long military career.

838
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 1: The Tennessee Encyclopedia just summarizes that he was discharged due

839
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: to chronic asthma, and he only serves about three months

840
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: half of which he spends in a military hospital. He

841
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: does get an honorable discharge in November of that year,

842
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,879
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, and his daughter notes that he wore

843
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 1: his uniform all the way home, keeping it on until

844
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: the last moment he legally could, because he was so

845
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,800
Speaker 1: proud of being a marine, even though he really wasn't.

846
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: He's in the job for like three months. That's about

847
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: as long as I worked at Sonic.

848
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:50,280
Speaker 3: You worked at Sonic?

849
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 1: Oh, my my first job.

850
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,839
Speaker 3: It was all visuals in my head are as.

851
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare.

852
00:42:57,920 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 3: God.

853
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone worked king at a Sonic is already dead inside.

854
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: I can tell you that right now.

855
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,880
Speaker 2: Were you the Were you rollerblading out to cars?

856
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: God?

857
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 3: I hope so.

858
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 4: No.

859
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: They wouldn't let me rollerblade. They were scared of me.

860
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 1: They were scared of my power. Dan. That was wise

861
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 1: of them, Yeah, probably was. So this short chapter of

862
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: his life, well he's briefly a marine, is bookended by

863
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: yet another very normal nineteen fifties experience, nearly dying in

864
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 1: a horrific car accident because there were absolutely no safety

865
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 1: measures in vehicles back then. In late November nineteen fifty six,

866
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: within really a couple of weeks of him getting out

867
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: of the Marine Corps, Beauford is riding back from Memphis

868
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:37,759
Speaker 1: with a friend when the car that they're both in

869
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: crashes and he flies out through the front windshield. He survives,

870
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 1: but he suffers three crushed vertebrae and he has to

871
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:46,799
Speaker 1: spend a month in the hospital and he has to

872
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 1: wear a back brace for an additional two months. Upon release,

873
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: and then, having narrowly survived a brush with death, he

874
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: starts studying to be a mortician and he goes to

875
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 1: work as a mortician's assistant in March of nineteen fifty seven.

876
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: You know, that's the first positive move. Get this guy

877
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:05,439
Speaker 1: in a room with the corpses, right, he's not safe

878
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: around a live people, certainly.

879
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a this does at the risk of

880
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 2: saying something positive about this, this massive pusser fellow that

881
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:20,760
Speaker 2: that that is one of the most interesting decisions coming

882
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 2: from a person who I don't think it sounds very

883
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 2: capable of of like thoughtfulness or introspection, you know, like

884
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 2: like crime to marines to cop is a path that

885
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 2: makes sense to me. But surviving a terrible accident and

886
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,680
Speaker 2: then being drawn to the work of mortician. Is is,

887
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's something there's there's something kind of

888
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 2: poetic about that to me, there's something that that that

889
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 2: shows he's got some some like real like inner thoughtfulness

890
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,720
Speaker 2: and pathos to himself that I that I I didn't

891
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 2: initially give him credit for.

892
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, it verges on being like a healthy way of

893
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 1: coping with the near death experience, right, which you wouldn't

894
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 1: expect from this guy. That is that is an interesting

895
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: like that is one of those weird little I didn't

896
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:10,359
Speaker 1: I didn't expect that from him, actually, right, I assumed.

897
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 2: He was going to walk out of the hospital and shoot.

898
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: A car right right to start his start a one

899
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: man war against automobiles. He does shoot at some cars

900
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: in this story, Dan, but that's not he doesn't. He

901
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 1: doesn't do it in vengeance for the accident. He actually

902
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:29,760
Speaker 1: seems to be pretty good as a mortician's assistant. At first.

903
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: He takes a weird degree of pride in his work.

904
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: Dwanna relates that he would periodically call his mom over

905
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: to the funeral home to look at the corpses of strangers,

906
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: that he felt like he'd done a really good job embalming.

907
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 1: Like mom you got to check out this dead lady

908
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: and this dead guy, Like I did a fucking I

909
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 1: know you don't even know him, but like come over here,

910
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 1: like look at this corpse. Well, how good I am?

911
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:52,840
Speaker 2: He looked better alive, but like I did, did a

912
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 2: pretty decent job.

913
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: Pretty pretty good job. Yeah.

