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 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my experiences and life lessons. This country Life is presented
Speaker 1: by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
Speaker 1: stories to share. Superstitions crossing your fingers, looking for four
Speaker 1: leaf clovers and avoiding the number thirteen, or some common
Speaker 1: superstitions that nearly everyone knows about. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you about some of the ones I grew up around
Speaker 1: and maybe still practice to some degree. I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you all about it, but first I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you a story. Somewhere around nineteen eighty eight, we
Speaker 1: were just driving down the road on the way to
Speaker 1: the woods one day. Mister Leon was keeping the fire
Speaker 1: stoked on a sale of Menthos cigarette and looking at
Speaker 1: a copy of an ownership map that we were using
Speaker 1: to locate some Georgia Pacific property lines we were going
Speaker 1: to move some loggers onto in a few weeks. I
Speaker 1: was a young man working for GP managing Timber. This
Speaker 1: was before I was old enough to be a police
Speaker 1: officer in Arkansas, and mister Leon Garlington was the crew boss.
Speaker 1: He was a veteran of World War Two, having seen
Speaker 1: some brutal fighting in the South Pacific. I respected him
Speaker 1: and he tolerated me. He hated everybody, and most everything
Speaker 1: made him mad. It all stemmed from the war, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: But someone said he was contrary before he ever left
Speaker 1: Arkansas for the other side of the earth. Regardless, I
Speaker 1: looked up to him and I put a lot of
Speaker 1: stock into what he said. And I've told the story
Speaker 1: before about how mister Leon and I would drive out
Speaker 1: to work one way and come back to town in a
Speaker 1: different one. For those that haven't heard, I'll hit the
Speaker 1: high points for you. No idea how long we'd been
Speaker 1: working together managing Timber for GP, me driving and him
Speaker 1: doing all the navigating, when after a million trips to
Speaker 1: and from the woods, he adamantly refused to allow me,
Speaker 1: the guy that was driving, to take the quickest way
Speaker 1: home one afternoon because that was the way we had
Speaker 1: driven out that morning. Mister Leon, I'm hot, I'm tired.
Speaker 1: We can cut this trip back to the office in half.
Speaker 1: If we would just go down the highway like we
Speaker 1: came out this morning, No, we ain't going back that way?
Speaker 1: Why not? That's when he took a drag off that
Speaker 1: cigarette and slow blew it out the open window that
Speaker 1: air conditionless truck and said, son, have you ever been ambushed? No, sir,
Speaker 1: well I have. We ain't going back the same way
Speaker 1: we came out. We never did ever in all the
Speaker 1: years I worked with him. But this was another day,
Speaker 1: and mister Leon was feeling pretty good that morning. He
Speaker 1: hadn't wished anybody to be shot with a wooden bullet
Speaker 1: so far that day. That was one of his favorite
Speaker 1: dispersions to cast upon someone he didn't approve of. He
Speaker 1: order to be shot with a wooden bullet was exactly
Speaker 1: how he'd phrase it, and it was normally addressed toward
Speaker 1: our co workers, whose work ethics he called into question
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Even though he hadn't spoken to
Speaker 1: me yet, I was digging the vibe I was getting
Speaker 1: from him, and I took a chance on getting a
Speaker 1: wooden bullet wished in my direction. But anyway, I said,
Speaker 1: mister Leon, I got a dang hoodol sitting on a
Speaker 1: limb my window every night. I guess it's a hoodole.
Speaker 1: It's making some kind of spooky racket. But every time
Speaker 1: I go out to see it with a light, it
Speaker 1: ain't there. It sounds like woo ooh. Now, to my surprise,
Speaker 1: he didn't ignore me. He had done that in the
Speaker 1: past a lot. How many nights has it been out there?
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know, maybe two or three, and
Speaker 1: it wakes me up in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: What does it sound like again? I did it again.
Speaker 1: That ain't no whodol Son. That's a haint. Do what now?
