Bear Grease - Ep. 177: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Making Do With What You Have

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

From homemade toys to hunting lights, Brent's offering up some examples of using what you can afford and have on hand. He also tells a story about one fellow's investigation into America's 51st state and it's not named Confusion. "Making Do With What You Have" is this week's episode of Meateater's This Country Life podcast.  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.

Make and do with what you have. In the grand scheme of things, grand things are grand. Newer, bigger, better, and more. Who has the most things wins, right? Or do they? That's my best dude from Dateline imitation. But my question is this. Is newer, bigger, and better always the best?

Well, it depends on the situation. I'm going to talk about it this week. But first, I'm going to talk about it this week. to tell you a story. This story was told to be by my dad, Buddy Reeves, and I've heard him tell it several times, and it made me laugh every time he did. He would have been in elementary school at the time, and I assume anywhere from six to ten years old, and he never was real clear about it, but he and a group of neighboring kids were playing cops and robbers. And when I say neighboring kids, I don't mean neighborhood kids. They would have been neighbor in farms. It was in the summertime

and they were all running around barefooted, shirtless, and wearing their overalls. Now, my father grew up on the same 40 acres he was living on when he died, except for being stationed at what used to be called Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Georgia for two years, and taking a job at one of the car plants in Michigan after he mustered out of the service, he would live there. He would live there, on that land all his life. Interesting side note on how they all moved back to Arkansas, my brother Tim, who is eight years older than me, went to the first grade in Ipsilani, Michigan.

He went to the second grade in Warren, Arkansas, the same school he, our middle brother Chuck, and I all graduated from. Dad said Tim came home from school one day while they were still living in Michigan, and while talking to him, Tim said dog instead of dog. I'm not sure they even had supper before he packed them all up and came home.

And it was a good thing because I would be born in the spring of his second grade year. And I can't imagine saying good dog when wailing trees are raccoon. Brett, what? Keep your hands on the wheel up there. You're telling the story. Oh, yeah, cops and robbers. Anyway, there was one fellow in particular that my dad absolutely. He said he was mean to him, and there was nothing that could make him like that boy.

He was unbeaten and cops and robbers, regardless of which side he played on. He was bigger, and he was stronger than everyone else, and he bullied folks to get his way. He said they'd all whittled themselves a pistol out of wood and had spent some considerable time doing it and making them look just as real as they could. He said that while they weren't works of art, there was no mistaken what they were, and they took their playing seriously and their props even more so. Dad said he was playing the cop and had caught and jailed every one except the main one he was after, a boy that he hated. He said he would catch a glimpse of him occasionally, but he was never in the open long enough

for him to get a clear shot at him. And all of them played by the honor system, and then you knew if you'd know if you'd gotten away or you hadn't. It was important to do so because the next time it might be you whose life and liberty might be at stake. He said it was just about the only rule that that boy followed. Now, through the woods, behind the barn, in the smokehouse, in the hayloff, he chased and tracked his suspect.

He said it went on for hours and finally, finally, he caught a glimpse of him down by the creek near the swimming hole they'd cleaned out. Interestingly enough, this was the same swimming hole that my dad said this boy nearly drowned in once. Apparently he couldn't swim, and after jumping in the creek on a dare during the spring overflow, he was swept away and was called out for my dad to help him. I asked my dad if he jumped in to save him, he said, no. I watched him disappear down the creek, thinking to myself, if you can't swim, you're not going swimming. Now, he never told that story that he didn't say how grateful he was that that boy didn't drown. But I also never heard him say there was anyone else with him when it happened,

which makes me wonder who dared him to jump in in the first place. Back to the story. Dad said he'd tracked him down to the swimming hole, and he had slipped up behind him without him knowing, and he hopped off the bank collar and stick him up as his back. Fire feet settled into the sandbar where his suspect had been a looting capture. He got the drop on him. He was caught.

