Bear Grease - Ep. 19: Bear Grease [Render] - High Speed Chases, Kindergarten Ricky, and Boone's Death

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

On this Render episode, Clay and the crew discuss the nuanced social signals in riding mules, horses and wearing sweat pants in Macy's. Clay discloses his overreaction to the scandal after listening t...o the MeatEater Campfire Stories tale about the game warden, and equates it to an experience in kindergarten. However, the discussion gets deep as they talk about Daniel Boone's later years, his impact on American culture, and why the woodsmen of North American have earned a seat at the table of American identity. 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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 in 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.
Starting point is 00:00:26 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. Guys, we've got an exclusive bear grease discount code for FHF gear.
Starting point is 00:01:22 That's fish hunt fight gear. I've been using their products for the last year, and I love carrying my gear in a chest rig or my binos in their bino harness. It's easier and more accessible than a backpack, and it doesn't get in the way when I'm riding my mule. For a limited time, you can head over to phfgear.com forward slash bear grease, and listeners to this here podcast, get a discount on purchases for your FHF Gear system, and you can see how I build my gear system. So go to FHFgear.com forward slash bear grease for a special code if you're buying stuff from FHF Gear.
Starting point is 00:02:03 Check it out. Fish Hunt Fight, FHF Gear. It's kind of a tense moment today with Mr. Newho. Well, can we bothering you or anything? Huh? We order some more socks. I'll just catch you Malachi is playing
Starting point is 00:02:25 Candy Crush sock over there He's on the He's on the Bear Grease podcast thread Which is a little bit overwhelming Like for those of us
Starting point is 00:02:34 who have alternate jobs In the day It can kind of dominate your life a little bit Love it Love it As the outsider coming in The Bear Grease isn't a
Starting point is 00:02:42 Full-time position You guys don't do this full-time We do it poorly So you gotta have your side hustle I got it Welcome to the Bear Grease Render Man, I'm very excited about today.
Starting point is 00:02:56 I've got a lot to say. Oh, boy. Man, I've got a lot to say about this podcast. You belong to dozer. Wow. Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, no.
Starting point is 00:03:06 Yeah, the dozer. Hey, we've got one person that is back from wherever they came from. We've got one new person on the bear grease render. We've got three old hats. You'll stand by. Easy. We got three. Easy fellow.
Starting point is 00:03:26 Three good ones. To our left. To my left. Misty Newcomb. Welcome back, Misty. It's Misty Newcomb's birthday today, guys. Happy birthday. Special episode.
Starting point is 00:03:37 I love birthdays. Really? If you stop having them, there's an issue. True. So happy birthday. Thank you. To Misty's left. Malachi Nichols.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Back. Hey, did you hear you got a shout out on the last render? I didn't. Oh, you didn't listen. Okay. Oh, snap. That was a test. That means you didn't.
Starting point is 00:04:01 That was a test. No, we said someone was dressed like Malachi Nichols. I can't remember who it was. You set the standard. They were well dressed, though. They were well dressed. Good. And they, yeah, they look like Malachi Nichols.
Starting point is 00:04:17 Where you been, man? Man, I've been grinding. Just doing what you have to do. Yeah. Do you want to tell people what you do for a living? Sure. Sure. Like I work for education nonprofit.
Starting point is 00:04:28 And so I manage and develop programs for school districts and state leaders. So I'm traveling around the state and working hard. And you're an Arkansas hunting license holder. I am. Two years in a row. Two years in a row. It's real serious. Supporting conservation.
Starting point is 00:04:45 Conservation warrior. That's a trend. Yeah, real serious. To your left, the new man in the render, in the circle, in the arena. Jonathan Webster. Hello. Jay Webb.
Starting point is 00:04:55 I'm glad to be here. Listen. It's like winning the contest. You just listen to enough episodes and it's like you submit your application. Tell us what it felt like when you got the invite. Listen. It was a out-of-body experience. I looked at my wife and said, it's happening.
Starting point is 00:05:12 It's happening. Jonathan is a longtime friend of ours. He and his wife or longtime friends of Misty and us. And Jonathan has been on the bear hunting map. magazine podcast. True. Yeah, man. We went Coon Honey, and we did a couple.
Starting point is 00:05:27 We also had a different, we had been on a couple episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I help give Jonathan an introduction? Yeah, sure. I think Jonathan is one of the most intellectually curious people that Clay and I know. Oh, my gosh.
Starting point is 00:05:38 Wow. Yeah. What is that? What are you trying to say about the rest of us? This is. Sorry about that. Don't be curious about that. Hey, y'all just saw something that happened that.
Starting point is 00:05:51 that defines my life. Like, I know why Jonathan is here. It's like, I'm like, Jonathan needs to be here. I have no idea why. He's the most intellectually curious person we know.
Starting point is 00:06:07 And I'm like, that's it. So I got it right. You see what I'm saying? You got it right. You're going with your gut. Yeah, I do. And I've found it to be right a lot. Hmm.
Starting point is 00:06:18 Wrong. Sometimes. Well, thank you, Missy. I'm putting that on my resume now. Yeah, you should. You got called out. To your left, Dr. Daniel Rup. Hey, man, home run appearance on the Bergeridge podcast.
Starting point is 00:06:30 It was great, Dan. Hey, really, I've listened to it multiple times our conversation. And what you guys wouldn't know, and again, the reason for the Bearerese render is to go behind the scenes. Dan and I talked for probably 36.25 minutes. Exactly. And we had multiple do-overs of certain parts of the conversation Because it was a complex conversation And we had these little different pieces
Starting point is 00:06:57 And it was stitched together as if it was just I couldn't even tell I told my wife when I heard it I was like he really makes somebody sound smarter than me I thought I don't know how you do it I thought Dan Rup isn't that smart He's not curiously intellectual I know
Starting point is 00:07:15 I don't know I don't know why I'm here. You can make somebody sound smart. It was so interesting. It really was the stuff about, and you brought home the point that I wanted to see inside the whole podcast, which was Boone's fingerprint on us where we didn't even know it. So I want to come back to that section because, I mean, it was incredible. To your left, Brent Reeves. Brent.
Starting point is 00:07:43 Hey, you. Hey, buddy. Good to see it, man. It is good to be seen. Thanks for coming. Always. Brent's name's been popping up quite a bit in the iTunes reviews. When I saw him today, I could hardly call him Brent.
Starting point is 00:07:55 I wanted to call him Velvet Pryton. I know as soon as he talked, I just thought, Velvet. I have no idea what that guy's talking about. Hey, his name was White Tail Widowmaker. I'm available to narrate your life, buddy. All right. You ought to start a cameo account. You know what that is?
Starting point is 00:08:21 Camio account? I think this is a great idea. I support this. I think it's what it's called. It's an app where you can pay to have people like wish you happy birthday. Oh, yeah. So basically you set up this. I mean, I don't know how it works, but presumably.
Starting point is 00:08:35 I didn't charge you, Misty. To say Misty, happy birthday, yeah. So you could do, you could charge whatever you wanted. But, you know, there's like high level. I do it one time. for $10 million. Well, that's worth a shot. And then we're all retired.
Starting point is 00:08:50 Everybody. That's generous. Okay, listen, I have dramatically overreacted. Okay? Oh. Y'all remember two renders ago? How could we forget? When I came in with my tail between my legs,
Starting point is 00:09:06 saying that I had been called out, the whistle had been blown when I told the story of the game warden. Yeah, yeah. And our friend, Alex, was like, Clay, you've lost a lot of credibility because you told the story and you embellished it. Man, I finally listened to the story myself. Okay. Nice try, Alex. This reminds me.
Starting point is 00:09:34 I'm going to go back to another story in my life that I feel like now I might have overreacted. Were you in a courtroom at the time? I remember when I was in kindergarten, I wish Gary Newcomb was here. When I was in kindergarten, there was a boy named Ricky. And if anybody wanted to look him up, I'd like to talk to him.
Starting point is 00:09:59 Ricky. Kindergarten rickies are usually kind of tough to handle. Kindergarten Ricky never made it to first grade Ricky. Like he was just in and out to our school system, presumably, I don't know. Ricky keyed in on the fact that I did not cuss. In kindergarten? Yeah, it must have been a rough glass, man.
Starting point is 00:10:23 Now that I think about it, now that I think about it, how did I mean, like, do a lot of kids? I don't know, but he keyed in on it and he could tell that, like, I was very dead set on not saying bad words. And he started going, hey, Clay, I heard you say a bad word. And I would just be like, no, you didn't, Ricky. And he tormented me for weeks by saying, hey, Clay.
