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Speaker 1: outrageously Dependable. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host
Speaker 1: of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your
Speaker 1: host into the world of hunting the icon of North
Speaker 1: American wilderness to better We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation.
Speaker 1: Who will also bring you into some of the wildest
Speaker 1: country on the planet Chasing Battery. This is a very
Speaker 1: special episode of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast that I
Speaker 1: doubt that I will ever be able to replicate with
Speaker 1: another guest. I had the opportunity to sit down with
Speaker 1: or Lee Province of Crawford County, Arkansas. Or is ninety
Speaker 1: one years old. His name is or A Lee Province,
Speaker 1: but he goes by Oor. I got to sit down
Speaker 1: with Ori. I've known or for about ten years or so,
Speaker 1: and I was introduced to him because of the legend
Speaker 1: that he was in the region that he deer hunts
Speaker 1: because of some deer that he killed back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, and so I went and did a story
Speaker 1: for a regional Arkansas hunting magazine about our province and
Speaker 1: the two big bucks that he killed in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: five on public land in the rugged Ozark Mountains. Ori
Speaker 1: is a unique man today because of the life that
Speaker 1: he's lived. Or He was born in nineteen seven back
Speaker 1: in the same Holla that he now he's deal lives in,
Speaker 1: and basically he's lived off the land his whole life,
Speaker 1: from logging to chicken farming to growing tomatoes. Ori has
Speaker 1: has managed to never have to get a job in
Speaker 1: town except for a short time in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: Ori is an old school human and I really have
Speaker 1: just a special place in my heart for guys like him.
Speaker 1: I think growing up in Arkansas, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was my dad or if it was
Speaker 1: I believe it was a combination of things. But my
Speaker 1: dad definitely had a lot of respect for these old
Speaker 1: mountain men, and so I just had a respect for
Speaker 1: for these caliber of men, and so I went and
Speaker 1: just had a conversation with Ori that you're going to enjoy.
Speaker 1: I think the context will help you understand or the Ozarks.
Speaker 1: Anthropologists say we're culturally and geographically isolated until the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies when infrastructure and technology really reached this rugged part
Speaker 1: of Arkansas. Those aren't mountains, are an uplifted plateau that
Speaker 1: basically cover an area that's probably I don't know how
Speaker 1: many square miles it is, but probably a hundred miles
Speaker 1: north and south by probably three hundred miles east and west.
Speaker 1: And the infrastructure, the highway infrastructure of the Ozarks was
Speaker 1: there were no interstates, there was no major commerce in
Speaker 1: the region, and basically it was a culturally and geographically
Speaker 1: isolated region and still is to some degree today. And
Speaker 1: Oriy they got electricity in nineteen forty eight, he told
Speaker 1: me that's not on the podcast. They didn't get telephones
Speaker 1: back in there until the nineteen seventies, and to this day,
Speaker 1: they still don't even have rural water where he lives.
Speaker 1: They live off way else. And for the for the
Speaker 1: amount of wilderness that we have in Arkansas, he lives
Speaker 1: back about as far as you can get for Arkansas.
Speaker 1: He lives back in some of the most rugged, steep, bluffy, rocky,
Speaker 1: roughest places that we have and uh ore, he still
Speaker 1: lives back in there with his wife, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: enjoy this conversation with my friend or a lead province.
Speaker 1: As a side note, we never specified how big these
Speaker 1: deer were that already killed. We talked about him, and
Speaker 1: you'll see pictures of them on the posts about this podcast.
Speaker 1: But the first deer that already killed scored a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty inches. I scored that deer myself. The second
Speaker 1: deer has double drop times and scored a hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty six gross inches. So for the Ozarks, those are incredible. Dear,
Speaker 1: if they were killed today in the nineteen five deer
Speaker 1: like that in this region of the country, we're basically
Speaker 1: unheard of. Guys, I'm gonna do you a favor, and
Speaker 1: you can do me a favorite. Check out a subscription
Speaker 1: to Bear Hunting Magazine at our website bear dash Hunting
Speaker 1: dot com and use the promo code b h M five.
Speaker 1: That's b h M five for five dollars off a
Speaker 1: new subscription on checkout what Oh you may have? Hey, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? Oh? I'm doing fire? Yes, good
Speaker 1: to see you, ye see you. This is my youngest son, Shepherd.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's ever been over here before. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen him before. Anyone, Come around and have a
Speaker 1: seat here. How are you all doing? Good? Excuse the floor.
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of vacuum and but I
Speaker 1: ain't not got it done, so don't worry about the house.
Speaker 1: Oh this is great, This is great. Hey, that's your chair,
Speaker 1: I know right here in mine unrolled. Listen. Well, do
Speaker 1: you know what a podcast is? A podcast? So what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do today is just recorded podcast, which
Speaker 1: all the podcast is is. It's a it's just a
Speaker 1: it's like a radio show, but it's on the internet
Speaker 1: and it's not live. So everything we do, I mean,
Speaker 1: it'll I'll put it up later after I edited and stuff.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of a podcast? Mis Mary? My
Speaker 1: brother has talked about so he's quite a radio man.
Speaker 1: He's gonna talk about stuff like that. Yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: have what you use it? Well, it's people listen to
Speaker 1: it on their phones. Now. I I just wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of get a general kind of life story of
Speaker 1: you and kind of living out here in the Ozarks
Speaker 1: and uh. And also I wanted to talk to you
Speaker 1: about those big bucks that you killed back in I
Speaker 1: guess nineteen. But but kind of to hear too about
Speaker 1: some of your earliest memories of hunting and how hunting
Speaker 1: culture of this region, you know, kind of how you
Speaker 1: grew up hunting and what you grew up doing. But
Speaker 1: but I'll ask you kind of some specific questions, So
Speaker 1: KNYA kind of lead you in then we'll just have
Speaker 1: a conversation. But now go ahead and tell me when
Speaker 1: when you were born, and kind of just about your
Speaker 1: childhood you were you were talking to me about how
Speaker 1: your dad had chores set out for all the kids
Speaker 1: and what you had to do. So when were you
Speaker 1: born and what was what was your childhood like? Well,
Speaker 1: I was born June tenth, nineteen twenty seven, and uh,
Speaker 1: I grew up when we moved from the mountain down
Speaker 1: to across the Holliday Ere where I live and uh
Speaker 1: twenty nine and then we I went to school two
Speaker 1: weeks at went free. Now where where you were born?
Speaker 1: Right here close somewhere. I was borned upon the mountain
Speaker 1: here about a mile and a half. Okay, more, I'm
Speaker 1: at So you weren't born in the hospital, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: they weren't. One of us eleven children born in the
Speaker 1: hospital and so, so you were born up here and
Speaker 1: then then uh we moved down here in twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Then we moved back to the mountain. I went to
Speaker 1: school down you're win free two weeks and we come
Speaker 1: went back to old home place. That was my mother's,
Speaker 1: uh dad's place. He homes did it from the United
Speaker 1: States government. M and I still got the deed. Is
Speaker 1: that right? Now? What year did he homestead it? I
Speaker 1: can't recall right off, but would have been in the
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds, probably it was eighteen Honors sometime. Now,
Speaker 1: were your grandparents alive? Were they a part of your
Speaker 1: life as you were a kid? No, okay, just my
Speaker 1: grandmother's all yeah, you know, part of to me when
Speaker 1: I think about you know, here it is twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: You were born in nineteen twenty seven. So how old
Speaker 1: are you are you? Does that make you ninety one?
Speaker 1: I'm ninety one. I'll be ninety two in June. Okay.