Speaker 1: That's a haint. You got something spooking you. How many
Speaker 1: times have you gone up to an isle at night
Speaker 1: and did not fly? That's a haint. And there ain't
Speaker 1: but one way to cure it. You got to turn
Speaker 1: your shoes upside down under the edge of the bed
Speaker 1: when you lay down at night. And I kept waiting
Speaker 1: for him to start laughing, But all he did was
Speaker 1: keep the fire burning on the end of that cigarette
Speaker 1: and never took his eyes off the map. He didn't
Speaker 1: do a lot of joking. And I readily admit, coon
Speaker 1: hunter or not, I ain't a big fan of the
Speaker 1: dark not that I think there's spooks knocking about in it,
Speaker 1: but something was, and someone I had looked up to
Speaker 1: and put a lot of stock in what he said
Speaker 1: had just given me a cure for what was really
Speaker 1: starting to worry me. We didn't talk about it none
Speaker 1: of the rest of the day, and I went to
Speaker 1: bed that night to silence. No racket at all. My
Speaker 1: work boots sitting by the door were I took them
Speaker 1: off every day when I came home. Sometime in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, I woke up to that noise again.
Speaker 1: I didn't get out of bed. I knew I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to see anything if I went out there. Never had.
Speaker 1: I just laid there waiting on that haink to get
Speaker 1: me wishing. I still thought it was just a hootile
Speaker 1: and then I'd put my shoes under the bed, just
Speaker 1: like mister Lehan had told me to do. Now about
Speaker 1: the middle of the morning. It worked. The next day,
Speaker 1: he asked me, put them shoes under your bed last night? No, sir,
Speaker 1: did the spook come back? Yes, sir. He just shook
Speaker 1: his head disappointedly and fired up another men. Though he
Speaker 1: didn't mention anything about it. The rest of the day.
Speaker 1: Well that night, after suppering, before cutting out the light,
Speaker 1: the last thing I did was turned my boots and
Speaker 1: every pair of shoes I owned upside down under the
Speaker 1: edge of the bed. I never heard that noise again,
Speaker 1: not once. I have no idea to this very day
Speaker 1: what it was, and I have never heard that sound
Speaker 1: again in any recordings of any speed seeds an owl
Speaker 1: that inhabits North America. I've looked trying to replicate what
Speaker 1: I heard and identify what it actually was. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But the next day at work, I walked into the
Speaker 1: coffee room. Mister Lenarm was sitting in his usual chair,
Speaker 1: reading the newspaper, stained white cup of coffee steaming beside
Speaker 1: the ash tray that was keeping that Mentha all ready
Speaker 1: for him. He looked up at me when I walked in,
Speaker 1: and I hopped up on the edge of the counter
Speaker 1: where I normally sat, waiting on him, just to give
Speaker 1: the sign it was time for us to head to
Speaker 1: the truck and go to work. Until that time, he
Speaker 1: ignored everything and everyone. He just sat there and read
Speaker 1: the paper, oblivious to the rest of the world. He
Speaker 1: picked up a cigarette and glanced up from the paper,
Speaker 1: looking at me over his top of his glasses, and
Speaker 1: he said, I just sleep last night. Now, it was
Speaker 1: such an unusual happening that everyone else stopped talking and
Speaker 1: turned to see if he'd actually he initiated a conversation
Speaker 1: with someone. I smiled big at him, happy that he
Speaker 1: was even talking to me. He never talked to anybody
Speaker 1: up there, and only talked to me once we left.
Speaker 1: But I looked at him, I said, I slept like
Speaker 1: a baby, mister Leon. He winked at me, and he
Speaker 1: went back to his paper. And that's just how that happened. Superstitions,
Speaker 1: the world is full of them. Some of them are
Speaker 1: very well known. As a Pennsylvania paper mogul Michael Scott
Speaker 1: once said, I'm not superstitious. I am a little stitious.
