Bear Grease - Ep. 135: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Swimming Holes

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

We’re beating the heat this week so bring your cutoffs! It’s time to hit the water in Brent’s version of Country-Pool-Palooza. Brent says swimming holes are where you find them and if you look hard enough you’ll find them just about anywhere. Stand by for turtles, cows, and swinging vines in this week’s episode of This Country Life. 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.

Swimming holes. For me, it was an afternoon activity when the chores were done, or if I was hot and happened to be conveniently close to enough water to get in. Creeks, ponds, lakes, and the river were the swimming pools of my youth, and a swimming party could break out at just about at any time during one of any adventures or fishing trips me and my friends found ourselves involved in. I'm going to tell you all about them, what constitutes, a good swimming hole and why they're important.

But first, I'm going to tell you a story. It was toward the end of the work week in the summertime. And as was our routine, my dad and I were down to Mount Elbeville on the Saline River. We were spending the night, and it caught a mess of fish that morning, cleaned and fixed them for dinner. Remember, that's the noon meal down here. We were staying at Uncle Dobb and Ain't Avis's camp. Now, let me unpack that for you. Uncle Dobb wasn't actually related to me, and neither was A. A. A. Davis.

Dob wasn't even his real name. His actual name was Troy, Alvin, Matthew Atkins, and I have no idea where that nickname came from. I'm sure it's a good story, and if I ever find out, I'll let y'all know. Anyway, he married Ayn Avis, Irene Fry, about a hundred years ago. They were close family friends of my family whose land to join one another and had been neighbors since my dad was a baby. We were all very close as most neighbors were back then. But A.N. Avis's family, the Fries had a camp on the river that was built high off the ground on Poles in the 1950s. In 1968, six Fry family members, including in-laws like Uncle Dob, ponied up $125,000,000,000. each to buy this camp.

That's $750 and that's equal to about $6,500 today. But I'll tell you, for the members made there and are still being made there, it would have been a bargain at any price. It gives me a lot of joy to say that the Fry family still owns it. Now, I along with my whole family, spent countless hours and nights down there hunting, fishing and just visiting with one another. The boat ramp that is an easy stone's throw away would eventually be named after my dad. And both places were the jumping off spot or the rally point for many expeditions involved in our family.

While we usually had several representatives of each family there, on this occasion, it was just me and dad. We'd gotten there the night before and was on the river just after daylight fishing for our dinner. And like I said, we'd done pretty good. so good in fact that while we were eating dad said he'd take me down to the swimming hole which was a half a mile down the river after we finished eating cleaning up and resting for a spell i knew that meant taking a nap i don't remember exactly how old i was but i was in elementary school and rest to me back then was slowing down enough to catch my breath and get a drink of water it dang sure didn't involve anything that took over five minutes especially a nashabye

Plus it was hot and I loved to swim in the river. When the river was right, that shoal that formed a swimming hole gradually sloped upward as you motored toward it down river. And it was shaded in the afternoon along our side with a nice sandy bank and a sandbar to sit and play on. It was impossible for me to stay out of it. And many times when we made our way through there fishing, I'd just up and bail out of the boat. Dad would pull up on the bank in the shade and join me or just let me swim a while before we carried on fishing again. I couldn't wait. What better way to top of morning to catching fish cleaning and eating a belly full of them than by cooling off in the swimming hole.

There were muscles to be dug and open looking for pearls, tracks on the sandbar to be identified and talked about, and flat rocks to skip. I didn't have time for a nap, but no argument I made was going to be. going to work, so after the kitchen was cleaned, we headed off to the sleeping room. We left the kitchen to walk through the original bedroom and passed the bathroom and into the sleeping room, both of which had been added in 1974 from lumber scrapped from a family member's old home place that had been built in the 1800s. Lots of history in that structure. I was about to add some more. When you walked into the sleeping room, there was a big bed on the right perpendicular to you as you entered and bunks against the far walls.

In front of those bunks aimed at the bed was a big industrial-sized 220-volt metal fan, like the kind you'd see in a chicken house. Hmm, I wonder where it came from. Anyway, it was housed in a square wooden frame that sat on the floor like a humongous box fan, and when you turned it on, it could literally blow the hat off your head, or cut it. Or cut it. it off along with your head if you happen to poke either in through the back side where there wasn't any chicken wire to keep you out of it. There wasn't any air conditioning back there, so the windows were up letting what air was turning outside in through the screens. And there may have been a few mosquitoes buzzing around in there, but a bald eagle couldn't have made any headway

against the wind generated by that fan. We stripped down to our boxers, and he put me on the fan side so I could feel the air. Buddy Reeves and Buddy Reeves 2.0, laying down on top of the sheets on that big old bed, but only one of us was looking forward to that nap. Dad, let's go swimming. We'll go directly, lay down and go to sleep. I ain't sleepy. Hush now.