Starting point is 00:10:52 I mean, I can still see the twinkle in his eye. He's going to tell Juju. And I, this was a defining moment of my young manhood. Clearly. Yeah. I marched up to Gary Newcomb after weeks of this. Just took a deep breath. I mean, it was vivid.
Starting point is 00:11:12 It was like, I was like manning up. And I said, dad, if you get a call from my teacher and she says that I said a bad word, it's not true. Because I didn't. There's a boy in my class name, Ricky. Ricky. That is accusing me of saying bad words. And I don't. Now, and Gary Newcomb just said, thank you for telling me, son.
Starting point is 00:11:38 I really appreciate you telling me, you know, just bringing this to him. me. Okay, I feel like now that I'm in my early 40s, that perhaps I overreacted. Ricky's middle name is Alex. Hey, listen. So you remember, I told you, I had not listened to the Meteor Campfire Stories. Yes. So for someone who hadn't caught up on this, I told a story in effort to talk about the Meteor Campfire Stories audiobook that's out right now.
Starting point is 00:12:09 I hadn't listened to the story. Someone, and I might even reveal who that someone was. I've been hiding their identity because I felt like they had told me a, you know, a bad story. Does your eye contact in this room indicate who that person is? No, they're not here. You're staring breath down. They're not here. So I tell the story on the render, and then people are like, Clay, you told the story about it.
Starting point is 00:12:32 Well, I listened to this story finally when I was driving to Canada last week. man there were just a few minor details minor the only thing that I put in there that I can recall from memory of what I said
Starting point is 00:12:47 was I said there was a high speed car chase there was no high speed car chase okay that is a little bit dramatic no I mean if you are from the south you add high speed car chases almost to every store dukes of hazard is in our
Starting point is 00:13:02 Exactly. It would have been an embellishment if I had said the Game Warden came up on two wheels and ramped. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so I told this story, I mean, very close to what it was. Mine is that one dramatic high-speed chase? No, he was chasing the guy. He saw the lights and he saw the guy turn down a road and he goes to the road. I presume he was going above the speed limit.
Starting point is 00:13:30 Gotcha. Okay? I mean like, 35. I mean, I doubt he was like, well, I guess I'll just
Starting point is 00:13:36 toddle around up here. But no, I felt like it was a high-speed car chase. And it was not. But it was just like that. He went to a mud hole. He got out with his flashlight, this game warden,
Starting point is 00:13:46 and looked in the mud hole, did not perceive that a vehicle had driven through it. He was like, because it was going about five miles. And he said, and it was just like that. The sociopath,
Starting point is 00:13:57 who was wanted for attempted homicide, was waiting 50 feet away in his car with an oozy sticking out the window and when he crossed through the mud hole he was going to shoot the game board. So anyway, I just feel like I've overreacted a little bit. That's all. Just a few other...
Starting point is 00:14:17 You feel vindicated right now? That's it. Oh, wow. Okay. That's it. You should finish that story with I found $5 right now. Okay, there's...
Starting point is 00:14:29 There is a review on iTunes. And the way it started out, it's a five-star review, a legitimate five-star review. Nice. But he says, and I was, I mean, I'm just going to be honest, I was a little bit, I'll let you guys decide how you felt like I felt when I read this. Can we review the review? He said, don't judge a podcast. That's his title.
Starting point is 00:14:56 And he says, don't let the cover photo fool you. Clay Newcomb isn't just another knucklehead on a mule. How many podcasts have a picture of some guy on a mule? Exactly. That's my first question to the guy. Is this a theme? And, you know, there's some implications to this, just as if anybody who rides a mule is going to be a knucklehead.
Starting point is 00:15:23 Like, you're like, oh, dude on a mule, probably a knucklehead. Another one of those. Highly correlated, though. Yeah, wait a minute. You shouldn't agree with him. I proved the point. He got you. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Starting point is 00:15:41 Hey, let me tell you something, Malikon. This is interesting. So I'm reading the book. You're reading the book too. Yeah, it's really good. Don't tell the name of it. In this book, I don't know people who wrote Meals read. In this book, well, I can't.
Starting point is 00:15:58 get into it. It's going to be too big of a spoiler alert. Don't get to it. But mules have for centuries, if not thousands of years, been a second-rate equine animal from a social status. Yeah. Because there was a, there was a
Starting point is 00:16:14 oh man, can I think I can go into the details? I think you should move on. Okay. I think I should use good. Because he read the book. No, no, no, no. I have like three pages left. Okay. Do you stop with three pages left? No, no. Anyway. He did.
Starting point is 00:16:29 So anyway, there's something. But then he goes on to give a review. You know, this is very entertaining, educational show, done professionally and intellectually. But he's like, don't let the mule throw you off. Okay. That kind of hurts his field. Thank you. There is a social, there's a descriptor for something that happens when people that are extremely wealthy, downdress.
Starting point is 00:16:55 And I heard a podcast one time where if you. go into like Macy's in New York and you're looking around at the people in the store and you were trying to make a judgment on their financial status most likely the person in there that is like a millionaire is like wearing like jogging pants
Starting point is 00:17:16 and a t-shirt and like flip flops probably he's got a mule in the park of the parking it's a meal that's what I'm saying because the guy that's dressed up real fancy and there's a term to describe it and it eludes me. No, there's a term to describe it
Starting point is 00:17:34 basically where you dress up. So like if someone's like decked out telegrafting? Probably like they're wanting to say I am worthy to be in this store. Yeah. These are my people. And the person that doesn't care
Starting point is 00:17:48 because they've already been through all that. So when you see somebody ride the horse putting on airs, you can be like, man, this guy's just trying to. Wait. Are you making a blanket statement about all horse riders right now? Well, I don't know. I'm not a horse rider.
Starting point is 00:18:02 So every horse rider, when you see a guy riding a horse, every horse rider is just trying to be cool. And the guys that are on the mules have already been through that stage and have just frowned down their life. I think it would be a good time to stop putting everybody in horse boxes, mule boxes. Oh, no. Every week, he polarizes America. The nation has been polarized again. Oh, no. Okay.
Starting point is 00:18:33 Okay, there was another guy. This guy, Don, wrote me today. And he said, he's the one that said he was uncertain. If I was, if he was comfortable with us calling Dan, like, Dan Boone, what's his name? Danny Boy, Boone. D.B. I'm on Don. I'm on Don. I'm team. I'm with Don.
Starting point is 00:18:54 I don't like. Listen. I stay with Don. Okay. So, Don says, just finish the third. Boone Podcast, best of all three. I've come clear on my position that I indeed hate it when you call his name. Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:06 But listen. Does he insist on Mr. Boone? I'm glad you guys laugh. Not because it isn't, in fact, his name or appropriate, but for no other reason than the jealous tinge I get when you say it, it makes me feel like he would like you better than he likes me. I like Don's great. He needs to get on here. Contest winner.
Starting point is 00:19:31 He's next week's contest, right. There is. It was a great one last. He says, love what you're doing, keep with the fantastic work, representing a lifestyle that isn't informed
Starting point is 00:19:39 so much of who I am. That's awesome. That's pretty good. So Don is like, if Dan Boone, we're alive. I don't think you'd like you. He'd like that guy rides a mule. That's a mule if I ever saw it.
Starting point is 00:19:51 Idiot. Another fool on a mule. That's your tagline for your podcast. Forget that whole. Things forgotten. You may not be able to tell it, by the way, I'm dressed, but I just got off of a mule. I've been on an adventure this morning. I had to leave early this morning.
Starting point is 00:20:13 I'm starting to bait bears. And one of my bear baits is in an inaccessible by vehicle location. We can only bait bears on private land in Arkansas. And so I took Banjo out for his maiden Backwoods voyage. Innaugural voyage. How do you do? He did really good. You will see at some point on my Instagram feed a buck and fit that I happened to capture on video.
Starting point is 00:20:44 Really? But other than that, we'll be waiting for that. We kind of worked through it. Manjo. Yeah, that is exciting. Yeah. Just got back from Canada, too. I was in Canada.
Starting point is 00:20:53 Killed a buck in Canada. Didn't kill a bear. It's a good trip. But unfortunate on the bear. It's a beautiful buck. Thank you. Yeah. I thought so, too.
Starting point is 00:21:02 Yeah. How cold was it up there? It's just like here. Really? What do they ride up in Canada? Moose. And beavers. Where's that on the equine hierarchy?