Dad said his pistol sticking out of his rear pocket, and he reached over and snatched it out of its holster. Now he had him at double gunpoint. He hollered for the other boys to come witness how he'd captured him after all this time. The unbeatable had been beaten. The uncatchable had been caught. He said they were knocking leaves. off the trees, running to the swimming hole to watch the proceedings. That said there was a log that lay on the ground that ran out into the creek,

and he told his prisoner to have a seat on it while they waited on everyone to get there. And after they did, Dad said, I told him that for all his crimes that they weren't even going to bother with a hanging that he was just going to shoot him and get it over with it. That's my dad, the tight watch, saving money by taking out the middleman. Anyway, he said, I asked that joker if he had anything to say before I shot him. The boy looked up at him and said, do you mind if I smoke? Now, the first time he told me this story, I said, smoke. He said, my dad said, yeah, smoke.

Most all of us chewed or tobacco or dip snuff or smoked. And I told him, yeah, you can smoke. And I'll have one too. So, being the southern gentleman and honoring the last. request of the doom along with wanting a cigarette himself. My dad allowed his captive to reach inside the bib of his overalls and take out his tobacco sack and papers. He rolled them each a cigarette. Stuck one in my dad's mouth and reached back in the bill of his overalls and whipped out a little gun he'd whittled that my dad didn't know about it. He pointed at my dad and said,

pow, got away again. And that's just how that happened. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors.

Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there. And but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together.

He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make and do with what you have. My dad and all his pals, including the non-swimming, undisputed cops and robbers champion that he hated were making do with what they had. They didn't have toy guns, so they made themselves some. He told me that he would run around pushing a metal ring with a Prince Albertan nailed to a stick.

And I couldn't figure out what in the world he was talking about, so... When I was a kid, he made me one. He took a one inch by one inch to make a stick, and then he centered and nailed a flattened tin Prince Albert can to one end of the stick. He then bent each side up that hung over the edge upward so that when you roll that metal ring, the wings, for lack of a better word, on that Prince Albert can, would steer the ring in any direction you wanted.

All you had to do was run along behind it, guiding it around, in the dirt, and he was right. It was fun. And I made a bunch of those things after he made me the first one when I was little. A young man can put a lot of miles behind one of those things and burn up lots of energy. They grew up making do with what they could find, and they passed that lesson on to us. My uncle Jimeret, dad's little brother, told me about one of the boys that he played with that made what they called a tractor. And they made it out of sticks, a washer, an empty wooden spool, and a rubber band. Now, I'd never heard of such, so after he had told me about it, I did one internet search,

and there it was. DIY wooden spool race car. If you search that up, what I just said, you'll see the video I saw in how to make one. In the video, they used tape and plastic spools and a paper clip, but the end result was the same. My uncle Jim Ray said they cut little notches in the edge of the spools so theirs could get some traction to move around in the dirt that they were playing in. That's making do with what you have and really making something fun. I watched that video and I thought, I got to make one.

That's about as country as it gets, but you and I both know that that stuff's not limited to country living. People everywhere do the same thing. It's just the The examples that I have to relate to you all come from country living. It's the only place I've ever lived. Now, y'all may have been doing the same thing in the middle of Chicago, which I must admit was a faraway land compared to South Arkansas. And a lot of folks down here thought that apparently, which reminds me of another story that I was told by an old-time policeman during the early years of my career.

He was showing me the ropes and telling me old war stories about his life on the job and when he was a rookie back in the late 60s. He'd been assigned to work with an old veteran police officer who was near in retirement. While on patrol, they stopped an out-of-state vehicle for speeding. The old veteran said, stay here, Jr., and let me show you how we do this. He told me he stood at the right front fender of the patrol car and watched his old veteran walked up to the window,

spoke with the driver, obtained his driver's license, and upon returning, he motioned for him to get back in the patrol car as he walked back to get his ticket book. He said the old policeman told him, now you keep a good eye on this man. He's up to something.

I was going to give him a warning for the speeding, but after he lied to me, I decided not to. My friend asked him what he lied about, and the old man told him, well, I asked him where he was coming from and he told me Chicago. My friend asked you, well, how do you know he's lying about that?

The old veteran slowly turned over and looked at him, he said, you got to be paying attention, junior. You got to look for clues and observe so you have some idea of what you're dealing with. If he's telling me he's from Chicago, why does the license plate on his car say Illinois? Anyway, while on the subject of places, up north like the state of Chicago.

