Bear Grease - Ep 15: Bear Grease [Render] - Mule Kicked, Scandals and Boone Mythology

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

On the episode of the Bear Grease [Render], Clay and the gang discuss an array of riveting topics including getting ninja kicked by a mule. They discuss how Clay got it wrong on the game warden story, and Kolby Morehead of Bear Hunting Magazine squeezes in a legitimate "bears, beets and Battle Star Galactica" reference. The guys are joined by writer Seth Haines, who was also a guest on the first episode of the Daniel Boone series. They discuss the tension created by Boone potentially having a Cherokee wife, and wrestle with "armchair valor" in saying how they wouldn't have done it. The discussion is rich as they render down the first episode of the Daniel Boone series. Connect with Clay and MeatEaterClay on InstagramMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop Bear Grease Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee 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. What you got in your hand there, Dan?

Ultra light titanium revolver. Risk breaker. It's a Taurus 44 Magnum. That's what it is. Is that what it is? Yeah, that thing's made a titanium super light. Man, it's a gorgeous gun. It looks like a mule.

Yeah, that's a very, that's a good bear gun. Hey, welcome to the bear grease render. My, oh my, do we ever have a production today? Man, we have two new people in the, in the room today. at the global headquarters to new people, and we traditionally introduce the new people at the end to, so like it's like suspenseful of what's going to be happening. Landbridge is cocking the gun now. That's going to be very loud.

It's making it a socialized. Okay. Welcome to America. First of all, Gary Newcomb is not here. Man, it's too bad. Is he on the top? He's building the barn. He's not on a dozer.

Oh, man, I got some stories about a dozer. And Misty Newcomb was going to be here. She had to bail for professional reasons. And she was very quickly replaced. Wow. Substituted. She was very quickly substituted. Yes.

It makes me wonder who was the substitution. She's irreplaceable. That's right. I mean, who was it? Who'd you have on speed dial? Well, I'll tell that. So to my right, I have. Mr. Brent Reeves.

Brent, good to see you. Hey, buddy. Nice hat. Thanks, man. I got a new hat. Dr. Daniel Rupp. Good to be here. Fantastic to see you.

It's good for you to see me. I have. Dan's got a new bow. Oh, sweet. It's absolutely wonderful. What is it? It's a Matthews. I don't actually know what kind it is.

What kind is it? VXR. Matthew's VXR. Flick. Yeah. Smooth. Quiet. It's phenomenal.

Landbridge spillmaker. I'm here. Man, guys. Let's just give him a round of applause. Golly. Golf clap. You made it on the Bear Grease podcast. Bow, everyone, I'm bowing.

Yeah, I mean. I thought you wanted us to bow to you. Not just on the podcast, but starting the podcast off. Yeah. It's a place of honor. You came in hot. With my Daniel Boone song. And it was brilliant.

And that was totally unplanned. I walked in the place where Josh works and just literally stuck a microphone in his face. I was going to be. That is what came out. Did he know you were recording him, and how often do you record us apart from our knowledge? If I ever give you a consent paper to sign, just like, and don't show you? If he leans his chest pocket toward you while he's talking, it might be a good sign. No, Josh came in hot with the song of Daniel Boone, which I really was shocked.

because I had just dug up that Daniel Boone song just a few days before and honestly I never saw that that TV show. That TV show. It was awesome. The Daniel Boone TV show. Fess Parker. And a role that will astound you. Yes. And talk to cast him forever.

We're going to talk about that more. Directly to Josh's right is a voice that you've heard before coming in hot from the Bear Honey Magazine Global Headquarters. Colby Moorhead. into the Bear Tech. I need to try your voice. Hey, so for people that wouldn't,

many of you might be familiar with Colby from my former podcast, the Bear Honey Magazine podcast, Colby works for me at Bear Honey Magazine. Colby is the genius behind Bear Honey Magazine. He does a ton of stuff. He's the wind beneath your wings. Colby, Morhead.

Don't sing that. Is the wind beneath my wings? Is Kobe the man who can get me? Colby. I'm sorry, Colby. Is Colby the man who can get me a bandit hat? Whoa. That's a big ask.

We'll talk later. Now, great to have you, Colby. Back to Allie, Ben. Thank you. And then, to Colby's right, hey, we're going to call Seth our guest of honor. I would, okay? I appreciate that.

You'll appreciate that. This is, most of us know Seth from other places, but this is my friend Seth Haynes. And Seth had a home run performance on the Bear Grues podcast. It was at least a solid double. At least a solid double. It was a solid double. Yeah. Tony Gwynne double. It was a Tony Gwynn double. I'll take them all day long. Yeah, yeah. No. So Seth a couple of years ago, well, maybe not even a couple years ago, a year ago, told me how to get this book on archetypes, branding archetypes. What's the name of the book? The hero and the outlaw. Yeah, people are going to ask the hero and the outlaw.

amazing book. And so what do I do when smart people tell me what to do? I hope you do it. Just take a guess. Look the other way. You don't do it. I do what they say, Brett. So what did I do? I got the book. And to be honest with you, I didn't finish it. That's okay. That's all right. As long as you read the ones that pertain to you, like anything in personality, you're fine. Wait a minute. I told you to read a book like two years ago. You still I got the book and I started it. I have a question of the nine

archetypes, which one corresponds to Clay Newcomb? The dozer. The dozer operator. That is not one of the nine archetypes. It's 12, but we can get to that later. We can get a...

Some might say that just the clown. It would be interesting to talk about some of the archetypes because they surprise me. We can do it. But, but no, so I started researching Boone. And so, you know, I read this Boone by Robert Morgan 10 years ago. And you know who told me to read that book?

Who told me? A man that I didn't even know at the time, which was Steve Ronella. It was on one of his book lists. Oh, really? Yeah. 10, 12 years ago. And I got it. I read it.

I read it. And I read the Boone book, and they started talking about Boone as an archetype, which as they began to describe that, I began to recognize Boone holding this place kind of in our culture that was like kind of unusual, just like this. It's like, why is this guy here? And they started talking about archetypes. And then a year ago, Seth had me read about archetypes. And then that's why I interviewed Seth.

And I think it's really important to understand, you probably could have polled Berggris podcast listeners and said, what is an archetype? And maybe many of them would have been able to kind of describe it. Like, I kind of would have known what it meant. But when you really know what they mean, Seth and I were talking the other day, you start to see archetypes all over your life. And you see these places. Anyway, it's interesting.

So good to have you, Seth. Yeah, everyone you knows that. I'm probably an archetype to you have something, which we could talk about that later. I don't know. Yeah, so there's like scales of archetypes. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. So yeah, it was a good time. I've enjoyed it.

And I'm glad to be here with all of you archetypes, especially you, Josh. Wow. Singled out. Yeah. I don't even know what the 12 are. I did not choose that Seth was the cold open. That was a surprise to me. That's the one part of the podcast that I don't put my hands on.

I let Phil Taylor do what Phil Taylor does at meat eater. He does a good job. I always say in this. I was riveted. When I heard Seth's voice, I was riveted. No, I loved it. And see, that's why it's good to have, like, I was expecting, like, some gritty fact about Boone, you know, like killing a bear or something. I heard Seth's voice, and I thought, finally, they've replaced Clay with somebody who sounds good.

My name's Seth Ains. I'm the new host of the Bears. It'd be a really boring podcast if I had to do it all, yeah. Good to have you, Seth. Hey, I've been doing some mule training this week, boys. you know that? No. I did.

