Bear Grease - Ep. 132: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Hillbilly Tarpon and Delta Life

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

On this episode of the Bear Grease, Clay and Misty Newcomb host a couples edition of the Render featuring Josh “Landbridge” and Kristy Spielmaker, as well as Terrell “Thalweg” Spencer and his wife, former Rice Queen of Cross County Arkansas, Carla Spencer. The crew talks about Tim the Squirrel Dog’s recent and uncharacteristic exploration of the trash and is then joined by Bear Newcomb, who tells of the time he used a fly rod to catch a gar, or “Hillbilly Tarpon” as Clay refers to it. The discussion turns to the recent episode, “The Mississippi River - The Delta,” where they dig into the history of how the Delta continues to shape the culture and people of the region today. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. So Tim got in trouble last night.

He did... Tim, the squirrel dog. He almost never does anything wrong. He's very smart. We were gone for the weekend. He might have been neglected a little bit by his caretakers. By neglected, meaning he wasn't like... Pampered.

Pampered. Petted. And petted. No one cuddled. Give him table food. Affirmed. Yeah. Like perhaps he had to live like a normal dog.

Normal human being. Dog for a day. So he got in our trash last night, which is he's never ever ever done before. Well, it wasn't last night because he was up last night, but he got into the trash. I walk outside today and this morning and trash was all over our porch. I had left some trash out. I angrily pick up the trash and we try to figure out what it was.

I mean, we don't really see stray dogs. We did have a stray pig out last night. Lots of animals were neglected while I was gone. It was our stray pig. Yes. It was definitely our pig. Maybe it was a pick, maybe it wasn't. I let Tim out.

I already picked up the trash, re-sacked it up, put it on the porch, about to take it down to our trash can, which is a long ways from our house. A tenth of a mile from our house. It's a church. I walk out and Tim has shredded the trash

and it's everywhere, which is so uncharacteristic. Tim is like the perfect dog. He won't. He just does everything right. And then so you can... And so anyway, so he seemed like he got chastised pretty hard.

And it's because Tim has this huge shame complex. He's like a... He was chest. That was very hard. If Tim were in an enneagram, he'd be an niagram one. And so he perceives. He takes everything. He really wants to do right. He's trying to read the room at all times, trying to be morally upright, whatever. Anyway, clearly he did wrong, and he has been hiding behind the table all day long. Spare the rods, spoiled out feist. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. So he, I, Clay and I are standing like, how far distance wise, feet wise, would you say? Not and a half feet. Oh, I think it was longer than that. It was further than that. Because we were, and I said,

What did you, I said, did you, did you get Tim in big trouble because he's been hiding all day? And Clay said, Tim, come here. Clay's like trying to make up with him. Tim, Tim hikes his butt up in the air. He does this weird. The weirdest thing I've ever seen an animal do. He hikes his butt up in the air and he like slinks to Clay. It's like a sidewalk.

He's like walking towards me with his head down. His legs are up really high. Every step he takes and he's like coming over to Clay. He gets to me first. and he comes and he like wraps his legs and body around me and like slides over to clay and this whole time he's looking at me because I have I have shamed him and you know I think you can tell a lot about a man by his dog scolding voice I know for sure Spence has good one oh yeah I could scold the hair off a dog I tremble thinking about about yours they look like they got manged when I'm

done with him all I did was give Tim a full throttle scolding and I threw my hat at him. Oh. Dad, give a, grig, threw my hat and, you know. You went junior high coach on him. Yeah, he did. But Tim couldn't handle it. Tim is, his personality.

But he finally walked over to me and I just kind of rubbed him behind the ear a little bit. And he kind of warmed up to me and he thinks everything's okay now. Yeah. So, yeah, that was our day. The chastening of Tim the Squirrel Dog. Welcome to the Bear Granger, everybody. It's, man, do we ever have, we have a very interesting group of people here today. Two new guests on the podcast.

There's seven of us here. We only have six headphones. We've got one mystery guest who will be revealed after I introduced a regular guest. To my left, I have my lovely wife, Dr. Misty Newcomb. Welcome. Thank you. Hey, Doc. Great to see you.

Thank you. Christy, you're becoming such a regular. I don't even, I want to give you a nickname. Okay, we'll think about that. Yes. So, Christy Spillmaker, the wife of... Landridge. Kiki, yeah, they call her Kiki in the beard.

So great to have you, Christy. Thank you. Josh, Landbridge, Spillmaker. Here, back in action. Yes. Hey, I found the book that you inspired me to buy. Would you read this if I lent it to you? Yes, I would.

Beringia, the last giant of Beringia. I remember when I read this back in like 2004 or whenever, I just remember reading it being like, is this guy a real scientist? Got pictures. No, it's good, it's good. That's a great book. You've underlined some things in here.

Always, always, always. You ought to see some of my new books. That was back in the early days. To Josh's left, Terrell Across the Creek Farm, Thalwag, Spencer. There is. Thouwack. Great to have you. So many names.

Terrell, I've never called you Terrell. When I get on this, I call you Terrell. Spence is our local pastured poultry farmer, foul wag, long time, dear friend of ours. And Spence, why don't you introduce our real guest of the day? Yeah. Drum roll. Yeah, drum roll.

Former Cross County, Arkansas, Rice Queen. We're in the presence of royalty. My lowly bride. I knew that it's coming up, yeah. And much better half. and Carla Spencer This is big I've tried to get you on here before

and stuff just happened She couldn't be here She's a talented woman She's a big deal In demand Yeah man hey Carla Every time I see Carla

She's always I can tell I keep a bead on people On how close they're paying attention To Bear Greece You know with friends And a lot of them are just kind of posers I mean

They're like Oh man that whole call your series, Clay, that was great. And I'm like, dude, that was six months ago. Yeah. And, you know, stuff like that. Like, I'm filing it away. Sometimes I say it directly.

Other times I hold it back and just file it away. It's like, oh, okay, kind of behind. Stuff like that. Carla stops me on the road, like the day a podcast comes out. And she's like, oh, because I'm excited. Yeah. So you should have been here a long time ago. Oh, well.

Yeah, a long time listener. in the hauler and not be on your game. No, great to have you, Carla. Thank you. Happy to be here. And you were raising the Delta. We're going to talk about all this. Yeah, I was.

The real Mississippi River Delta. The real deal. Rice Queen. Our mystery guest, though, first-time appearance. Actually, not. No? He's been on here before. He's been on here before.

You think this young man has been on this podcast before? Without a shadow of doubt. He has been on this podcast before. Montana. Yeah. He shamed me on my podcast. own river with his skill. I mean, like, just.

Mystery guest is Bear John Newcomb. Bear. Good to see, brother. Huge fan. Huge fan. Well, tell us about that mullet, first of all. How long to take you to grow that sucker? What do you feed it?

