Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 2: I want you to stay a.
Speaker 1: While as I share my experiences in life lessons. This
Speaker 1: Country Life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eaters
Speaker 1: Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2: The airwaves have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate.
Speaker 1: I've got some stories to share. Porridge, eggs and papaws.
Speaker 1: Grandfather's really only one requirement to be one, and that's
Speaker 1: to have a young and you like that, likes you,
Speaker 1: willing to call you that now, whether it's a blood
Speaker 1: relative or not, it's a moniker. I have myself, and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty proud to be one. Unfortunately I only knew
Speaker 1: one of mine, but to me, he was the best.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: The bar is a grandparent for the rest of us
Speaker 1: in my family who called him that, And I've got
Speaker 1: a story about him, the father of my mother, a
Speaker 1: grandparent in the traditional sense who loved the duty but
Speaker 1: received it by default. But first I'm going to tell.
Speaker 2: You this story.
Speaker 1: This opening story is about a non traditional grandfather, the
Speaker 1: one who got the title through other circumstances. Just like
Speaker 1: the traditional grandfather doesn't matter how he got it, it's
Speaker 1: what he did with it once he received it. Brentley Smith,
Speaker 1: a native of the Sooner State and living in what
Speaker 1: she calls the heart of the Homeland. She's sent in
Speaker 1: a story about Tim, her grandfather. And since we're slipping
Speaker 1: up towards Father's Day in a few weeks, I thought
Speaker 1: i'd talk about Grandpa's today. So, in Brentley's word to
Speaker 1: my voice, here we go. Fresh pellets radded to the
Speaker 1: stove before the fireplace inserted door was closed. He calmly
Speaker 1: took a seat in the worn leather chair. With the
Speaker 1: light low and the flames dancing that old oak tree
Speaker 1: casting shadows on the wall, he knew the conditions were
Speaker 1: just right.
Speaker 2: He put an.
Speaker 1: Oversized orange cowboy hat on top of his head and
Speaker 1: begin to tell a story tonight.
Speaker 2: It's Goldilocks three Bears.
Speaker 1: Now, conveniently, he doesn't have to seek out volunteers to
Speaker 1: act out this tale, because there are already several little
Speaker 1: people in the room who are more than willing and
Speaker 1: eager for him to get started. We squeal and laugh
Speaker 1: as we run from porridge bowl to porridge bowl, and
Speaker 1: from Papa's.
Speaker 2: Bed to Baby Bear's bed.
Speaker 1: When the Bear family returns to their cabin, we all
Speaker 1: jump up and run to the woods outside. And that's
Speaker 1: when our storyteller calls after us.
Speaker 2: Remember there's bears. There's in them woods now.
Speaker 1: Still to this day, when I wake up in the
Speaker 1: early morning hours to climb a tree stand, my heart
Speaker 1: pounds in my chest as I'm still waiting for those
Speaker 1: bears to pop out of the woods that my grandparents
Speaker 1: land in northeast Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Where there are, in fact no bears.
Speaker 1: My grandpa Tim is still acting out those stories with
Speaker 1: that oversized orange hat on his head, but this time
Speaker 1: it's with my own three little boys, and I'm no
Speaker 1: longer the little one running from porridge.
Speaker 2: Bowl to porridge bowl.
Speaker 1: And what a better place to start In the beginning,
Speaker 1: Tim married my grandma Kathy a month before I was born.
Speaker 1: Biologically he's not my grandpa, but by love he is.
Speaker 1: He chose to love the family he stepped into, and
Speaker 1: that is a most precious thing to me. It also
Speaker 1: speaks to the man I'm writing about today. When you
Speaker 1: take the time to get to know people, you will
Speaker 1: find that every now and then you come across someone
Speaker 1: that seems refreshingly, rare, genuine to who God made them
Speaker 1: to be, and you're attracted to their company like bees
Speaker 1: to honey. Tim is one of those people. Husband, father,
Speaker 1: business owner, gardener, paper boy, fisherman, auctioneer, cook, reader, teacher, veteran,
Speaker 1: grandpa and great grandpa are just some of the titles
Speaker 1: that fit this man. But there is one that he wears,
Speaker 1: the best storyteller. The mind of this man is extraordinary,
Speaker 1: and the best way I have found to describe it
Speaker 1: is as his own personal filing cabinet, packed full of
Speaker 1: details and pages from every person and interactions he's probably
Speaker 1: ever had. I still have not figured out his secret
Speaker 1: to keep it his memory so sharp, but I am
Speaker 1: prone to believe it's founded in his love of learning creativity.