I didn't know that. It's just, okay. Was that on the Instagram page? Yeah, it's on the Instagram. He looked at you like that was an assignment. I'm offended. I didn't see the real of you reading, reading your podcast off the screen. What archetype is that?

No, no. Yeah, I've been doing some mule training. Banjo. Oh, I did see that. I did see Banjo. Great. You can go back and like it or something. So Banjo is, he's,

He's coming on three years old. Banjo is Izzy's full brother. Oh, I didn't know that. Full brother. So same mare, same jack donkey. Okay. And, but they look different, but they both are pretty flashy. They've got color on them.

Banjo, we had, I got him when he was like nine months old. And honestly, he should be trained right now. By the time Izzy was three years old, I had ridden her. extensively, you know. So Banjo's not, he's not broke yet, but I am, I'm kind of testing, and really it's just been schedule and timing, and I didn't need a mule. I trained Izzy real quick because I needed a meal real quick. There's a lot of excuses. Man, there's a, if you want to go buy a mule, especially post-COVID mule is big time. The prices went up on post-COVID mules like they're lumber. There's a phrase that's never been used before. Just come on, it's through the roof.

You see a man in Arkansas or Missouri driving down the road with a flashy mule in the back of his trailer, he might as well be driving a bins. Brinks truck. Yeah. The price has gone through the roof. That is why, you know, three or four years ago, whenever I trained Izzy, pre-COVID. Now, this would give you some insight into my financial status. I've also said that you can tell a lot about a man's financial status and his disposable income by his meal trailer.

I have a mule trailer so old, people don't even know when it was made. I mean, like, I took it to a trailer place and I was like, what do you think that thing was made? And he was like, man, I got no idea. This was like an old man. It does have wooden spokes. Wouldn't spokes. No, so, but back in the day, I needed a good mule, didn't have the money to pay pre-COVID

mule prices. So I had to go buy a just a unbroke, untrained mule, got it, turned out good, went back, back to the same guy and got banjo training banjo now but i'll also have you know that 10 days ago saturday i got kicked the hardest mule kick i've ever been kicked happened really 10 day the day i went to your house do you remember i do i remember i remember man listen to this i had to rub clay's upper thigh for half an hour i think he's faking he told me that three years No. Okay. I was getting banjo. I'd taken banjo to another pasture. And he's not very good in the trailer. He's only been in the trailer a couple times. He'll go in and out good though, which is a training feat. He'll go in and out. He was coming. I untied him and was backing him out. So I'm on the back of the trailer. His, you know, tail and rear end and legs are all, you know, right here. I've opened the door. He's backing out. He's dragging his lead rope. because I've untied him from the front.

And so he gets his back feet on the ground. He drops his front feet on the ground. So his back feet are like five feet away from me. Okay? Do you see what I'm saying? Like my feet are even with his front feet. You're not here. His head still in the trailer.

His lead rope is about to drop to the floor of the trailer, which has mule dung in it. Right. So rather than let the rope drag through the mule dung, I reach real fast to grab the rope before it hits the ground in the trailer. I never even saw it happen. My head is this way, and all of a sudden I just feel just a wop, just a bam. And I turn around, and Banjo is just standing there just like he was before.

Like I actually don't even have any real evidence that he's the one that kicked. You guys drug by lightning. that sucker I mean he he must have come up off his front feet turned like this and just giving me a bam

with this front foot no no it's back foot I mean I guess I don't know you sure he wasn't the ghost of the captain yeah I may have been because I got here today

and I was looking for him even though I knew he was gone it was yeah Colby's experienced the fierceness it was I tried to I've tried to describe it it hit me right in the center of the thigh it was the best place to get kicked

like it was the strongest muscle in your body. I think it would be equivalent to like a very strong man just punching you as hard as he could punch you in the thigh. And it, because it, I acted like nothing happened because I, I didn't want to give him too much attention. I didn't want to discipline him. It was my fault. And so I just grabbed up the lead rope, acted like nothing happened and just walked him to the deal. And then, that, that one sat in the truck and cried. And I was like, dang. And all it did was just leave a big, there's still a big, big, big hoof braused bruise right there in my leg.

Dang. Nice. Yeah. So, been doing a little mule training. So was banjo. Yeah. Don't reach for my lead rope clay. He's been with a clay training. Or repercussions and sued. Okay. Here's a little bit of feedback.

There was a guy... I wish I could solve it. It was wild. There was a guy that listened to the Boone series, and that's what we're going to talk about on this one. This Bear Greer's podcast is going to be on the Boone. series on the Boone part one there was a guy that said great episode clay when the son Nathan Boone speaks

about camping on the mouth of campaign creek north of point pleasant he said it brought legitimate cold chills he said I had heard about that in college when I lived just a mile or two from there and I was professing it as truth and being chastised by my hunting buddies but by golly the old college professor that told me that was right basically this guy's listening to this and we're talking about stuff that happened like two miles from where he was which was pretty cool that's uh that guy's name was brady it's pretty cool that's pretty cool you know to i always think about you know finding stone points and stuff like that to think about back 100 or 200 or 300 or thousand years ago and to reminisce and imagine being, you know, that man standing in that place

and how it would have looked different and how you would have felt as a human interacting with nature at that point. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it is sobering, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you know, 200 now, years from now is going to think the same thing when they find that starphone cup later that guy was thinking. I wonder what that guy was thinking. I wonder what he. Okay, scandal. It's been a scandal. Yep. Locally? Big scandal.

Nope. Scandal right here on the Bear Greece podcast. You guys all heard. It's over. Do you all remember when I told... Were we accomplices? Yep.

Yep. I am not. For sure. Except for Seth and Colbich. All of you were accomplices. Were we being recorded apart from our knowledge? I'm not... I think you knew you were being recorded.

Okay. No, listen. This is legitimate. This is legitimate. This guy named Alex. So do you all remember when I told the story of the Game Warden at the Campfire Stories? I do. Yep.

I was talking about the meat eater. Campfire story. Audio book, which is, by the way, on the New York Times best-selling list of audiobooks. I saw that. Right up there with like Matthew McConaughey's Green Lights book. That's how compelling some of these stories are. McConaughey was number one. Hey, here's the McConaughey.

We'll get him on the render. We'll get McConaughey on the render. All right. All right. I was waiting for that. You know, I just wanted to do it for somebody. I think somebody was waiting for it. Thank you for doing it.

I was not planning to tell a story from the audiobook because I hadn't heard it yet. I had not heard the audiobook. So I recounted the story of that Game Warden as I remember it being told. Because it was told to me very quickly just as somebody was like, hey, this audiobook and I said what kind of stories you're like man there's a story about this and story about that so Seth I was advertising for this audio book saying hey you ought to check out meat eater's new audio book

and I said there's this one story and I tell a story and turns out I was way off for what I was and so this guy named Alex he did a good job and Alex was the tipping point okay because I had a couple other people tell me say like Clay you you've butchered that story

And I didn't think much of it. You know, just kind of, dang, you know, I wish I hadn't. But I didn't. And this guy, this guy, he was very polite, but he said, Clay, he said, after hearing you tell that story. And then hearing the real story, he said, it kind of discredits you because I wonder how much you embellish other stories. Oh. Cut to the quick. Ouch.

And I responded back to it. He was very nice. He said, I love the podcast. He said, that's why I'm writing you. He said, I'm just being honest with it. Yeah, yeah. You got cold on the carpet. I did, I did.

And I wrote him back. And what he thought happened was that I'd heard the story and then just told it way bigger, fully knowing the story. And I explained to him, I was like, man, that was a mistake. I said, I'd actually never even heard the story. And I recounted it. So what you're saying is that we need a full-time fact-checker. Man, if you spend much time talking, you better have a fact-checker.