It's been about a three-year cycle. It's down officially below the collar, I think. He's going to have to give it a little snip-snip before. What I think is funny about. For school. So Bear is going to be a senior in high school. And Josh is his principal. And that's not at all true.

What if he kept the same level of party in the back, but he just got a little more business up front? No, there's a pretty strict uniform policy. What I love about Bear's Mollett is he just described it as a cycle. One of my favorite Bears' Mullet stories is that when Bear was, you know, bears had highs and lows in his academic journey. and I'm not trying to throw you under the bus here. Wow, this is...

While you're getting deep, called out on a national platform. But one time Bears' GPA fell below what Clay thought was appropriate. And Clay said, you can have a mullet, but you can't be the mullet. That's a T-shirt.

That's a T-shirt. I said, I said, you can have a mullet. Don't act like a person that has a mullet. I was like, it's okay if you have a mullet. Clay Newcomb single-handedly offending every mullet wear. Or the author of that book, man. God bless him.

He had to trim it up until he got his GPA up. I never heard of that being a reward. Like, if you get your GPA, you can have a mullet. But until then, a 3.5 and above mullet. Every point of GPA is like an extra two inches. If you get a 4.0, I'll let your grow up down to the shoulder buttons. If he takes some AP classes, you get some lines of the side. Oh, man, he adds stripes for a while.

So, Misty, I thought you were going to tell the story about him getting a technical. Oh, it's, yeah, we've had some really good. So we had. What was the technical mullet correlation? Was it strong? Yeah, it was strong. And we had, you know, back during COVID, you, there were all these, like, rules governing games. And so it was a very difficult time to keep up a basketball program.

because schools, you know, a whole team would get it and have to cancel their game. And that December of 2020, I think that kept happening. And for people who don't know, our state remained pretty open. But at certain points, things would start to kind of slow down. So anyway, Bear had a mullet during that time. We had a lot of cancellations. Bear John, we decided one night, hey, we're just going to do like a spirit night. Our kids have all been around each other.

So we had refs already hired. We had the gym and everything. So we had a game, and it was just like a blue and gray game. So our team played each other. It was a scrimmage. It was like a scrimmage, basically. And our coach was highly offended at Bear's Mollet. Like, he just hated it.

And he came over to the ref, and he said, hey, in this next play, could you please call that guy out? And she was great. She was totally played along, and she blew the whistle, and she looked at Bear, and she said, technical foul. And Bear was like, what? He was in the middle of a game of the crowd and all. It was a scrimmage, but there was like a real basketball game. Yeah. And she called Technical Fowl, and then she did this hand motion, like a sweep in the mullet back. And she said, technical foul, that's an offensive hairdo.

Mullets. And all of the moms, because all the moms were also offended that we let Bear get this haircut. And all the moms in the stand just lit up. It was the most like, they started cheering. They were like, yes. It was really, kick him out. Kick him out. Out of the game.

Cut your hair. Sorry, you had to go through that, son. Yep. Well, the... Okay, so I brought you on for one story. This is like a one-shot wonder story. Tell me about the saga of the Hillbilly Tarpen. Hillbilly Tarpen is a gar on fly.

Okay? Yes. Well, it wasn't quite on a fly. Well, okay, just tell me the whole... There's a technicality there, but it's a worthy technicality. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, for some backstory... I've been trying to catch a gar on a fly rod for like almost a year and a half now.

And I've used like the nylon rope that everybody says. That's like a thousand people on Instagram have told me thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did that like a lot last year. I had a few. It will not work. It will not. Bear said it wouldn't work.

I had a few like hit it, but they immediately spit it out. They're pretty like pressured gar. Like I know a lot of people who try and fish them. Public land. to pressure at the yard. It's like, yeah, it's like... You can't get caught by a guy with the mullet. A fly fisher with the mullet.

Have you ever been swimming across and one grabbed your mullet? No, never have. Teeth to get tangled up in that bad boy. Oh, yeah, that's the trick, man. Yeah. And so I know, like, a lot of people who try and catch gar at this particular spot,

and I think they've just kind of got it figured out. Like Uncle Zach has caught one there before using the nylon rope. Oh, really? Yeah. Our is Zach Newcomb. Yep. Wow.

And so I've tried it before. I've had them take it. I've had them go forward and swerve it, but I've never had it really, like, get tangled up. Right. And so Uncle Josh actually made me, like, a really nice one with, like, a dumbbell head on it, and it was, like, a yellow nylon rope.

Made a nice one. And it was, like, a real fly. Like, it wasn't, like, just, like, the rope. But it did have the rope in it. And I had two take that, but they just, like, took it so soft and spit it out, so quick, it didn't do anything. And so I was out the other day,

and I had just, like, what's called like a streamer on, which basically is supposed to just look like a little fish. Yeah. So I was there with the streamer and I was, I was trying to catch bass because it's a real, where I'm at is like a real deep pocket in this river. And for the most part, it's just shallow. There's a few kind of maybe like three foot holes.

But then you get here and it's, I mean, it's like seven or eight feet. And it's really hot and dry right now. And so like the river's really, there's only a few habitable spots. And that's kind of a honey hole where he's at. Yeah, and it's a real, it's probably the widest point of the river for a long time. So there's, wideest and deepest. So there's like a few bluffs and rocks on the side of this little hole. And basically I was fishing next to these bluffs because there's caves that go back in them where there's bass and just, you know, the garl sometimes go back there.

Mermaid moon churner. but yeah and so I was trying to catch them and I caught like a little a brim I think it was like a long-eared sunfish the real colorful ones long ear yeah and uh

and it I kind of fought it and got it in and I see a gar go right out in front of me probably and I'm standing on like this rock that's about three feet above the water and I just kind of like put it out there in front of that gar

and it goes for it and takes it and basically it pulls it off the hook. And so I was like, huh, I wonder if I could catch one this way. And so I tied on a midge, zebra midge, which is something that's no bigger than like an apple seed maybe. And I put it out there, caught a little sunfish. That's an interesting unit of measure.

Yeah, I thought so too. I like it. I was about to say, why we got to bring zebras into this? This is North America. I always get upset when I see zebras in North America. Carry on. Carry on. He's just got stripes.

And so I caught one that was probably two inches long. And the midges, they don't have barbs on them. And I didn't really think about that. And so I was kind of putting it out there as I would watch these gar rice. And they would, I had a few tickets. Me and Spence used barbs on everything. I'm there to eat and get groceries. Well, and I had a few take them again, but they just pulled them off the hook.

and so finally I caught another one I took a stick and I pushed that midge like all the way down it like all the way down its throat into pride's stomach and I put that out there and it started swimming

and I just kind of guide it towards the middle and what they would do is they'd go out in the middle and they'd get under like a rock or something to try and hide from the bigger fish and so I had begar

no the brim the brim yep so I would kind of pull them out from under these rocks and just make them fight because Yeah, yeah. Anytime, like, it seemed to like...