Speaker 1: So if you think of, you know, thinking of someone
Speaker 1: that lived in the eighteen hundreds seems so long ago,
Speaker 1: but you knew people that were born in the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: I mean the mid eighteen I mean, like your grandparents
Speaker 1: would have been born in the I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think I'm not too sure, but I believe my grandmother's
Speaker 1: born night eighteen and uh uh is the thirty or
Speaker 1: something or something? Huh, So she was born and maybe
Speaker 1: even in the eighteen out she died nineteen thirty five
Speaker 1: and now she's eight one. Once she died, okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so probably the eighteen fifties. Yeah. Wow. So you think
Speaker 1: about the the changes in lifestyle and technology from when
Speaker 1: your grandmother, a woman that you knew in two now,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's incredible. I mean even the lifespan.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no humans that have really in the
Speaker 1: history of humanity that really have experienced that kind of
Speaker 1: development and technology, you know, incredible. But yeah, so how
Speaker 1: many brothers and sisters did you have? I had five
Speaker 1: brothers and five sisters, eleven kids and the oldest died
Speaker 1: but tea would that would have made toil three and
Speaker 1: younger and me? Okay, so you you were you were
Speaker 1: towards the end there. Yeah, And now you told me
Speaker 1: your dad had chores set out for you guys that
Speaker 1: you had to do. Tell me about that. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: when I was at all like boy, I was nine
Speaker 1: years old or something like. I'd always get up more
Speaker 1: than bidle farther and uh had it a going and
Speaker 1: uh and I went and fed the team and uh, mules,
Speaker 1: mules and hornessed him. Yeah, and uh come back. And
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, I was nine years old. Nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: we got our first radio, first radio, first radio. And
Speaker 1: I listened to the the old ridden Cardial family and and
Speaker 1: uh be on one row and Charlie Monro There's together
Speaker 1: then yeah, and uh some of them old Sanger's way
Speaker 1: back there. Yeah, a bunch of them. That was a
Speaker 1: big deal listening to those old radio programs. They was good.
Speaker 1: They was good. Yeah, I like to listen out of them. Yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now what did what were you? What was your dad
Speaker 1: using the team of mules for well, he we worked
Speaker 1: in tam races, made her worked in timber, We worked
Speaker 1: in tambarin, farmed a little, we had separate tan cows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he was he was hauling logs off the mountain
Speaker 1: with these mules. Oh yeah, right, skinning them and everything.
Speaker 1: I'll be done. So you grew up doing that. That's
Speaker 1: why they've done all about it, just a better except
Speaker 1: later years by going chickens. Yeah, so they why did
Speaker 1: they use mules rather than horses for doing that? Do
Speaker 1: you know? Well there's more sure footage. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, but of course they use horses too, right,
Speaker 1: but mostly meals. Yeah. So so your dad was a logger,
Speaker 1: I mean back in these mountains right here? Yeah, maken
Speaker 1: a cross tie hire and a cross ties. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: be done. Now where was the mill? Was it down
Speaker 1: where it is now? Down the other side here? Okay,
Speaker 1: So load up the cross ties on a wagon or
Speaker 1: load up the just raw logs on a wagon, take
Speaker 1: them down to the mill. They've done the saw logs
Speaker 1: that way, and they saw them fellas and spokes and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. You know that. Of course that there
Speaker 1: was a wagon wheels, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them they sold the Springfield Wagon Company. Yeah, yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: be done. Now. When did y'all start getting more modern
Speaker 1: uh log and equipment? Like you were a logger most
Speaker 1: of your life? Well that is up and six in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties you started using mechanized equipment for the
Speaker 1: hall and logs. Really, you know, I'll be darning. So
Speaker 1: you were using mules and horses and everything until the
Speaker 1: nineteen Yeah, what kind of saws did you use? Like
Speaker 1: the two man cross cross cut sauce. Do you have
Speaker 1: any of that old stuff still laying around? Do you really?
Speaker 1: I've got one. Really, I'd like to see those. So
Speaker 1: what were your Well, give me, give me just a
Speaker 1: little like kind of a bigger glimpse of your life.
Speaker 1: So born nineteen seven, Dad was a logger, and you
Speaker 1: grew up just you stepped right into the family business
Speaker 1: and just log right with him. And uh, and then
Speaker 1: so you did that until when and what other kind
Speaker 1: of occupations did you have? Had died in forty four
Speaker 1: but okay and forty one while the World War two
Speaker 1: broke out, and uh, my brothers, three of them waiting service,
Speaker 1: and uh, I was oldest one left at home. Okay,
Speaker 1: I took him my mother and uh my nephew and
Speaker 1: uh two sisters and her brother brother. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you were just just a few years too young
Speaker 1: to be drafted into the war. I was. I was
Speaker 1: when my dad daughter sixteen, okay, and uh, when I
Speaker 1: become eighteen to day, I was eighteen. A day after
Speaker 1: I was eighteen. My birthday come on Sunday that year
Speaker 1: on Monday, I registered and I went down in past
Speaker 1: examination eight Devin July. I got my calls for examination,
Speaker 1: went down passed and they day have augas got my
Speaker 1: call service, and uh, ministers out here. And I had
Speaker 1: a big tomato crop out about ten acres tomatoes, and uh,
Speaker 1: I mean the family there, we had to have something
Speaker 1: to live on. And uh but anyway, why there's a
Speaker 1: minister out there. He said, this boy they had to
Speaker 1: take care of his mother and these children. And so
Speaker 1: he wrote, Uh I got deferred until two locked over
Speaker 1: the fifteenth and uh another words of the cropper was
Speaker 1: over then. Uh, I've still got my one eight classification.
Speaker 1: But the war was over that time. Oh wow, so
Speaker 1: you just barely missed it. So what year would that
Speaker 1: have been? Nineteen forty four? Well, let's see, it been
Speaker 1: uh seven, I believe he was okay, okay, forty that
Speaker 1: would have been somewhere he's older and forty six the
Speaker 1: war was, So you would have gone if the war
Speaker 1: would have oh yeah, yeah, the lords and I went
Speaker 1: to school with him. There's in there. They went in Germany. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be done. Wow. So so what it? So you
Speaker 1: logged up until how old were you well you grew
Speaker 1: to you grew tomatoes, you did some farming, you had
Speaker 1: some cattle. Well I couldn't worked in Timor. That was
Speaker 1: the main line up to him years and years later. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I went and uh man, my brother we
Speaker 1: uh that he never did have to go to war.
Speaker 1: And so but he went him went and cut timor
Speaker 1: and logged it. I hold it up, I hold it
Speaker 1: on a wagon. Yeah, and uh he scared did out
Speaker 1: and I won't halted and dumped it off with the
Speaker 1: mail mhm. And that was I forgott to have one year.
Speaker 1: That was in the late forties. Anyway. Now, the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: you were just a kid during the Great These hills
Speaker 1: weren't really I mean, they were affected by the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: but people were already poor. I mean there wasn't much
Speaker 1: you could do to somebody that was just living off
Speaker 1: the land basically when it comes to economic stress. Is
Speaker 1: that right, right? Yeah, we lived off the land. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And nineteen thirty six that was dry here, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: and uh we had a smiter crop and we haul
Speaker 1: water and set them out and they got up and
Speaker 1: just the blooming and everything turned off dry. We never
Speaker 1: got a tomater and nineteen thirty six and that was
Speaker 1: hard to take. Yeah, I remember that way too. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but we we worked in a tamar and uh you
Speaker 1: know they paper back then they finally got where they
Speaker 1: brought out food stamps and thanks, but we never got any.
Speaker 1: My dad just wouldn't have nothing to do. But that
Speaker 1: just by principle, he didn't need any help. We we
Speaker 1: made it. We made it without it. We worked and
Speaker 1: tamor made it. Yeah. What would have been a normal
Speaker 1: meal for your family back then when you were a
Speaker 1: kid had plenty teet? Yeah, I had plenty teet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had anything. Yeah, as you raised hogs and can vegetables,
Speaker 1: had had a garden. I know you still have a garden,
Speaker 1: don't you. Well yeah or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we made it fine, well done. Yeah. I had
Speaker 1: about dirty swarms of bees back during the world while
Speaker 1: you couldn't get sugar because every food is all racing.