Close your eye. I laid down and closed them, but all I could see was that swimming hole. I stared at the ceiling. I stared out the window. I checked the clock on the table. I stared at the ceiling some more. I watched the leaves and the trees out of the window, barely moving against the wind. It felt like three hours had passed when I checked the clock again,

and I was disappointed realizing it ain't been 15 minutes. Time travel slow for a boy wanting to go outside. I stared back at the ceiling, and then I heard my dad snore a little bit. I looked at him, and I saw how easy and rhythmic he was breathing. Man, that's the good sleep. The sleep that you wake up from feeling fresh and happy, the kind that I look forward to now. But at that time, it was standing in the way of me going swimming. Now, what happened next can only be described as an out-of-body experience.

I can see it now, played out in my head like those folks that die in the operating room and see themselves above everything that's going on only to realize that it's not their time to go. and suddenly they're back in their body, conscious, and looking around with an incredible story to tell. I watched my dad sleeping so peacefully. His farmer tan arms were brown as biscuits compared to his belly that was as white as the sheets we were laid on, and I wondered.

I wondered how hard I'd had to punch him in the belly to get my fist in there up to my elbow. Now, for the life of me, I have no idea where that thought came from or the gumption I had to find out. I slowly raised up making sure I didn't wake him up. The racket from the fan had drowned out any squeaks from the bedsprang, and he was comatose. I clearly remember bawling up my fist and looking at it,

and then looking at his belly and decided on whether or not I should do it. His arms and legs shot straight up like a dying roach, and his eyes bugged out of his head like Yosemite. Sam's did whenever Bugs Bunny dropped an anvil on his foot. I knocked all the wind out of him, and it took him several gups of air for him to start breathing again. I still don't know why I did it, but I knew the safest place I could be at that point in my life was anywhere he wasn't, and when my feet hit the floor, I was running as fast as I possibly could, and regretting the decision I'd considered a good idea just a while ago. I didn't even make it out of the room before he hemmed

me up. There was no escape and I realized right then and there that my daddy was going to kill me and I deserved it. He said, boy, I told you to lay down and go to sleep. I beat him to the bed and I jumped over next to the wall so he'd be on the fan side where it was coolest. It was the least I could do. He didn't whip me. He laid down and after a minute I squeaked out, I'm sorry, Dad. He reached over and patted me on the arm and said, Sh, close your eyes, and I did. In about an hour, he woke me up and he took me swimming, just like he said he would.

Swimming holes. Sometimes they'll make you lose your mind. So if you're wondering, about up to my wrist. That's how far it got in his belly. It all happened pretty fast, but that's just how it happened. 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 Phelpsgamecauls.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. Now what makes a good swimming hole? Really, all you need is a body of water big enough to crawl into, but just like anything else, some are just better than others. There was a small creek that ran through and along the northern edge of our farm, and it was a magical place that was spring-fed, and where we'd cleaned out our swimming hole, and that water was cold as a steel wedge in the heat of the summer.

There were big vines hanging from the trees, and we'd cut them with a hatchet or a pocket, knife and swing from one side into the other until we pulled them slap out of the tree, which never seemed to happen anywhere but when you were midstream, especially if you weren't planning on swimming that day and just trying to cross the creek. Todd and Bob rode the same school bus that I did, and Bob lived just over a quarter of a mile from him, but Todd was almost four miles away by the road, but we know a shortcut through the woods along some old lanes and forgotten roads and trails that made it a little over a mile.

In a mile, that wasn't no step for a stepper. We worked several days on a swimming hole below what we called Goat House Hill. And before I was born, my grandpa raised goats along with chickens and cows and he had built a house for them to stay in. My mama talked about the goats climbing all over that structure. It was all gone by the time I started making tracks over there, but the name remained. Below the hill where the goats used to be was a creek and where we'd made our swimming hole, getting the big rocks out and keeping it clean from sticks and broken vines.

We were all three knocking around the barn one summer day, and my grandpa told me that he'd give us a dollar if we could find a cow that was missing. 33 and a third cents each was incentive enough, so off we went. We played and looked for and called that cow but couldn't find her, and eventually we wound up down by the swimming hole below Goat House Hill. Well, we might as well go in swimming since we're here. So we peeled off our clothes and before a cat can lick is behind in the creek we went. Chunking mud and laughing and playing and I don't know how long we'd been swimming

when Todd asked, what's that smell? Now, I hadn't smelled it until he said something, but when he did, hmm, it was unmistakable to anyone that had ever. smelled a dead cow. We started slipping up the creek against the current, all naked as the day we were born, and 30 yards around a short bend in the creek, we found our cow, deader than disco. Laying in the creek we were standing in, and only moments before had been swimming in up to our ears. We took off out out out of there like we'd seen a monster, grabbed our clothes, climbed out on the bank, got dressed, and took off for higher ground. We found my grandpa,

told him where the cow was. He didn't even ask why all our hair was wet. I'm sure he probably knew. But he gave us each a dollar, which was a pleasant surprise and wiped all that trauma away that we'd just been through. After all that work we did cleaning and making that swimming hole, we never went back to that spot swimming. Creeks and swimming holes were a dime a dozen, and it wasn't so much the activity or the place that was important. I know now it was the innocence of our youth and the joy we shared in a wholesome environment just enjoying each other's company and having fun whether we were fishing in the water or swimming in it. Warren, Arkansas has a YMCA and a big swimming pool. At one time, and it may still be, it was the smallest community in the nation

that had such a facility. I'd get a ride to town or stay at my grandma, my grandpa's house in town, and go in swimming with my friends at the Y, but it just wasn't the same as swimming in the country. In the country, we allowed running on the bank, horseplay, and peeing in the pool, all activities that were frowned upon by the lifeguards at the Y. 95% of the time we were swimming in the country, we were swimming in water with current, and all you had to do was announce your intentions and move away downstream from the crowd and let it rip. I never got in a pool then or see one now that I don't look at it as one big commode. Come on, chlorine, do your room.