Starting point is 00:21:14 Good question. The moose? If you could ride a moose, I hat tip that. Put a saddle on it. I can ride it. They broke. some of these kinds of animals. Velvet.
Starting point is 00:21:26 I don't want to hear him say put a saddle on it again, though. Now, Brent, you, I saw some images of you on a bulldozer this week. Yes. What were you doing? I was bulldozing.
Starting point is 00:21:43 Tapping into that dozer fever. Cool, man. I was cleaning out. I was over at the farm. My buddy Jacobs got this dozer and we managed a piece of property. and we were enhancing a place to shoot some ducks this winter. Big old slew that floods, just a minimal amount of rain,
Starting point is 00:22:01 so normally we'll get water in there, and we'll get some ducks in there with two or three good cold fronts come through. So we're cleaning out a spot for the ducks to rest in. We'll hunt it two or three, four, five, six times a year depending on the amount of ducks, but mainly a place for them to rest. And just cleaning out some old, getting some food plots ready for some deer, and we got access to do some bow hunting over there. What kind of dozer you got?
Starting point is 00:22:26 It's a case 850. Oh, a case. Is that a horse or mule in terms of dosers? What's the ranking of a... It's like a goat. Case 850. I'm not sure what model it was, but it was built probably sometime after the first moon landing, I think. hopefully so it's
Starting point is 00:22:51 well you look good on it I never had any problems with my looks clay hey did you did you feel like invigorated okay an invigoration while you're on the dozer I sat on that thing for about
Starting point is 00:23:05 six and a half hours and for the next three days Bailey said daddy you walk funny I was so sore really oh gosh jarred you around oh yeah we did it's it's pretty rough in there and we did lots of pushing and pushing some old snags and stuff down,
Starting point is 00:23:22 so it wasn't the smoothest of rides. But yeah, I get a lot of enjoying. I spent a lot of time in a Honda Accord. You want to hear my Dozer song? I do now. Yes. Only if I'm in the third verse. I got to be in the third verse.
Starting point is 00:23:44 We may come back to it. So, boom number three. Winner. Boom number three. Now, I truly am slightly grieved because I'm thinking about the next podcast. And it's going to be great. And nobody is going to be able to guess what it's about because it is off the wall. And so I'm very excited.
Starting point is 00:24:07 But I'm slightly grieved about the Boone series being over. The passing. The thing about somebody like Boone is you could have extended this podcast into really as many series. you've wanted. I mean, there's lots of detail. And the things that, I guess when you're telling stories, what it boils down to is
Starting point is 00:24:29 what stories do you tell and how do you tell them. And so if you were to take all the intel from De Boone's life and then you were to go back and make a checklist of the stories that we told
Starting point is 00:24:44 and the things we touched on, there would be way more things that happened to him that were not touched on. I mean, like, for instance, I did not even speak of the Battle of the Blue Licks. I wanted to hear more about that.
Starting point is 00:25:00 Well, did you... About Boonesboro? Or is that separate? Okay, the Siege of Boonsboro was its own thing. Blue Licks is where he had his men surrender. Yeah? Negative. He was at a salt lick. So the Siege of Boonesboro
Starting point is 00:25:17 and the the surrendering the men at the Salt Lake were connected because they had the settlement. It was the first settlement that they had at Boonesboro. They had to go get salt. Salt was essential to life on the frontier. They had to have salt. They had to have salt for curing hides.
Starting point is 00:25:35 They had to have, I mean, like, it was a commodity. Goes with your pepper. Yeah, I mean like steak, potato, salt and pepper. So they had, 30 men went out. And there's calculations. on how much work has to go into boiling. It's salty water. It's a salty spring is what it was.
Starting point is 00:25:54 Basically, they have these big cauldrons, and they keep fires going, like, 20 hours a day, and basically evaporate this water, and then what's left is salt. And they could make, like, several hundred pounds of salt a day, but it took 30 men. So Boone is out hunting for the men, kills the buffalo, gets captured by Shawnee.
Starting point is 00:26:16 The Shawnee say, we're going to kill all the guys at the lick. And then Boone says, I tell you what, don't do that. And I'll, I will, I will forfeit the men to you. And then they stay in captivity with the Shawnee's for four months. And then that's when they go back into the whole siege of Boonesboro, which you could have done a whole podcast on a siege of Boonesboro. It was incredible.
Starting point is 00:26:37 I wanted to know more. They had a, the Shawnees did a whole fake out treaty thing. And Boone did too. because Boone and Blackfish were father and son. Like they actually acted like that. I mean, Blackfish really loved Boone. And when they, there was a point when they met out in front of the fort where just blackfish and just Boone. Like there's all these Indians out here, all the people in the fort, they're about to all kill each other.
Starting point is 00:27:11 And Blackfish walks out and says, I want to see Boone. and so all the men are covering Boone Boone walks out and perhaps they had two or three men with them but Boone wouldn't go past 60 yards of the fort because he knew that was the accurate range of the guns so he was like
Starting point is 00:27:30 I'll meet you 60 yards wow and he walks out there and Blackfish says why did you leave and because Boone had escaped big deal they have this big treaty and the treaty goes wrong and they actually signed the treaty and when they were standing up to like shake each other's hands boone knew the native americans well enough to tell his men so there were
Starting point is 00:27:58 i think they were outnumbered two to one and they were at a big table and they had just signed a treaty and boon told his men he said if they shake your hand in this way know that were being set up and they're about to pummel you and it was the Native American way to shake hands. I'm shaking where you grab them by the arm. Basically, you grab his elbow. Yeah. And Boone knew that if they did that, it was over.
Starting point is 00:28:24 And so they all went and they did that. And as soon as they did that, the Shawnee's jerked down the Boone and his men. And pop, pop, pop, pop, bah, bah, everybody started firing. Boone and told all the people at the fort, he said, if it goes fist of cuffs out there, just shoot. Because we're out number two to one. Just shoot. Wow. If you hit somebody, there's a better chance you're going to hit one of them than hit us.
Starting point is 00:28:50 I didn't like the mods. Yeah. And so there's a whole thing. What I was going to say, though, was that we never even talked about the Battle of the Blue Licks, which was a later battle that a lot of people say was the most, one of the most defining moments of Boone's life. And we never even got into it. Boone's son, Israel, was killed at the Blue Licks. and basically they were ambushed by Native Americans after Boone told the army and the leaders, hey, don't go after, we shouldn't just take after these Indians.
Starting point is 00:29:25 And one of the guys, one of the leaders challenged Boone and called him a coward and then just took off to go after the Indians. And Boone was like, well, okay. Here we go. And they fell in and it was like a massive disaster. I mean, like lots of people got killed. I said all that to say what we talk about in the podcast. There's only so much. Dan, what stood out to you in this third one?
Starting point is 00:29:49 I think for me, personally, I was surprised at how emotional I got kind of toward the end of the podcast. Especially, I think what really I really enjoyed was when the artist came to paint his portrait. And the daughter was like, no, no, no, this is a good thing. And, you know, here was this same man who says, if it goes fist to, Cuffs, shoot. You know, I mean, just fearless in every way. And then a painter comes and he's like, no, no, no, no, I'm not doing that. And she's like, no, dad, it's okay.
Starting point is 00:30:23 You know, just really seeing the human side of him and imagining him, like, getting in that coffin and giving his grandkids a hard time. I think seeing the familial, my grandfather was a huge goober. I mean, just a total goof off. and that's i could totally imagine him doing something like that and i think that really made daniel boone for me a person yes you know he he and it was like oh man like he was a guy and the fact that two miles down the road somebody didn't even know who was yeah it was just the whole thing that whole little last chapter just i think like you said and the you know two weeks ago in the
Starting point is 00:31:03 render like it's going to really it's going to really change the way you look at him and it really did. Man, that was my favorite part probably of all the stuff we talked about in all four hours of documentary on Boone. Was that right at the end of his life, you see so much. He was living in a little cabin behind Jemima's house. And this is what Chester Harding said. So if Alex wants to back check, Chester Harding Chester Harding You should cut that out Sorry, Jujie
Starting point is 00:31:38 No no You see Alex a hat You do You do You do The uh No because you wonder where these details come from
Starting point is 00:31:48 I mean the only person there was Chester Harding And Boone Did Boone come out and say Yeah I was roasting a deer leg When Chester got here He may have But I mean
Starting point is 00:31:57 These little details Show us so much I mean imagine a 80 It's unclear to me how old Boone was. I want to say it was in the last year of his life and so, you know, presumably he was like 86 years old.