Speaker 1: The same goes for yours, truly. Then my wife and
Speaker 1: kids might have a different opinion about that, as they
Speaker 1: take great joy in poking fun of me about my
Speaker 1: beliefs and habits. And I can't point to any reason
Speaker 1: or reference for it other than I was raised that way,
Speaker 1: or better yet, exposed to it as a child. No
Speaker 1: one ever sat me down and said, Brent, do this
Speaker 1: or don't do that, or you will die well, except
Speaker 1: from my maternal grandmother, beautlessly, the same one that drug
Speaker 1: me to the beauty parlor when misfortune befell me and
Speaker 1: I got caught in her possession while in town. Mom
Speaker 1: sly told me, as I mentioned on her before, that
Speaker 1: if I drank milk and ate fish, I would die,
Speaker 1: simple and quick, to the point it made a lasting
Speaker 1: impression on me. I remember it like it was this morning.
Speaker 1: We sat down to eat a big mess of fish
Speaker 1: she just fried up, and she has Brent, what do
Speaker 1: you want to drink? I want some sweet milk. I
Speaker 1: don't remember how old I was, but I was still
Speaker 1: in elementary school when she responded, and I quote, you
Speaker 1: can't have milk and fish. It'll kill you, ma'am, It'll
Speaker 1: kill you. I can't do that. She's some tea that
Speaker 1: wasn't going to end well. And before I go any further,
Speaker 1: let me say that my grandmother could sit on her behind, blindfolded,
Speaker 1: with her right arm tied behind her back, and out
Speaker 1: cooked Julia Chiles and Justin Wilson and out Clean, Mister Clean,
Speaker 1: and the tidy bowl Man all at the same time.
Speaker 1: But everyone has a weakness to Superman. It was kryptonite
Speaker 1: to Achilles. It was his heel to my mama's life.
Speaker 1: It was her sweet tea. I call it sweet tea
Speaker 1: only because that's what he's supposed to be. She didn't
Speaker 1: put sugar in it, she didn't like it. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: drink it, so I'm not sure she even knew what
Speaker 1: it was supposed to taste like. She was born in
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve and raised on a farm seven and a
Speaker 1: half miles north of Warren, Arkansas, picking cotton, milk and
Speaker 1: cows and feeding chickens. You'd think with that resume, she'd
Speaker 1: have been the queen of sweet tea, but you'd be wrong.
Speaker 1: My mama liked sweet tea. My dad likes sweet tea.
Speaker 1: My grandfather find A Sly. Her husband liked sweet tea,
Speaker 1: but bless his heart, he didn't get to drink it.
Speaker 1: Not good sweet tea at least I was. Mama Sly
Speaker 1: made it. She had a gray stoneware a picture that
Speaker 1: had two blue stripes on it that she put the
Speaker 1: tea in when she made it. Could be sitting on
Speaker 1: the table. When I sat down and saw it there,
Speaker 1: I knew I was in for some tough swallowing ahead
Speaker 1: of me if I drank it, so I always opted
Speaker 1: for milk, except on Friday nights, when we always ate
Speaker 1: fish like any self respected Southerner does. If we didn't
Speaker 1: fix it at home, we loaded up and went out
Speaker 1: to eat it. But on the occasion to which I'm referring,
Speaker 1: I was sitting in my appointed chair on the east
Speaker 1: side of the table, the chair I always set in
Speaker 1: when I stayed there. My grandfather was at the head
Speaker 1: on the south end, and directly across from me was
Speaker 1: my sainted Mama. Slo poured me up a glass of
Speaker 1: tea that was so stout you could have floated a
Speaker 1: steel wedge in it. It was so dark you could
Speaker 1: stand ankle deep in it and not see your feet.
Speaker 1: I watched my Papall dump enough lemon juice and sugar
Speaker 1: in it to make it somewhat palatable. I don't think
Speaker 1: he really liked it. I think he drank it because
Speaker 1: he loved my Mama's lye, and I loved her too.