Make them look wounded or something. Yeah, yeah, because, like, I'd see, like, the guard just swim right next to a perfectly healthy, you know... Fish, and he wouldn't take it. And wouldn't even think about it. But as soon as that fish started struggling, they'd go for it. And so one hit it, and I just gave it a bunch of line, because I knew, you know, like, their mouths are real bony, so you can't really hook them. And I didn't even have a hook that was exposed. Right.

And so I figured... And you're... What pound test are you using? I'm using... a 5x tip it so it's probably like five or six pound test okay and so I just give it all the line at once and I just kind of let it chew on it because I've you know there was no way to catch it unless it swallowed it was kind of what I was thinking and then once it swallowed I could reel it in and so it I probably sat on this rock for like

20 or 30 minutes and my cousin was across the river and she was fishing and so I started, I got to a point where I was like, I think it's about to, I think it's probably swallowed it. And so I waited for it to swim in. You knew it was still on there. Yeah, and I could see the line. It pulled the line. And I waited until it swam pretty close to me.

I didn't want to start reeling it in when it was way out there. And then I started pulling them in. And I mean, it was a pretty nice one. It was probably two and a half feet maybe. And I called my cousin. I was like, come in the net. It sounds better. Yeah, yeah.

How many apples seeds? Two and a half. I'd say it's probably 180 apple seeds. Yep. And so. He didn't cut your line, though. No. I was, and I was really, this just happened last night.

And I hadn't got the full story. Well, well, and so. Yeah, and so she was swimming over with the net. And I was, you know, I was, I had the drag set real low. Yeah, you had to swim across. That's hardcore fishing, right? This area also doubles as a swimming hole. It does.

It does. And so you just pulled him right in. Well, not yet. Well, I get it right on the story. The story just keeps going. She comes over and she doesn't have the net yet. And that one breaks off. This isn't even the one.

Oh, this isn't even the one. Oh, wow. The story hasn't even started yet. This is like the prequel. The story hasn't even started yet. Well, but then I realized that I could catch them. And so the next day, I went back with Caleb. Oh, this isn't even the same day yet.

Not even the same day. This reminds me of the first time Bear can. came home and told a deer story to his grandmother. We have a video of like a 14-minute story of a six-year-old bear telling every second of the story that happened on his first deer in a monotone voice staring at the camera. And then the deer, he came out. Dad was excited. Then all of a sudden, there were two. Except for bear has a lot more inflection in his voice now.

Because of the mullet. Okay, so you might speed us through the next car. We go back the next day with my friend Caleb. And we're both, I'm just going to like pretty much do the same thing. I swim across the river, get on the rock. I probably go through like six or seven little, you know, brim before I finally get one. Tough on those brim. What's a limit on those two-inch brink?

And finally one took it and it brought it like under one of these caves. and it sat under there for a long time. And I figured by that point it probably swallowed it if it was sitting there. But I let it swim around a little more and then let it get close. I started reeling it in. Caleb swims across and he grabs the net. New buddy. New buddy, different day.

Somebody they'll learn to stay on the same side of the bank. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You stay on the same side of the bank as the fisherman. As the Garga, the Gar-King. And pretty much he swims over to a spot. And it's real deep, so he can't really touch. and I'm just bringing this car like right next to him and trying to net it

and we try to net it like three or four times then it would go on a big run and then we'll bring it back and finally and there were some people that were up on a big bluff watching us like because we just now hooked into like a really big bass and they were bass fishing so we kind of had their attention so they were all like yelling at us and stuff

and Caleb he finally gets it in the net and we go get it up on this rock and it was a very nice one about the same size as the other one 180 apple seeds probably yeah probably close to that well I

thought it was some good ingenuity and yeah the world really wants you to use a piece the inner workings of a piece of paracord and so does Uncle Josh

yes but I'd like to do it too but it's they're just sometimes you just got you got like you got the Texas rig and all these different setups why can't you have like

the bear rig or the mullet rig or The miller rig. I'm going to make a fly that looks like a two-inch pumpkin seed with a mullet that's made out of paracord. Wow, with a paracord tail. Yep.

I feel like you guys are pushing your paracord on bear. Well, so did the world, Spence. Bear, thank you very much. All right. Good job, Bear. Bear won't be here anymore. Get lost. It was really fun having you, Bear.

Thanks for letting us. Silas almost caught a car. your GPA. He had it all the way up. He had it like within two foot of them. And he was so excited. He's squealing in the light. Because he's talking all kinds of trash and he doesn't even have it in. And he gets it and we see it flopping and it cuts the line and swims off. He's just pressed falling. Oh no. So he's like, yeah, remember that time I caught a gar? It's like, nope, no Spencer's ever caught a gar. But that story does remind me of like the little old lady who swallowed a fly, right? And so it's then you have to swallow the next thing. And then you have to

just swallow the next thing and then the next thing in order to get it. So there you go. I need to catch up on my fault tales. There was a little woman who swallowed a pie. Yeah, I can't remember. I don't know why she swallowed the fire.

There you go. Thank you. Okay. Well, wow, that was exhausting. That was a lot. Emotional. I mean, we got to the climax of the story

and realized we hadn't even started yet. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. That was fun. So second episode, Mississippi River podcast. We're going to talk about that. But first, let me say, if you're listening to this podcast on the day it comes out, or the day after, which would be, excuse me, the second or third of August, the meat eater has their season opener sale, which is meat eater, first light, Phelps,

and FHF Gear's biggest sales of the year, 20 to 50% off on just about anything. So if you're listening to this in like 2025, like don't worry about it. Like the rest of place, friends. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They'll get there. So, but if you're listening to this like Carla does on like the day it comes out.

I'm faithful, yes. Good job, Carla. I also have to shout out Will Namai, my brother-in-law. Listened faithfully. Yeah. Every time this comes out. One of the best farmhands I ever had. That's right.

Kenyan farmhands 100%. Okay, so I'm with Will. We got to stop this story. The season opener sale. So Will, I was with Will for like an hour and he made some obscure reference to the Bear Gries podcast. And I said, do you listen to the podcast?

And he looked at me and he said, I've listened to every single episode you've ever made. Pretty sure that's what he said. Yep. And I said, really? And he said, oh, yeah. And he started spouting off stuff from like that week. So hat tip to Will.