Starting point is 00:32:14 And he's back there roasting a deer leg by himself. On a ramrod. On a ramrod. That you know he probably shot the deer. I mean, why would you think otherwise? Yeah. But that was the part that, I mean, I have to piggyback on what he's already been said. I knew this was going to happen. That is
Starting point is 00:32:33 what. resonated with me so much. Like Steve said, he didn't go do the Wild Bill Hickok Wild West Show when he easily could. He could have been a, he died a poor man, and he could have been a very wealthy man just by speaking engagements, going here and telling that, and telling his story,
Starting point is 00:32:54 but he lived in a little cabin in the woods, and he took solace by playing with his kids and his grandkids. And I have been, there's no way. I mean, this guy has done so much and seen so much and been so many places. But I get it. I know why he's like that. Jonathan said something a while ago before we started recording.
Starting point is 00:33:17 He said, you know, you've probably got some pretty good stories, being an undercover officer for all these years. Well, I do. And I've been to some very cool places with you, Clay, and we've seen some really cool stuff. But the better part of my day and the best thing that I can imagine is, in the backyard playing with my kids or my grandkids. And that I thought, you know, that's a connection that he and I have. When it comes down to it, the most important thing are those, the things that are really important. And this guy, I mean, he was responsible for Westward expansion, and yet he would really
Starting point is 00:33:54 rather set in the fire and cook a deer leg on his ramrod. Yeah. You know, that spoke volumes to be about it. I think we, this is part of the mythology of Boone, is that we can cherry pick from his life these grand moments. And that's kind of what we want to talk about. But man, D. Boone went through the meat grinder. For real.
Starting point is 00:34:18 In life. He lost two of his sons. I mean, even think about like, we don't know if the illegitimacy of Jemima was true. But think about a husband. that would have come home and been like, oh, we're doing that. Well, and then maybe he had a Shawnee wife, too. I mean, that's distress inside of a home, whatever time period. To say the least.
Starting point is 00:34:43 He had, you know, his first years in Kentucky, imagine being a poor guy today, just scrapping by and being able to go somewhere and earn a significant year's wage. let's say that and it depends on what part of the country you're in but like in Arkansas let's say that would be like 80 grand like if you could go in a couple of months make $80,000 and bring it home and like you're used to making like 35 on the way home yep somebody stops you and goes hey bro we'll be taking that with us the number of times that you mentioned him getting robbed or losing his stuff was astonishing like that's the kind of stuff that you just feel like would leave a mark on you as a person now.
Starting point is 00:35:32 Like, I got robbed one time and I'll never forget it. And it's like, he got drugged and robbed. And he got his, the number of times that you mentioned it, it's like, man. And there wasn't that many people running around back in those things. Doesn't say much for. Yeah, he was constantly, he had lots and lots of failures. Just think, think too, though, of at the end of his life, just kind of what you said, Brent. He kind of, he wasn't interested in fame.
Starting point is 00:35:58 and glory at that point. He had sifted through all that stuff, and yet still he was pleasant. Many people noted that his presence was, quote, coveted by his family and his older age. So that speaks of a man in good standing. Well, they recognized a lot of sacrifice that guy went through for them. But think about all the different outcomes, though. When you're in your 80s and you've been through that kind of life, you could be a real J-hole. That's right.
Starting point is 00:36:27 Yeah. Or your family could hate you. Yes. For leading them in different directions. I mean, think about the tragedies that easily his family could have blamed him for. Rebecca could have gone for the kids. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:42 Seriously. So it seems like normal. Well, of course, if your grandpa's Daniel Boone, you're going to like him. No. I mean, lots of life breaks people down. And at his old age, what we saw was an intact man. you know and to me it goes back to kind of the point of Robert Morgan's book is that Boone was not just a superhero or mythical American character he actually had character not without flaws but he had character and that that yeah the Chester Harding thing blows my mind like that within two miles of where Boone lived the man didn't even know who he was just like yeah that white-haired guy yeah Daniel Boone?
Starting point is 00:37:28 Yeah, sure, whatever. Wild. Yeah. Jonathan, what stood out to you? I think this episode painted more complex picture of him than the other episodes. And I was really interested in the paradoxes that you guys mentioned, the number of paradoxes. Like, I thought it was very interesting that he would be a market hunter in that trip where he killed 150 bears. And yet he's seeing game be reduced and seeing that it's unsustainable.
Starting point is 00:37:53 And it's like, what makes a man do that? I think you made a comment or maybe Robert Moore. Morgan made a comment about, you know, in retrospect, we could probably see that it's a paradox, but maybe he didn't see it himself. Yeah. And I just think that that's it. It just paints a very complex picture. It makes you want to know what kind of a man he was, even though you get this picture of him later in life.
Starting point is 00:38:14 It's like, how do you not see this paradox? How do you reconcile that? I thought it really painted a complex picture. And, yeah. I would defend Boone on that. Really? I mean, and I'm not saying you're indicting him, but life moves at slow motion. I mean, in a lot of ways, the cutting edge of time when you're here,
Starting point is 00:38:38 you see things so much different than you see once you're past it. And if I could go somewhere today and there were no rules, no regulations, to kill 155 bears in one season would be pretty good. So this idea that, like, the game was a lot of, all leaving. I think that was like years down the track from that event. Was that, I thought that that was later in life and I had assumed that was after he was in
Starting point is 00:39:08 the legislature where he had penned some legislation about protecting the game. Yeah, well, and it, I don't know the details of exactly when that was, but it was when he was in his 60s, though, so you're right. I think you're right. Yeah, I think you're right, though, when you say that life moves in slow motion and you don't see these things about yourself sometimes. Yeah. Man, that story, like, what I liked about this episode three was it was kind of like clean up. We had covered all this stuff, and then I went through and like cherry picked a bunch of stuff that I just couldn't talk about Boone without talking about.
Starting point is 00:39:46 So this guy rolling down the Sandy, big Sandy River in Kentucky and seeing Daniel Boone and his family, that wasn't a life-changing moment for Boone's life, but it was just a picture. This guy's in a river, you know, riding down the river, sees the family, pulls up on the shore. It's De Boone and Rebecca and two of his daughters and their son-in-laws. They're in half-faced camp, which I assume that means a three-sided log structure.
Starting point is 00:40:18 They're eating out of a common tray, which would just be a big tray. basically they chunked a big thing of meat down and bread, bear camp. Kind of like we do it, the Newcomb farm every, every night. And they had carved forks out of cane. And it's just, it's just pretty wild. Do you think, like, when we look back on the paradox, Jonathan, and it's like, how could he kill that many bear,
Starting point is 00:40:43 but also pass that legislation? I mean, he passed legislation. Obviously, he recognized there is a problem. But I look back on somebody like Daniel Boone, and I want them to take a stand on the right things. But I usually divorce him in my mind from, yeah, at 60, he was still a man with the family. And Bear grease was how many dollars a gallon?
Starting point is 00:41:05 Yeah. And he needed, like, he had debts to pay. So it's like, yes, he recognizes that these things are bad and we need to do something about that. But at the same time, I got to take care of my family. Yeah, man. Go ahead, Jonathan. I think the economic term for that is,
Starting point is 00:41:21 the tragedy of the commons, right? And I wonder how much of that was playing in his mind, which is I've got to, like, if I don't, if I don't take these bear, then we lose out, and it helps no one, because the West is going to get expanded into it. There was, there was no thought of that. Like, the, the, the, the conservation ethic of the modern North American hunter was not even developed at that point.
Starting point is 00:41:48 Those were the formative ideas. of people saying, like, maybe we ought to preserve this game. And it wasn't until the late 1800s when it truly was a crisis and all these animals were getting wiped off the face of the earth, that they said, hey, we really got to do something. And this modern North American hunting ethic was built, which is where we give value to older age males to take stress off the females, juveniles.
Starting point is 00:42:21 And I mean, you hear me talk about it all the time. Essentially, the Boone and Crocket Club was the one that introduced this idea, Teddy Roosevelt. And they named the club after Boone. And so, I mean, to look back, and I realize you're not saying this, but to look back at Boone and say, oh, man, you're an unethical hunter is really just not realistic. You know, I mean, for him to be like, you know what, we're going to conserve these bears. I will only shoot the oldest bears that I see. Like, that just wasn't a thought. That would essentially be like someone saying,
Starting point is 00:42:55 you know what, we ought to use the computer rather than send this through the mail. And they're like, well, uh, that'll never work. There are no such thing as computers. You're 200 years too early. No. It's probably dial up anyway. Malachi, what did you think, man? Man, it was really hard to start the podcast.