Speaker 1: You couldn't buy nothing. Everybody's out of sugar. And I
Speaker 1: had bees and we got to you could get I
Speaker 1: permit to feed the bees, you know, because it used
Speaker 1: the honey somewhere another end. Guns. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: this why but that's what I heard it. An, So
Speaker 1: you were selling honey. Well I didn't sell it, but
Speaker 1: we eat it. Okay, you just had it. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had it, and we got penny of sugar to feed
Speaker 1: the bees, and so we didn't have to run out
Speaker 1: of shar A lot of people never had no sugar,
Speaker 1: flour or anything. They couldn't give this so much. Huh
Speaker 1: you come buy you come buy a trump tar or nothing,
Speaker 1: not a pair of shoes hardly? Wow? Yeah? So now
Speaker 1: what year did you get married? Forty nine? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: now what's the What was the story I remember with
Speaker 1: miss Mary? She was from the town. She was from
Speaker 1: in town? Is that right? And so she she didn't
Speaker 1: understand what it was like to be married to a
Speaker 1: country boy like you? Is that right? Tell me this
Speaker 1: story about when do you remember I remember writing it
Speaker 1: about you? Uh, that you went deer hunting? You told
Speaker 1: her you were when y'all were eighteen? I guess do
Speaker 1: you remember that? Ye tell me that story? Well, I
Speaker 1: went to when dare saying open, why I always go
Speaker 1: deer hunting? You know? I left her out of picked
Speaker 1: trouted when it not it? But after I killed a
Speaker 1: deer while when I got my dear, why I called
Speaker 1: her and so that's kind of the way that one.
Speaker 1: But but she was she wont you wondered why he
Speaker 1: never called you? Is that right? A week so you
Speaker 1: thought maybe something was up, but he was just hunting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: i'd walk twenty today. Wow, hunting on blows, hot blows
Speaker 1: and roughest places it was. So tell me now, I
Speaker 1: want to start talking to you about hunting. What are
Speaker 1: your earliest memories of hunting? I mean, did you hunt
Speaker 1: when you were a little kid? Did your dad? Then? Uh?
Speaker 1: I'd rather like during the war, you know, Wow, they
Speaker 1: wasn't no money much cross ties and selling and thirty
Speaker 1: and thirty five cents apiece and uh you just couldn't
Speaker 1: make much. And the timber so that when the seasoned open,
Speaker 1: while we'd go hunting, we didn't make more hunting catching
Speaker 1: possums and combs. We'd even skinner skunk anything that we
Speaker 1: could get, selling the hides, selling nights. Oh so you
Speaker 1: had tree dogs yeah right, yeah? Yeah. What kind of
Speaker 1: dogs did you have? Do you remember? Well, there's hounds
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. Yeah. So so you were making money selling
Speaker 1: hides back during that time, making more than you could
Speaker 1: make at the sawmill, right, I'll be darn. You know.
Speaker 1: I've actually mentioned that on this podcast before, because we've
Speaker 1: got we've got coon dogs and and part of the
Speaker 1: reason the coon dog is so culturally iconic is because
Speaker 1: of back there was a time when you could make
Speaker 1: more money with it if you had a good hound,
Speaker 1: than you could at a day's work. I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be darn. So you did that as a kid. Went. Now,
Speaker 1: there weren't many deer though, back when you were a
Speaker 1: kid at all. None at all, No, not hardly every
Speaker 1: you never I never seen a deer u till I
Speaker 1: was oh sixteen, okay, I never saw a deer the
Speaker 1: last sixteen. And no bears, No, I didn't. Back in
Speaker 1: those days. There weren't many bears around. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: few around earlier than my time. Yeah, yeah, but I would.
Speaker 1: I got my license. I think I still got my
Speaker 1: head about my first less Is that right? You still
Speaker 1: got it? I did. I've got one of the early ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What year would it have been? Nineteen sixteen? No, yeah,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, okay, yeah now that yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: forties be uh forty yeah sixteen, that have been forty three. Okay,
Speaker 1: you were sixteen years old forty nineteen forty three. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So you started when did you kill
Speaker 1: your first deer? Do you remember where I was seventeen
Speaker 1: when it came my first time? Okay, so in the
Speaker 1: forties and then you started. So how would you describe
Speaker 1: these mountains? Mr? Ory? There's people listening to this that
Speaker 1: have never been to Arkansas. They've never even they might
Speaker 1: even think Arkansas is a flat place. How would you
Speaker 1: describe these mountains? Well, they're they're rough, yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: they're beautiful. Yeah. And I've never been nowhere else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um for Western Savannas, uh Shamrock, Texas and uh F
Speaker 1: South there's been a down around war in Arkansas. And
Speaker 1: four North svnors Kansas City, Okay, yeah, yeah, that's four East,
Speaker 1: a little rock. Yeah yeah, well I told them matter Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know I would describe these mountains to somebody that's
Speaker 1: not been here is they're real bluffy, and I want
Speaker 1: to hear about the way that you hunted deer. But
Speaker 1: a lot of limestone, big limestone bluffs and rocky outcroppings.
Speaker 1: I mean, even driving here to your house today, we
Speaker 1: stopped at a waterfall down here on the corner and
Speaker 1: took a picture of a big waterfall coming off one
Speaker 1: of these bluffs. And and um, you know oak forest.
Speaker 1: Not many pines around here? Uh well not right through
Speaker 1: right here, right south. I was sure there is. There's
Speaker 1: more pines. Since you've been alive, have these mountains looked
Speaker 1: about like this or can you recall a time when
Speaker 1: they were? I mean, you know, like the vegetation, I
Speaker 1: mean not the same the same. So you're coming. They're
Speaker 1: more fields and there's not as many people lives in here,
Speaker 1: and now agay used to be right yeah, there used
Speaker 1: to be a lot of homesteads in this National forest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're you're touching National forest here, aren't you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're property here yeah yeah yeah on the north side,
Speaker 1: and I am now this place right here, was this
Speaker 1: homestate steadied by some of your family? No, I bought
Speaker 1: this from a fellow of Shawnee, Oklahoma. So you bought this,
Speaker 1: but your family homesteaded up on the mountain right yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you killed your first year when you were seventeen
Speaker 1: in the mid forties, and then how did it tell?
Speaker 1: Described to me kind of how you learned how you
Speaker 1: started hunting these deer. Well, I just it was since
Speaker 1: I was just a little boy, nine years old when
Speaker 1: or nine years old. We lived up here on the
Speaker 1: mountain and it's about two mile to where I ain't lived.
Speaker 1: And years she raised my dad and my on and
Speaker 1: two uncles and she raised him. But her husband died
Speaker 1: nineteen and uh but anyway, why we we my dad
Speaker 1: took care of her, and so ever Sunday night, why
Speaker 1: I'd come down. It's about it's about two miles a
Speaker 1: little down to her and spend the night with her,
Speaker 1: nine years old, and uh, I'd go back to the
Speaker 1: mountain in the next morning, and then Monday morning I
Speaker 1: had to go to Bedford School, which i'd be welcome
Speaker 1: better than six miles and uh but anyway, I've done
Speaker 1: that for four years because I was thirteens. She died
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty level the mayor nineteen forty remember it, well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you did you learn to hunt during that time,
Speaker 1: because that was what I had asked us, like, how
Speaker 1: are you my dad? My dad had send me down
Speaker 1: when one of my brothers was fourteen, Why he brought
Speaker 1: him in twenty two and you twenty to Sam shot
Speaker 1: twenty two in anyway, while uh we all used it
Speaker 1: and uh but anyway, I just a little boy, and
Speaker 1: they'd send me down down here to check things down here,
Speaker 1: and and they let me take a gun with me
Speaker 1: hunt all the way. I'd go down there and I'd
Speaker 1: kill a squirrel and I was just what his oldest boy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a gun women kill squirrel. Yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then you started deer hunting, hunting these bluffs. You know
Speaker 1: the story that I wrote about you and what they're
Speaker 1: blows there was ever worth just about. Yeah. They had
Speaker 1: a game refuge over here, thed and uh it stayed.
Speaker 1: We had to hunt around him, but he couldn't hunt there.