914
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 2: Also, like as as sweet as it is that he

915
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 2: takes pride in his work. If I died, even if

916
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 2: the morticians assistant thought he did a really good job,

917
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 2: don't like show me to people. I don't want that.

918
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,919
Speaker 2: I don't want your relatives to come in and be like, oh, yeah,

919
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 2: you really nailed it.

920
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:14,800
Speaker 1: Literally, oh yeah, great work.

921
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 4: No.

922
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, so morticians, you know, make a note of that,

923
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: and also make a note of these products and services,

924
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: because if you're a working mortician, you get ten percent

925
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: off the next ad that comes on the podcast.

926
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 2: Wow, that's huge.

927
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: I can't actually promise. That would be cool and we're back. Yeah,

928
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 1: I hope all the morticians who listen to the show

929
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: got a great deal on what is who sponsors us

930
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:53,919
Speaker 1: these days? Sophie Halliburton Halliburton. Yeah, I hope you guys

931
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: have got a good deal on Halliburton. You know, Halliburton

932
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: We make corpses and we clean them up. That's their motto.

933
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: So within days of having his back brace removed, Beauford

934
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: and several of his friends take a trip down to

935
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 1: the state Line area, presumably to celebrate the fact that

936
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to wear a back brace anymore. And

937
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: in the book Mississippi Moonshine Politics, author Janis Tracy gives

938
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,399
Speaker 1: a vivid description of how things worked in state Line

939
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:23,799
Speaker 1: Mob territory. Right, this is the area that he and

940
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:26,360
Speaker 1: his friends would had probably for the last three or

941
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 1: four years at this point, had been going up to

942
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 1: on the weekends to party. During the first two decades

943
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: of their marriage, Jack and Louise owned and operated four establishments,

944
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:36,279
Speaker 1: the State Line Club, the forty five Grill, built in

945
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,840
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one after the State Line Club burned, the

946
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: Shamrock Restaurant in Mississippi, and the Shamrock Motel just across

947
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: the line in McNairy County, Tennessee. Jack built and operated

948
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: the latter two establishments in nineteen fifty nine, and Luis

949
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: remained at the forty five Grill, Jack's nephew Wo. Hathcock Junior,

950
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: and Larry's Hathcock Wo's wife operated the Plantation Club, another

951
00:47:56,360 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: liquor in gambling establishment located directly across US Highway forty

952
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: from the forty five Grill. Large roadside signs advertising country ham,

953
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: red eye gravy, and homemade biscuits for forty five cents

954
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 1: lured travelers to the forty five Grill, but Luis's Southern cooking,

955
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:13,319
Speaker 1: served on red and white checkered tablecloths, was only one

956
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: of several offerings at the roadhouse. With their appetites for

957
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,799
Speaker 1: food satisfied, many of the male travelers just passing through

958
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,240
Speaker 1: headed to the game room or the dance hall, where liquor,

959
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: gambling and available women were the main attractions. Most of

960
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: the men who opted for what they believed to be

961
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 1: a good quick game of three called cardemonti or a

962
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 1: toss of dice, however, left the place broken alone, and,

963
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: more likely than not, if the gambler complained too loudly

964
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:35,319
Speaker 1: when he lost the last of his cash, or if

965
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: he threatened to report the halfcock's crooked gambling operation to

966
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 1: the authorities, he was beaten badly and thrown out the

967
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,839
Speaker 1: door by Jack and his cohorts. Allegedly, Louise often ended

968
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:46,879
Speaker 1: arguments herself when she beat dissatisfied gamblers about the head

969
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:49,240
Speaker 1: and shoulders with a ball peen hammer that she carried

970
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 1: in her apron pocket. You know, cool people, Hi power couple.

971
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,359
Speaker 2: I love the crooked half cocks, There's no way around it.

972
00:48:57,400 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 2: I like them a lot.

973
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, her cooking is a draw. And

974
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:02,840
Speaker 1: also she will beat you half to death with the

975
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,240
Speaker 1: ballpeen hammer she keeps in her apron if you complain

976
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: that you lost buddy.

977
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 3: It's the ballpeen hammer for me, my friends.

978
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:12,879
Speaker 1: This is what Vegas casinos have lost is just an

979
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: angry lady with a hammer who will beat you half

980
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 1: to death if you complain.