You know what? We went, while they were here visiting us for Mallory's wedding, we went out with some buddies and had some dinner. And we're waiting for our table outside. And this guy comes out. And Will's wearing a Beargreens hat. Okay. And this guy goes, Bear Gris, man. He's like, you listen to the podcast?

He's like, yeah. he's like, you know, you need to come to the bear bananza, the black bear banans and meet Clay. And he goes, he goes, well, yeah, that's a good idea. He's like, I know him. And he's like, that's Lambridge right there. The guy spins around, oh, my God, Lambridge. So Will was like, sporting the bear grease. Yeah, man.

Yeah, man. Great. Faithful listener. Faithful listener. So if you're like Will and listen to this on those days, you can go to the media. your store and get all kind of cool stuff. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper.

From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something.

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, I Heart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. So on this podcast, we're here to talk about Mississippi River episode 2, which is, took a wild turn. So part of the render is we tell what happened on the backside. I interviewed Earl Jasper the day. day before the podcast came out. Oh, wow.

I mean, or the day before I had to turn it in. Yeah. To the powers that be the Phil, Phil Taylor. And it just came about really quick. And I had, you know, it happens fairly often on Bear Gries where I'll have an idea for something and then all of a sudden just have to get it. A moment of inspiration. I messaged him and he was, he was ready to go.

He didn't even need. Such an awesome explanation for what I was doing. he was just like, Clay, whatever you need, I'll do it. He met with me. And we obviously had a much, we had an hour-long conversation, and you heard like 20 minutes of it. I wish I could play the whole thing, just because it was so interesting just to sit and interview him.

But that was really cool. We'll talk about Mr. Earl. Hank Berdyne. Man, Hank Berdyne is carrying this Mississippi River series on his shoulders. He is like, Hank is, like, Hank is. is such an entertaining guy to listen to, so knowledgeable about the Delta and Mississippi River. He's on the Mississippi River Levy Commission for the section of the river.

As I understand it, there's levy commissions for different sections of the river. Interesting. That's the way I understand it. And so he's on the Mississippi, and they're big sections. It's not like towns or something. But he's on the Mississippi River levee board, which is a big deal. Yeah.

And super knowledgeable. But his, all the stuff he told me about the way that part of the Delta was settled was so fascinating. Yeah. So fascinating. And, man, he can describe it so well. So well. Yeah. When he talked about the cane breaks and, you know, it's just, it being a wildlife paradise.

You know, I mean, he could paint a picture in his, that he's got that, like, southern Mississippi accent. Oh, alligator. He sounds like an alligator. Yeah. When you were quoting Mark Twain, you kind of went into a gear where you... Oh, I had to. Where you were saying like, was that... Was that artistic?

No, no, no. It was... Because it sounded like Foghorn, leghorn, and FDR mixed together. It was... It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't... I know exactly what you're talking about. No, Mark Twain does that all the time. And he would dissect that.

He would... He would write phonetically. He was trying to write like what he perceived the people in Vicksburg sounded like when they were talking about the wall. They don't have ours. It actually, yeah. Yeah. You're really perceptive that you picked up that I was like trying to do that.

Thank you. I thought maybe you had a toothache. Yeah, yeah. And the wall. And the wall. All I know is as I listen. to that, I noticed that I started speaking more drawn out to my coworkers. And to the point where I even noticed it, I'm like, wow.

When you listen to tapes, tapes of her when I first fell in love with her, like, when she's 18 or 19, the accent is so strong. She's lost. Really, stronger than now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She's lost. It's probably 10% of what it was.

That's true. Lost to the world. It was entertaining. Well, one thing that. there's a bunch of interesting stuff and I'm torn on talking talking to everybody else first about their interest

and coming back to Carla. We should start with Carla. We should start with Carla. Because the Mississippi River, what we didn't talk about is that Hank talked about the Mississippi side of the river, so the east side of the river.

What we didn't talk about just because there wasn't space is that Arkansas was actually settled later than Mississippi. That's so wild. The forest was cut, the swamps were drained later. Because Mississippi became a state in 1817. Arkansas didn't become a state until 1836.

So there was a lot more incentive to be a U.S. citizen and be in a U.S. state. And you didn't have to cross the river. Right. You didn't have to cross the river. There were more people there. I mean, Arkansas was like a wild country. And, Carla, that's where your family grew up. And where you're from?

Absolutely. So where are you from? So I'm from Cross County, Arkansas. Does that touch the river? It does not. It's a couple of counties in. Right. So we're right.

But it's in the Delta. It's in the Delta where it's very flat. And, you know, if it's not flat enough, they'll precision land level it. Yeah. But there's a ridge that runs through it that separates, you know, western cross county. There's a ridge that goes through. A lus ridge. A lus ridge.

Loess. It's a, it's a sand deposit. It's sand deposited by like air. By wind. Oh, for real. It's like a geographical phenomenon. It is. Wow.

Yeah, out in the middle of the Delta. Yeah. And so everything is super flat, except for this ridge that goes through the middle of it. And I remember when Terrell and I were in school down at Southern Arkansas University, home of the mill riders. Carla, do you mind calling Fowwags? That's kind of what we do here.

I'm sorry. Okay, just make yourself comfortable. It's okay. But we were looking through this book and it was... Christy thought that was funny. I just laughed quickly. It's okay, Carla. Call your husband whatever you want.

You're invited back. Christy, you're invited back. Christy was laughing. Okay, go ahead. We were looking through this book for a class. It's called Fishes of Arkansas that our professor had written. And I was like, hey, this picture right here looks just like where I grew up. And it was.

It actually was. It was the town closest to where my school was. And they were describing the different kinds of features there and the fish that were there. So your family are farmers. Yeah. Tell me about the history of the land and what your family did and everything. Yeah. So I grew up on a rice and soybean farm where we were like 14 miles from town, right?

So town meaning where there was a Walmart. Okay. Nice. That's the definition of town. Yeah. Back before everybody had a Walmart. Yeah. That's the different.

In the old school, Arkansas. You're not buying groceries there. And it was a Walmart, not a super center. That's right. They didn't sell groceries. We drove. Where did you buy your groceries? Almost three hours to go visit the first super center in Arkansas with some friends.

Sorry. Sorry. No, but it's really fascinating how the world is a very different place than it was back then. Because 14 miles from town, I mean, we do that multiple times the day and take our kids to school. Right? Yeah. But back then, like my parents, my mom would go to town once. a week to buy grocery.

This would have been in the 80s and the 80s, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. But yeah, so rice and soybean farms, always lots and lots of mosquitoes. Terrell got to be eaten up by them whenever he came home. Yeah, we went out for like a romantic walk. Which is the only romantic.

There's a breeze. There was a breeze. And we got out to like one of the pumping wells and I went to make my move. And just as I did, the breeze stopped. and there is like a three or four second pause. And if I'm telling this wrong, feel free to correct me. But I just remember hearing this humming. You do.

