Bear Grease - Ep. 133: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Minding Your Manners, Part 2

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

It’s Part 2 of “Minding Your Manners”. Brent’s talking about specific instances when having manners and not having them can impact you and those around you. Lots of goodies including wearing a hat inside, shaking hands, running the gauntlet for the last biscuit in the bowl, and more! Join Brent as he tells you how the cow ate the cabbage in this final installment of his first two-part episode. Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you.

Mind and your manners, part two. It's part two of minding your manners, and this week we're going to hit a few specifics on having some good ones and the impressions you give off when using them or not using them. In today's world where most folks communicate through text, posts, and videos on social media, our window of creating an accurate representation of ourselves has diminished into only a few seconds, or maybe even a single picture. The same thing applies to the impression we give others, after all, when we're downloading our first impression to someone new, they're doing the same thing with us.

Funny how that works. Good stuff to talk about today, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. Alexis and I were traveling last week and got into a shuttle at the airport to take us to our hotel. I was making casual conversation with the driver who was more or less my age and responded, said, yes, sir, to a question that he asked me. He told me I didn't have to say yes, sir, to him. And in the same breath, he said, man, you have a nice voice.

You ought to do something in radio. Alexis started smiling and looked out the window. And I said, well, I kind of am in that business. I have a podcast where I talk about different things each week. And he said, well, what was last week's show about? And I told him, manners, being respectful, and that I had. specifically addressed the inner action that we had just had. I told him that it was more related to his position as the captain of that bus

and a way of me showing him respect as an adult than it was a statement about his age. We had a very interesting conversation about the observations he made about people he encountered either in his daily life or through his job driving that shuttle. His totally unsolicited opinion was that rural people adults and children alike seem to be more mindful of using manners than others. Now, he didn't say that folks in the city were rude

by any means, just that there seemed to be a correlation between people from all over the nation that live close to the land in the way that they talk to one another. Who better to make that observation than a man who spends his days talking to people

from all over? Now, by the time he got us to the hotel, he was on my side about the advantages associated with good manners. He even walked us in and told the lady behind the desk to take good care of us because, and I quote, these are good people. Now, I don't think there would have been any difference in the way the folks at the hotel treated us had he not gone in and said that.

But I'm convinced that the only reason he did was because of the impression he got of us on the ride there. For all he knew, we were polite bank robbers on the lamb and hiding in the mountains of Montana, but either way, having good manners worked to our advantage. While our manners had painted a picture to our shuttle driver, portraying us as good people, the only other information he had to go was our outward appearance to back up his assumption about our character.

It's that old first impressions deal. First impressions happen when a person first encounters another, and they each form a mental image of that person. The accuracy of that impression varies dependent on the observance, server, the person being observed, and the setting in which they meet. And I'm sure the shuttle driver's impression of me was held by having my wife Alexis with me. That gal spreads joy and happiness like confetti, and her beautiful smile and friendly personality puts everyone at ease. Now, the same thing can be said when you flip the coin. Let me give you an example.

Robert Alvin Fry married my grandfather's sister, Arleigh May Reeves, in 1936. And for the next 64 years, they would be together until Uncle Bob passed away in June and Aunt Arlome six months later in December of 2000. Uncle Bob had been a blacksmith, a farmer, and was a storyteller like no other. He was a true Southern gentleman, and my recollection was that he loved my Aunt Arlame like. nothing else. I remember him telling the following story at a church homecoming to a group of friends and relatives who sat visiting in the shade while Uncle Bob and others told stories of days gone by. In the early 1970s, Uncle Bob and Ann Arlome were taking a trip on a commercial jet. He said it was the first plane ride for each of them, and if to find gravity and leaving the

confines of the earth wasn't enough reason to make him nervous, it was also at the high of the airline hijacking craze. And he wasn't kidding. I checked. From 1961 to 1973, there were 159 airliners hijacked, and over half of them were diverted to Cuba. He said it had gotten so commonplace about a plane being hijacked to Cuba that it was on the news just about every day. Either the ongoing saga from one the day before or a new one that had just happened. He said they were some of the first aboard and sat and watched as others got on and found their seats.

Uncle Bob said he watched, and I quote, as a rough-looking fellow with shaggy hair, a beard, and dirty clothes sat down in a seat across from where he and Aunt Arlame were sitting. He said it made him a little uneasy. They didn't see a lot of hippies in New Edinburgh, Arkansas, and it wasn't like he wasn't nervous enough already. He said the fellow leaned back and went to sleep before they took off, and after they'd gotten off the ground, he and Aunt Arlome had begun to relax and get a little more at ease with flying. About 30 minutes into the flight, he said the stewardess came walking down the aisle with a big tray of little sandwiches. She'd stop at every row of seats and offer them up, and if the passengers wanted something to eat,