Speaker 1: So when I took a drink of it and I said,
Speaker 1: this tea don't taste like Mama's, Papall cut his eyes
Speaker 1: at me, and I don't know if he was thinking
Speaker 1: that this fifth born grandson had been sent here as
Speaker 1: his own personal Moses to deliver him from the bondage
Speaker 1: of Mama slies Tea, or if he thought that statement,
Speaker 1: I just spontaneously uttered after choking down the most bitter
Speaker 1: solution this side of purified green per simmons had been
Speaker 1: more dangerous than mixing milk and fish. We never found
Speaker 1: out because my mama's slie said rather sternly, will I'll
Speaker 1: fix you some water? Papaull kept eating and I didn't die.
Speaker 1: I looked it up, and the myth of milk and
Speaker 1: fish goes back a long way, and at its origins,
Speaker 1: it's believed to have caused skin problems somewhere along the way.
Speaker 1: When it reached that little farm seven and a half
Speaker 1: miles north of Warren, Arkansas, possible skin problems had turned
Speaker 1: into imminent death. Another superstition that I can attribute to
Speaker 1: my mama's life was whenever we were walking side by
Speaker 1: side and a pole or a parking meter, or a fence
Speaker 1: post or any type of object came between us, she'd
Speaker 1: say bread and butter. Now I never thought much about it,
Speaker 1: For all I knew she was going over a grocery
Speaker 1: list and I'm easily distracted. But the origins of the
Speaker 1: saying go back a long time ago. Like most old
Speaker 1: sayings like that, it's supposed to ward off any future
Speaker 1: happenings that would separate the relationship. Something come between you
Speaker 1: is that when butter is spread on bread, that you
Speaker 1: can't take it off. I say it now, and I
Speaker 1: have said it ever since I noticed her saying it
Speaker 1: when I was just a kid. It was one of
Speaker 1: a myriad of sayings, phrases, and observations that Alexis found
Speaker 1: herself having to learn. When we got together. She struggled
Speaker 1: with me saying dinner and meaning what she would call lunch,
Speaker 1: to the point that I heard her in the kitchen
Speaker 1: in her apartment one day saying, over and over breakfast dinner,
Speaker 1: so breakfast dinner, so breakfast dinner. So I said, what
Speaker 1: are you doing, to which she said, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: learn a new language. That It came as no surprise
Speaker 1: when we were walking to a restaurant one evening not
Speaker 1: long after that, and a parking meter came in between
Speaker 1: us and she said, peanut butter and jelly. I said
Speaker 1: what she said, peanut butter and jelly. No biscuits and gravy.
Speaker 1: Biscuits and gravy. That's it, I said, No, dear, it's
Speaker 1: bread and butter. I appreciate you trying. One that really
Speaker 1: got her one day when we were still dating, was
Speaker 1: when I was driving us somewhere and a cat ran
Speaker 1: across the road in front of us. This was back
Speaker 1: when she still stayed away long enough to have a conversation,
Speaker 1: instead of like now, when she builds herself a blanket
Speaker 1: cocoon to hibernate in until we reach our destination that
Speaker 1: could be as far away as another state or as
Speaker 1: close as the grocery store. Anyway, the cat crossed the road,
Speaker 1: and in mid conversation, I made an X with my
Speaker 1: right index finger in the top left hand corner of
Speaker 1: the windshield, turned my head and made a spitting noise
Speaker 1: over my left shoulder, and continued on with whatever I
Speaker 1: was saying, as if nothing had happened. When she didn't respond,
Speaker 1: I looked over at her, and she was staring at me.
Speaker 1: Her eyes were big, her mouth was partially open, and
Speaker 1: her little bump of a nose snarled upwards in utter disgust.
Speaker 1: I asked her, what's wrong? She said, are you spitting
Speaker 1: in the car, because if you are and don't stop immediately,
Speaker 1: this is a deal breaker. No, I didn't really spill,
Speaker 1: I just made that racket. A cat crossed the road
Speaker 1: in front of us. Now, I assume she didn't see
Speaker 1: it as if that was going to make what I
Speaker 1: had just done easier for her to understand. I've always
Speaker 1: taken it for granted that everyone grew up like me
Speaker 1: and what I did was just a social norm. Other folks,
Speaker 1: my wife included, refer to them as social abnormalities. I
Speaker 1: saw my dad do it a million times, and when
Speaker 1: I asked you why, he said it was the ward
Speaker 1: off bad luck. And it wasn't just limited to black cats.