And Carla said, run. And we were running through clouds of mosquitoes. Oh, my goodness. It's so thick out there. Your grandpa started the farm. How many acres is it? So I grew up on a 400-acre farm. Which is teeny tiny.

These days, it's teeny tiny. But my grandpa, whenever he bought it in the late 50s, I mean, that was a really big deal. So he had grown up in a cotton farming family and decided that that's not the life that he wanted to live. Sharecroppers, right? I don't know. So I did call my dad because I wanted to fact check. We're fact checking today.

So your dad didn't know for sure if he was a sharecropper? Yeah. But then he went into timber. And so as you're telling the story about how the land was cleared and there was this huge timber industry. It was fascinating because it was all of the stories that I'd heard about my grandpa and then just from others as well that there was this whole timber industry. And then people that came in afterwards that were able to pick up land for a relatively cheap price because, I mean, it was only good for timber, right? And then these big farms were built. So the sequence was when your grandpa got it in the 1950s, which wasn't that long ago.

the 20s and 30s, right? He was born in 16. Okay, so, yeah. But when he got the land, I heard you say earlier, when he got the land, it had pretty much just been logged. Yeah. And so they had pretty much, they had cleared it, but there were still piles of logs. And my dad was like, I still had to go pick up stumps and, you know, to help clean it

out. I've heard, I've heard one of my farming buddies in the Delta, Lee Walt, tell me that when he was a little boy, he remembers them pushing out stumps. And, Josh, for the record, most of America's agricultural fields were cleared well before the 1950s. All part of the timber industry? Well, just, just it was so civilized. I mean, they're not clear and, I mean, minuscule amounts of land today are being cleared of timber to be commercially farmed. that most of that happened by the turn of the 19th century.

That's part of it. That is. There's a lot of truth to that. But they cleared so much land and they're just not doing that anymore. And so the fact that they were cutting timber to make agricultural land in the 1950s is pretty wild. And it's a hard way to go. And as I was talking with my dad, he was saying about how, you know, whenever he got financing for, that the people were like, oh my gosh, this is the biggest loan that we've ever given for, you know, for farmland.

And it was $80,000. Wow. In the 50s? Yeah. Wow, that's a lot of money. And I interviewed my grandpa for a class whenever I was in college. You were doing family histories. And he said, yeah, he said, people were just sitting around waiting on me to fail so they could come and scoop it up.

It's going to land at a better price. Wow. But, man, he, you know, was lived through the Depression. and knew how to... And grew up in abject poverty. Yeah. Like, didn't have shoes. Yeah, you know.

For other reasons. It's kind of like Mr. Earl was talking about, you know, like poverty and, you know, farming. If you only get paid once a year, if you don't spend your money wisely, then there's not money for things like, you know, shoes. Yeah. Yeah. So he was like super hard worker. Yeah. Absolutely.

And super like just the perfect first generation pioneer kind of farmer. Yeah. And used a lot of dynamite to clear out stumps. Because you could do that back then. Because they didn't have the machinery that we have now. Yeah. Yeah. And just a lot of hard work. And, you know, back then, farms were smaller.

And it's before the 80s that get big or get out. And that killed a lot of the family farms. But really, really neat stuff. And her mom was, her mom passed away recently. But super tough lady. Like when you think about just a tough hard work. woman. That was her mom. And as sweet as could be. And she, I remember her telling me, like, that she used to pick cotton by hand in, like, the big cotton sacks. And, and, and, in summer and

stuff when they got out of school. She grew up in Carlyle. So picking cotton by hand. And so, like, it would, it would be really interesting. I was thinking about it today. I was cutting hay to have Mr. Earl and Carlo's mom talking. Because that, like, just to see the similarities. Well, You know, I mean, that brings up an interesting point. So, you know, on this last episode, we had Mr. Earl Jasper, African-American man, that talked about growing up in the Delta. And it was kind of a classic story that surprised me even a little bit. Like, I would have felt like maybe his parents, I didn't know that he would have,

I knew he would have the stories of the racism and stuff. That was not a surprise, him being born in the 50s. but like his parents were sharecroppers and he was so involved in agriculture his whole childhood that kind of surprised me but it was clear and Hank Berdyne talked about it

Will Primos talked about it I read a big excerpt from John Barry's book about all the Italian sharecroppers and yeah there were a lot of poverty-stricken whites that were in the South too that were that were

air cropping and that were, yeah, I mean, it was, they were there. And so it was fascinating to hear that about like all of the different groups because my brother married a girl from, who grew up in Newport and her family was Italian. Oh, really? I'm like, Italian, you know, anyway. They got on that boat even after seeing those signs. They said, don't do it. But, you know, if you get on a boat, even in Italian, if you're really poor and so desperate,

you probably can't read. Yeah, it's true. You know. Now, where is your families, where do you think your family's from? Do you know? I mean, like deep history. Oh, yes. My dad is real into genealogy.

So he has traced his family back to Scotland. And, yeah. So lots of scotch. Not surprising when you see your kids. Yeah. Hey, there's a, I brought a significant portion of Slavic blood into this. They are able. Some of them can tan.

I rejuvenated those, those, British Isles, genetics. Yeah. Yeah. No, fascinating. Josh, what stood out to you about the podcast? So I thought the podcast was fantastic. I appreciated all the history in there, but I have to say, after I listened to the podcast, I texted you and said that segment with Mr. Earl might be the best thing you've ever had on the podcast.

I was, well, you know, it was more than just I enjoyed it and appreciated it. like it really hit me like just to listen to him and and to hear his story I honestly teared up and part of it just yeah yeah because I think I think which part I think it also helps that we know Mr. Earl and know the quality of a man that he is and to hear him talk about to hear him to I think that the part that that really got me is when you said you at when he said they integrated the school and then you said what what was it like and he paused and he was like there was fights every day

you know what I mean it was like that's the part that got me too that's the reason I asked you that yeah I mean it was it was like this is a man who's endured you know what I mean and he's an example he doesn't carry this the sense of I've been wronged or my people have been wronged he carries this attitude of we must progress you know what I mean and there's a sense of I'll do whatever it takes to do my part and just what an honorable man.

I mean, just an absolutely honorable man. I have great appreciation for him. And Mr. Earl is one of those guys. One, you always just want to call him Mr. Earl. It's true. Mr. Jasper, you're going to give that guy respect. Yeah. You want to, but he always talks to you like, I don't know,

just like his faith just bubbles out of him. So, like, when he talks to you, he's talking to you, like, because you're a child of God and he loves you. Absolutely. Like everything that he said in there about like the spiritual of the Delta in church. Yeah. Like there are decades of example in life and just sweetness that exudes from. I mean, he makes people feel valuable.