981
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 3: You know, now, the just try to make a fuck

982
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 3: out of you.

983
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 4: Yeah.

984
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: Now, obviously a lot of times people die when you're

985
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 1: beating them with the ballpeen hammer. And it was it

986
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 1: was said at least that a number of folks bodies

987
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 1: wound up thrown in the nearby river as a result

988
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:35,240
Speaker 1: of you know, Luis or one of her goons going

989
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: too hard when trying to deal with somebody. So these

990
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 1: are not safe people to quarrel with, right. This is

991
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:44,919
Speaker 1: a mafia, and anyone who had good judgment would try

992
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: to avoid pissing them off. But no one ever credited

993
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: Buford Pusser with having good judgment. So on this spring

994
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:53,719
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven trip, right after getting out of his

995
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 1: back brace, he brings three hundred dollars with him to

996
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,440
Speaker 1: the state line, and for whatever reason, he decides to

997
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: try his luck at the plantation cl Now we only

998
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 1: have the account that he passed down through his daughter,

999
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: but per that account, he was totally winning and beating

1000
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:10,040
Speaker 1: the house before one of the house employees switched the

1001
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: dice on him. Now, whether this happened or not, Beauford

1002
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 1: accused the house of rigging the game, which got him

1003
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,240
Speaker 1: jumped and pistol whipped by four men. He was robbed,

1004
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 1: dragged out into the rain, and left for dead. Now,

1005
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 1: as I noted earlier, not an uncommon experience for gamblers

1006
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 1: partaking at half Cock owned establishments, and most people who

1007
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: survived an encounter like this would thank their lucky stars

1008
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:34,240
Speaker 1: and make a note not to come back. But Beauford

1009
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: Pusser was not most people. He gets angry. He has

1010
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 1: to have one hundred and ninety two stitches for his injuries,

1011
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:45,440
Speaker 1: and while they're being sewn, he starts planning his revenge.

1012
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 2: Man, this guy is just so much man. I love it.

1013
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 2: I love when someone from the past. There's just there's

1014
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:58,240
Speaker 2: so few details written about, like a normal person's history,

1015
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:00,839
Speaker 2: but like it's enough that everyone is like, look at

1016
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 2: this huge fucking kid, Like, look at this giant man.

1017
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 2: It really tickles me that he's so big that it

1018
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,359
Speaker 2: makes the news. I like it a lot. So it's

1019
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 2: a great defining characteristic.

1020
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 1: Just huge. Yes, a lot of body space for stitches, yeah,

1021
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:18,879
Speaker 1: like yeah, it's a whole canvas for you to beat

1022
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: on if you're a goon.

1023
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, just this enormous acre of pusser clomping down the

1024
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 2: street to your casino.

1025
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: So, perhaps spurred by the loss of three hundred dollars,

1026
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 1: Buford makes another career change. At this point, he decided

1027
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: that mortitious is he wasn't making enough money as a

1028
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:40,399
Speaker 1: morticians assistant, so he leaves the state for a month

1029
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: to work on a pipeline with his dad. And while

1030
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 1: he's over there, he hears from a friend who moved

1031
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: to Chicago and is like, Hey, wages are a lot

1032
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 1: better in Chicago. Why don't you try living here. So,

1033
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: after working on the pipeline, he moves to Chicago. Now,

1034
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: one of the first articles I read on Buford was

1035
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: published by the McNairy Historical Society, which is like the

1036
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: county that he grew up historical society. And so far

1037
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: as I can tell, the historical society, the McNairy Historical

1038
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: Society is like ninety nine percent just the Buford Pusster

1039
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: Historical Society, since nothing else of note has ever occurred

1040
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:14,800
Speaker 1: in McNairy. And here's how it summarizes this chapter of

1041
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: his life. During his time in Chicago, he wrestled professionally.