Speaker 1: They were trying to reintroduce deer in the forties, so
Speaker 1: they brought in some deer. Oh yeah, yeah, they brought
Speaker 1: them in it. And there's getting more the kind of
Speaker 1: scattered out than the openings season on it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you, uh so, I remember the story that I
Speaker 1: wrote about you years ago. Uh I called it the
Speaker 1: Bluff Hunter titled at that because you used to like
Speaker 1: to stay on the top of these bluffs and you
Speaker 1: can kind of look down and see these flats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's where these deer would be. But if you
Speaker 1: were up on the bluff, you'd kind of be hid
Speaker 1: from him, is that right, right? They can't smell you. You
Speaker 1: You love them and they don't. Yeah, And so that
Speaker 1: way you can get a I've killed several land down Okay.
Speaker 1: So you would just creep along the top of the
Speaker 1: bluff and you'd see them bedded. Yeah, right, I'll be done.
Speaker 1: I remember you used to throw rocks off a bluff too.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes you'd wake them up if you couldn't see
Speaker 1: why you told something down our kind of make it
Speaker 1: no water. They're wondering what it was and maybe didn't
Speaker 1: move where he could see him, if there's any there. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we want to take a short intermission here
Speaker 1: at the middle of the podcast. And if you remember,
Speaker 1: Mr Ry said that a nineteen thirty six his family
Speaker 1: got their first radio that he loved listening to the
Speaker 1: original Carter Family music and Bill Monroe's music. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a minute. We're gonna listen to Cotton E Joe
Speaker 1: by Bill Monroe. This is for you, Mr Or I
Speaker 1: didn't been made forty years ago, if I hadn't been
Speaker 1: knocking cotton age. Where did you come from? Where did
Speaker 1: you go? Where did you come from? Cottonightjo? Where did
Speaker 1: you come from? Where did you go? How did you
Speaker 1: come from? Cottonight? Same a grandmam? Did you know? Chicken
Speaker 1: in the red bedspreads? Not do? Where did you come from?
Speaker 1: Where did you go? How did you come from? A cottonyge?
Speaker 1: Where did you come from? Where did you go? How
Speaker 1: did you come from? Cotton je? Corns? Don't feeling us
Speaker 1: your string ball? Play a little tune called cotton Night do?
Speaker 1: Where did you come from? Where did you go? Hight?
Speaker 1: Did you come from cotton night to? Where did you
Speaker 1: come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from? Cotton? Mind?
Speaker 1: You don't you remember? Don't you know? Daddy work a man? Go?
Speaker 1: Co mind you? Where did you come from? Where did
Speaker 1: you go? Why you come from Cotnight? Do? Where did
Speaker 1: you come from? Where do you need to go? Do
Speaker 1: you come from? To do? Even if you don't like
Speaker 1: bluegrass music, surely you enjoyed that in this context. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna jump back into the episode and Mr. Or
Speaker 1: He's gonna tell us about the big bucks that he
Speaker 1: killed in nineteen sixty. In nineteen sixty, Uh, you killed
Speaker 1: two just big old deer, tremendous deer, non typical deer. Um.
Speaker 1: Do you recall the exact scenario of how you killed
Speaker 1: those deer? Ye? Tell us that story. Well, I was man,
Speaker 1: my boy, he was fourteen years old, and we went
Speaker 1: across Hurrican Creek. Who we're here, and across on uh
Speaker 1: towards rattlesnake, gup and down the point and got down
Speaker 1: on the in the point. I left him on top
Speaker 1: the hill and I said, I've gone down there with
Speaker 1: them pines at olm blows arette and stethon jump up something.
Speaker 1: And I was going to climbing over a bluff and
Speaker 1: I scared four deer out of a bed down blow me.
Speaker 1: You know, he run off, and so why does thee's
Speaker 1: on down the bluff? And uh cut down and went
Speaker 1: on down and found their beds where right threw by
Speaker 1: it went on doubt about sixty five hunter about ninety
Speaker 1: yards the other side of it, and Uh, I hear
Speaker 1: the racket behind me, and I looked around and I
Speaker 1: saw this point bucker coming. All I could see is this.
Speaker 1: You could kill one without I think a spiker. He
Speaker 1: just need horns. I could see them horns and I
Speaker 1: saw he had enough horns his legal shoot, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't see nothing but this a spot between two trees.
Speaker 1: So I shot him in the flanks, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I cripped him, and uh, so I shot him, and
Speaker 1: he come right through by me and brought about. I
Speaker 1: think it's ninety three yards and if day drive over
Speaker 1: from me, I'll be doing What do you think when
Speaker 1: you walked up to him and started counting those points? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I I can't. I just left him ron wait
Speaker 1: and got my boy and we went and is it
Speaker 1: this boy that's out here? Yep, that's low knife for
Speaker 1: you right now? Right? Okay, yeah, he's fourteen years old. Now,
Speaker 1: how did you get him out of there? I know
Speaker 1: about where. We drug him to the creek, on down
Speaker 1: the creek and tuck him up the creek because we
Speaker 1: can't take him up back up the bluff where I'd
Speaker 1: come from nowhere to him her car, her rig was
Speaker 1: setting on top the mountain, so UH had to go
Speaker 1: back up her and get it. But anyway, I went
Speaker 1: and we tuck him around the creek and tuck him
Speaker 1: up the creek and we run on to some harness
Speaker 1: earned the boy that. Uh, he had a boltswagon and
Speaker 1: we put he took us back to raids and hauled
Speaker 1: it up to where we could get it. And then
Speaker 1: you killed another one. You killed another big one. Now
Speaker 1: was it a few years later? When when did you
Speaker 1: kill that? Two weeks later? Two weeks later, two weeks later,
Speaker 1: I'll be during the same area. No, No, it was
Speaker 1: about north here here's up Frog Creek. And that was
Speaker 1: just an incredible season. Yeah, yeah, they're both in season.
Speaker 1: Well I'd said it was just an incredible year for you.
Speaker 1: I've never seen nothing like it. So what about this second, dear?
Speaker 1: How did that that happen? Well? I was the checking
Speaker 1: a man's cattle and uh up the creek here. He's
Speaker 1: from magol like Texas, and I was taking care of
Speaker 1: his cattle up her and I went up here, and
Speaker 1: of course you dar saying, you know, I had my
Speaker 1: gun women and uh so he had a big pond
Speaker 1: builder and I just I don't remember. I was just
Speaker 1: water is doing anyway. This deer was just helping to
Speaker 1: take it there above that running out through there, huh,
Speaker 1: and I saw them big horns. I started shooting. O shot.
Speaker 1: I think he's nine times whatever it takes and the
Speaker 1: last shot of shot he fell right backwards. He's running fasts.
Speaker 1: I'll be he's eighteen points. Yeah wow yeah. Um let
Speaker 1: me see here, I've got I've got some specific questions here. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: I remember you telling me about some bear stories. Uh,
Speaker 1: not necessarily hunting the bears, but when you were walking
Speaker 1: up the road. Uh, I was we go we go
Speaker 1: to Sunday school all time, and and uh I had
Speaker 1: a bypass and ninety one that ninety one and uh
Speaker 1: but anyway, I supposed to walk a hunting fourteen steps
Speaker 1: a minute, and so but we'd come back from Sunday school.
Speaker 1: I'd get out of mill above my house here and
Speaker 1: started walking to the house. She'd come on. She'd have
Speaker 1: my dinner ready when I got here. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: was coming down the road. I looked down the road
Speaker 1: in front of me. I saw something there. I thought
Speaker 1: was one of my cows. And uh, so I just
Speaker 1: kept walking and looking for another one. He called ahead
Speaker 1: and some more and uh, I looked up again while
Speaker 1: I saw his buyer. Well, I stopped in. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. I just had that bypass, and
Speaker 1: uh and I couldn't claim my tree if I wanted to.
Speaker 1: Of course it wouldn't have anything, Adam. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: told her, I, did you get out of here? He
Speaker 1: just down on the road and he wouldn't move, and uh,
Speaker 1: hollerd holler. That didn't work with him. About fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: and he want to do a thing. He just stood
Speaker 1: there and I didn't know what to do. But the
Speaker 1: thought of what wed olds on. He uh used to
Speaker 1: come out here and sang it bidful here or a
Speaker 1: gold church, and he told one put him up a tree.
Speaker 1: He said, act as brave as you can. So I
Speaker 1: just sat, well, I'll just see what I can do.