I'm pretty sure there's a problem. verb about that. Oh, is there? I blame the dozer. I put this ever since you've been on that dozer. Man. The hum from that engine will shake some things loose.

I have a song that is the best song ever written about Dozer. I'm not going to sing it. Of all the dozer songs out of here. This one is number one. I think a lot of people that listen to that would have been like, what? Because, so anyway,

my deepest apologies. Well, you made a mistake. Yes, yes. And you owned up to it. Yeah, yeah. Next. Yeah, yeah. He wasn't making a big deal about it.

But when he said that it reduced my credibility, that was like, yeah, I don't want that. Because I was thinking about something. There is, I was thinking about this idea of embellishing stories. And Seth is a storyteller and a writer. And, I mean, you know, me and somebody else could go do something together. and they come back and tell a story and then I tell the same story and I look at the dude and it was just like

man we were on different planets when that happened if that story is the way you remember it like there's something to be said for a good story I mean I deeply value the truth I mean like always have always will and anyway sometimes people kind of want to say that somebody that tells good stories

is embellishing a story anyway well I mean first of all that's a very southern thing right? I mean, we all know Southern storytellers, and Southern storytellers are just renowned for embellishing a good story. But I think, I mean, to your point, stories a lot of times are about perception, about history, about how you interpret the world. I mean, we can all be given a set of facts, but those facts and what we make of and what we meet, I mean, that's why lawyers exist to tell stories to juries and to take these facts and to help them interpret it in ways that are favorable to their client because everybody sees things differently.

Now, I'm not arguing for postmodern thought here. I'm just saying there are ways to interpret stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have always said, man, I always said in 30 years of law enforcement, if you want two different stories to something, get two eyewitnesses to the same incident. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because you can have folks standing right side beside each other, and they tell you the

absolute honest truth as they saw it, and it, it don't go, it don't go together. Man, that's so wild too, and it applies to Boone, because Boone, so much of what we know about Boone, didn't come from Boone. I mean, actually, very little of it did. We have accounts of Boone, like as he wrote letters, like kind of like business transactions. The one interview with Boone that actually is out there was that John Philson interview from the chapter in the book. but Philson, everybody that knew Boone, said that Philson took incredible liberty and basically wrote it in this beautiful,

like if you read that, it's like very, like it's not in Boone's voice. And so it's kind of, even though Boone himself said every word of it was true, but it's not in Boone's voice. It's like it's written in a different way. But that's,

So all these things are secondhand that we know about Boone. And man, yeah, that is actually a great example of a story just two people down. Because the guy that told me the story had heard the real story. He told it to me, and I'm not blaming him. He told it to me, and I mean, I had no intent of remembering the story. And then one story later, it's pretty different from what actually happened. Well, it's like that old telephone game, you know, in school where you start the story at, at this desk and by the time it gets to the last kid in the last row it's nothing even close

yeah yeah well that it just you think about history and how hard it is to track history especially history as deep as boon and these things i mean well we appreciate his contribution to keep our podcast above board yes he had a couple other things oh oh yeah he did good this guy Alex. We'll call him the whistleblower. He was he was pretty... He can't be the whistleblower because you told

everybody's name. Well, I'm not giving his last name. And this is a good compliment to him. Do you think I'm training people to send me real harsh criticism? You're real nice to this guy? Oh, you don't know I got to trade him. No, he was

pretty worked up. And so was I about using the word poisonous instead of... Versus venomous. Man, I'm the word. I tell people that. And then when I make the podcast, it was, I said poisonous probably six times. And partly that was because these podcasts are recorded at different times.

So when I'm like sitting at my desk, like doing a voiceover and I'm really intentional, I'll do it right. But if I'm out like talking to somebody, I might do it wrong. So he is very right. The correct way to describe a snake that when it bites you, it might hurt you real bad, is venomous, not poisonous. Did you know that said? I did know that because my son Isaac, who loves the outdoors, he tells me all the time,

Dad, that's not a poisonous snake. And I say to him, every snake is poisonous. Vitamous or not, they're all poisonous. I'm getting away from it. You're like, I don't care. Okay. Alex also had a small bone to pick with me about al-hooting. Basically, he said he's not a good al-hooter, but it's because he, he, he, he, he, he,

He can't carry a tune, he says. And he just didn't think it was fair that I was cast in judgment on people who couldn't al-Hoot. And there's two things I want to say, and I said this to him. Number one, I never said that somebody who couldn't al-Hoot wasn't a good outdoorsman. I emphatically said that over and over in the podcast. All I said was, if you are a good al-Hooder, there's a real strong probability that you're a good woodsman. That's all I said. Correct.

Okay. True, true. I bet Daniel Boone had a heck of a hair. Number two, the other thing that I told him was that I basically said no comment on the Al-Hoothing thing. I just, it's like, if you can't Al-Hoot, that's your problem. No, thanks, Alex. That was great. That was great.

Yeah, we just did a little housekeeping. That's all. You know, I meant to early on describe, we've got a lot of new listeners to the render, Seth. I like it. A lot of new people don't understand what the term bear grease means. I still don't understand it. I've been here the whole time. So the name bear grease.

Now, Seth, would you know what? Would you know about this? About bear grease. Well, I mean, just like, why did I name my podcast Bear Grease podcast? Well, I kind of know you. So my guess is that I would know. My guess is that because you're a bear hunter, you've been a bear hunter for a long time, and you have preached that bears are good for all kinds of things for eating and, you know,

you render grease down, fat down to turn it into grease for other things. My guess would be that there's some use for a burglars. I really expected more from a rider. That's my guess. Or maybe you just like to bathe them. Maybe you just slag it all over your body. You basically love you some berries. You like bears.

You're greasy. Yeah. It makes sense. No, that's good. You're right. That's the surface level. you've hit the surface. Bear grease is a metaphor. Okay. So bear grease was at one time a really valuable commodity both functionally for cooking for all these different things. It was also used as a form of

currency. Today, Seth Haynes, if you asked, if you polled America and said, what is bear grease, you know, how many people would even have a reference point for what it is. But yet it's functional use is still very much the same. And so the tagline of the Bear Grease podcast is where we explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight in unlikely places, and tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. And so Bear Grease also, Seth, if you will notice this, I'm holding a jar of Bear Grease in my hands, folks, and there is about a two-inch band of amber clear liquid.

and then below that is a solid white liquid. That's called a bad layer. This is bare grease that has separated. And at that separation point, many people, including Native Americans, have used that to forecast the weather because it moves with barometric pressure and it's highly nuanced.

I mean, I'm not saying that I really can, but it does change about every day. When it looks like that, it means it's hot outside. Well, there's my chart. I'm going to get y'all chart. Bear grease weather forecasting chart. So insight and unlikely places. So bear grease is a metaphor.

I just want to say that because we're getting new listeners. Bear grease is a metaphor for things forgotten but relevant. That's why I interviewed Roy Clark. That's why I interviewed James Lawrence. That's why we're talking about Daniel Boone. We're looking for insight and unlikely places. That's why we're talking about how snakes and this innate fear of us of snakes and our mothers telling us not to do it

is this like bigger picture of how human relationships are supposed to work. Don't pick up that snake and you believe her because snakes are scary and you do what she says and you trust her. You know, it's this bigger picture insight. So that is... I love it.

This is the bear grease render which is where we... So the act of taking solid bear fat like raw bear fat off of a freshly harvested bear, melting it down into a liquid oil is called rendering. How long does a render actually take in real life when you're rendering bear grease? You can render bare fat very quickly, like nine minutes.