1042
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 1: He was called Baufford the Bull, and was reported to

1043
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: have wrestled to grizzly bear. Didn't happen, didn't definitely, well,

1044
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: that didn't happen, but was a little closer to having

1045
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 1: happened than you'd expect, although, as you'd expect from a

1046
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 1: county historical society, all of these details are like wrong

1047
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: and their specifics because he does fight a bear, but

1048
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: it's not while he's in Chicago. And this brings me

1049
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,799
Speaker 1: to my favorite chapter of the Buford Puster story. You

1050
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: will hear anytime you run across like a popular history

1051
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 1: of the man, like a news article, or just like

1052
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: a you know, an internet clickbait article talking about the

1053
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 1: walking tall guy. You'll hear the claim that he wrestled

1054
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: and beat a live grizzly bear. The claim is peed

1055
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 1: by the Sheriff Bufford Pusser Museum, by a bunch of

1056
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:06,799
Speaker 1: different places. And while Beauford was a big guy, I

1057
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 1: just couldn't believe that he actually It's very rare for

1058
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: a human being to fight a grizzly bear and win.

1059
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 1: You can find some cases of it. The only ones

1060
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:17,719
Speaker 1: I found were it wasn't like a man with a gun.

1061
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: Is like somebody hits the bear with like a huge

1062
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker 1: log and manages to do it in just the right place.

1063
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:29,040
Speaker 1: So wrestling a grizzly bear just seems physically impossible to me.

1064
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:31,960
Speaker 1: And I couldn't find any more detailed claims about what

1065
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: he'd actually done until I ran his daughter's book, Walking On,

1066
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: which says that the match she claims there was a

1067
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 1: match against a bear, but her description of it is

1068
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 1: a lot less impressive sounding. Number One, this doesn't happen

1069
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 1: when he's in Chicago. This is when he's in his

1070
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: senior year of high school. Quote. A summer carnival came

1071
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 1: through the area. The bear's owner had a gimmick where

1072
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:56,520
Speaker 1: he challenged local boys to wrestle his black bear. Daddy

1073
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 1: pinned the bear. He would later say it was just

1074
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 1: a little bear that didn't have me teeth or cloths.

1075
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm still choosing the bear.

1076
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1077
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:08,400
Speaker 1: Again, the details this gives you about this time in

1078
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 1: American history in place where it's like, yeah, this carnival

1079
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 1: owner who just traveled around challenging teenagers.

1080
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 5: To fight his pet bear, right like a like a

1081
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:23,200
Speaker 5: completely harmless bear that he's charging boys to pin for

1082
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:25,799
Speaker 5: bragging rights makes so much more sense.

1083
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:29,839
Speaker 1: Than exactly because like it number one black bear, much

1084
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:31,839
Speaker 1: smaller than a grizzly. But also it sounds from her

1085
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 1: description like this is a sick bear. Maybe it had

1086
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: its teeth and claws like removed, like people did shit

1087
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:40,400
Speaker 1: like that. So I wouldn't be surprised if this was

1088
00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:44,479
Speaker 1: like a purposefully crippled bear that, yeah, this man kept

1089
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 1: around so that teenage boys could pay to fight it

1090
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: and feel like badasses. Yeah yeah, but that does give

1091
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:54,400
Speaker 1: you an idea also of like when we're looking at

1092
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:57,399
Speaker 1: the myth versus the reality of Buford Pusser, like they're

1093
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:00,279
Speaker 1: all kind of this level of off where like, yes,

1094
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 1: there is like an actual real story there, he did

1095
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:06,799
Speaker 1: fight a bear at one point, but it's not It's

1096
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:10,000
Speaker 1: not as impressive as it sounds initially, Right.

1097
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 2: He fought a bear, but so did anybody else who

1098
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:13,360
Speaker 2: had four dollars.

1099
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:17,759
Speaker 1: Right, the bear was sick and dying and had been

1100
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: like purposefully hobbled so that he could beat it. Yeah,

1101
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: much less impressive.

1102
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:24,960
Speaker 2: Similar to the stories that I shot a clown in

1103
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 2: the mouth so hard that its brain exploded. I mean

1104
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:30,839
Speaker 2: it was at a carnival, and it was a water

1105
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 2: gun and it was a balloon. But like enough of

1106
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 2: the details are true.

1107
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that you could you could base your whole,

1108
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: your whole legendary career off of yeah, that time you

1109
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 1: shot that clown. I do think we've lost something as

1110
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 1: a country that in that it's no longer acceptable or

1111
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:48,239
Speaker 1: legal for a man to wander around with a pet

1112
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:51,120
Speaker 1: bear and challenge teenagers to fight it. Like, yeah, we

1113
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: are missing something as a nation now that we've lost that,

1114
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: And it does make me sad.