Starting point is 00:43:17 And let me in here, let me, let me explain why. You know, I think Daniel Boone was, was somebody, I guess, that I grew up with who you hear a lot about, but you don't know much about, right? And this mystical woodsman that, you know, from my perspective, just, you know, killed animals. And as I got- Is that what they think of them down in Midland? That's what, yeah, on my street. That's fair. You ride donkeys.
Starting point is 00:43:50 That's a correlation. It's correlated. But I think as I, like, as I listen to all three, and I think everybody has said it, you see the human aspect of them. And you gain a level of respect that where you feel that the grandeur, the respect or the, even the aspect of he's being kind of put on a pedal stool now, it's earned. because not because of the all that he done you know he went through the Cumberland gap and all these things but the
Starting point is 00:44:22 aspect of him being a man right taking care of his family even the aspect of I really liked how he he respected Indians right even though there was times of conflict there's always like a hat tip in my book when anybody where society deems another group of people
Starting point is 00:44:42 as less than if a person can shows a level of respect that they're equal. Yeah. And to me, that's, that's like a hat tip. And hey, back then, literally, they were considered savages. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:56 Yeah. I omitted that word from some of the readings that I did on this podcast. I hadn't told anybody that. Yeah. And I mean, just to say that, like, he was progressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:07 Yeah. And I, to me, that gives, that gives, okay, this guy was the real deal. It's like, man, that was, that's a good guy. that's a guy that gets a head nod and a hat tip, not just because of the conservation things, but because of who the guy was. And so my perspective. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls
Starting point is 00:45:43 in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. but when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods,
Starting point is 00:46:06 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 Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you, you did and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers
Starting point is 00:46:31 who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. I think that, like what you're saying, Malachi reminds me, another thing that stuck out to me was when his time in the legislature was discussed and he would frequently wear the shawnee gar. Yeah. Yeah. And I think today, you know, of course, like we would rightfully somebody, a white man does that, we're going to level cultural appropriation on them.
Starting point is 00:47:00 You don't just put on indigenous garb as a white man and going to Congress. And maybe that term didn't even exist back then, and maybe there were Native Americans did not have a voice to kind of levy that critique against him. Or maybe he had lived in such a way with them and loved them in such a way where in putting that on, like you said in the podcast, he was acknowledging. his roots. And they were a part of him and who he was in his roots. And I think that that definitely hit me.
Starting point is 00:47:33 It was like, here's a man who, I mean, he obviously had conflict with Native Americans, but there was a deep love and a deep respect. And he allowed it to shape who he was. And I'm not going to stand up here in the legislature and do my job unless I represent the people who've made me. Yeah. I like that a lot. Wasn't that a wild imagery?
Starting point is 00:47:57 I mean, he wasn't, it wasn't a costume party. Like, you almost, you could feel like it was a stunt. Like a photo up. Yeah, like Boone wearing his buckskins into the legislature. I don't think it was. I mean, he was making a statement. Like, he could have gone to town and did what they did. But he was like, I just think he had no choice but to be,
Starting point is 00:48:22 true to who he was. I mean, not to make a joke about me, he chose the mule. Everybody else is wearing those silk shirts. Yeah. Looking really nice. I mean, these are the leading intellectual thinkers of Western development in their time. Yeah. And he shows up
Starting point is 00:48:37 in buckskin. And not only that, but... That's my president. That's right. That man, I will vote for you. You know, man. That image is just
Starting point is 00:48:51 to me is just so striking. And the fact that it wasn't a stunt. Right. Yeah. Because today you could not do that without it being highly inappropriate and offensive and a stunt. Right. Which is a good deal of why it's highly inappropriate Which of course. Yeah, yeah. But the
Starting point is 00:49:07 fact that he did it and it wasn't and it was true to who he was and maybe I have a totally naive view of it and it was totally a stunt back then, but it seems like it was... I mean, I think he was aware of the statement that he was making. Of course. I mean, it would essentially be like I mean, there's people that have done stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:49:25 You know, you see the odd politician from out west walking in wearing his cowboy hat. Didn't one of the guys rode a horse into the White House a few years ago? I mean, I like that. But here's the thing. When you're adopted, Shawnee, Dad, choose the sugar cane and gets it moist in his mouth for you and then hands it to you. And you've lived with him and you speak his language and you've been in his family. you're not putting on a cowboy hat and riding a horse into the White House.
Starting point is 00:49:54 You have become part of their family. And when he comes out before the fort and says, why'd you leave? Yeah. I mean, this man lived a totally different way of life. Yeah. And that's why he could do that. And you say, I mean, that's the hat tip, you know.
Starting point is 00:50:13 Yeah, when he hands you that already cheered on a piece of cane, that's when you say, and shall need hard pose. ass, whatever that is. I'm like, no thanks. I'm good. There's a pandemic going around. You don't share a cane.
Starting point is 00:50:28 Let's talk about small dogs, man. Yeah. Bad gum. Oh, yeah. No, hey, when I, I, again, everything that was in this podcast was things that I handpicked. I mean, it really was. And I would tell that story over and over to, like, my kids. I mean, that stood out to me.
Starting point is 00:50:49 and it stood out to Nathan Boone because when Nathan Boone was 74 years old and his dad had been dead for 30 years, he remembered that blackfish chewed a lump of sugar and gave it. I mean, you can almost just see like the glow in blackfish's eyes to see what he would do,
Starting point is 00:51:09 see if he would take it. And what did De Boone do? He took it and he ate it. There were only two people standing there. How do we know that information? Because Dan Boone went home And he told his whole family. He said,
Starting point is 00:51:21 Rebecca, don't give me no sugar. I just had some from the cheese. Just go right to my thighs. No, I mean, you could try to describe, like, Boone's relationship with Blackfish and the Shannies in a thousand word article. Or you could tell that one story. It's kind of like a picture tells a thousand words. What is it about, like, I think in our day and so many, I mean, these books, you have all these books on biographies, on Daniel Boone.
Starting point is 00:51:49 and it's these stories that, man, you could just hear, and you talk about a good storyteller. I remember, like, asking you to just tell me a story one more time. Like, I just, somebody tells a really good story. You want to hear it again, but our culture,
Starting point is 00:52:01 we're constantly trying to invent new TV shows and new narratives and new, and it's got to be novel. But yet, deep down inside, it's like, we want that, we want that good old story. Like, tell me that story that has meaning and value. And actually, if,
Starting point is 00:52:19 If it really does, I want to hear it again. And it's relatable. Yeah. Something you can relate. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's something that I kind of saw in Boone's life over the course of the three that's different from now. It's authentic. Right.
Starting point is 00:52:35 I think what you see now is people telling stories for views, right? People telling stories to be validated by somebody else versus just this is who I am. He didn't, you know, I don't think Daniel Boone would have, if he was in today's age, would have said, hey, put that on Instagram. Yeah. No, because he could have done it. He could have done it. Yeah. And I think.
Starting point is 00:52:59 He could have toured and did that man and he didn't. Yeah. And I think that's something that's powerful when somebody builds their life for the sake of building their lives versus somebody who tries to reach a point inside their lives so people can validate them. Or so people can say what they're building is cool. or what they're building is something that I want to build. And I think that's a fascinating aspect about him. I think even in today's culture, media and just culture at large finds people who have that aspect of just genuine desire and their own value
Starting point is 00:53:34 and tries to make it a product. And unfortunately, a lot of people fall for that. And then you see people who you discovered, quote unquote, like early in their career, early in their development, and you really like what they're doing. but then over time they become kind of commercialized. And so Daniel Boone's version of that was the legislature. And what did he do?
Starting point is 00:53:54 He wore buckskin and he didn't give into that product. Yeah, I appreciated that too. At the end, we talked about how Boone didn't buy into the myth of himself. You know, there was a story and it was said that someone read something to him about him. and he said stuff like that they shouldn't read to a guy until he's dead yeah i think boon in a lot of ways we probably got boon wrong in some ways from a at a personal level i do not think boon if he were here today i think it would shock him that we're talking about him like we are i mean i can't argue with that because i i always go back to that thing that there there was a lot of those guys
Starting point is 00:54:42 because him surviving every day. I mean, he didn't call that an adventure. That was Tuesday. That's what all those folks were doing. And the good ones got to retire. And B8 lived to be 82 or 86 or however old he was. And the other folks didn't. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:01 It was like, you remember Bob? Man, that dude could not build a fire for nothing. No, I don't remember him. Oh, yeah, that's right. He's been dead 50 years. He froze to death. You remember you. I know.