Really? Yeah. Yeah, it's all dependent upon temperature. Okay, give me the 10 second process. How you do it? Oh, you just, okay, there's the way, the best practice. I'm not even going to give you best practice. You take a fillet of white bear fat, which it'll be on a fall bear, I mean, could have

a lot of fat. Cube it up into one inch cubes, put it in a frying pan, a fry daddy, any kind of source of heat. George Foreman? Man, I've never rendered fat in a George Foreman. It's a valid question, Clay. You've never rendered George Foreman's fat? Nope, never rendered fat in a George Foreman. And basically it just melts down.

And you'll have about 20% of it that does not melt down that stays is what we call a crackling, but the other 80% will turn in the liquid. The best way to do it is to grind it. Grind it, and you have, you get almost, Colby, what do we say? Colby's my bear rendering. You get about a 95%. If you

cube it, you get about an 80% return. If you grind it up, you get about probably 95% return. Low and slow seems to be better too from what I hear you like. And the color of it comes out different depending on how fast you cook it.

Yeah, if you cook it hot, it'll be darker. If you cook it really on low heat, like 225, it'll be much more solid. It'll be lighter. I'm telling you that low even heat of a George Foreman, boys. And it's self-draining. It's something to think about. Self-draining. Render Bear Fatsy and you say that.

George Foreman Grills happen to be one of our partners. We want to thank Caterpillar and George Forman. man guys i'm serious i man i've got a song oh yeah hey um wait could uh bear grease like the render also be chewing the fat it could have been because that's another way to render it if you just want to like straight to

straight it could we should have had you on the marketing team you know there was a movie and made a northwest passage spencer tracy have you ever seen that movie no it's old man it's like 1940 i remember that movie and And Walter Brennan is in that, and the guy that played Dr. Welby in that show, Marcus Welby. He also sold coffees, Mr. Coffee. But anyway, another use for Bear Greas, Walter Brennan. Y'all ever, y'all know who Walter Brennan is?

No, I've heard the name. We're not 70. Okay. All right. Well, to the folks out there that are in my age group, which is 55 and up, I would say, is he said he told Robert Young that was the actor's name

Robert Young looked at him and says man what are we going to do about all these mosquitoes and Walter Brown said Rancid bear grease Rancid bear grease you put it on your arms and he keeps you all the mosquitoes away That's Walter Brennan Insect repellent Insect repellent. I need you to come up

with a list of everything pre-Abbant Costello that I need to watch Okay I'll make you a list That was a pretty good impression that We all know who you're talking about now that you said that. There you go. Yeah. Hey, speaking of, what did y'all think about Josh being able to remember that Boone song?

I mean, that was pretty impressive, right? Yeah, always. Yeah. Okay. What y'all don't know yet is Josh is a, well, he's played before on the Barry Grays. I have. A little bit. Yeah, a little.

A little bit. But, okay, this is the segue into us talking about the Boone podcast. Josh has a little song for us. A little something out of the archives. Yeah. Okay, here we go. Let's hear it. Daniel Boone was a man, yes, a big man,

with an eye like an eagle and as tall as a mountain was he. That's right. Daniel Boone was a man, yes, a big man. He was brave, he was fearless, and as tough as a mighty oak tree. Sing it, brother. From the Coonskin cap on the top of old end to the heel of his rajoo. The ripiness, roaringest, fighting this man. The frontier ever knew.

Daniel Boone was a man. Yes, a big man. And he fought for America to make all Americans free. This is a great song. What a Boon, what a doer, what a dream come a truer was he. Daniel Boone was he. a man yes a big man with a hoop and a holler he could mow down a forest of tree that's right with a knife and a gun he never did fail there was nothing he could not tame

the land bridge bridge he placed a big white liberty trail to history's hall of fame daniel boone was a man yes a big man with a dream of a country that would always forever be free What a boon want to do What a dream come a truer was he That's right What a boom want to do What a dream come a true or was he

Nice And it's all lies That is He's no washboard player But pretty good Oh man That was awesome That was awesome

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 pool 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 two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. So perfect, perfect segue into, yeah, when Josh sank, so on the first of the podcast, when Josh sang that song, there were two things. It says Daniel Boone was a man, was his man, a big man.

Big man. It wasn't a big man. And Daniel Boone was 5'8 and weighed 175 pounds. Yep. Well, Fess Parker wasn't. Fess Parker was about 6'3. He was a big fan. He was a big man.

Yeah. He also wasn't Daniel Boone. He was Fess Parker. And then it says that Daniel Boone wore a coonskin cap, which that was just like total Hollywood. Where did that come from then? Well, Davy Crockett, as I understand it, as I understand it. Did Fess Parker play Davy Crockett too? Yeah, he played both.

Oh, man. I'm so confused. No wonder. Yeah, that's it. So the same Hollywood actor played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. The real Davey Crockett, I think War Coon Skin Capp. Alex, let me know if I'm wrong. And then so when Hollywood got a hold of Daniel Boone,

I mean, of course he's going to wear a coonskin cap. Are you saying that we cannot trust Hollywood? I've never said it, Dan. Because my whole life is based on lies. Well, that is so great because this part one of the series is kind of debunking some of the myth and presenting the idea to the people. that there is a lot of Boone's life

that is mythologized and is, there's lots of stories. Like you read this Boone biography, Robert Morgan. And he, he, every single story, they, you know, he tells all the facts and all the potential reasons why it's true. And, you know, he kind of leaves some room for this probably may not have happened or it may have.

But there's a whole lot of that. And what's so interesting, and Robert Morgan, I feel like he's kind of the main one that introduced this idea, though, to the world, which is introduced it to us, and we say it now like it's fact, is that the real Boone was way cooler than the myth of Boone.

I mean, he was one of these guys that didn't need fancy stories told about him, because when you really see what he did and who he was, it's pretty wild, you know. But the closest, This modern representation I have of Daniel Boone is Brent Reeves. Oh my gosh. True.

He would wear overalls. There's no doubt. Definitely. Here's what I got out of that, especially like when you talked about Mr. Morgan's book, and I read that. The Daniel Boone that people fictitiously wrote about was Gerstacker, everyday living. What do you mean? He lived the life that Gersdacker lived the life that people fantasized Daniel Boone did. Yeah.

But I think Steve Ronella said, you know, they wasn't the only folks doing that, though. That's right. You know, they talk about dressed in buckskins, you know. Well, Daniel Boone dressed in buckskins. Well, so did his plumber. So did the guy at the grocery store. Everybody was. But it struck me.

That the majority of the things that were written about were about Daniel Boone that were written about him later on in life. When Gerstacker was writing letters home and the stuff we get from him was written by him. And yet everybody's heard of Daniel Boone, but nobody's ever heard of Gerstacker. And Gerstacker has a stack of facts to back up the stuff that he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very intriguing to me. What's interesting, too, if you think about Gerstacher, which was from our episode four, Death of a Bear Hunter, a guy that was here in Arkansas, Seth,

is that Gerstocker probably came to America, and this is total speculation, he probably came to America because of Boone. Sure. Like, he came in the 1830s, 17 years after Dan's death. And by that time, Dan was famous in Europe, big time famous. And so people would have heard of the frontier and Daniel Boone,

and basically Gershawker came, and he never said it. Right. They all did. They wanted to be. like Daniel Boone. And that shows you, that shows you the power

of an inspirational myth. I mean, if you're saying that all of this, much of this is based in mythology, allure of Daniel Boone, and then people say, like,

I want to, I want to be like that. I want to do, I mean, it shows you the inspirational power of myth, and that's the thing that's gone from time in memorial.