Speaker 1: In the twenty nine years I've known to him, he's
Speaker 1: on the more shop, created beautiful gardens, cooked many good meals,
Speaker 1: rigged up his own fishing jugs, flies and lures, and
Speaker 1: has devoured one book after another. Once he masters one skill,
Speaker 1: he tackles another just to add to his list. And
Speaker 1: that alone has been one of my biggest inspirations lately.
Speaker 1: We've all benefited from his latest skill of leatherwork, dog collars, belts, guitars, traps, bracelets,
Speaker 1: and knife sheaths, all made by his willing hands. He
Speaker 1: grows tomato plants taller than anyone who walks by him,
Speaker 1: and smokes the best Thanksgiving ham you'll ever want to eat.
Speaker 1: He's a master of talents, and the creativity he weaves
Speaker 1: in his stories just adds to his list. Bloody Bones
Speaker 1: and corn Bread may sound like the title of an
Speaker 1: old Western nobby or maybe even a cordy horror movie. However,
Speaker 1: this is still one of Tim's most famous campfire stories
Speaker 1: from my childhood. Autumn nights in Oklahoma are perfect for
Speaker 1: sitting around the campfire late past our bedtimes, watching the
Speaker 1: flames the fire, the large brush piles ears attuned to
Speaker 1: the owl hooting nearby. We would sit on the edge
Speaker 1: of our seats stair wide eyed as we heard about
Speaker 1: the little boy who was sent to the store by
Speaker 1: his mother after school. He dawdled too long and had
Speaker 1: to make his way home in the dark, resulting in
Speaker 1: an ending that left us just scared enough to want
Speaker 1: to hear it again. It left an impression mark on
Speaker 1: all of us kids at that time, especially on my
Speaker 1: little brother, whose elementary teacher had a lot of questions
Speaker 1: from our mom after he copied it down for a
Speaker 1: writing assignment.
Speaker 2: Bringing that up still makes us bust into laughter.
Speaker 1: He may have mastered telling stories around the campfire, even
Speaker 1: acting out classics like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but
Speaker 1: I realize there is more to storytelling than just fiction.
Speaker 1: Every single conversation I have with him is weaved with
Speaker 1: thought provoking questions, a funny punchline, a lesson learned, wisdom shared,
Speaker 1: and all said in love. For the last few years,
Speaker 1: I've taken the liberty to record some of the everyday
Speaker 1: conversations I have with him, or even some he is
Speaker 1: having with others.
Speaker 2: I love randomly pulling.
Speaker 1: Them out on my phone and listening to some of
Speaker 1: my favorite voices and stories from those speakers.
Speaker 2: Stories told from his.
Speaker 1: Time in Vietnam, a phone conversation he had with his brother,
Speaker 1: laughter as he jokes about my uncle's fear of snakes.
Speaker 1: Each recording is filled with stories of specific people in
Speaker 1: exact locations and times throughout his life. He turns simple
Speaker 1: everyday conversations into stories worth remembering. There is something special
Speaker 1: and rare about him, and it's to regard people as
Speaker 1: worth knowing and remember. It can skim through those files
Speaker 1: in his memory until he lands on the exact one
Speaker 1: he was searching for. Doesn't matter if it took place
Speaker 1: just months ago or even decades back. He knows the
Speaker 1: details of the people he grew up around and worked with,
Speaker 1: he served with, where he did business with. He's a
Speaker 1: master of storytelling because he understands that people and their.
Speaker 2: Stories are the story.
Speaker 1: This has helped shape how I tell my own stories
Speaker 1: in life and how I get the privilege of telling
Speaker 1: them as the granddaughter of the true storyteller, one who
Speaker 1: chose to love a gaggle of little kids who just
Speaker 1: begged to hear Goldilocks in the Three Bears one more time,
Speaker 1: and who always remember that there's bears in them woods.
Speaker 1: And according to Brentley, it's just how that happened. Now,
Speaker 1: do yourself a favor and follow Brentley on Instagram. She's
Speaker 1: blogging away over at the Heart of the Homeland blog
Speaker 1: and my favorite island Reva the Diva. Hanson is going
Speaker 1: to post a LinkedIn where you can keep up with
Speaker 1: Tim's granddaughter. In the show description, it is well worth
Speaker 1: the look and the listen. Thank you Brentley, Thank you Tim.