Speaker 1: It was any and every cat that ever crossed the
Speaker 1: road in front of us. It was learned behavior from
Speaker 1: him to me, and I have no idea where he
Speaker 1: got it from. My son Hunter does it as well
Speaker 1: as my oldest daughter Amy, but the baby girl Cub
Speaker 1: doesn't not yet. Anyway, something I was told I wasn't
Speaker 1: supposed to to do as well was talk about a
Speaker 1: dream I'd have before eating breakfast. I can't remember where
Speaker 1: I heard that one from, but it was always just
Speaker 1: been a part of my knowledge or lack of however
Speaker 1: you want to look at it. The real was you
Speaker 1: didn't talk about a dream before breakfast unless you wanted
Speaker 1: it to come true. And most of my dreams over
Speaker 1: ten years had me duking it out with someone, and
Speaker 1: during the fight, my arms would only move in slow motion.
Speaker 1: I could feel myself swinging as hard and fast as
Speaker 1: I could, only to look like I was swimming in
Speaker 1: my glasses now. The first time I sprung that one
Speaker 1: on the lexus was at her parents' house. We'd all
Speaker 1: gathered for breakfast, and she started, let me tell you
Speaker 1: about this dream I had last night. WHOA Was it
Speaker 1: a good dream? No, it was scary. You can't talk
Speaker 1: about it until you eat something. What you can't talk
Speaker 1: about it until you eat something or to come true?
Speaker 1: She stared at me from across the table. Everyone else,
Speaker 1: her parents, sister, and her grandmother's eyes are kind of
Speaker 1: darting back and forth to each other. As I told
Speaker 1: her to at least take a bite or something before
Speaker 1: she talked about it, I could see her reevaluating her
Speaker 1: life choices up to that moment as she looked at me,
Speaker 1: contemplating how the rest of her life would play out
Speaker 1: being married to me, and she slowly deliberately took a
Speaker 1: bite from that fork as she had hovered in the
Speaker 1: air above her plate. There I took a bite. Now
Speaker 1: we don't have to worry about the flying monkeys from
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz stealing the riding lawnmower and running
Speaker 1: over our mailbox. Now we all laughed and laughed, and
Speaker 1: it was funny. She's funny, But our mailbox has remained undamaged,
Speaker 1: and that happened before Bathing was born, So who's laughing now?
Speaker 1: Superstitions are a funny thing for me. They're more out
Speaker 1: of a habit than a belief. And I don't think
Speaker 1: milk and fish will kill you. I also don't think
Speaker 1: knocking on wood would ward off any evil spirits or
Speaker 1: spitting over your shoulder. We keep a cat from bringing
Speaker 1: you harm, just like walking under a ladder ain't going
Speaker 1: to hurt a thing. But why take a chance a
Speaker 1: stilly tradition that connects me to the past and the
Speaker 1: people that I think about when I do them or
Speaker 1: talk about them to others. Explaining them to Lexis would
Speaker 1: be the starting point to many conversations that would begin
Speaker 1: with me telling her about Mama's lies, saying bread and butter,
Speaker 1: and end up with us having spent time together, laughing
Speaker 1: and talking and learning about each other's families. And we
Speaker 1: still do that. If you're talking and laughing and learning
Speaker 1: with the folks you love, man, that's about as lucky
Speaker 1: as you can get. Thank y'all so much for listening
Speaker 1: to us here on the Old Bear Grease Channel. I
Speaker 1: hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's celebration,
Speaker 1: and I look forward to talking to y'all again next week.
Speaker 1: Until then, this is Brent Reeds signing off. I think