People look for these great big myths to follow. Yeah, yeah, and Boone's in that line. He's the myth. Yeah, yeah.

And if he was one of the most talked about and written about, especially all over the world who it's a good fact that are a good chance that that's who he was trying to emulate yeah yeah and and you know boon was the real deal i don't i don't think you're saying that boon was oh absolutely i mean he was yeah yeah yeah dan what was your what was did you know much about boon if i had stuck the microphone in your face and said who was daniel boon no i what was interesting for me is i had watched actually a um a uh a A show. Men Who Made America.

Man, who made America Frontiersmen. Steve Renella was in that. And I was honestly kind of unimpressed with the amount of detail they gave. Well, I did, because this is the first however many years, this is kind of the first chapter of Daniel's life is what you covered in this first podcast. And that show, from what I remember, kind of covered the middle to the tail end. So I didn't know any of this stuff or these dynamics. Yeah. So it was really interesting.

Any of it stand out to you as cool. Like, for an example, when I read this book years ago with no, never thought I'd be making a Boone podcast, I mean, I was just reading it totally out of interest. I remembered probably three stories from this book that I just probably would have never forgotten my whole life. And one of them was Boone's potentially illegitimate daughter. Like when I talk about Daniel Boone, now, I've done a ton of research since then, but before, like if I just met you on the street.

randomly. If I walked across your yard and met you in your yard, Dan, I'd be like, hey, Daniel Boone, heck of a guy. And I would have said, did you know that he went on a hunting trip one time for two years? But would that story have been embellished? That's the big question. Could you have Rieke told the story correctly? Yeah, yeah. That would have been nice if I could have. No, I'm just, I'm saying that story stood out to him. What story stood out to you? You know, I'm a cultural kind of anthropology is my background. So what stood out to me was when the the Robert Morgan who wrote that book when he talked about the culture of the Indians and if you of of of of Native American peoples and if you were going to dwell with them there was an expectation yeah that you would dwell in a tent and and and probably have relations with a with one of their women and that was just kind of that was very eye-opening to me and and if Daniel was a man who seemed adept at understanding culture. and entering into groups.

But it creates tension in me because I want him to be, kind of going off what Seth has been saying, there's this person that I want him to be, and it's not just a frontiersman who, you know, conquered and defended America, but it's a man of integrity. I mean, you spend so much time kind of addressing these valid concerns that Alex, you know, had.

And part of that is because integrity is important. Yeah. You know, and so when I, Daniel Boone fits an archetype for me that I want to emulate and be in some ways, I want him to be a man of integrity. Part of that to me means being faithful to my wife. Yeah. And so it does. But as a cultural guy, you said that just the way I would have said. Man, when Robert brings that up, it's like, oh my goodness.

Like, he could have actually just been a man. You heard me be like, do you really think he did it? I know. When I heard that, I thought, I know the look on his face. Like, them's fighting words. Like, well, listen, what's wild is that there's accounts. Okay, one time Boone, when he was at his home with Rebecca, the neighbor's husband had gone off somewhere. And they were, they ran out of food.

And there's a story of Boone going to their house and giving them food. When the man comes home, the woman says, Daniel Boone came by, gave us some food. and the man comes and confronts Daniel Boone. And this is a story that we believe to be true. And the guy basically accuses Dan of flirting with his wife. Dan will have no part of it and whips him. I mean, like, Dan Boone would fist fight you. It's about as quick as, I mean, he wasn't hot-tempered.

He was a Quaker, but there are multiple accounts of him just flat-whopping somebody. And he whooped his neighbor who accused him of flirting with his wife. I know what you call him, Dan. I mean, how close friends are you guys? I feel like I know the guy, man. Y'all noticed that? Yes.

Along with the podcast went, he started calling him, well, Dan, I like. Big D. Big D-D. Big D-D. He goes to say, well, Dan and I. No, you know, that's a great point. And, yeah. And it's not, we don't know that Boone had a shot.

He could add two. He lived with the Shannis, and we'll get into this probably in episode two, maybe. We may go further than two episodes. I don't know. But he lived with a Shani and was actually adopted as a Shani Indian for four, he lived with him for four months. And Shonies visited him in Missouri when he was an old man. Like, he had like real friendship with these people. You got to take into account, too, that, you know, that it wasn't a,

situation of when in Rome do as the Romans do. He was in a situation where that was the culture. Yeah. If any of that was true, he was having to live every day. You know, these folks wasn't getting up and worrying about what they were going to do next week. They were worrying about how are we going to make it through today. Yeah. And tonight and then tomorrow.

And if he's got to go along with whatever culture is there, I mean, that's a pretty valid point. See, that's a problem, though. Yeah. That's a problem. It's a big problem. I mean, and you can make bold declarations on this side of history when that doesn't. I will never in my life be in this situation. I would have just said, go ahead and kill me, boys.

My value system is more important than that. I mean, I'm being honest. I think I would say that. Now, I realize that it's real easy to be like bold and have this valor, but like that's what I would want to say. You would too, Dan. Absolutely. But then you have to ask yourself, is that armchair valor? Exactly. And it is. Yeah. You know.

And I felt like I had to say it just because it's like, because if we say, well, if you're in this culture and you just do what that culture does, then you just have this really loose value system. It's not necessarily a valid reason or it's not a valid reason at all. But you just got to put yourself in that or you can't put you, you can't put yourself in that spot. you can't put yourself in, as you call him, Dan's spot. Because you can't... And maybe they wouldn't have killed him. Maybe they wouldn't have killed him. I mean, like, the worst case scenario in that situation is they would have been like, okay, I mean, they would have found a reason to have killed you, which is very probable.

But anyway, I'm not suggesting that anybody who wouldn't, you know, partake of that. would have been immediately killed. It wasn't like that. But if you valued your life, you stayed on their good side. If you were there captive. And I think there's two, you've got a group of people who,

you know, it's in all likelihood it's going to, they're forming identity in terms of interdependence. And so you've got insiders and outsiders. And that's discerned by very practical, tangible behaviors. If you're an insider, you do like we do.

And Mr. Morgan said, you know, if you didn't engage in that kind of activity as a guest, it was like you're too good for us. Yeah. You're an outsider. And so it does make you think. I mean, that's a complex. It is for real.

Man, I don't want to gloss over that Robert Morgan, both of my guests on this podcast. I was explaining this to somebody and I was like, if you were, just think of the biggest media company in America, if you were X, and they said, we're commissioning you to get the top, you know, Boon, and I'm not saying they're the best Boone expert. There's a lot of Boone experts in Kentucky. There's Boone experts all over. So they're not the only ones.

But you couldn't have picked better guys than Robert Morgan. Robert Morgan's in his mid-70s. And I'll tell you a story. we were unsure if he was I said this on the podcast we were unsure like if he was active at all and anyway I looked on it I looked him up he had a website emailed him and within hours he was like please come to my house and this is a he's an incredible guy very humble like he's a professor at Cornell University and I would have only known Cornell just kind of through the office yeah Andy. Andy is a graduate of Cornell.

Ever heard of it? Did you mention that to Robert? I asked him if Andy was in his class. And he probably gave you a blank stare. He was very humble, and he's from Appalachian. He's from North Carolina. But it was such a great honor to sit with Mr. Morgan. What a great guy.

And then, I mean, it was awesome to talk with Steve about Boone. I mean, Steve is, he's engaging to talk with. And he knows so much about Boone. And more than he knows. the facts about Boone. Like, Steve was able to put Boone in context so well, you know. And so Morgan, you know, kind of had the details and could just walk through his life without any, you know, he wrote this years ago.