Yeah. Because they're a child of God. Yeah. You know, and I really liked the way he mentioned. And he's like, you know, there was the, what did he say? There was the physical man and the spiritual man. Yeah. And you got to grow both.

Yeah. Yeah, that part was impacting to me. You know what I mean? It impacted me. I feel like it brought something into my life. You know, if you actually dissected his words, the words were simple, but them coming from him were so powerful. Like hearing him talk about Martin Luther King Jr. getting assassinated. I mean, we've all heard that story.

We've grown up with that story. It was before our time that happened. Most of us in this room are like in the range of 40 years old. You know, we know that happened. But to hear him talk about how it impacted him as a senior in high school and how it sent ripples through the black community. And just hearing him say it, I just was like, oh, yeah, that really would have, it wouldn't have been like some celebrity getting killed that you really didn't,

you know, you just knew their name and liked them. I mean, this guy meant so much to them. and you kind of felt that sting, you know. And then, yeah, part about integration. I didn't really know what I was going to ask Mr. Earl. I just told him I wanted to talk to him about his life, and it just kind of progressed, you know. And yeah, when he talked about integration, I don't know.

I've never really thought that deep about what it would have actually been like. Now, we have heard stories, especially being from Arkansas, about the Little Rock Nine, which was a nine. which was a national story of nine students that integrated into Little Rock High School and some of those people are still alive. It made national news and it was a terrible thing

for our state. Governor Orville Fobbus was the Witten Fobbus the guy. Yeah, national guard and jack wagon of himself. But some of those people are still alive. Misty's talked, you've interviewed. Well, so the first Black Little Rock teacher and administrator were a husband and wife couple and their daughter is a friend of mine.

And she has actually, I think you've been with us at some of the interviews with her mom. She passed away recently. Her mom did, but she talked a little bit about that. And then my friend Virginia and all of her siblings, so the Little Rock 9th, tried to integrate in and they were met with enormous hostility and they actually ended up closing down the schools like completely closed down the little rock public school system for one or two years it was an extended time and then when it reopened it was integrated you know and it that it was like we have no choice but to do this and so we're going to reopen and so those

my friend was part of that second group of kids that came in and they didn't have the publicity and some of them would say, or at least I've heard them say, that they didn't have the support either because it was less publicized and a lot more challenging. They weren't on national TV, and they didn't have the eyes of the world watching when they reopened. And it was incredibly challenging, and they've talked to our kids about that.

And really powerful stories, people who have endured a whole lot. And so it was impacting me to hear Mr. Earl talking about that. Christy, what's to that to you? whole thing. It doesn't have to be about Mr. Earl. Yeah, I do want to say something about Mr. Earl, though. I think to me, what I heard inside of what he was sharing is it honors the struggle. Like, you heard him talk about it being hard. You would never want your kids to go through that. And then you would say, but you just got to stay focused because it's not always going to be like that. And so there's a sense of hope, I think, inside of him and purpose inside of the struggle.

And I find that incredibly honorable. I want to live my life. life like that. I don't want to have struggle and think why me. I want to think like he did. Stay focused. Think about the Lord. This is not always the way it's going to be if you do your part. And then that's what I heard inside of him. And I think it, I think that's honorable. But it also, it also is more than that. It makes me not want to make his struggle for nothing. Like I find a connection to it and think I have responsibility inside of, of carrying myself in a way like he carried himself. So that was hugely impacting to me. We were talking earlier, another part that is impacting the captain, Hank Burdine. Yeah. Yeah. I love his accent. And I think I listened to him

speak and I think there's a stigma that when you hear that kind of southern accent, it's less educated or not as sophisticated. And that man is so educated. So sophisticated and his knowledge of his, of, of what he does. And I found that I was like, this is remarkable. Like that stood out to me. And I thought it was, I thought it was highly remarkable. And I love how I, I am not a soil person, like Spence and Car Lab degrees and soil science. Spence and Clay. And Clay. She said, she's a, like, a doctor, biology. Biologists. Dr. Newcomb, but. Carlos is a biologist. Anyway, like, I don't have, I don't have any of, that, but I could hear and picture what he was describing.

Yeah. And that, that is another level of, of ability and educated. Anyway, I was, that stood out to me. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood.

Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions,

from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

texted to that and Hank Verdine. He talked about how this art, this art, and this writing thing came into the Greenville area, which was, I mean, I never knew that. I went to Natchez once. Like I was, because I did some work with Alcorn State, which is a big, it's a, it's a college down there that has a real good ag program that works with a lot of small farmers. And I went walking around and I just thought, oh, it's a town of Mississippi, you know, whatever stereotypes, right? And just walking around the history in that town and like the architecture. Right. Crazy stuff.

Like, I mean, at one time it was one of the richest cities in America. And like, I spent like half a day there and like just I had nothing else to do. So I just went for a walk. And that was the impression when I walked through the town of like, this place used to really be something.

It's still a cool town. But you could tell this place was like a big deal at one time. Well, and it's so. That, what you just said, is connected to what's coming. And kind of was revealed in the second episode is that what happened to the Delta was that they couldn't figure out this labor thing. I mean, after the Civil War, after the sharecropping regime, I don't know if they would say it failed or it just didn't work very good. And the Delta lost a whole lot. And the Delta is, you go to the Delta today, it's way different than what it would have been in its prime.

I mean, a lot of the cities look like ghost towns. Yeah, it does. And there's no secret. But it's so interesting to think about Greenville being this hub of art and literature. And that is still, you still feel that. And we went to Hank's house and not to get too personal with Hank, but his, he had in his house he had art he had bookshelves full of books he had he had personal personal art and i can say that like pictures of his family i mean i walked in and i was like

wow this guy has documented his journey in life more than most people i've been around and he he and it inspired me to uh i mean you just His house was like a museum. Yeah. And that's connected, I think, back to this, you know, whatever that brought, just an awareness of the world and art and beauty and how to describe that and this thing inside of humans that wants to memorialize life, human life, you know. And so it was really neat being around Hanking those guys. And I really was inspired. I mean, I was like, wow, I want to

celebrate my culture. I want to celebrate the stuff that I'm doing. And not that we do that externally with like a painting on the wall, but it helps, you know. And then all the riders down there, I don't want to give away a future Bear Grays podcast next spring, but there are more turkey hunting riders in Mississippi than anywhere. Really?

It's everybody, I mean, you meet some guy on the street, and he's like, yeah, my name's Bill. Yeah, I've got a turkey hunting book. Have you not written a book and published it about turkey hunting? It's like Nashville with country music stars. Exactly. Yeah. I'm serious.