Starting point is 00:55:11 I think part of Boone's what we see and what I view as humility, hard-won humility at the end of his life, was not him knowing that he was some kind of national hero stud and choosing to be humble. Man, the guy was beat down by life. I think he would just be like, yeah, I was just kind of a normal dude. We did some stuff.
Starting point is 00:55:41 He might even say he lost. Oh, I think he probably had a pretty big sense of some personal failure in his life, for sure. That probably instructed him. So this Elizabeth Corvin quote, I think at the end that I put in there. That talked about how mild he spoke. She said the man spoke in effeminate soft tones. And she said, all the old. woodsman that I know I can't think of one that did not act that way. That really stood out
Starting point is 00:56:20 to me big time. And I'll tell you, I'll walk you through my thought process on it. Boone did all this stuff. What are you laughing at, Dan? You do not use the word effeminate with DB. I'll punch you in the teeth. Those are fighting words. No, that's why I put it in there. It makes me think about, well, as a hunter, it's like, what am I doing inside of hunting that causes me to not be humble? Like he spent his lifetime in the wilderness and he came out humble. Like he came out soft-spoken. He came out like not, he was not the one wanting to tell all his stories. He was the one that was quiet.
Starting point is 00:57:12 I think sometimes you see the opposite of that, not just in hunting, but in life in other ways, is that people have grand experiences, and it causes them to become more loud, more not humble, more projecting of themselves. Well, it's just like they believe the myth about themselves. And also people's perception of them. too, maybe they didn't know it, you wouldn't think Daniel Boone would have a feminine voice.
Starting point is 00:57:45 Yeah, I think about it reminded, when I listened to that, I listened to, I was reminded of a documentary about General Patton. And only reference before that was the old movie, George C. Scott played, and he had a big, correct voice. He taught like this. And in the, in the documentary, they talked about that General Patton was not as tall as George C. Scott. And when he answered the phone, and he sounded like somebody's grandmother, like, General Patton, you know, was what he sounded like. And I thought, that's not what he sounds like.
Starting point is 00:58:15 He sounds just like George C. Scott. Not my General Patton. Exactly. So it's everybody's perception of him, you know, that you wouldn't think he would be that way. Yeah. And that was another thing that humanized him to me. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:29 Well, what it made me think about on a personal level is that like our exploits, what we do should make us, humble. It shouldn't puff us up. You want the guy at the end to be the same as the guy at the beginning. You don't want, and I think that's kind of what Jonathan
Starting point is 00:58:48 was talking about. You hear these early stories of him, and then you hear these stories of conquest and things like that. But at the end, he's cooking a deer over a fire with his kids and his grandkids. And there's something real noble about that. Yeah, he's doing right. There's many stories of his old age that I couldn't
Starting point is 00:59:08 include one person noted that when he heard people come to the house he would drift off away into the woods and into his cabin like in his old age he was kind of done with like because people it was insinuated that people would come by to want to just talk to him want to hear the stories and he just was kind of like uh forget the story and the thing is he could be a he could be a big talker. He could talk like a chief. Yeah. You know,
Starting point is 00:59:40 I think that's, and there was the court martial where he defended himself and won over the judges and actually got a promotion. I mean, clearly, it's kind of like another paradox inside the man. I mean, he could be this larger than life talker, but at the end of his life,
Starting point is 00:59:56 that wasn't who he was. Well, he was, yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, he was a good storyteller. He was a leader.
Starting point is 01:00:06 There was a magnetism to him. So he was charismatic, but it was an authentic kind of charismatic. It had to have been. He had a wide range of functionality as a human. He knew when to be quiet, but he also knew when to speak. That's what it seems like. I think you referenced that in the first episode about him when he was young and had that charisma about him that just drew people, that magnetism.
Starting point is 01:00:32 So having it then when he's young and then a lifeful of experiences, yeah. Yeah. I could see that. Misty, what was your favorite part? We haven't asked you that. Well, I think, I feel like to describe, to explain my favorite part of the part that stood out just of this whole series,
Starting point is 01:00:48 I think that as, and we've talked about this, as a family and as a person, what we've really thought to do is to build a culture in our home and in our hearts that transcends any regional or national, any type of other identity. What I mean by that is,
Starting point is 01:01:06 we want, you know, like our spiritual existence and our spiritual values are the things that guide our home. And so that's what we say that to our kids. Like, yeah, we like being hillbillies. We're real comfortable with where we come from and who we are. But we don't want that to limit us. We don't want those things.
Starting point is 01:01:25 So I'm real conscious of that. I'm real conscious of when I hear things. I think, do I think that way because I'm from Arkansas? Do I think that way because I'm an American? because I don't want to just think that way. I want this higher set of values to guide how I think. Listen to the Daniel Boone podcast and hearing him talk about, hearing like he is as an archetype of American identity.
Starting point is 01:01:49 I was kind of struck by there's things in me that are in me because of those stories. And I don't even know it. I didn't even recognize it. They're so defaults. I mean, there's an aspect of even, with intentional building to know the things that you're, that define you and to know how your national heritage defines you and how an intentional effort to not just build your life that way.
Starting point is 01:02:18 I wouldn't have said, I would have never told you, Daniel, you were surprised. Yeah, I would have never said Daniel Boone had a major impact on my life. And yet, I love adventure. That's music about years because that is what we set out to do from the very beginning. And I did not have the answers to it. Right. That's the one thing that is true to this podcast is I genuinely had a question.
Starting point is 01:02:42 I think you had the answers. You think I got a cheat sheet? I think it's cheap. Written on your hand. It's right on your hand. It's right there. The question was, I wonder how I've been impacted by Dan Boone and don't even know it. I mean, I suspected that we were.
Starting point is 01:02:59 And I would think it's not hard to think that you were. Right. Right. I mean, but what was interesting to me was, because like I love, I enjoy going camping. I enjoy adventure. I enjoy taking the kids out hiking. I like doing, I like kind of intensely pursuing things. And as you were describing Daniel Boone as an American archetype and someone who, this is like part of the American identity, I would not have thought that that is something that shaped me. Just as a woman, as a not, I mean, someone who appreciates the outdoors, but is not, would not have described herself as. a woodsman, you know, those are, those are not descriptors. So yeah, I see how you could have found that, but I wasn't expecting for me to find that. And that's what I found in it. And the, this last one, as I was, I was driving to the kids to school and listening to it, and I just thought, man, that is, that's kind of crazy. And it's kind of interesting to me how we have those things that shape us and that shape are that, that we don't even realize, like a default person is going to have that.
Starting point is 01:04:01 And we have friends who are from other countries And they always kind of laugh at us When we talk about for vacation For relaxation We're going to take our kids out in the woods And you know They think that's kind of crazy And I've always thought
Starting point is 01:04:14 Huhn, that's funny that they think that But I realize it's Daniel Boone's fingerprints On our lives And all those guys You know those that we think that's fun That we think that extra effort Is fun And it's
Starting point is 01:04:28 I just would not have thought that And I thought your section, Dan, was so good because it, it, I mean, you had such firsthand experience with that over China, just seeing that, you know. So I've got the book, My Father Daniel Boone in my hand here. I had some people ask me, they wanted more information on the latter part of Dan's life, how active he was, because, and this is, this was a story that Nathan told me. Lyman Draper. I'm surprised he's telling him Nate.
Starting point is 01:05:03 Lionel Richie. Nate Draper. In the fall of 1817, late in November, my father, Daniel Boone. I like how Nathan always says that. My father. I know. There's something so appealing to me about that. They were so regal in the way they spoke.
Starting point is 01:05:16 I noticed he didn't call it Dan. Oh. My father. My father, Daniel Boone. My father, Daniel Boone, entered, then entering upon his 84th year, started on a hunting trip with his grandson, James Boone, my oldest son. This was before Jesse Boone moved to the country.
Starting point is 01:05:38 They started each with mounted on horseback. Upon leaving Flanders Calloway, they proceeded on and camped the first night on the headwaters of the Sherrette, about 13 miles from the Callaway house. Okay, let's just stop right there. Dan's 84. He just rode a horse 13 miles. Okay. Brent can barely spend half an hour an old dozer.