And anyway, neat guy. Seth, what did you think? Well, first of all, I don't know as much about Daniel Boone as you or probably anybody here. So it was fascinating to me when you wanted to talk to me about archetypes because I thought, oh boy, I'm not going to have anything to add about Daniel Boone. But I tell you what was fascinating to me about the podcast and the discussion of archetypes was how you used archetypes to tell, to make connections, to tell stories about who Boone was. And so it helped me understand the myth.

And I think I'd actually texted you about this a little bit. When you, you know, use the example of Jesus going to the temple and his parents going and looking for him. Yeah. And when you talked about it. And that was an excerpt from Morgan's book. Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then who was it that, was it Morgan that talked about Moses's vision? Yeah. All that, all that was in Morgan's book. It's unbelievable. So you look at Boone and you say, oh, this is why he's so identifiable because he sort of matches up with all these stories. We know all these stories that seem to recur through. I'm going to go real highbrow here.

and I am going to quote some science fiction. Because I know that there's a lot of crossover, I'm sure, with your audience in science fiction folks. Maybe. Maybe there's a lot. Are Black Panthers considered science fiction? Sure. There's a ton of crossover.

That's right. But there's this old, there's this old sci-fi television show I love called Battlestar Galactica came out in 2000. And they say over and over again, everything that has happened will happen again. And what they're saying in the storytelling way is all these stories that we see, they recur over and over and over again, the story of creation, fall, you know, rebellion and rebirth. And they happen over and over again. And I think that's what was so powerful to me about thinking of Daniel Boone through an archetypal lens was that, oh, yeah, like, that makes sense because I know that story or I know that story or I know that story. I can place him, you know, as a character because I understand all these other stories,

all these other characters that have existed before. Dan, tell us about the cat. The cat. What cat? The cat story. Save the Cat. Oh, yeah, yeah. So there's this, and I can't remember the...

You brought up cats on the last one. Guys, I'm somewhat of a cat fanatic. Cat cucumber. No, go ahead. No, it ties into Seth's archetypes. So there's a wonderful book out there. It's called Save the Cat. And I think the subtitles like for novels or something.

Save the Cat writes a novel. And it's basically the author. I can't remember her name. But what she does, she goes through all several different genres of very popular novels. And they've a lot of been made into movies. And so the story arcs, she would say there's some similar to 12 archetypes.

12 archetypes, nine stories. There's a certain number of kind of typical story arcs. And in those arcs, they're particular, she calls them beats. And so each story has these, the stories that really compel us and grab us and like gladiator, you know, things like that have these particular beats. Yeah. And once you are aware of these beats, you really do see them in lots of movies and lots of things. So one of the beats is where the main hero, the protagonist, at the very beginning at the outset of the story,

he or she will quote unquote save the cat whereas this kind of innocuous, fairly unrelated supposedly to the broader picture, the hero does something really nice. Okay, so he doesn't necessarily have to save a cat. I can't remember the actual movie, but there are movies where he actually saved the cat. The reason why she calls it Save the Cat

is because in whatever movie it is... That's a good example of the hero does something really kind. Which is really similar. You know, and what Seth is talking, about and what in Robert Morgan in that book is like this appeal of the individual goes off by themselves.

You know, where Daniel Boone was out and he was gone too long, his mom didn't know where he was, and turns out he was fine all by himself. He killed this bear and was sitting by fire and look, boys, here's some meat for you. And it's just like, we look at Jesus in Luke chapter 2 and it's like,

wait, where did you go? Oh, he was fine, you know? Yeah. But the interesting thing, culturally, is like a Hebrew reader and hear of that story in Luke would not look at it and say, oh, wow, he went off by himself. And that really kind of, that really kind of resonates with me and appeals to me. A Hebrew reader here of that story in the Gospels would say, wow, he claimed to be from a different group when he said I was, when Jesus said I was in my father's house. So it's a totally, is that what Boone did?

When? When he was off by himself. I mean, is that what Boone was doing when he said, guys, I'm cool, I'm here. I thought I was on the same track as you. No, no, I'm not sure what Boone would have done. But culture really determines what we see. And we don't even know. That's interesting.

It's kind of a tacit lens that sits there and we look through it. And we look at Daniel Boone's life and it's like, oh, we really like these aspects of them. And we tend to kind of minimize these other ones. And I think what's key about what you just said too is like when you, as we as Westerners, as Americans, we interpret that as the explorer. I mean, there's an archetype, the explorer archetype. And what does the explorer want to do? They want to go out. They want to find freedom. They want to fight for their freedom. They want to, you know, enjoy their freedom. I mean, when you look at the way the Morgan excerpt reads, it was, you know, this Christ figure coming from heaven, coming to this new

unexplored territory and saying, I'm going to go where I know I can connect, you know? And it's Moses, when he walks out saying, I'm going to bring the people to the place. through the desert, I'm going to go explore and bring the people to the place where I know they can connect with God, even though I don't get to go there. And then with Boone, it's, I'm going to go to the place where I know it's unknown, I'm going to fight for my freedom, but I know I can go out there and connect. And I mean, again, he's using, Morgan is using those, those just cultural hooks to help us understand, like, oh, yeah, this is who he, this is who he was, because this is the way that we interpret story. Yeah. Colby, what did you think, man? Before I do that,

there's an elephant in the room. Uh-oh. Here's the thing. He talked about the office. He's talking about Battlestar Galactica. Dan is over here talking about Beats. And we talked about Bears. Bears' beats.

Wow. Wow. Wow. If there was a bullet in this magnum, I'd shoot it through the roof. Boom. That's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. That was Kevin Bear Bacon. It's like, it's killing me over here.

I'm just like. I think you're a genius. I've been listening to it's like, there's a resolution. You don't even have to talk anymore. You just nailed it. Can we call you Dwight for the rest of the episode? Sure. All right.

All right. Yeah. Oh, man. No, Colby, what did you think of it, man? What stood out to you? I really liked it. You know, I think there's a lot of things that stood out. But I think that there's two things.

One thing is the aspect of where he was weighing out different cultural things between the Indians and, you know, white men, where he was looking at just what wealth is, you know, contrasting those. So just looking at the cultural norms inside of my life of what I perceive as value, you know, so it's like whenever I listen to something, I listen from the lens of, is there something that I can get out of it that overlays my life that could, you know, maybe like pull off some hegemon that I just believe, right? Yeah. So that's one. The other one would be let me comment on that yeah so that section that was an excerpt that I read from morgan's book yeah about um the the contrast between the European and native American worldview and it talked

about how the Native Americans thought Europeans were crazy thought they were insane for trying to trying to pursue wealth like I mean I think maybe we all got it in that moment but if you actually think about that, it's like very rational. Very, like if you lived off the land, like Native Americans did, and people came here and were in search of precious metals, which were of like zero. I mean, like, if we had a bar of gold out here in the mountains sitting by our campfire when we were deer hunting trying to live off deer meat, it'd be like, bro, don't put that on the mule.

We live in that here. Yeah. I mean, like, like, so when you. to us that sounds wild but it actually is much more of a kind of primitive you know ideology and but it's so wild because our lives as Westerners it really is it's sad it revolves around accumulation of wealth and those that section of the book that was one of the sections 10 years ago that I remembered boone's illegitimate daughter and then the Native American worldview was one of many. Yeah, it makes you evaluate. It's like, what are we doing here? What are we doing here,

guys? I think that what that jogged in my memory was, I remember when I was doing my research, my PhD research. There's a study out there. Oh, we're bringing that up again. Because all guys, call me doctor. There's a study out there called culture and research, resource conflict. I can't remember who wrote it. But there's the, they looked at minimony Indians in Wisconsin and white, you know, American sportsmen and how they viewed nature different. And so the, boil the whole book down in a nutshell is like the white hunters wanted to, quote, unquote, conquer nature. Whereas the native peoples, the minimony Indians in this area, really saw themselves as a part of it. Yeah.