Speaker 1: My grandfather, fine Us Weaverslye was born in Malvern, a
Speaker 1: city on the edge of the Washington Mountains in west
Speaker 1: central Arkansas, on August eighteenth, nineteen thirteen. When he hit
Speaker 1: the ground, he rounded the population number up to somewhere
Speaker 1: around two thousand, six hundred and ninety. At the time
Speaker 1: of his birth, Malvern had been the county seat of
Speaker 1: government for thirty years. A new business concern was started
Speaker 1: there that would later become Arkansas Power in Light, bringing
Speaker 1: electricity to much of the state. The brickmaking industry would
Speaker 1: also be a major influence in the area, with the
Speaker 1: city claiming to be the brick capital of the world.
Speaker 1: He grew up working hard and playing hard. He told
Speaker 1: me stories about being bullied by bigger boys and getting
Speaker 1: in fights for standing his ground and standing up for others.
Speaker 2: He said, if you needed to chunk.
Speaker 1: A rocket anyone that needed it, you didn't have to
Speaker 1: take your eyes off the boy that was going to
Speaker 1: get it to look for one. All you had to
Speaker 1: do was reach down around your feet. There was always
Speaker 1: one there. His family moved to southeast Tarkansas later on,
Speaker 1: and there he worked in the local lumber.
Speaker 2: Mill at night and farm during the day.
Speaker 1: These were hard times leading up to and during the
Speaker 1: Great Depression. A ten year period from nineteen twenty nine
Speaker 1: to nineteen thirty nine were over two hundred banks failed
Speaker 1: in the state, wiping out the savings of men. He
Speaker 1: married my grandmother, Beulah Player in nineteen thirty and by
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three my uncle Charles was born. A few
Speaker 1: years later my mama, Betty lu would see the light
Speaker 1: of day, and then at my aunt Patricia in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight, who surprised everyone, most notably my grandmother. He
Speaker 1: worked two jobs to support his family. A lot of
Speaker 1: time he didn't have a car, so he walked to
Speaker 1: the saw mill and warned from our farm seven miles
Speaker 1: to town. After working all day in the fields, then
Speaker 1: after eight hours at the meal he made that same
Speaker 1: seven mile trek back home. That averages out to about
Speaker 1: five and a half hours a day of just walking,
Speaker 1: eight long hours at the saw mill, getting back home
Speaker 1: for breakfast around ten am, just to go.
Speaker 2: To work in the fields until time to eat supper.
Speaker 1: Take a nap, and start the long walk back to
Speaker 1: town at eight that night. The Following World War Two,
Speaker 1: times got better. He bought a store in town and
Speaker 1: built a house across from it on North Martin Street.
Speaker 1: He kept a farm, increased the cattle production, and built
Speaker 1: two modern for the time chicken houses to accommodate seventy
Speaker 1: thousand laying hens. He sold that store and built a
Speaker 1: second one on South Martin Street. I remember this one
Speaker 1: being built in the mid seventies. This store was supported
Speaker 1: by the egg farm and set across from the saw
Speaker 1: mill he walked to and from all those years ago,
Speaker 1: an every day reminder of how far he'd come by
Speaker 1: the literal sweat of his brow. And in the back
Speaker 1: of that new store was a process and planned for
Speaker 1: the eggs brought to town from the chicken houses. The
Speaker 1: collected eggs were washed, grated, separated, and boxed in big
Speaker 1: cardboard cases for wholesale distribution on a refrigerated bob truck
Speaker 1: driven by my Papa, another man who worked the route,
Speaker 1: and even my high school aged brother Tim when he
Speaker 1: wasn't driving the school bus. Of course, the egg machine
Speaker 1: was a big conveyor belt that threw an assembly line
Speaker 1: type operation, washed and sanitized first, then ran the eggs
Speaker 1: through a dark room with lights that lit them up
Speaker 1: from the bottom, allowing cracks to be easily seen by
Speaker 1: the person grading them. Once pasted there, they were separated
Speaker 1: by size and eventually rolled into stations where ladies packaged
Speaker 1: them in styrofoam cartings and blazoned with Sly Egg Company
Speaker 1: across the top. It was at that first door where
Speaker 1: a stranger challenged Papa's patience with rude behavior and an
Speaker 1: inappropriate language in front of my teenage mother and grandmother.
Speaker 1: It didn't bowld well for the stranger, who, along with
Speaker 1: sporting knots on his head and a bloody nose, has
Speaker 1: the idea that an old man had done it to him,
Speaker 1: my grandfather's premature white hair and giving him the look
Speaker 1: of someone twenty years older than he was. I talked
Speaker 1: about this that in great detail on episode three or
Speaker 1: one of This Country Life entitled The Country Store. You
Speaker 1: or to listen to that one if you hadn't already.