Everybody down there's got a book. And I went to the, to the, well, and I just thought, I mean, how many turkey hunting writers do I know in Arkansas? And I'm like, man, we're just a bunch of hillbillies. These people down there are cultured and educated. Mississippi. Mississippi. Mississippi.

They say war. Waugh. The war. Yeah. No, but William Faulkner. I love the William Faulkner quote. He said, to understand the world, you have to understand a place like Mississippi. And then that quote where he said, in two generations, they denuded, de-rivered, and deswamped Mississippi.

And then he goes into that very complicated paragraph about all the different ethnicities that were there and how they had all. mixed together and how that the land would wreak its revere it was so it it was like a wildly complex paragraph but you know William Faulkner's from Mississippi and it's like uh when you look at today when you look at like stuff that's happening in the amazon you know like i mean like our seas are kind of boiling right now like in the golf like i think it was 101 and the golf like in near florida you're seeing that thing play out. And it's just that's, anyways, just like that thing that was said

was just like a truth. He said they, the people will inflict the land's revenge. Yeah. And it was like, whatever's happening, it's going to be paid for at some point. And it's easy to look and think,

oh, well, that was back then. But it's like we still haven't learned that lesson. I think if you were to look around, and be like, those words still haven't been heated. You know, so it was a really good quote. And I'm stealing all, I'm picking all the low-hanging fruit. What I learned on the podcast was that the Mississippi Delta was one of the last places in America to be settled. That's so fascinating.

Because of the river. Yeah. When you think about all the land that doesn't have a river and you can just walk in there and build a house and not have any major problem, the biggest river on this continent where it floods near near where it enters the ocean you know 500 miles up from it 1,000 miles up from it even Cape Girardo which is like that's where you said it started yeah 700 miles up yeah yeah in the it floods so you can't build a house there until the levees of the late 18 70s the government levies of the late 1870s so you know the transcontinental railroad had gone across America the sequoias had been cut, but the Mississippi Delta was still relatively unsettled.

And when you think, too, about the Civil War, it took me a while to understand what these people were saying. There literally weren't people in Western Mississippi, very many people at all before the Civil War. I mean, they had just cleared some land right on the river. If you could get out of the boat and close. in clear land, but the interior of the Yazoo, Mississippi, Delta, and on the Arkansas side of the river, there were just people were not there.

It was a virgin wilderness. And that's where our boy, Bergerie's Hallfamer Hulk Collier, made his living for about 20 years, commercial bear hunting and feeding logging camps. And that's why he killed 3,000 bears with his hounds in his lifetime. It was a virgin wilderness. But, Misty, what's today? out to you? Well, you know, obviously I thought I thought the podcast was really good. I, we've, shucks, thanks, man. We've known the Jaspers for a while and I've heard pieces of his story before. And I think with someone, someone like Earl Jasper, who's lived the life he's lived, who, like

Christy said, has endured a whole lot, has maintained a certain posture, I always feel whenever I hear people who have had those kind of experiences and who are, I mean, just who he is, I feel humbled. Just like, don't talk. Don't just let him tell his story and just listen. Don't, you know, don't say a word. Just listen. And I think I was a little bit, I don't know that concerned is the right word, but just when you wanted to interview him, I was in the room when you were interviewing

him and I heard what he said and I knew like, this is good. I mean, it is poetic. Like some of the things he said were poetic, but in a certain sense, like his, the life behind it is what gave it so much power. And when he said there's a physical delta

and a spiritual delta, it was his life that gave that statement power. And those words coming from his mouth mean more than those words coming from my mouth. And, when I listen, I listen to the rough draft, which I don't always listen to the rough draft of Bear Grease podcast. And at the end, you know, it just ends with him. And then it's just over. And it's, you know, I don't know if y'all pick that up. And then at the, you know, then the music starts

and Clay gives like the summary statements, but usually Clay would come on and interpret or whatever, but he just kind of left it. And I was, I was really grateful he did that. Like I, I walked, we were outside, both of us, and I was listening to it in the garden. And Clay was walking. walking around listening to it and we both finished it about the same time and we kind of met up in the yard and he said what do you think and and he kind of said to what he you know he just felt like let let him speak and whatever he says that's I'm not going to add to that or because you can't like you can't take you can't add our take away from that and I was like no I knew exactly I knew exactly what you're doing but there's a sense when it came out I wanted to make sure like I wanted to kind

of control everybody in the world that listen to the bear grease podcast. and just make sure, I wanted everybody to appreciate who he was. Like I, I know I appreciate him because I know him. I know, like, he walks, he walks the talk, you know, he, he is what, what you're hearing is, and I kind of wanted to protect that. And I, I just was really grateful as we heard feedback from the bear grease, you know, even just comments on Instagram or different places. I felt like people were able to hear that. I felt like, you know, people were, and people respected him and were able to give, to give that. And I was just appreciative. I think his story, we're in a time right now where there's a lot of people that tell you how you should talk about things, how you should feel about things, how you should say things.

And it's, it can be a little bit risky to even for you, Clay, to bring, you know, to have that conversation. It could be risky for him to bring his story into his. it. And I just kind of wanted to protect everyone. But I just felt like everybody treated, treated the story, the life with respect that it deserves. And I was grateful for that. And because his life deserves respect and it deserves,

like if I could just tell people how to listen. Earl has spoken at our school. And the way I want to tell all the kids is just hush. Just hush and listen. And they always do. Yeah. I should have had you come on before and go, okay, everybody. Hush.

And that's kind of what I wanted to say to everybody. Just hush. Just listen. Don't say anything. And I felt like when I listened to the podcast, that's what I heard. It was just it, I felt that. In my heart, I felt like the whole world just hushed and listened. And I was hoping that when people heard it, they would do that without me saying,

hush. And they did. And that's an appropriate response. Yeah. I could have scolded them like I did. did Tim. The people of the world. You hush up.

Stay out of that trash. No, it was really special having Mr. Earl. And you know, what I came away thinking about it was how grateful I am that we have a platform. I mean, I think it's a testament to the world that we can on a hunting platform, if that's what you call Barry Grease, which we would. I mean, meat eater is a hunting conservation media company. I mean, our core people are going to be hunters, even though we have a big number of people that would listen that aren't hunters, like Carla and like Thalwag, that has done some hunting in the past. Yeah. So you're a hunter. I prefer to let people hunt my land that. Yes. Yes. I'm grateful that we've got a platform that we could

talk about stuff like this. I mean, I think it's cool. I feel grateful that we have, this space is kind of, is here, which I think is really cool. Because, you know, the, well, the human experience, for real,

I feel like I kind of captured a tagline for Bear Greece that I'm going to continue to talk about, is that we are in pursuit of understanding the world. Yeah. We're in pursuit of, understanding the world. I think that's a legitimate statement inside of the topics we're talking about looking back at deep human history and some of the cultural stuff here in the U.S. of rural America. And we're in pursuit of understanding the world. And that means given

hearing Mr. Earl's perspective and hearing Hank Berdine's perspective. And hearing them both together on that platform, I think was really, really valuable. I mean, it's... This will be wild to say. Percy, you know, the whole, the podcast was talking a lot about the Persies. Yeah.