Speaker 1: I just made four fire steps towards him, and when
Speaker 1: he did, he just turned his head around like he's
Speaker 1: going to have to move. Then he's straightened back up.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, what'll do now? So so you kind
Speaker 1: of bluff charged buff Yeah, and it didn't work. It
Speaker 1: didn't work that time, but I'll work with him again.
Speaker 1: Holliday at him and everything else. And he wouldn't move,
Speaker 1: and so I started again. I said, you get out
Speaker 1: of here, and so I did that. Well, he went
Speaker 1: around and I thought he went up to holler, but uh,
Speaker 1: give him a little time to get up the hollar.
Speaker 1: I hears something making noise. Branches up is in June,
Speaker 1: branches up and running and making noise, and and he
Speaker 1: went up out on the side. And so that's all
Speaker 1: I know. I thought he went on up the hollar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but times a way he's going down the road, and
Speaker 1: watch it for him. I looked, it's about time I
Speaker 1: got even with him. He's satting on about twenty steps
Speaker 1: on me. He just went off the road and just
Speaker 1: sat there. They're smacking his mouth at me. Oh, he
Speaker 1: was popping his teeth at you. And he was a
Speaker 1: big He was like you talked about that, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had a big, big, big bear, big bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe you to wait six found I thought he would. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he probably did. May have been a little big, but
Speaker 1: I thought he would. He was a big one. Now
Speaker 1: do you remember so the story of Arkansas black bears
Speaker 1: that we did, we had, I mean, we had black
Speaker 1: bear forever and then in the you know, they said
Speaker 1: between by nineteen four and this is just a I
Speaker 1: think kind of an arbitrary date. By nineteen forty, there
Speaker 1: were no bears left over in this part of Arkansas.
Speaker 1: That's what they said. And then they started bringing them
Speaker 1: back in between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: they traded bass and wild turkey with some states up
Speaker 1: north and Canadian province. And we're bringing bears back in
Speaker 1: here and and turn them loose. Um, do you remember
Speaker 1: was there any talk of that? Or I mean, do
Speaker 1: you remember? I don't remember much about it back then?
Speaker 1: You know what I don't When did you start seeing bears?
Speaker 1: Because I mean you're in some big time bear country,
Speaker 1: I mean, like for Arkansas, like this is as about
Speaker 1: as good a bear country as there is. Well, I
Speaker 1: never I never seen no bar around through here until
Speaker 1: oh see who's building Short Lake for that? Now? What
Speaker 1: are you how to fit for? Okay? And fit for
Speaker 1: what we saw? One? He's going to work four day
Speaker 1: lighting one run across the road. I play back to first.
Speaker 1: Is that right? So nineteen fifty four you saw a bear? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll see. That would have either had to have been
Speaker 1: one of the bears they turned loose, because that's when
Speaker 1: they started the reintroduction, was in nineteen fifty four, or
Speaker 1: it could have been. And see, here's the deal that
Speaker 1: I keep going back to, is that I believe that
Speaker 1: there were still bears over in this part of the world.
Speaker 1: They said they were extra pated. That means that they
Speaker 1: were like just a region of this they were extinct
Speaker 1: out of this region. Um because my, my, my, my, my,
Speaker 1: my wife's grandfather he lived down in the Washingtalls, down
Speaker 1: around Mina and in the nineteen thirties he killed a
Speaker 1: bear with a rock. What he was, he was just
Speaker 1: a boy. He's walking down the road and saw just
Speaker 1: a little bear cub. I mean, it wasn't much more
Speaker 1: than a bear cub. Saw a bear cub run across
Speaker 1: the road and it he chased up a tree, and
Speaker 1: you know, he's just probably a twelve year old kid,
Speaker 1: started chunking rocks at it and ended up killing this bear.
Speaker 1: And he was petrified that he had broken the law,
Speaker 1: you know. And but there weren't supposed to be any
Speaker 1: bears in that part of the world in the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties and so anyway, but supposedly there weren't any. But
Speaker 1: so you saw your first one. I'll be darn You
Speaker 1: remember dates really well, don't you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can remember. But in the neighborhood. Yeah, oh, that's
Speaker 1: good for ninety one. That's real good. Hang here too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and well you're doing good, then I'll be darn. I
Speaker 1: got a troubled old hip. Troubled hip, yeah, from climbing
Speaker 1: all those bluffs. I guess too many steps, too many steps.
Speaker 1: So so you saw a bear in fifty four, and
Speaker 1: then would you say that bear activity has increased around
Speaker 1: here over the years it has since that time? Yeah, slow,
Speaker 1: but it's in great. We didn't have any back in
Speaker 1: York around Rhyme that year until last six seven, right yere, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've never I've never seen any back in the year.
Speaker 1: And you're you're what you're describing is I mean, you're
Speaker 1: kind of like in I mean you've got cleared land
Speaker 1: and kind of farm country here and uh and so
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't see bears in your day to day activity,
Speaker 1: but they've been close to you for a lot longer
Speaker 1: than that about in the mountains. They've been around, no doubt.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know you didn't you didn't see they
Speaker 1: had never bothered you much. I mean you never really
Speaker 1: had trouble with him. Maybe a few over the years.
Speaker 1: The slash fall, they was two stayed right here quite
Speaker 1: a bit out here that different one song him right
Speaker 1: here in my field, okay, okay. And I saw him
Speaker 1: out here one day. I was on my four wether
Speaker 1: and and I was talking to I've been sitting there
Speaker 1: and talking to him about fifteen minutes. And and uh,
Speaker 1: I'd ask him he saw him here much out around
Speaker 1: him and he lit her father went out of the mountain.
Speaker 1: He said, well, not all that many, but we see
Speaker 1: some cases, you know. Yeah. And I said, well, what
Speaker 1: about bar? And he said, well, it's ain't no bar
Speaker 1: yet right anyway, Well, he's just sitting there, was sitting
Speaker 1: our talk. He's at right us two right now, right
Speaker 1: down right close to us. I'll be down every way,
Speaker 1: about two hundred pounds of piece. Wow. We were just
Speaker 1: talking before we started recording that. The state record Arkansas
Speaker 1: bear came from not far from right here. You know,
Speaker 1: Chad's bear. I mean there's some there's some big bears
Speaker 1: back in here, old bears. Oh yeah, yeah, there's one
Speaker 1: had a young deer out uh on the neighbors up
Speaker 1: here seen it. Uh, he's had it in his mouth.
Speaker 1: Is that like a fawn? Dear? I'll be darn you.
Speaker 1: Hear about black bear predation on fawns, but rarely do
Speaker 1: you actually see it. I've never seen count of tubs
Speaker 1: and thy my boy, he went up here to check
Speaker 1: on my cows and there's one up art eating out
Speaker 1: of one of them tubs. Oh really yeah, yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: they like that stuff. Yeah, yeah, uh, they're they're just
Speaker 1: in New Zealand. Yeah, yeah they are. When was when
Speaker 1: did you last hunt? Like when you has it been
Speaker 1: a few years since you've hunted? Aug? What a two
Speaker 1: year ago? Two years ago? My last hunt was? I
Speaker 1: didn't hunt anyway, I killed too deer. Okay, you got
Speaker 1: some for the pot? Huh right? Yeah? Probably right here close?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, put it on this or not. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with killing the deer close to your
Speaker 1: house there, Yeah, but I don't know where from? Where's that? Well?
Speaker 1: That's good. It wasn't on the road, right right, it
Speaker 1: wasn't on the road. Yeah, I'll tell you about it. Practice. Well,
Speaker 1: you gotta get you gotta get some meat. You gotta
Speaker 1: get some meat, well, handy, why why not? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: Ms Mary do you do you like cooking deer meat? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Let me can. I I'd like to talk to you
Speaker 1: for a minute on on this microphone. Do you have some?