And that was the source of them looking at each other and thinking, you're crazy, along with, of course, a history of, discrimination and genocide and all kinds of other things but fundamentally they viewed reality different you couldn't have had two groups of people meet in the woods that would have had different ways of thinking oh yeah for real i mean wild yeah and they're doing this they're engaged in the same activities that's right they're hunting they're you know in the case of daniel boone he's engaging in their activities. But that's why Boone is Boone. And what Morgan, and you know, I talked with Mr. Morgan for three hours and you guys are going to hear maybe 45 minutes of that conversation. He talked about how the Native Americans had way bigger impact on modern American culture

than we give them credit for. Because he said like, for instance, and we said this, It's like these Europeans came over here. They didn't know a lick about hunting because they weren't able to hunt in Europe because of the systems. You know, just the hierarchy of the nobility hunting. So these commoners coming over here. It would be like, I mean, imagine being a new adult onset hunter,

35 years old, showing up and having to make a living off hunting. You wouldn't know much. Native Americans taught these men how to hunt. They watched. But Boone, he. He was drawn to the Native Americans from the beginning. Did you just use the phrase adult onset hunter? It's a medical conditions terminal.

If you're not successful, it's terminal. So they had a big, big influence. And that's what made Boone who he was. Like, really did. Like, he, and you'll see in these next couple of episodes how the Native American worldview so influenced him. And Boone did a whole bunch of stuff that really he probably shouldn't get credit for. And it's not because he didn't do it, but it's because it wasn't necessarily his intent.

Like when Boone went through the Cumberland Gap and started settling in Kentucky, he wasn't thinking of an American empire that he was the spear point of. The dude wanted some good deer hunting. He wasn't looking to expand anything except his hunting ground. I mean, that is a – he wanted a place for his family to live. that he could get away from, you know, some of the pressures back home. But, like, he was not like, man, I am a patriot. Actually, we'll learn that he really wasn't that much of a patriot.

He went back and forth. He was tried by the Americans for treason because they thought he was a Tory. And they thought he was in coutes with the Native Americans, which the French and the Native Americans were working together to keep the Americans out of the West. Man, so the real life Daniel Boone really didn't fit the narrative of... Yeah, I mean, like, he fought for America to make all Americans free. No, sir.

He was a teamster in the French and Indian War to make a living. He was a truck driver. Being a teamster essentially is being a truck driver. That clicked because my grandfather was a teamster, and I always wondered, where did that name come from? Like, why do they call them teamsters? I put two and two together when I heard that. He had horses and mules and wagon? He was a truck driver.

Oh, and he called himself a teamsters. Well, that's what they do. They're called that. The union of truck drivers are called the Teamsters. Okay. And I was wondered why they were called Teamsters. Just his motivations were not as pure as what the archetype would suggest, you know. Yeah, or the myth.

I mean, I was looking at these lyrics too right when you started singing, right? The who he actually was didn't match with the myth that we've made him out to be. And I mean, I think that goes back to what we were talking about in our conversation about. you know, humans are terribly complex. It's, you know, we're not just archetypes. It's easy to boil everyone down in this room to a certain archetypal, you know, type or character. But we're all complex. We're all, you know, in some circles you may be, you know, a complete,

the scene is a complete rebel, and another's a complete lover, and another's a fierce explorer. And that's what I think made the first episode to me so impactful was because you start to see these layers. And I can't wait for the second episode. to see those layers because I think it does help to deconstruct some of the mythology that frankly he helps make him more of a man, more of a human, more of a person, less of a myth, tall tail.

You're easier to identify with you. Yeah, yeah. I really, when Seth said that, it made me think about the layers of who he was, the impacting story to me in that just, you know, my family is something that I've put a lot of emphasis on doing, you know, building my marriage and building my family with my children. The story that really impacted me was the one with his son. Oh, yeah. Where they were on the riverbank camping.

Even like the son shooting the deer and it was a bear, shooting the bear. He shot a buck. He shot. He killed a bear. Yeah, that's right. His son killed the buck and, you know, Daniel heard the shot, came back and was like, let's find this. You know, there was this sense of camaraderie over this.

thing that Daniel would have loved so much to experience that with the son. And then the position of being a father and a protector, being aware and alert to hear the chops of the Native American hatchets across the river and saying, okay, here's the game plan. Here's what we're going to do. I love seeing that aspect of who Daniel Boone was. Imagine if one of us had that story. We're literally life and death. Like none of us, we just live in such a different world.

But like, imagine if Dan had a story going out with his dad and people that would have killed him or kidnapped him for life or at minimum stolen a bunch of his stuff. I mean, that was pretty common. And I can't cast judgment on their intentions, but usually it wasn't good intentions. Yeah, during that story, I think one of the things that kind of gave me chills was whenever they were in the canoe

and he just pushed off and he put his head to where he could see under the fog. Yeah. And that statement's like, I see what people think about him or like how they view him that particular way. Like it was like some scales coming off of his son's eyes of like,

I see you a little differently right now, you know, and just even thinking about times inside of my life of like how I viewed my dad at different times of stages of life. Think about how masterful that move was though, of Boone. I mean, how he did that. Like it was super calculated. It was very calculated because I,

I thought, man, you're hearing those chops. Let's go. You know? Why wouldn't he have gone? I thought about that. Why didn't they just leave? It was dark. It was dark.

You can't see anything. I think you've got to move slower. You're going to make a ton of noise. You know, I would have just panicked and ran. But one thing that is, okay, that's right. It was dark and they would have wrecked the canoe. Headlamps were probably out of batteries. So one of the things that touched me about it, though, was when the son said that was, you know,

he shot that buck and Daniel came back and he said that was the last time that my dad didn't take me with him. Yep. Yeah. When he went out from the fire. Yeah. It's almost like a ride of passage. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was significant to the son. Yes. Well, I mean, talk about a moment in time that's fascinating, especially if you're a hunter, is Daniel Boone teaching his youngest and last son, Nathan Boone, how to deer hunt. I mean, he did. Like Nathan told us that story. Dad told me that you don't sneak up on the deer when they have their head up,

but you slip in on them. And on that one hunt, they killed 15 deer and two or three bears. I mean, like, that's pretty wild. Like, that was just, like, common. I mean, you know, heck, we go on a deer hunt and kill a deer or a bear in a year. We're like, wow, what a year. I mean, they were wearing them out, man. That's what I liked about that whole thing was the relationship because that made Daniel Boone or Dan as like Clay calls.

It makes intimately as Clayton. I'm pretty much like this with Dan. It makes Dan more relatable like what Seth was talking about because I can remember the coming of age moment with my dad hunting. I can remember not so long ago the coming of age of my son hunting with me when all that came about. out. And I can relate that back to Daniel Boone and his son. How crazy is that? You know, that, that was what spoke to me out of this first part.