Speaker 1: But my grandfather's temperament was that of a man of faith,
Speaker 1: whose family, above all else, came first. His patience with
Speaker 1: his grandkids was legendary. His quiet and lovable sense of
Speaker 1: humor endeared him to all who knew him privately, and
Speaker 1: his honesty and integrity and dedication to doing what was right,
Speaker 1: common sense, and putting his family above all else except
Speaker 1: the Good Lord was the standard by which we were
Speaker 1: all measured. His tolerance for anything outside of that was nonexistent.
Speaker 1: And I believe that the combination of working so hard,
Speaker 1: literally around the clock, to take care of his family
Speaker 1: was what prompted the story I'm fixing to.
Speaker 2: Tell you now.
Speaker 1: Papa would give anyone the shirt off his back. He
Speaker 1: forgave debts owed him by folks who were trying but
Speaker 1: unable to pay. He'd lived that life as a young
Speaker 1: man raising a family in hard times, and he recognized
Speaker 1: what true effort was of a man doing all he could.
Speaker 1: Those folks might wake to find groceries sitting on their
Speaker 1: front porch that had been delivered during the hours of darkness,
Speaker 1: no bill, no note, just necessities for those that needed them.
Speaker 1: My grandparents' home sat across from the old store on
Speaker 1: North Martin Street, and every day he made his way
Speaker 1: to the farm to do what had to be done. Cows, hey, chickens, eggs.
Speaker 1: There was always something to do. He never had time
Speaker 1: to do anything else. He didn't hunt and I only
Speaker 1: saw him fish half a dozen times. The majority of
Speaker 1: those times when he came across from me and my
Speaker 1: friends fishing behind the chicken house. Is he was going
Speaker 1: about his chores. He didn't take time away from providing
Speaker 1: for all of us. He was forced to go to
Speaker 1: the doctor once, and after some tests, the doctor concluded
Speaker 1: that he had had a heart attack sometime in the
Speaker 1: recent passed and wondered why he hadn't told anyone. I
Speaker 1: didn't have time, that was his response. He had a
Speaker 1: high tolerance for pain and zero tolerance for a thief.
Speaker 1: And a thief had found his way onto our farm.
Speaker 2: They were stealing.
Speaker 1: Chickens and eggs, the two main ingredients of an egg farm.
Speaker 1: We lived on that farm, but over half a mile
Speaker 1: away from the chicken houses by the road, and over
Speaker 1: a quarter of a mile straight through the woods. Someone
Speaker 1: was slipping on their property during the middle of the
Speaker 1: night and stealing the eggs. From what we learned later,
Speaker 1: chickens too. I'm sure you're thinking stealing eggs. Those folks
Speaker 1: were probably just hungry. Well, it wasn't just a few eggs.
Speaker 1: It was cases of eggs. In each case held thirty
Speaker 1: six dozen some of y'all, who was tempting fate by
Speaker 1: stealing eggs from a man who took overwhelmingly personal everything
Speaker 1: that involved his family. They weren't just stealing from him.
Speaker 1: He would have just likely ignored that now they were
Speaker 1: stealing from his family. It was how we all survived,
Speaker 1: being invested partners and heirs to this whole operation. A
Speaker 1: significant portion of our income came from that farm, the
Speaker 1: farm that had been in my maternal family for five
Speaker 1: generations by the time I witnessed birth. Now, the way
Speaker 1: my grandfather saw it, the thief, by taking the chief
Speaker 1: commodity from that farm, was snatching food out of his
Speaker 1: grandkid's mouths and closed off their backs. He never said
Speaker 1: a word about it to me. Even years later, when
Speaker 1: I was a policeman, my mama told me that he
Speaker 1: figured he knew who was doing it and sent word
Speaker 1: through the grapevine that it needed to stop.
Speaker 2: But it didn't.