Speaker 1: Let me, uh, let me get you set up? Is
Speaker 1: that okay? Yeah? Let me see here? Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: put that on. You should be able to hear just fine,
Speaker 1: there we go, there you go. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Can you hear me? Good? Yeah? Okay? So, so you
Speaker 1: you like cooking dear meat. I love deer meat and
Speaker 1: I love cooking it because we love dear meat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but now raw, I mean, like deer roast. It does
Speaker 1: have a smell if when you're roasting it, you know,
Speaker 1: but I learned that you could put green peppers or
Speaker 1: onions something else with it, and when somebody walks in,
Speaker 1: they'll smell that smell the pepper cooking, and it kind
Speaker 1: of camouflage. Is this because that's the deer is cooked.
Speaker 1: They don't have that. We never have had a dead
Speaker 1: They had a real wild taste. I mean, we like,
Speaker 1: we like it, you know. Ye what's your favorite way
Speaker 1: to cook dear meat? Well? I prefer a steak myself,
Speaker 1: and he likes the hamburg. Of course, I'm getting more
Speaker 1: to hamburg. Of course. You can make chili, meat loaf.
Speaker 1: There's so many things you can make with ground maat
Speaker 1: that you can't do with steak, but I like steak too.
Speaker 1: How you cook your steak? I always beat it to
Speaker 1: make it real, and then I dip it in flour
Speaker 1: and then an egg and milk, egg with milk mixed
Speaker 1: in it, and then back in the flour. Okay, double battery,
Speaker 1: and then fry it until it's crisp. And you know that.
Speaker 1: And if it's a young deer, you can cook it
Speaker 1: in about five minutes on each side. But you have
Speaker 1: to really watch it because if it's it's not tender,
Speaker 1: it's the toughest stuff. It'll be tough. I have cooked
Speaker 1: roasts before and it'd be too tevidents I can't eat it.
Speaker 1: I just turned and put it back in my pressure
Speaker 1: cooker and cook it a little longer and then it
Speaker 1: would get because I like meat to just might say
Speaker 1: fall off the bone, and if it does, then it's tender.
Speaker 1: How thick do you cut your steaks? He cut We
Speaker 1: always cut her on well. We have had some dress
Speaker 1: that out, but he usually because his own steak, and
Speaker 1: I don't like it cooked cut about not more than
Speaker 1: really a quarter of an inch thick, which isn't very thick.
Speaker 1: But I like it because I want it tender, and
Speaker 1: I get more steak if you cutting a lot of
Speaker 1: people like them ananch sick or something like that. But
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't because it's too tough. But I
Speaker 1: beat it anyway because it makes it more tender. And
Speaker 1: then and of course, if you take a piece of meat,
Speaker 1: when you beat it, it makes it get a little bigger.
Speaker 1: And you'd even take a chicken breast and do that.
Speaker 1: His daughter told me that secret. You take a chicken
Speaker 1: breast and beat it, and they'll make it a lot bigger,
Speaker 1: and it's thinner and it'll cook quicker. And so I,
Speaker 1: if I've got time, I like to do that to
Speaker 1: chicken breast, anything that you have, you beat it. It
Speaker 1: will tenderize it. Now have you do you ever cook
Speaker 1: in the other kind of wild game? Yeah? I have
Speaker 1: kicked some bear meat before, and that is really wild tasting. Okay,
Speaker 1: you weren't too impressed with the bear meat, huh, And no,
Speaker 1: I didn't care. And I'll tell you this because my
Speaker 1: brother he did. He didn't know it. But if they
Speaker 1: come up here, and he had a son that loved uh,
Speaker 1: hog meat, and I fried hog meat. He had begged me.
Speaker 1: He said ain't Mary please cook me and his daddy
Speaker 1: to get onto him his mama too. I said that's fine.
Speaker 1: I'd rather cook quary likes I'd cook. One day there
Speaker 1: was coming, so I cooked some deer steak. I put
Speaker 1: it on one end of the platter, and I'll cook
Speaker 1: some of this hog meat of what do you call this?
Speaker 1: The shoulder meat is fried meat. He loved it. I
Speaker 1: cooked a lot of that, and I cooked some bear
Speaker 1: meat and put down here. And of course they didn't
Speaker 1: know they had bear. And you know what, they cleaned
Speaker 1: up first of all the bear, the bear, and they
Speaker 1: still he took this day. Don't know that he ate
Speaker 1: bear meat. He wouldn't believe me if I told him today.
Speaker 1: This wasn't too long back. They killed a bear and
Speaker 1: her son in law barbecued it. And I don't have
Speaker 1: to say that you wouldn't know it was bear meat
Speaker 1: if you wasn't told it was bared eat because with
Speaker 1: that barbecue sauce on it, it changed the taste entirely.
Speaker 1: And we all stopped by after church one Sunday night
Speaker 1: and had sandwiches out of that barbecued bear meat, and
Speaker 1: it was good. It was good, and we uh every Christmas.
Speaker 1: My family, my mother's family, my dad's family, we get
Speaker 1: together and we had a I had a one of
Speaker 1: my cousins would take a deer and he had cooked
Speaker 1: just a young deer and put it on it like
Speaker 1: a smoker and smoked the whole thing and bring that
Speaker 1: to our dinner. It was good meat smoked. I wish
Speaker 1: I had a smoker, but I probably burned it up
Speaker 1: trying to smoke it. But it would be good. I mean,
Speaker 1: smoked meat is really good, and dear meat would be
Speaker 1: really good smoke if you, you know, knew the technique
Speaker 1: you know for doing it, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: make stear jerky out of it, you know. But I
Speaker 1: may if he ever kills another one, I may try
Speaker 1: just a little bit. I've got to want them dehydrators. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: did you have a big garden, miss Mary? Were you
Speaker 1: the gardener? Remember last time I was here? You probably
Speaker 1: don't remember it, but you you were cooking sweet corn
Speaker 1: and you sent me home with a cooked here a
Speaker 1: sweet corn me and my daughter. I remember that you
Speaker 1: had it in foil. You're cooking it somehow. But do
Speaker 1: you do you have a garden out here? Usually? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you raise, you raise some corn, and we put
Speaker 1: it well. In fact, we practically done the whole patch.
Speaker 1: And one day because he didn't always ready, and he
Speaker 1: went down there and said, I tell you this was Saturday,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. And I said, you can't be telling me.
Speaker 1: He said, well, it's ready, he said, I'm afraid it
Speaker 1: won't keep till monday. I said, well, we'll just have
Speaker 1: to stay up tonight and get it. Yeah, stay, you know,
Speaker 1: cooked out. So we cooked it out and I lined
Speaker 1: it out on my table to cool and left it
Speaker 1: out all night with under fans for it to cool out.
Speaker 1: And I got up rill or the next morning and
Speaker 1: wrapped it all up in tin foils so we could
Speaker 1: put it away. So if you cook it and then
Speaker 1: freeze it and tinfoil, I cook it for five minutes.
Speaker 1: When it gets to a boil, I let my water
Speaker 1: get to a ball and put the corn in. And
Speaker 1: when it's boiling real good, I time it for five minutes.
Speaker 1: I take it out, put it, run it through just
Speaker 1: tap water to kind of chill it. And then I
Speaker 1: put it in ice water and leave it till the
Speaker 1: kind of chills down. Then I put it out to drain,
Speaker 1: and then I just stack it out on the table
Speaker 1: and let it lay until it gets cold enough that
Speaker 1: I know it's not you know, the cab, but because
Speaker 1: it'll be cold out here. But if you're not careful,
Speaker 1: the cab but still be hot and that will spoil.
Speaker 1: So you have to. So that's the reason I put
Speaker 1: I put it on fans what we used to when
Speaker 1: I had a coffee table in here. I put a
Speaker 1: sheet on the coffee table. We'll turn the air conditioner
Speaker 1: on him, put the corner all on the table here,
Speaker 1: and he'd cool out just fine. And then you so
Speaker 1: then you'd freeze it and then you'd pulled out of
Speaker 1: the freezer and just heat it up. Yeah, I'll just
Speaker 1: take it out and put it back and just like
Speaker 1: corn on the cob. Yeah, okay, so you didn't even
Speaker 1: have to you have to cook it. He just kind
Speaker 1: of had to heat it up. Had some last night
Speaker 1: for supper. I'll be darn our grandson and our son
Speaker 1: both if he comes in if he's not hungry, if
Speaker 1: you were not mention corn, because he said, if I'm
Speaker 1: not hungry, I can eat corn, and he'll don't get
Speaker 1: him a roast in here. If they don't name corn
Speaker 1: because I don't need it. But you want to have
Speaker 1: a roast in here. But everybody lives and we has
Speaker 1: a boy here. One time my daughter tell him said,
Speaker 1: can you eat corn on the cob? Yeah? She got
Speaker 1: an argument with him. She said, no, you can't eat
Speaker 1: corn car I know I can. I'll have Mama to
Speaker 1: cook something. You're gonna show me you eat corn on
Speaker 1: the cob. He ate that corn? She said, you didn't
Speaker 1: eat that corn on the cob. I did do it.