they'd reach and take one small sandwich off the tray. He said that he done got hungry because he was too nervous to eat the night before the flight, and it skipped breakfast earlier that day. He said, boy, I was looking forward to getting one of them sandwiches and could hardly wait for her to get to where we were sitting. Finally, she got to Uncle Bob's row and was looking at Uncle Bob and Aunt Arlomey and asking if they'd like a sandwich. About that time, he saw the hand of that rough-looking fella reach over into that tray

and grab every sandwich on it and rake all of them off into his lap and start eating. He said it startled the stewardess and it scared him so bad that he stood up and shouted, Oh Lord, we're Cuba bound. The stewardess got him back seated and went to get more sandwiches. The rough-looking fellow apologized to Uncle Bob and Arlame and told him that it had been a while since he had anything to eat. he was a nice fella he was just a little bit down on his luck they had a good visit afterwards

and got to the destination without diverting to Cuba but it was the first impression in a lack of manners that had painted a different picture and how their brief relationship would go so while the old saying of you never get a chance to make a first impression is correct there's another one about judging a book by its cover

that's just as accurate And that's just how that happened. 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 backwards.

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. Let's talk about hats. And why would you take a hat off when you walk in someone's house? Well, if it was our house, it would be to keep my mama from knocking it off your head. You didn't wear a hat in the house.

Removing your hat indoors dates back to medieval times when Knights would take their helmets off as a sign of goodwill and friendship. I'm sure that's correct, but it may have been a more of a functionality issue. I'd like to see one of them try to eat some corn on the cob while wearing one of them. Be like Spider-Man trying to eat anything. That dude did not think that suit out when he was sowing it up. Not like I would have anyway. But taking your hat off shows respect to the folks you're visiting,

that you value their time and you're not about to jump up and leave. Now, if you're only going to be there for a minute or two, you tell them that when you get there that you can't stay, and you keep your hat in your hand until it's time to go. That's having manners and showing respect, whether they know it or not. But when is it okay to wear you hat inside? According to Miss Manners, any place that's considered a public place is socially acceptable, but someone's home or office, that ain't one of them.

There's exceptions like when part of an official uniform like police officers, and some instances were in the military. Now, the military, they got their own set of rules, but in general, wearing a hat inside is no Bueno. A restaurant and a cafe, they're public places, but you won't catch me wearing a hat at any table or any male member of my family, for that matter. Ladies, however, according to custom,

get a pass if it's part of their outfit. Now, my grandpa didn't have a lot of time for watching NFL football, but he had a lot of. lot of respect for the Dallas Cowboys old coach Tom Landry. He'd heard Coach Landry wouldn't wear his hat when they played in a dome stadium. He thought that showed class. Bear Bryant was the same way. When asked why he wasn't wearing his hat for a game in the Superdome,

Coach Bryant would say, because my mama told me to. Well, that's reason enough for me too. The National Anthem for me, that's a no-brainer. I remove my cover and I hold it over my heart. Removing my hat and standing while it's played as my overt declaration of support for the dream that this nation was founded on and a way to show my respect for those who've paid the ultimate sacrifice for all of us to have our own individual opinions about everything. Left, right, or in the middle. That should be something we could all agree on.

What about opening the door or waiting for someone to go through or holding the elevator or letting the person with half as many groceries as you have? have go in front of you. Are we in that big of a hurry not to do these little things? I always hear that quote, this fast-paced world in which we live. Well, who made the rule that it had to be fast? Are we not in charge of the pace in which we live? I know I am, and probably much to the dismay of those behind me, but I operate best at the speed of happiness. And if it makes me happy and doesn't hurt someone else, or even better yet, if it makes me happy and makes someone else happy to, then that's the route I'm taking. Now, let's talk about food, which is one of my favorite subjects.

At any gathering for food, it is taboo to fix your plate before you guests do. And if you don't have any guests, the kids and the ladies get their plates fixed first. And the head of the household, he eats last. Now, y'all don't get your drawers in a while over that. head of the household, quote, I ain't the boss of my wife. We have a partnership based on love and respect, but I firmly believe it is absolutely my duty to protect her and every other member of this home, whether they live here or just simply guest. That's my responsibility as a husband, a father, and a host. The tradition of that person eaten last, at least in our family,

was started by my grandpa and was the exact opposite. of how it was when my grandpa was growing up. One time I'm asking why he always ate last, and he told me that when he was a kid, that sometimes there might not be a lot for him to eat, so the men that were working would eat first. They needed the nourishment to keep working and keep putting food on the table. The ladies followed up because their work was just as important there at home,

and the kids, well, they got what was left, if there was anything. He said he'd gone to bed hungry more than once as a child and vowed to never have one of his kids or grandkids suffer the same fate. I can say without a doubt that I never saw him fix a plate until everyone else had theirs and was setting down. How about the old last biscuit dilemma? Two or three folks with some sopping left to do and you look up and there ain't but one biscuit left. Everybody wants it, but who gets it? Well, at my house, if you reached for it without asking if anyone else wanted it, you were automatically out of the running.