1115
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 2: Dan, It's such a fun, such a fun time in

1116
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:02,279
Speaker 2: American history to just come up with businesses and just

1117
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 2: be allowed to do them.

1118
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so there just weren't any rules back then. Huh,

1119
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:08,160
Speaker 1: you can just you can just do anything.

1120
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, if that still existed, we might have

1121
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 4: a different US Secretary of Human Health, Health and Human Services.

1122
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:16,439
Speaker 2: That's absolutely true.

1123
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:19,800
Speaker 1: If that still existed, cool zone media would be entirely

1124
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 1: about challenging teenagers to fight bears. But I wouldn't have

1125
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:26,160
Speaker 1: no no beat up black bear. I bring a real

1126
00:56:26,239 --> 00:56:28,800
Speaker 1: grizzly you know, like we're we're we're leaving a body

1127
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,200
Speaker 1: count behind when these kids, I feel.

1128
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 2: Your business would would be less popular. It would be

1129
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 2: it would make a real splash early on, and then

1130
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:40,279
Speaker 2: people will be like this, this is a.

1131
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:45,279
Speaker 1: He's just feeding teenage boys to bears. So we will

1132
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:48,319
Speaker 1: talk about Buford's career as a pro wrestler, because soon

1133
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 1: after moving to Chicago, he does start wrestling, uh and

1134
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: he is he is like moderately successful at it. But

1135
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: first we're going to talk about and close this episode

1136
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 1: talking about the most fateful connection that Buford would make

1137
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:03,239
Speaker 1: during his time in Chicago. He met Pauline Mullins, the

1138
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: woman who would become his wife. Now, at the time

1139
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 1: they meet, she's already been divorced once and has two

1140
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:11,800
Speaker 1: kids from her first marriage, But this doesn't dissuade Buford,

1141
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:14,919
Speaker 1: and the couple were married on December fifth, nineteen fifty nine.

1142
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 1: Just a little over a week later, Buford Poster would

1143
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 1: return to the state line for the first time in

1144
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 1: two years. So he gets married, and a week later

1145
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:25,480
Speaker 1: he drives up to the state line where he had

1146
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 1: gotten beat up and nearly killed, you know, a year

1147
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:31,920
Speaker 1: or so before. And he drives up on December thirteenth

1148
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 1: with two friends with the plan of ambushing wo Hathcock Junior,

1149
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 1: the owner of the Plantation Club, and beating the shit

1150
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: out of him, and they wind up catching him alone,

1151
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,480
Speaker 1: and Buford bashes his head and nearly kills him with

1152
00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: a fence post. And this is the original of like

1153
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: the myth.

1154
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:50,320
Speaker 2: You're a married man now you can't old grudges post love.

1155
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 2: I don't understand.

1156
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:52,280
Speaker 4: No. No.

1157
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 1: A week later, like he's supposed to be on his honeymoon,

1158
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 1: but he's like, no, I've got a bit bash a

1159
00:57:57,280 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: man's skull in with a fence post. And this is

1160
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,280
Speaker 1: the origin of like the store, like the myths that

1161
00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 1: you'll see of him, Like even if you look at

1162
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 1: the poster of the two thousand and four of the

1163
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: Walking Tall with the Rock. He's got like a big

1164
00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:13,080
Speaker 1: fucking stick in his hand or something like. That's the

1165
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 1: one thing everyone knows about Buford Pusser is he fought

1166
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 1: crime with like fucking logs and baseball bats. The real

1167
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:22,400
Speaker 1: story is that he and his friends ambushed a man

1168
00:58:22,440 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 1: who was alone, and while they held him down, he

1169
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:28,040
Speaker 1: bashed this guy's head him with a fence post. And

1170
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 1: it wasn't because he hated crime. It was because he

1171
00:58:31,080 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 1: had been committing crimes badly and they'd beaten him up earlier.

1172
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, you lost at a casino, illegal casino, the oldest

1173
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:44,480
Speaker 2: tale in the book. And like sure they like maybe

1174
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:47,800
Speaker 2: they switched the dice. Maybe maybe they didn't, and it's

1175
00:58:47,880 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 2: just casino's win, because casinos win. It's like, yeah, you

1176
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:54,760
Speaker 2: lost or you were fooled. Those are like not reasons

1177
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:56,919
Speaker 2: to hold the grudge for a very long time.