Speaker 1: She said, you did not. You ate the corn off
Speaker 1: that call. And oh he got so mad because he
Speaker 1: saw she had him over a barrel, but he could
Speaker 1: eat corn on the cob. I'm gonna remember that one,
Speaker 1: Miss Mary. Do you have any good stories about Mr
Speaker 1: Ory in his hunting or anything that he hadn't that
Speaker 1: he hadn't said? Well, I remember not to embarrass him.
Speaker 1: I remember one time we had two of the grandchildren
Speaker 1: here and I got up early because he gets up
Speaker 1: early if he goes hunting. And I got up early
Speaker 1: and got him off hunting. And it wasn't in fact,
Speaker 1: I don't think we did. We hadn't even got up yet.
Speaker 1: Had he come in. He said, y'all's gotta get ready.
Speaker 1: You've got to go help me. And I said, oh no,
Speaker 1: he's got a deer. And so we took the four wheeler,
Speaker 1: took the two grandkids, and down in the holler we went.
Speaker 1: He just wanted us to find it, see it. And
Speaker 1: we got down there, and then we had to load
Speaker 1: that on the fore wheel, and those grandkids had a blast.
Speaker 1: They got to have Grandpa bring him in a deer.
Speaker 1: And then we brought that deer up here, and I
Speaker 1: remembered that was a really exciting time. And then we
Speaker 1: had another grandson up here. He'd want to appear to
Speaker 1: check his cows, and luckily he found a deer. So
Speaker 1: he come home and said, y'all's gonna go help me.
Speaker 1: Well I knew immediately what he had done. So we
Speaker 1: took this little feller up there and we went up
Speaker 1: in the woods. He wanted him to find that he's
Speaker 1: kind of pointing it to me where it was at.
Speaker 1: He wanted to see if he could find it. He
Speaker 1: kept telling him, said ethan, look around, said that dear's
Speaker 1: daughter be here somewhere. Of course, he knew all the
Speaker 1: time where it was. And you ought to saw that
Speaker 1: little Feller halping us drag that out. He was thought
Speaker 1: he was really doing something. We put him in front
Speaker 1: and me and him was behind kind of dragging it.
Speaker 1: But he really was helping get that deer out here.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of fun. Ms Ma, how how old
Speaker 1: are you? Do you mind me asking you that I'm
Speaker 1: seventy approaching Eightier will be next month. His daughter and
Speaker 1: I have the same birthday, and my daughter, I'm twenty
Speaker 1: years old older than his daughter. I'm thirty years older
Speaker 1: than my daughter and my grandson. It's got married this year,
Speaker 1: and we're expecting our first great grand baby from my
Speaker 1: daughter's family this month, about the twenty nights, so I'm
Speaker 1: just count today's down. So I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 1: That'll make us nine great grandchildren, nine great grandchildren. Okay, um, okay.
Speaker 1: We talked about your big bucks. We talked about your
Speaker 1: bear story. We talked about growing up in the Ozarks,
Speaker 1: talked about your first introductions to hunting. Um. You told
Speaker 1: me about a little bit about your childhood. What would
Speaker 1: you say, what are your most I mean, you you've
Speaker 1: really never you've never known much than the life that
Speaker 1: you've lived out here, and and the reason that I'm
Speaker 1: here is because I don't think you probably didn't realize
Speaker 1: how unique it is the way that you have lived
Speaker 1: in today's world. I mean, just like like you said,
Speaker 1: there's thank you. Like you said, people don't live out
Speaker 1: here anymore. There used to be more people that lived
Speaker 1: out here, and and most people end up migrating into
Speaker 1: the city. What made you want to stay out here
Speaker 1: and just keep the lifestyle that you have lived? Never
Speaker 1: didn't go nowhere else? And one thing, I took care
Speaker 1: of my mother here for twenty four years. Okay, so
Speaker 1: she was up here. She was here with me twenty years,
Speaker 1: and her home was right up here. She's raised and
Speaker 1: she never hardly been nowhere else. Yeah. Yeah, So you
Speaker 1: just you just never had a reason to leave, no
Speaker 1: reason to leave, no reason to leave. I made living
Speaker 1: here and no plans to leave now. No, No, you
Speaker 1: does your boy that's right? Does your boy? Uh live
Speaker 1: out here? Close? He lived Winslow, Okay, he lived. He's
Speaker 1: a Patrin church out here a bit. Okay, he's pastor
Speaker 1: of the church. Can you can you think of any
Speaker 1: other unique stories about your life that you'd like to share? Well?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, my brother was hunting one night, don't
Speaker 1: treat and we went u up there, and he's tread
Speaker 1: up under rock. We wouldn't build up a far and
Speaker 1: smoked the coon out called in and here's dog wasn't there,
Speaker 1: So we wondered where he was at. He then would
Speaker 1: show up and so were about thirty or four minutes.
Speaker 1: Why we're here embarking well on the top of the mountain,
Speaker 1: and so we went up earned and uh so we
Speaker 1: got We went up ear there's two coons up a tree,
Speaker 1: and uh so we got both of them. Come back
Speaker 1: old he'll come back down there and with come the
Speaker 1: way he always step. And he looked down there. He said,
Speaker 1: there's a light down yonder. I said, I wonder who
Speaker 1: in the world that is. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: they're up to. So he he said, he said, you
Speaker 1: stay right here and keep these coons and things. Said,
Speaker 1: I'm going down there and see and throw you wait
Speaker 1: down putty clothes. And I heard him talking, and he
Speaker 1: he said, if you don't tell who you are, then
Speaker 1: they would answer. You know, so if you don't tell
Speaker 1: who you are, I want to shoot your light out.
Speaker 1: So correctly he took and he's shot in the water.
Speaker 1: Is it right there. I'll be daring. I thought that
Speaker 1: was one. So he was, he would seeing the reflection
Speaker 1: of his own light, no stars shining in it, the
Speaker 1: stars shining down and man in the light. And hey
Speaker 1: that's some that's some old school coon right there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Somebody won't tell you who they are, you're gonna shoot
Speaker 1: their lot out. Yeah, you know, I guess back in
Speaker 1: those days, I mean, you just didn't see people. I
Speaker 1: mean it was probably really odd that you felt like
Speaker 1: you hardly you wouldn't write, like I said you, I
Speaker 1: want to think about sitting this board down. There's hotter
Speaker 1: here now. Are like they are? People like they are?
Speaker 1: No way, yeah, way, no, Wow, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: unique story. Yeah. Yeah, you want to talk about child
Speaker 1: of being out now you better keep you eye on
Speaker 1: them all the time. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're doing a
Speaker 1: way with him across the border. Never ye hundred job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't hear about it a lot, but they are. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was a good story, miss Mary. Can you think
Speaker 1: of can you think of any other unique stories just
Speaker 1: about your old life? Not even about hunting? Well after
Speaker 1: a quick growing after quit sult melon, wow, I started
Speaker 1: growing chickens and I grow chicken for forty three years.
Speaker 1: It's right here. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yeah. I've never
Speaker 1: moved off right here, stayed right here, yeah, forty three years.