My mama would have throat punched you. She taught us to ask if anyone else wanted it, and if they did, offer it to them. If it was one of my brothers and they took it without offering to share half with the one asking, WAMO, automatic throat punch from the lady that baked them. My brother Tim once circumvented this by picking up the last one, asking if anyone wanted it, and when I said I did, he licked all over it when my mama wasn't looking and tried to hand it to me. And for that reason, I was out. Anyway, that clown aside, offering to share it shows consideration for the folks around you,

and if you'll consider someone's feelings over something as insignificant as a biscuit, and when it comes to more important things, if there is something more important than a homemade biscuit, you won't think twice about doing it then either. And how about meeting folks and having a conversation with them? That was just as important in my raising. I remember I was eight or nine years old and had gone to work with my dad

and we were at the regional office in Risen, Arkansas, to get whatever he needed before we set out to work visiting the area of chicken farms. He had a new boss, and when he walked in the room where we were, he called his boss my name and said, this is my baby boy, Brent. He introduced me to folks that same way

until he left this earth. Anyway, I was sitting in a chair and his boss walked over to where I was to shake my hand. I stuck my hand out to shake his, but made the near fatal mistake of not standing up before his boss had turned my hand loose.

My dad said, Get your butt up out of that chair. You don't shake a man's hand sitting down. I stood up like that seat was on fire, and it embarrassed me, but I never forgot it. Lesson learned. Here's something else. When shaking a man's hand, look him dead in the eyes and use a firm grip. There's nothing worse than trying to shake a man's hand, and it winds up feeling like you're just holding hands with a fellow you don't know. With the love of humanity, there ain't enough lava soap flowing out of that volcano to wash that experience away. And every time that happens, it sends a message to me that this cat probably did not kill a turkey last year.

I respect turkey hunters, and I never met one that didn't have a firm handshake. I mentioned looking in a person's eyes when you shake their hand. Let me tell you about a fellow I used to work with. He would never lick you in the eyes when he talked to you. It was the most distracting thing ever to hold a conversation with him. He is a great guy, and we have a lot of common interest. He could have told me the secrets of the pyramids, but I wouldn't have heard him. During any conversation we ever had, I was bobbing and weaving like I was in the ring,

dodging jabs from Mike Tyson just to meet his gaze. I've known him for 15 years, and I couldn't swear in court the man has pupils. If you want someone to pay attention to you or show them that you respect them enough to listen to them, look them in the eyes when you're talking. Get a friend to look at you, but not in your eyes while you're talking to him. and tell me that ain't weird. P.S. If you're talking to someone you don't know

and they don't look you in the eyes while you're talking, they probably didn't kill a turkey last year either. Back in October of 2019, we went to Disney World. Spent a whole month there one week. Don't get me wrong. I had fun riding the teacups, seeing Bailey dressed up like Cinderella and having my picture made with winning the poo.

I'd hunted hard the whole first week of Arkansas. Arkansas's September bear season, but I had to fly to Florida to have my picture made with a bear. Anyway, my biggest issue was riding that bus back and forth from the hotel. There was only so many seats, and I think in a week's worth of trips that I got to sit in one, two or three times. I usually had one when we got on the bus, but then some lady or someone's grandma would wind up having to stand up, and I couldn't in good conscience keep my seat while they stood. I wasn't the only one giving it up my seats like that, but there was a lot more men who didn't.

And I've often wondered why, because it seems so commonplace and respectful to do it. I long for the day when doing that would bring more attention than not doing it. We all see these viral videos of events that happen, good or bad. And whatever the incident is, if it's in a large crowd, you can see multiple people filming it with their phones, when sometimes they should be in there helping the folks involved. It's second nature now to be observers and not participants. Not participating usually completely removes you from legal responsibility should whatever your witness and go sideways.

But what about social responsibility as inhabitants of this spinning rock we find ourselves on? Am I my brother's keeper? Yep, sure I am. If we all started looking out, for one another just a little more than just looking at one another, it might make a difference for someone. I know I've told this before, but it bears repeating when I was the commander of a shift

of uniform deputies at the end of each shift briefing before we all hit the road to patrol our areas, the last thing I always told them was to be safe and try to make a difference in someone's life that day. That's pretty easy. And it's your challenge this week. If you see something you feel compelled to respond to on social media, do it as if that person was standing in front of it. Be nice if that called on and started trending.

Anyway, I hope you're staying cool and eating plenty of watermelon. This summer has been blistering down here in the old heat dome, and watermelon time is just about over. And even though I know there's bands of folks out there, my great Uncle Bob and I would describe as rough fellas sprinkling salt on watermelons like a crop duster. Well, I hope y'all get plenty too. Without having to make an unscheduled stop in Cuba. This is Brent Reeves signing off.

Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in 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, right? 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 Phelps gamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.