I think about wintertime scenes from stories and television with kids riding sleds down hills. And we didn't frequently have snow when I was growing up. And if we did, it wasn't a lot and it didn't last long, but we sure didn't have any sleds around. But I remember one winter when a big ice and snowstorm came and it knocked out all the power. Now, we didn't have electricity for over two weeks. and there was no roads open and no place to go, but we couldn't leave anyway because someone had to look after all the livestock. Now, we had a big buck stove insert in the fireplace that my mama cooked on,

and we all slept in the living room that adjoined the kitchen, and I don't ever remember being cold. During the day, we'd play outside after the chores were done, and my brother Tim said we were all going sledding down Goat House Hill. That hill was located across the county road from our house, and it was more of a bluff bottom than a hill. The land just dropped off into a creek bottom there, and there was a tractor trail that went right down to the steep grade that was covered in ice and snow about eight inches thick. Now, we had the location in the right conditions, but like I said, we didn't have any sleds. You couldn't have found a sled in Bradley or Cleveland County that was designed for snow.

But what we did have was tomato boxes. Stacks of waxed cardboard tomato boxes that were bundled and stacked flat in the barn, waiting to be folded into the shape of a box of tomatoes next summer when we packed them full and took them to market. Tim was the first to try it. He sat down on the cardboard on top of that hill, pushed off, and vanished from sight. It was like he'd been shot out of a cannon down that hill. It was about a 40-yard ride counting the coasting at the bottom and the terrace road that shot you into space

if you were lucky enough to maintain enough speed to make it there. Now, we spent a couple days there up and down over and over until we beat all the snow and the ice away. But we were making doot, and it was fun. The other night, I was feeling a bit nostalgic and decided to go coon hunting, using an old carbide light I'd bought off eBay. that was just like my first hunting light,

and what I paid for this one, I could have outfitted a squad of coon hunters back in the day. But they sold him at Johnson's hardware and worn in for about $20, Coach Bobby Johnson could have you seeing in the dark with a light and a can of carbide. I found a source for some carbide, and about a week of waiting on the mailman, I was in business. It was a couple nights before Christmas when the girls were all taken care of, of and no pending Santa Elt's chores to knock off the list, and me and old Whalen, we hit the

woods. I fastened my light to a cap, and off we went like a herd of turtles to some public hunting ground not far from my home. I posted the video of my carbide light hunt over on my Instagram page, and I got a message from a guy saying, you ain't that old. There were all kinds of battery operated lights when you were a kid, and he was right. There were a lot. They also made Cadillacs then, too, and I couldn't afford one of them either.

I was making do with what I could afford. Anyway, the plan was to cut Whaling loose, wait for him to tree, walk to him, and find that coon using nothing other than my carbide light, just like I used when I was a kid. And guess what? That's just what happened. Whelan struck a track, towed it at a piece, and then he treed. Within 15 minutes at getting that hound out of the box, I was looking at the glowing eyes of a mass bandito and listening to Whalen Tell the World.

At least anyone who was listening where that coon was. In less than 45 minutes, we were back at the truck having accomplished what I'd set out to do. And I do have a confession to make that I didn't talk about in the Instagram video. I had one of Michael Roseman's Ben Oak Headland. in my vest pocket as a safety valve. But, just like the video showed, I never used it. It was a coon hunt from my youth from start to finish. And I'm going to coon hunt tonight.

But I'm not going to use that old carbide light. I'll be sporting a new sunspot of copperhead. I don't have to make do anymore, at least not for coon hunting lights. But making do is good for you. It teaches your resilience. It gives you the drive to Work harder for the things you want or need to make your life easier or better. Like the question I asked at the beginning of this whole episode,

is newer, bigger, and better, always best? Well, of course it ain't. A 10-year-old truck will get me to where I want to go as good as a new one, and that old carbide light I used the other night let me see a coon in the tree. I just think being nostalgic and going back and doing the things you did back when you were, making do with what you had certainly make you appreciate where you are even more.

I know it has for me. That's what I want you to think about this week. Think about what you had to make do with and if possible, put yourself in that spot again like I did with an old light. See what you think. I bet it'll be good for you

and it'll surely be a good teaching point for the little folks. I thank y'all for listening and I hope you'll share this with other folks you think that might like it. iTunes reviews really help get our show out to others as well if you have time to do one. Don't ask me how it works, but all the computer nerds tell me it does. Anyway, until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off.

Y'all be killed. 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. 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 goblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record.

If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great Cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps gamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.