Speaker 1: Forty three years. I want you to I'd like to
Speaker 1: see your old mule harnesses before I leave today. Well,
Speaker 1: I got I got one horns up here. All I
Speaker 1: got left? Yeah, some of it. I don't remember his
Speaker 1: twick right in the operational the operation of the deer
Speaker 1: in the hay field. Oh yeah, yeah, mowing hay in
Speaker 1: a cutter. Little deer's foot off and uh, I'll called
Speaker 1: her to come and get it. No dipped, you know,
Speaker 1: they never make it with a leg off right this
Speaker 1: baby that words, we're right now, we're were raising okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you had a pet deer for I had to
Speaker 1: two or three pet dear. Yeah, I had three d
Speaker 1: at different times. Yeah. Yeah, I had a buck capping
Speaker 1: mirror about eleven years. M hm hm. How did you
Speaker 1: get very big? They get big horns, big horns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh that's neat. You know, we had a pet deer too.
Speaker 1: Just just like three years ago it became illegal in
Speaker 1: Arkansas to have captive wild caught deer, but for years.
Speaker 1: It was totally fine. Yeah, and I had we had
Speaker 1: three different deer that we raised that the kids, I
Speaker 1: mean their childhood is has memories of them having those
Speaker 1: deer that we raised, and that was really neat. But well, hey,
Speaker 1: we've been talking for an hour. That's good. That's about
Speaker 1: how long I wanted to talk with you. But my
Speaker 1: it's thank you for letting me come out here. We
Speaker 1: are you welcome. It's gonna be. I can tell you
Speaker 1: a lot of stories. Well, don't hold them back if
Speaker 1: you got one. But now, I there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of people that that are still around that grew up
Speaker 1: and live the way that you did. And and uh
Speaker 1: I knew you were a good hunter. Most shepherd is
Speaker 1: the one that introduced me two years ago. And and
Speaker 1: uh I knew you were a good hunter and loved hunting.
Speaker 1: And that's that's what this podcast is about, is you know,
Speaker 1: we're this is a hunting podcast, and and uh so
Speaker 1: I always like to go here stories of of the
Speaker 1: way things used to work. And um, it's always really interesting,
Speaker 1: you know because today today we have more bare, more dear,
Speaker 1: more wildlife than we've had and recorded history really and
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing. Because it's twenty nineteen. The modern world
Speaker 1: is exploding and population growth and and wild places are shrinking,
Speaker 1: you know, as people move out and they're just making
Speaker 1: more room for more people. You know, there's less and
Speaker 1: less wild places. And uh that's what to me is
Speaker 1: so unique about the Ozarks is that we've got all
Speaker 1: this national forest which will forever be in public hands
Speaker 1: and not be or we at least we hope will
Speaker 1: not be changed from just its native state like it
Speaker 1: is right now. And uh, anyway, it's it's pretty neat
Speaker 1: that wildlife conservation has come as far as it has,
Speaker 1: you know, even talking to you from the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: and forties, when there weren't dear, there weren't bear, there
Speaker 1: weren't wild turkeys. I mean, it was like that was
Speaker 1: kind of like a wildlife desert if you look at
Speaker 1: it in a just like it as a chunk of time.
Speaker 1: That was a tough time to be it, I mean
Speaker 1: for wildlife, tough time. And then now there's heck, there's deer.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised we didn't see a deer in your yard
Speaker 1: and we pulled up. I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 1: game around. Oh yeah, uh way, back Yonder. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: it's back in already thirties outsider before that, Uh, they
Speaker 1: had they had deer here. Okay, so there were some
Speaker 1: you know, they were some here because I'm here. I
Speaker 1: heard my mother talked about her her sister's husband killing deer. Okay,
Speaker 1: way back yon her and by too. Okay. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: there wasn't buy like. They wasn't as man like thor now.
Speaker 1: But they were. There's a few run across. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: Now they just lived on a little spots your and Yonder. Now.
Speaker 1: When I went to school a bit for here, they
Speaker 1: was the seven children. M Now it's consolidating, moved out.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so there were eighty seven kids back in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was cool. There's probably not five kids that live
Speaker 1: back here now, is there? Maybe more than that? They
Speaker 1: don't even run the bus out here any more? Right, Wow,
Speaker 1: people just don't live here anymore, do they. Well, there's
Speaker 1: something live out there. They quit raising children. Yeah, no families, Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody back then they had a good big families. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's now you're you're closest, like where do you
Speaker 1: do You're shopping? You're you go into Fayetteville and west Fork, Yeah, February,
Speaker 1: West Fork and mountain Burg. So you're about thirty forty minutes?
Speaker 1: How far drive here to west Fork about forty minutes?
Speaker 1: About forty minutes. Of course they got a dollar tour
Speaker 1: now win't low. Yeah, you can't get a few things there, huh.
Speaker 1: And that Mount Mountain burk down you're two. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: my children they always school mountain bird when win school
Speaker 1: mountinburd No bananas a mountain bird. No. Well, hey, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having us out here, and I'll just
Speaker 1: close down the podcast. Closing comment. Do you have a
Speaker 1: closing comment you want to say to all these hunters
Speaker 1: that are listening to this, Mr ry Well, I like
Speaker 1: like to see a hunter that is honest and won't
Speaker 1: pilate the law. Mum, I bye bye, put it close.
Speaker 1: I don't. I won't hardly ever kill a no dear, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's the population bur heard right right, don't. I
Speaker 1: just don't do that, I know. I I don't hunt
Speaker 1: on Sunday, Okay, I never. I just don't never hunt
Speaker 1: a day in my life on Sunday. Yep. I was
Speaker 1: taught against you. Thanks for listening to the Bear Honeting
Speaker 1: Magazine podcast and keep the wild places wild because that's
Speaker 1: where the bears live. Yeah, we'll try to do that
Speaker 1: with the bar. I don't like to get around too
Speaker 1: close to me. I never killed one, and keep them
Speaker 1: thin down that never shot it one. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you this and for you he closed up. I was
Speaker 1: running here putting out a night trade. I got forty
Speaker 1: ex back around heil here and uh are working gott.
Speaker 1: I just got through putting a ton of nitrade out
Speaker 1: and scattering behind a tractor a seed sore, and uh
Speaker 1: I was shaking the last three sacks out to pouring
Speaker 1: up spreader. And uh I looked down the lord side
Speaker 1: of the field and I saw a big semitaw something
Speaker 1: down there. I thought it was one of my neighbors,
Speaker 1: bulls semitall bull yeah, And I got looking at it now,
Speaker 1: Oh it ain't either. And I got looking. There's a bar,
Speaker 1: a big old simthal barer. And I'll believe you the
Speaker 1: way six fifty or seven on the planter. While he
Speaker 1: was a monster, and he stood away up this ceiling
Speaker 1: here he was a bagon, but he sat there or stander,
Speaker 1: you take that, Paul. I gotta wash and eating that
Speaker 1: hop clover. I didn't know what to do that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they do that. I'll be darn, but I was
Speaker 1: sartain about forty yards of him. He big one, big
Speaker 1: red colored cinnamon bear. Yeah, yeah, has ninety nine he
Speaker 1: want I guess it would now he won't have wolves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be darn, but he he was a bagon. I
Speaker 1: don't know anybody ever killed him or not. I just
Speaker 1: don't know. They live about thirty years, you know. Yeah older. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they can live a long time, a lot longer than
Speaker 1: a deer. Yeah. I sure appreciate you coming down and
Speaker 1: talk to him in my pleasure. Maybe somebody will get
Speaker 1: a kick out of old free boys. I think they will, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they. Sweet check gree coming for to carry
Speaker 1: me home, Sweet low sweet check free, coming for to
Speaker 1: carry me home. He looked over Jordan, and what did
Speaker 1: I see coming for to carry me home? Then to
Speaker 1: angel coming after me, coming for to carry me home,
Speaker 1: Sweet low sweet checky hot, coming for to carry me home,
Speaker 1: Sweet low sweet check, coming for to carry me home.
Speaker 1: If if you get there before I do, coming for
Speaker 1: to carry me home. Cheer lo my friends so coming
Speaker 1: into coming for to carry me home, Sweet sweet each
Speaker 1: Cheria coming for to carry me home. Sweet low sweet checkery,
Speaker 1: coming for to carry me home, sweet low, sweet check
Speaker 1: free A coming for to carry me home. Oh yeah,