Speaker 1: Now what happened next is still up for debate. But
Speaker 1: the person that was suspected of doing it was well
Speaker 1: known in our rural areas being a thief. He was
Speaker 1: also a regular customer at our farm. Some folks a
Speaker 1: lot actually would stop by the farming buy eggs unwashed
Speaker 1: fresh out of the chicken. My grandfather more or less
Speaker 1: just covered the costs of the feet it took to
Speaker 1: keep the chicken alive enough to lay the eggs, and
Speaker 1: more or less was settling them for nothing. But this
Speaker 1: guy hadn't been by in a long time. A local
Speaker 1: restaurant started cutting back on their weekly egg order. These
Speaker 1: folks were all acquainted. Didn't take charlote holmes to figure
Speaker 1: out where the majority of the eggs were going and
Speaker 1: how they were getting there. So in drew Papa overreaction,
Speaker 1: he grabbed a rifle and waited for several nights on
Speaker 1: the egg thief to return. My grandmother feared and he
Speaker 1: was going to wind up in prison over someone stealing
Speaker 1: a bunch of eggs and a few chickens. Now, before
Speaker 1: someone starts balling about why he didn't call the shriff,
Speaker 1: allow me to clear that up for you. These were
Speaker 1: different times, right or wrong, and the sheriff had two
Speaker 1: deputies for the whole county. There were no game cameras
Speaker 1: to hang, there was no burglar alarm to install, and
Speaker 1: outside of driving by the farm when they were in
Speaker 1: the area or dragging off.
Speaker 2: A bullet ridden egg thief.
Speaker 1: There really wasn't a whole lot that they could have done. Besides,
Speaker 1: grandfather didn't have time to wait on whatever they would
Speaker 1: or wouldn't do.
Speaker 2: Anyway, he decided to handle it himself.
Speaker 1: There are two persons my brother Tim and I believe
Speaker 1: could have warned the thief. One of them would have
Speaker 1: done so inadvertently since they worked on the farm and
Speaker 1: lived nearby. It could have been overheard on the party
Speaker 1: line phone system, a singular line that all the families
Speaker 1: shared that lived near there during that time, including the suspect.
Speaker 1: They may have been talking about what was on and
Speaker 1: knowing my grandfather made a general statement that got back
Speaker 1: to the suspect, mister Finance will shoot him if he
Speaker 1: catches him.
Speaker 2: That's a very plausible theory.
Speaker 1: Listening on other folks conversations was a big pastime for
Speaker 1: several nosy roses out in the country, but I think
Speaker 1: it was a valued family friend. Tim still on the
Speaker 1: fence between the two, but I think my grandfather mentioned
Speaker 1: the situation to him when he was sending word through
Speaker 1: the grapevind that he needed to stop. Later on, during
Speaker 1: a visit to the farm to get eggs, that man
Speaker 1: found out that it hadn't stopped, and seeing the level
Speaker 1: of disgust my grandfather had with the whole situation, he
Speaker 1: took it upon himself to point blank tell the fellow
Speaker 1: what fate awaited him.
Speaker 2: I doubt my grandfather told him what he was going
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have wanted to put him in a position
Speaker 1: to have to testify against him in court, or why
Speaker 1: he didn't report it to the authorities. It's my belief that,
Speaker 1: knowing my grandfather and how folks handled their own business
Speaker 1: back then, I believe that man paid him a visit. Regardless,
Speaker 1: my grandfather spent several nights at that farm, lying in
Speaker 1: wait to catch whoever it was, and thankfully no one
Speaker 1: ever showed up. Had the thief suddenly repented and changed
Speaker 1: his ways doubtful. Had the offender been warned of what
Speaker 1: might befall him if he continued his recklessness, more than likely,
Speaker 1: and that warning saved two families a lot of potential grief.
Speaker 1: As a follow up, in the time they would have
Speaker 1: taken for the restaurant in town to run out of eggs,
Speaker 1: the amount coincidentally and eerily similar to what had been stolen,
Speaker 1: they up their orders back to normal, and the suspected
Speaker 1: egg thief he returned to the farm in broad daylight
Speaker 1: with most of his family and farm workers there as
Speaker 1: a witness buying eggs, this time from my grandfather. And
Speaker 1: that's just how that happened. It took a lot of
Speaker 1: gumption for him to return. It took a lot of
Speaker 1: self control from my grandfather not to say anything. But
Speaker 1: it only took one person getting involved with concerned and
Speaker 1: keeping the peace that made the difference. In a time
Speaker 1: now where we stare at our screens and block out
Speaker 1: the world around us with headphones and earbuds, take a break,
Speaker 1: look around and listen.
Speaker 2: You might be surprised what you can hear.
Speaker 1: And who you might say. Thank y'all so much for
Speaker 1: listening to this country life, bear grease and the render
Speaker 1: all up your ears for my brother from across the
Speaker 1: big Muddy Robert Lake Pickle, whose Backwoods University podcast will
Speaker 1: be dropping right here on the same feed next month.
Speaker 1: And as I promised, I've got something coming out just
Speaker 1: in time for Father's Day on June the first that's
Speaker 1: really sharp, like literally sharp, Come on, you know what
Speaker 1: it is? Until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off.
Speaker 1: Y'all be careful.