Man, so there's something unique and exciting and fun. And Seth would understand this, having written a lot, is that when you really, well, many of us in the room would. I'm looking at Dr. Dan. I need respect. when you dive into something so deep, especially if you're researching a person, like I felt like I knew,

I feel like I know Daniel Boone. I really do. Like I feel like if he walked in the door and sat down, I would know how to engage with him. It wouldn't be, like I feel like that. Now whether if that's true or not, I don't know. But, but, so when I read, the sequence of my study of Boone was first this Boone book and then two other Boone biographies,

parts of them. And then the last book I got was Nathan, it was Lyman Draper. Okay, Alex, I said Nathan Draper on the podcast is actually Lyman Draper. Thanks, Alex. I love that guy. I really do. Lime and Draper, I found out about that book. Here it is right here, my father, Daniel Boone. And it was like I had discovered I'd heard them talk about it, but I really didn't know it was so accessible to get. Like, I didn't know I could get on Amazon and show up in my house in two days. And so I was like, Dadgum, you can just order that book. And I ordered this book, and I started to read it. This segment of the podcast brought to you by Amazon.

Yeah. Two-day prime shipping. I mean, like, was deeply moved by hearing Nathan's account of his father. Because I included, the challenge in telling a story like this is what do you include? There's just so much. And one thing that I did choose to include was that two different people

sat down with Boone when he was an old man to interview him about his life. And one of them was his grandson-in-law, who when Boone was an old man, imagine a granddaughter going to her new husband. Man, grandpa's a pretty cool dude. I wish somebody would write his story.

just like get him to tell stories. Can you write? And the grandson was a doctor, as I remember. Like Dan. And, yep. And the grandson goes and spends a notable chunk of time. I can't remember interviewing Daniel's whole life. So, I mean, this is like quill and ink.

I suppose in the teens of the 1800s, it would have been quill and ink. I don't know. He records the entire life story of, Daniel Boone in Dan's words. And this too, and we'll get to this in the later episodes, but Boone died a common man. And this to me shows it as much as anything is they had this manuscript of Boone's life in his own words.

And it just got lost. I mean, just got lost. I mean, if you had sat down and interviewed, I mean, I don't want to name a political figure because Dwight Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower. If you sat down and interviewed

Dwight Eisenhower and that was the only part of history, I mean, like you would probably take care of that manuscript. The manuscript was lost. And then it happened again. Another young family member said, man, we ought to do that

again because old Jimmy lost it. And so they sat down and started it, didn't complete it, but still had a big chunk of it and lost it. So someone needs to write a book called. When Nathan Boone was in his 70s, he said, the family told me they were going to give me the unfinished draft, but they never did. And so that's part of the reason, though, Seth Haines, why Boone is so mythologized.

Yeah. It's because we never heard from him in his own voice. We never heard from his own voice. The only place we hear of him in his own voice is John Philson, who, wrote the very first part of when Dan was 50 years old. You remember what made him famous, what catalyzed him, the single chapter in the book. But that's not in Dan's voice. You see what I'm saying?

That guy took it way out of his voice. And so anyway, it's just, it's a wild story. And it's, what I hope people see inside of this whole thing when we're done with it is, Boone had the reason, I've said this before on Bear Grie's podcast. I'm not interested in, and not that you can like critique someone's character fully. I mean, like anybody you talk to, us in this room have flaws in our character. Brent. I was looking at you.

I was thinking Daniel. But I don't want to like, you know, highlight or celebrate someone that just had like, Like, it was not a good person. You know, Daniel Boone had a pretty incredible character. Robert Morgan did a great job in this book. And I actually talked to Morgan about it. It probably won't make the podcast because it just wasn't that flashy of a section. But I said, it seems to me like you, like, you're interested in, like,

defending Boone's character. And he was like, yeah. I mean, that's what I remember him saying. Just because, Boone, because we'll get into more. Boone had a lot of potential for having bad character. He was in debt to a lot of people, spent a lot of time in court over debt, tried of treason. A lot of people, I mean, anybody that's that famous, there's going to be a lot of people that were jealous of him, didn't like him. And he made mistakes just like anybody would have.

So anyway, but Daniel Boone, Dan Boone. Oh, Dan. It seems a little bit like, are you talking about him? He just keep thinking about what Seth's talking about with archetypes. almost as if we talk about the founding fathers. And as a nation, we needed fathering. And he certainly lived at a time. And then in the subsequent years, you know,

we're still decades and 100 years later, our nation is still kind of forming. And we made this myth of a father who would do what Daniel did with his son and that canoe, which was, let me wrap you up, put you in a blanket, and you laid down, and I'll paddle us through this kind of uncharted territory with some folks are chasing us. Yeah.

You know, we kind of made this myth. And even the lyrics of that song, you know, he fought to make America free. It's kind of like deep down, just like us, we remember these, like Brent's talking about, this moment with your father and your son, we need to be fathered. And as a nation and as a culture, we need fathers. And so some of it's true, some of it's a myth. but we construct this father figure in Daniel Boone so we can feel safe, you know, so we can feel, and so we have a place to head.

You want to be like your dad. Yeah, yeah. Man, and Boone came at such a great time to be an American hero. I mean, his prime time was between 1770 and 1780, like we said, in that quote about his 30s. I've had more people ask me for that quote. You remember the quote about the man in his 30s? You know, lots of people. That quote impacted Misty and I, such that we put it in our, in our...

I'm already in my 40s. It was actually in Misty's office. I would like to correct myself. I said in the presence of Mr. Morgan that was in our house, it was in our office. So, anyway, we've had the quote, but incredible quote. Yeah, that quote was impactful for sure. So 1780 to 1770 to 1780, I mean, the American Revolution was 1717. 76. I mean, that was when we, so it's like, that's a good time to, if you're looking for a hero status to be around.

But, I mean, to Dan's point and to what I said earlier, everything that's happened before all happen again. I mean, and maybe there's some anthropological, you know, the truth here too, but like, I think that's where we are right now. I think the reason why people are sitting in this room discussing Daniel Boone all these years later is because, I mean, we're at a point, I feel like we're at a point in our history, regardless of where you're on the political spectrum where we need some strong character-driven individuals, men or women, but to step up and to say, like, we need to make something better of this country. And that's why these stories keep resonating because we kind of come back to these moments of history where it's like, man,

things feel shaky, things feel like they're going to fall apart a little bit. And we kind of, we want those heroes. We need them. Yeah. Incredible. Man, this has been a great conversation. I I can't thank you guys enough. Really, thank you all. I love every one of you. Thanks for coming. Good, good combo. And I wanted to show you one thing before we quit here.

Y'all see this? Brent described this. This hat, I'm going to put it on. On a scale of one to ten, I would give that about ten and a half. This is my new hat, boys. This is a 100% Beaverfelt Sing custom-made hat. Beautiful. And it says

handmade for Clay Newcomb, and it has bear grease right there. Oh, cool. Yeah. So they're out of,

they're out of Jackson Hole, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. Sing Hat Company. They're friends of ours, and I just got this in the mail today. I follow those on Instagram,

and they have some amazing names. Very nice. 100% Beaverfelt hats. And the reason that I have this on is because Danil Boone, did not wear a Coonskin hat cap. He wore a beaver felt hat. Really?

Yeah. With a Coonskin on top. With a Coon skin on top. Does everybody with a podcast get one of those hats? I wish, man. I take one. I got one. There's not enough beavers.

It's about Coons. There's not enough beavers. Your head's so big, rat reads. Let me tell you something. This hat was designed to look like James Lawrence's hat. That I put on my Instagram. I sent her the picture. I sent her the picture of James Lawrence.

And so anyway, this is my new hat. That's a cool hat. Yeah, I like it. I'm going to kind of break it in a little bit. I like it. Nope. Looking forward to episode two. Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.

And that's where Daniel Boone wanted to go, where the bears were. And it wasn't big. 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, 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. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.