thing. Now there are drawbacks to swimming in homemade swimming holes. A time that comes to mind was with those same two rascals that helped me find that dead cow, and we met up with the intentions to go fishing in a pond over next to Todd's Grandpa's farm. It didn't belong to any of us. We just helped the folks fish it that did on it when they weren't around to tell us no. Anyway, we made our way in the heat of the day over to the small pond, and we started fishing. We noticed a turtle bobbed up and down out in the middle, but we didn't think much about it except he stayed in the same place, and it looked like he was hung on something.

With the fish not biting, I decided to swim out, catch that turtle, and bring him up on the bank to see what his problem was. So, having been issued my birthday suit and swimming suit on the same day in March of 1966, I got down to both of them and in the water I went, like a country boy, Jaku Stowe. Todd and Bob both had enough sense to wait on the bank while I performed my mission of mercy on that bobbing turtle And man, am I glad they did I swam out toward that turtle and was treading water

Within the arm's reach of him when he bobbed back to the service And I reached and grabbed him by the back of the shell He immediately tried to swim away from him But I was an expert turtle catcher and turned and headed for the bank And Todd and Bob I didn't make it afoot when that turtle pulled me back with a force that confused me. It felt like he was tied to something. So I turned back toward him and I pulled him up out of the water and I saw he had a trot line hook in his mouth and I was swimming all around it.

How I didn't get hung up in it myself and drowned was a true miracle. I turned a turtle loose and I yelled, it's a trot line and swam to the bank as fast as I could. We found both ends of it, cut it and pulled it and the turtle upon the bank. We cut that turtle loose and pulled the trot line that had the remnants of catfish that had been caught and left for the turtles to eat. Someone else had been helping them folks fish that pond, too, but they wasn't doing it right. You got to be responsible and run your lines regularly. Some bozo had wasted some good catfish by not checking his line. Fortunately, three adolescent trespassers came along and saved the day.

We wrapped it up and jobbed the hooks down in a stick and left it hanging on a limb by where one end they had been taken. hide to the bank. It wasn't going to hook anyone or anything else, and it wasn't ours, so we couldn't keep it. Whoever left it out there ought to be ashamed for doing so. Anyway, if you knew the country swimming holes, be mindful that there are some advantages to swimming in those big commodes in town where the lifeguards are. Probably not going to encounter any turtles or trot lines, but pee, good luck with that one. I promise to tell you why these places are important, but I guess I can only tell you why I think they're important. And maybe I'm kind of contradicting my first thought

about how a particular place wasn't as key a component as the activity that I shared with family or friends. Morrow Bay, Arkansas on the Washington River was at the south end of Bradley County. When I was 16 and old enough to legally drive, I'd actually been driving for seven years before that, but that's another story. My friends and I would pile into each other's cars

and trucks and in 45 minutes, we would have crossed the river on a ferry and driven down to a big sandy beach at Romeo Sholes to swim and just be kids out on her own. My lifelong friend Wade Mann hollered at me the other day and reminded me of a time that we spent down there at the river between two-a-day football practices. For hydration, we had made some poor choices that day, and football practiced that afternoon in August, in Arkansas. was not pleasant. Of all the days for the booster club

to bring watermelons to have after practice, it wasn't a lot of boys eating watermelon, at least not the folks that had been on the river that day. But Wade mentioned that day to me, and immediately my mind was flooded with a ton of memories associated with people in that particular place. Some of the best friends I've ever had

and I can see us all together in that place and others during the time. the summers of our youth. I enjoy seeing snapshots of people. Someone I don't even know recreating pictures with folks in the same poses, sometimes in the same places from days gone by. The faces may change, and they may age over time, but the joy, man, it usually remains. The places I talked about today are mostly all still there, but some of the people are

gone now and live only when I think of those places in the town. shared with them. So yeah, places are important. The names of those spots are the folders where we store all the pictures and the home movies that we play in our heads and our hearts whenever they're mentioned. Make sure you got plenty of room on your hard drive for the important files. No Wi-Fi is required and you can watch them anytime you want. Sometimes after a call from an old friend. That's your challenge this week. Think about a place. and the folks you shared something special with, and it doesn't have to be from years ago.

I talked about things this week that happened a long time ago, but I'm still thinking about a wonderful supper that Alexis and I shared with new friends just last week. You know, the years may sweeten the wine, but the grape, it was pretty good when it came off the vine. Thank you for listening. If you can, share it with someone you think might enjoy it too. ratings and reviews are always helpful in getting our show out to other folks that would like it

I thank y'all so much for listening this week this is brent reeves signing it all y'all be careful 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, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.