And kind of how they built this little circle in the Delta that was different than much of the other South. Right. Which is a wild story to tell. I mean... I'd never heard it.

Oh, it's... Kept the Klan out. Yes. Like, if it wasn't so well-documented, you would think it was like a whitewashing. Right. of history, which we hear people talk about and you know, you can't do that.

But there was, they really did stuff different inside of a pretty tight little circle. It's interesting too, like where you mentioned the Percy guys, because like agriculture is my wheelhouse, right? And one of the things that you made a statement earlier in the podcast where you talked about, the Delta missed out because they couldn't figure out that labor thing, the labor and racial thing and the business. And that's still going on in agriculture. I mean, rural communities, regardless of ethnicity, you know, whatever, there are rural America's collapsing. But it's not because there isn't an answer. It's just that there's something there to that, like it can be done. Like, it can be done in a fair way. It can be done, you know, it was intensely community-based.

Like, you know, and I don't know. I just think like in a different format, it would be really interesting to pull that stuff apart and apply it to what's going on. Even today, because all those problems, problems like that don't go away. They just keep rolling on and getting more complex. So it was really interesting for me as more on the agricultural side to hear that. And I'm like, why don't we learn about this, these kind of things, you know? Yeah. Like, I got a degree in Ag, and I never heard anything about that.

Yeah. And I feel a little cheated. Come on, Dale Bumperts. Well, so one thing that I felt, though, just through everyone that was interviewed, was just a real honoring of the people that live there. Like, just the work ethic, the ability to endure, you know, farming is not for the faint of heart and neither is logging.

And neither are any of those things or hunting or any of that. Like I don't want to be cold. So I'm not going to be out hunting, duck hunting like people do where I grew up. But just the way that everyone spoke about the people there was really touching to me. Yeah.

Yeah. Hank talking about how his grandparents were the ones that cleared land in the Delta and had that pioneering spirit made the Delta unique. Yeah. That was cool. And I thought about it. I was like,

my grandparents do. It was, yeah. In Arkansas, it was later than that. And it's easy to think about that. And they cleared land. Think about like it's summer right now.

It's hot, high humidity. So think about doing that when there's no respite from the heat. When there's no respite from the elements. You know, like there's mosquitoes. Like, if you get hurt, there's no doctor. And even if there were, you can't afford it.

You know, like you're on your own. Like Mr. Earl talked about, like, they had to hunt to live. Lots of outside time, he said. Yeah. And that wasn't, they weren't playing. It was like for existence. He said, people used to hire guides to go look for sport, he said. Yeah, exactly.

That was good. I thought the thing about Hank Bordine, I think it's really easy to think that, especially in like a modern worldview where you see the world increasingly polarized and there's lines of us, them, you know, all the different groups. I thought what? Having Earl and Hank Bordine both on this podcast with Earl's words saying, you know, we wanted the same thing. Yeah.

You know, at the end of they, we're just humans. Yeah. And people are people. Yeah. And, you know, we're all made in the image of God and all kind of want the same things. And I thought this podcast was a very good kind of what you're saying, Carla, you're glad that people spoke respectfully of. And I think what you're saying to, Christy, when you hear his voice, you wouldn't necessarily associate that with certain characteristics. And yet you see it on here.

You see it. And I think that that's just, it is really valuable. And I agree with you, Clay. I was grateful that this platform exists. And I was grateful that the listeners gave the proper respect to. to both of these men. And I think it was a way of just kind of the podcast itself was just, you know, people are humans. And at the end of the day, humans are valuable.

And all the differences that may exist, humans are humans and humans are valuable. Humans are people too. Humans are people too. Human lives. And all humans like shooting stuff. Definitely. That's what it goes. Well, on the next episode of Bear Greece, we're going to.

learn about flood of 1927. Johnny Cash. There it is. Johnny Cash. Maybe so. Maybe so. How is the one,

Papa? That actually is a good idea. So, Clay, I have to tell you, though, I was, so I've been, like, telling my family, like, oh, you need to listen to this episode, you know, this series. And my brother tells me,

hey, I read a really good book. It's about the flood of 18, whatever. 1927. 1927. It's called Rising Tide. I'm like, oh, I've heard about it. And I've only heard about it because I've heard you talk about it all this. Because you're a faithful listener, Carla.

Faithful. Well done, Carla. Yeah. So I can't wait to hear what you're going to say. Man, John Barry, I love that guy. He's kind of a voice you wouldn't expect to hear on Bear Grease. He's like, I can't even pretend to have a New Jersey accent. Yeah.

But he's got a thing to out of place, Rhode Island. He wrote out of the same. He read that poem at the beginning of that one episode. Yeah. That was powerful. Yeah. That was really. Yeah.

He's like, br. brerrah brer bra bra brer he's got like a real gris christie thought that was funny i love it i love it no he's just got a laugh at your jokes he's got he's got that really gruff gruff voice yeah i love john barry he really is a top notch american writer i mean he's he's written some very very successful books and uh he's a real straightforward guy um Yeah, he's really straightforward. Super generous. He's one of those guys that would, like, tell you if he was mad at you.

But he would, but you know if he doesn't tell you he's mad at you, he's not mad at you. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. Because he was super generous. Misty and I went to D.C. to meet with him. That's not where he lives, but he was in D.C. So it's super generous. You'll have to figure that out on here.

Actually, it's probably all over the internet. That's enough. You're the worst, Josh. Shame on you. Great, great guests. And you're going to be shocked when you hear episode four. I'm not even going to tell you why. Trust me.

How many are you going to be in a series play? You could have like 25 episodes on this stuff. Yeah, this is a big story, Christy. I know. It's like a meandering river. Haven't you heard? Yep. You never know where it's going to go.

It's like a road that splits into seven different ways and they all look the same. Like I agree. You just have to pick one. Thank you guys. much. Carla, thanks for being on. Thank you. Anything else you want to add? I'm excited to hear more.

Okay. She'd ask you to do the wave. There's like a rice queen. Oh, gosh, no. Does it translate the audio? She's crazy. Her prize-winning broccoli and rice recipe for Aunt Pauline.

Carla, give us. Rice queen wave. Josh Christy, great to have you guys. Thank you so much. Bear grease. Couples edition. I loved it. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests. That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.