1178
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. It certainly not to beat someone's head in with

1179
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:02,800
Speaker 1: a fence yeah. Yeah. The fact that he has to

1180
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 1: pass on to his daughter that like, actually I was

1181
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 1: winning first and then they switched the dice, Like I

1182
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: think he probably just we're drunk and lost your money gambling.

1183
00:59:11,320 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: But I don't know, maybe maybe you were too good

1184
00:59:13,840 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 1: at gambling and they had to switch the dice on you.

1185
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:20,640
Speaker 1: I just don't particularly trust that version of events I

1186
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:22,960
Speaker 1: trusted about as much as I trusted the Grizzly Bear story.

1187
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 1: I'll say that. But this is where part one is

1188
00:59:26,040 --> 00:59:29,440
Speaker 1: going to end. Buford Poster has just like he's turned

1189
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 1: this from normal business. Oh, this guy got drunk and

1190
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:34,080
Speaker 1: was kind of a dick in our gambling establishment, so

1191
00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:36,960
Speaker 1: we beat him up to now we the hath Cocks

1192
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 1: have beef with this kid, Buford Pusser, right, because he

1193
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: has now tracked down and ambushed and badly beaten like

1194
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:47,440
Speaker 1: one of our lieutenants. So that has started, as has

1195
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 1: his married life in the end of part one, and

1196
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:52,160
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the rest of Buford Puster's story in

1197
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 1: part two. Dan, you got anything to plug?

1198
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 2: I do. We've talked about the show last week tonight,

1199
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:01,120
Speaker 2: but also a quick question is the podcast that I

1200
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:03,160
Speaker 2: host with Sore and Bowie. He will be familiar to

1201
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 2: those of you who used to watch us on the

1202
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:07,000
Speaker 2: YouTube show After Hours or read our work from crack

1203
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:10,120
Speaker 2: dot com, where we both lived for about a decade

1204
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 2: I read for Last Week tonight, Soren writes for American Dad.

1205
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 2: Sometimes we talk about being TV writers. Sometimes we do

1206
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 2: the kind of pop culture analysis that we used to

1207
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:23,439
Speaker 2: do at Cracked and on After Hours. Sometimes we tell

1208
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:27,439
Speaker 2: inside Hollywood stories, but mostly we just are friends who

1209
01:00:27,480 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 2: talk on the phone. And you get to listen in

1210
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:32,280
Speaker 2: on it for an hour every week, and it's free.

1211
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:34,880
Speaker 2: It's on YouTube and everywhere you get podcasts. It's called

1212
01:00:34,960 --> 01:00:37,880
Speaker 2: Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. I wrote this down

1213
01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 2: because I have been ordered by our business guy to

1214
01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 2: plug the podcast because I frequently forget to do it.

1215
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:50,880
Speaker 1: You've got so many great stories of and yeah, I

1216
01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:53,760
Speaker 1: didn't realize that, you know, he'd killed those people, but

1217
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:57,840
Speaker 1: apparently so Dan. Yeah, yeah, stuff like that on Quick Question.

1218
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 2: I know, and I'm such a fan of his work,

1219
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:03,240
Speaker 2: and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

1220
01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 2: And I was like it was self defense, right, And

1221
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:06,760
Speaker 2: he looked me dead in the eyes. He's like absolutely,

1222
01:01:06,840 --> 01:01:10,160
Speaker 2: not absolutely, buddy, I'm giving you a way out and

1223
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 2: he's like I'm not taking it.

1224
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:16,320
Speaker 1: No, no shocking stuff. Now, obviously we've both forgotten which episode,

1225
01:01:16,360 --> 01:01:18,480
Speaker 1: but if you just listen through Quick question you will

1226
01:01:18,520 --> 01:01:21,680
Speaker 1: hear which of your favorite celebrities is absolutely a murderer?

1227
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:24,440
Speaker 1: You know? I promise that, yes, you know what else?

1228
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:27,480
Speaker 1: I promise nothing go away? The episode's over.

1229
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:33,480
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1230
01:01:33,840 --> 01:01:36,439
Speaker 4: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1231
01:01:36,520 --> 01:01:40,520
Speaker 4: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1232
01:01:40,560 --> 01:01:43,720
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1233
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:47,800
Speaker 4: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1234
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 4: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

1235
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:53,240
Speaker 4: at Behind the Bastards