Starting point is 01:06:00 Exactly. What's in the world? That's why his voice is so deep. When I first got into mules, part of what I was thinking, long-term thinking, was when I'm an old man, I'm going to have a craft and I'm going to be able to stay out there longer.
Starting point is 01:06:17 Really? It was a thought. When the other losers can't, I will be winning. That's right. That's right. And then I realized that you've got to be more athletic and strong to ride a stinking mule or horse
Starting point is 01:06:29 than it is to walk. I mean, so generally people don't have the flexibility and strength. And somebody can tell me about the guy that's 90 and still rides. And there are those people. But generally, to mount a horse or an equine animal takes a lot of flexibility, a lot of core strength. So anyway, it's notable that he's 84 and they've ridden not 13 miles. Hold on. They rode 13 miles from the Calloway's house.
Starting point is 01:06:56 Night overtook them sooner than they expected. and they camped rather late and had not had time to prepare a shelter. That night, two inches of snow fell. The snow glare of the fire caused a wild duck to land beside the fire. James Boone caught it easily to his bewilderment. Father was exhilarated to be out camping again. He had brought his gun, his kettle, a light axe, provision, and two or three traps. He seemed to feel himself in his ancient element.
Starting point is 01:07:25 after the evening meal he told stories of the olden time adventures the pair had the duck for breakfast the next morning and continued on their way the weather had become okay 84 year old man just camped on the ground two inches snow just like whatever and it made him come a lot yeah the pair had the duck for breakfast the next morning continued on the way the weather had become cold and blustery so they had to stop to make a fire for father to warm himself they went only eight miles that day and stopped the house of entertainment, a house of entertainment at Camp Branch, a noted camping place for travelers. The next day they went 22 miles to Lutra Lick. The weather had moderated a little but was still cold, and all but two miles of that day's travel was on exposed prairie. The cold had it affected my father's age frame, and he found he could proceed no further since he could not bear the exposure. He then decided to remain at his granddaughters miss major van Bibbers at Lutri Lick and abandoned the intended hunt. He abandoned the hunt after.
Starting point is 01:08:34 22 plus 14 plus... An 8-mile day in there. Malika is the only one I trust with numbers. 36, you're at 36? 36-mile horse ride camping in two inches of snow. And he was like, man, I'm cold. James, sorry, bro. I don't think this is going to work out.
Starting point is 01:08:51 That's duck ain't a hole to me. No, but incredible. And then I'm going to read a statement that we have all probably as hunters made some version of it. So this is going to sound really familiar. But this is the author of that familiarity. You see what I'm saying? Nathan Boone said this. My father said he was as naturally inclined each fall to go hunting and trapping as the farmer is in spring.
Starting point is 01:09:24 has set about putting in his crops. That's pretty good. I mean, he was just like, even at an old age, Dan was like, let's go. Let's go. He never lost that fire. And I thought that was notable. And then the day he, the day before he died,
Starting point is 01:09:45 if you remember Nathan described his death, he said he stood on the porch and he said, man, if I feel this good tomorrow, I think I'll ride the horse around the farm. and then he went inside, took a nap, and a fever came on him. And he knew that it was his last sickness. He told them that. I mean, it's so wild that we know so much about this guy.
Starting point is 01:10:11 I mean, down to his very thoughts right up to his last breath on the earth. Bizarre that we know so much about this guy. you know, he felt a pain that he had never felt before. I mean, all of us are pretty young. We hadn't died yet. So far. It immediately looks at me. And says so far.
Starting point is 01:10:37 Take note that if you feel a very strange, I mean, like, he knew, he was like, this is the one. When he felt that burning sensation, they refused the medication. and he had his family all come around. Man, talking to Robert Morgan about death in the 19th century was really moving. Yeah, I thought it was too. I mean, he's an old man himself. And he just the way that we deal with death today is so bizarre, compared to the experiences of most humans that have lived on planet Earth.
Starting point is 01:11:25 Yeah. But, yeah. Wild. Old D-Boon, man. D-dog. D-dog. Yeah, and this is good, Clay. This was a really good.
Starting point is 01:11:39 Not too bad. Good job, Newk. The next one you talk about that's still under wraps. It better be good, pal. I know. I've been waiting for this to kind of... I'll be trying to... How long can we keep this up?
Starting point is 01:12:00 Oh, man. No, what has been cool about this podcast? And this is what we do at the renders behind the scenes. Oh, this thing's kind of taking a life of its own in a lot of ways, you know? Like, this is not really what we totally planned to do. Did we have a plan? I was not told of any plan No
Starting point is 01:12:24 No but I think there's significance In looking back at these guys And you know my closing commentary At the end about American identity That is something that I am Very passionate about Very passionate about
Starting point is 01:12:39 There are bigger fish to fry on planet Earth Than Than us maintaining our hunting privileges In this country right I mean and that's kind of what a lot of people that listen to this podcast and me are interested in is like the preservation of our way of life but it's it's so much bigger than that though it's not just I want my sons to be able to go and hunt a deer so that their heart will beat fast and so that they can experience what it means to be a woodsman and engage with nature in that way what I'm really saying is I want what I I want them to have the opportunity to be who I have been and what I have what I am is deeply connected to this thing this way of life and what's happening inside of in our country maybe other places too is that it's like it's like they're trying to snuff out
Starting point is 01:13:46 they're trying to snuff out the woodsmen. They're trying to snuck they're like this is not a relevant part of our society anymore. We don't need hunters. And that's happening in lots of different ways and that's not what this is about. But I mean essentially what my appeal was
Starting point is 01:14:04 make a place, a perpetual place at the table of the people who get to decide what American identity is. Leave a chair for us. leave a chair for us. That's all we ask. Man, there are people in this country that don't care a thing about wild places. That is fine.
Starting point is 01:14:25 Their world revolves around urban life. I mean, the vast majority of this country, I mean, lives in very urban places. And they have heroes, and they have things that they pound the table for about their way of life, which absolutely has a right. They have a right to put their fingerprint on the American identity. America developed as a melting pot of all these different cultures. We see it. Well, what we're saying is that the woodsman is a legitimate voice inside today.
Starting point is 01:14:58 And my only appeal was let the woodsman manage the wild places and the wildlife of this country. It's really that simple because that's the way it works now. That's the way it has worked for the last 200 years. and to cut to just a talking point that is true, is there more big game, thriving big game in North America than any place on the planet. And it's because of the woodsmen valued wild places. They valued the wilderness.
Starting point is 01:15:31 They valued that majestic buck. They valued de-boon, devalued those bears, such that he made a cultural imprint on us, and that value today in a highly urbanized world translates into that we have said, hey, there are some places where civilization is not coming. And we're marking these places off. And we're going to manage the game. If you have a confined area, natural game populations are designed to expand and they can't expand.
Starting point is 01:16:04 So we need to hunt them a little bit. We're going to take out 10% of the population every year through sport hunting. We're going to train our kids to be woodsmen. We're going to train them to harvest and process wild game and bring it home and have the most ethically harvested, sustainable, healthy meat, rocket fuel on the planet. This is a very valuable thing to society. We're saying, let us keep doing that. And we'll let you keep doing the things that you're interested in. Skateboards.
Starting point is 01:16:34 Keep riding your horses. That's right. We'll ride our mules. You know, the thing is you're not only, it's not, it's that. Plus, you're turning out young men and women with integrity and humility and values that are higher than we like to hunt. You know, or it makes my heart race. It's just like Daniel Boone through a hard life of risk and adventure and real challenges in nature, learned character. Yes.
Starting point is 01:17:04 And in the end, he might, ironically, even though he kind of embodied the American narrative, I go out and I dominate the wild, Ironically, according to the world standards, he ended the life of poor man, little known. But really, in terms of character and integrity and love for his family, he won. He won big. And that's what, and we want that for our kids. And we want that for our families.
Starting point is 01:17:31 You know, I believe that dedication to craft does, it's not the only thing that makes you a good human. It's not at all. I mean, like, you could be a hunter and be a dirtball and love to hunt. That is entirely possible. But when things that take the dedication of a lifetime to master become something that you focus on, you have to have a whole bunch of other stuff in your life built right.
Starting point is 01:17:56 Right, right. So there's correlations. There's connections. I glanced at Malachi when I said that word. He's our correlation guy. You know, I think that's a really good point that I kind of was raised. with the mindset that if you, like, hobbies were not great. They weren't very productive.
Starting point is 01:18:16 They weren't almost like they're kind of inferior people with hobbies. That's sort of, first of all, we wouldn't call them craft. We'd call it what you're doing, what you're describing as a craft. We would describe it as a hobby. You told you that. I'll punch you. You know who don't mean. No, I just get.
Starting point is 01:18:28 I just remember who told her that. I can't. So there was almost, it was kind of an imbalance because work and productivity was such a highly valuable thing. that that would be the thing. But that's really wrong and imbalanced. And I think that when you, one of the real values that we've wanted in part to our kids is not that you're,
Starting point is 01:18:49 you know, just always doing stuff for no purpose than just to have hobbies, but that you build a craft because the craft builds you. And the craft is a tool to actually construct a whole lot of other things. So we've been real comfortable with our kids really getting into, whether it be hunting or sports or things like that, because we realize that it's in life, it's in the doing, it's in the living where all these other things can be shaped. And we can't compartmentalize and say, well, these things get shaped over here, but not over here.
Starting point is 01:19:19 And so I think that's a really good point to, that you just made there, Newk. Oh, well, thanks. There's one. I think I've heard you. I think I've heard you talk about that Misty in terms of, like, I came from more of a background and a childhood of, like, video games, television. and riding my bicycle to work. I've heard you talk about just the nature of young men specifically, but I'm sure in humanity, not limited to young men,
Starting point is 01:19:48 learning to overcome something versus the current culture, which video games is an easy one, provides an opportunity for you to feel like you have mastered a craft or overcome an obstacle, but in reality you have not. It is a simulated experience. And seeing the correlation more deeply of what it takes to build a lifestyle of mass. mastering a craft or overcoming an obstacle.
Starting point is 01:20:10 That's been the transition of my life as well. And I appreciate the things that you guys are saying about it. It makes a lot more senses. Yeah. Closing thoughts. Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau was influenced by Daniel Boone. One of my favorite quotes of his was,
Starting point is 01:20:25 all good things are wild and free. That says a lot to me. Velvet pipes with a mic drop. Oh, I love that section so much. Yeah, very good. Yeah, yeah. Dan? That guys like Thoreau would look to somebody like Daniel Boone and not Thomas Jefferson, I think, says a ton. Certainly, I'm sure Thomas Jefferson had an impact on O'TJ.
Starting point is 01:20:52 On O'TJ. But, you know, I mean, that's great influence, you know. Jonathan, closing thoughts. That question is my closing thought. What is the gauntlet when Daniel Boone was taken captive and he said, listen, I'll turn turn over my men. I'll have him surrender as long as you promise not to kill us or make us run the gauntlet. What's the gauntlet?
Starting point is 01:21:14 I don't. Let me speak for those people on this podcast. I wish I listened to being on here. No. Actually, because you don't know that, you're going to have to run the gauntlet. I wrote a paper in college called the education gauntlet. I wish I could find it. They'd probably put it in like New York Times.
Starting point is 01:21:34 And basically, it was my assessment of my. college education. When I get to the end, there's not a ton of value, but I have just proved that I can take it in the face for like five years. His professors were really touched. That was my initial thought of, I haven't told you what the gauntlet is yet. No, there's a buildup. I know you're now that I'm older, I realize that that was really formative in my development, was going to college. The gauntlet is when they would line up on, they would have like, have like, 20 people facing 20 people and leave like a five foot span and everybody would have clubs and rocks and sticks and dirt and a guy would have to run through the center like you know
Starting point is 01:22:20 oh yeah yeah and they would just pummeling i mean i know it from a football context but i didn't realize that that was a oh that was a that was an ancient very common i mean boon knew it enough that he was like i'll surrender all these guys as long as you promise not to make them run the gotlet. And do you know what old Blackfish did? Is Blackfish took all the guys and then when they got them back to camp they started forming a gauntlet line
Starting point is 01:22:46 and Boone said, you said we weren't going to have to run the gauntlet. And he said, Blackfish said I said they wouldn't have to run the gauntlet. He said, I never said you wouldn't. For real. Here, have some sugar. We're a long way for sugar cane.
Starting point is 01:23:02 Yeah. It's tough. Sugar cane was they. Blackfish is like afterwards. I mean, really, like, there was something cultural about running the gauntlet that, I mean, Blackfish, like, I think you really loved Boone and liked him, but he was just like, bro, I'm sorry, there's no way out of this. And Boone made a spectacle of him. He ran in, I can't remember the details, because he ran the gauntlet multiple times in his life. I mean, this is not a movie. This would be like me or, are you sitting here going, yeah, man, when I was down there, they kidnapped me for four months and ran the gauntlet. And some of the most fierce people in the gauntlet were the women.
Starting point is 01:23:46 They were just, like, hostile. And what he did is he faked one way, like he ran, and this is what I remember. He faked one way and then turned and smacked over a bunch of women. And it threw the whole thing into a rumble. And he made it through with minimal whooping. What was the value? Like, if you could get through and not be knocked out, you were somehow... Tocons.
Starting point is 01:24:16 It was, it was, it was, it was just what they did to their captors. The reckoning. So you've done wrong and this is the price you pay. But after he ran it, he was respected. They were like, good job. That was pretty good, Boone. Yeah, here's a tooth. Great.
Starting point is 01:24:32 Closing thoughts, Malachi. Yeah. You know, as you were talking about, about like having a seat at the table. I think at listening to the three podcasts, I think what comes to mind is the power of articulation and also the power of invitation, of articulating your stories and inviting non-unquote non-woodsmen to partake of that, how powerful that is. And as a non-woodsman, I think our response is the power of not assuming and the power of trying, trying it, because recognizing how much you learn just from not assuming and
Starting point is 01:25:11 trying something different, how much, how much life that brings to you. And I think that's how you can get a seat at the table, and that's how you open up a seat at the table. So, I think those Hey, Malacah, we consider you a pre-woodsman. You're not a non-woodsman. You're just on the way. pre-woodsman. He's got his hunter's license. Two years in a row. Two years in a row. Put some respect to my name.
Starting point is 01:25:39 We're not the one who said you weren't a woodsman. All right. Well, hey, no more Boone podcast unless we come back for part two. Dang. Part two. We could always dive in. We could always dive back in. I'm already researching another character that I'm probably going to do at some point.
Starting point is 01:25:56 Dolly Parton? Maybe. I would like Dolly Parton on this Berger's podcast. Anybody knows or let her know. Bring her to the render. Yep. There you go. She could definitely do the live music.
Starting point is 01:26:07 Yeah, I was disappointed. I thought the render had live music. Man, I was ready. Y'all want to hear about Bulldozer songs? Oh, Jonathan. Oh, I opened another door. I'm sorry. Yes, I do.
Starting point is 01:26:18 Let's experience it. It is so good. I'm ready. He's fired. I'm kidding. Jonathan, this will be your last thing. Listen, I knew I was the contest winner. This is my only time.
Starting point is 01:26:27 We'll save it. Misty. Like, really doesn't like the song. It's Misty's birthday. don't play it. It is my birthday. Okay. Okay, so listen,
Starting point is 01:26:39 this song, this song is a spoof. It's a spoof. You can realize it's a joke, okay? So it's, and if you remember when I got on that dozer, that first day,
Starting point is 01:26:55 and I came back to the render, and I'd been on the dozer, everybody was like, Clay's different. A little bit peppy. It, He'd been intoxicated with power. Okay?
Starting point is 01:27:05 I get it, bro. Do you remember that? I get it. So you need to have that in your mind. It's the inside joke. Okay. The second thing was, was I made some, we made some commentary about the cat dozer. Okay.
Starting point is 01:27:22 And we talked about it being a black cat. Okay. Oh, we ready. We're caught up. He was riding. that cat dozer on the mountain south of town he was pushing them trees over and the rocks they tumble down
Starting point is 01:27:43 she was back home praying that her boy would settle down deep down she knew he'd probably never come back around don't take my soul away from me unbridled power can't change me into the feast like you. That diesel rumbled as those big pines hit the ground. That sandrock tumbled as his girl began to frown.
Starting point is 01:28:34 All he wanted was a place to settle down in the mountains with a view and a glowing fire on the ground. Don't take my soul away from me. Can't change me into a beast life. You don't take my soul. I'm sorry, Jesus. Hot dog. That's awesome. That's amazing.
Starting point is 01:29:39 I'll be downloading that on Spotify. Or wherever you get your latest. A little bit, a little bit. 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, hardwaring where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts.
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