Bear Grease - Ep. 233: This Country Life - Heroes

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

The recent celebration of our nation’s Declaration of Independence got Brent thinking about heroes. Just what constitutes a hero? He’s gonna share his thoughts and give what he thinks is a prime example of one. If that’s not enough he’s sharing a heroic listener story and offering up suggestions to help baseball grow their audience and speed up the game. There’s a lot to unpack on this episode of MeatEater’s This Country Life podcast.  Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch 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 trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts the airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.

Heroes. is a little different than our regular offerings here at this country life, but after celebrating the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence last week, I got to thinking about all the folks that are referred to during that time as heroes. That led me to thinking about the ones referred to that now, and who really qualifies? I'm going to give you my thoughts on it, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. This story is right on theme for this week's topic and comes from the This Country Life Mailbag sent in by Jesse Crawford down in Laurel Hill, Florida. That's in Okalusa County.

Laurel Hill has a distinction of being the northern most incorporated city within the great state of Florida. If you had a slingshot that could fling a rock 50 miles, you could stand on the beach in Destin and hum a rock due north and have folks in Laurel Hill rubbing knots on their heads and ducking for cover. all 584 of them. I'd like to have me one of them. But without further delay, in Jesse Crawford's words and my voice, here we go. It all started when we had a day off from school and decided to take my dad's jet ski to the lake. We were young but old enough to be trusted to some degree.

We were taking turns running around the lake and pulling each other on the two. It's normally a busy place for water sports. sports, but today it was just us and one other boat. After my buddy and I had had enough, we swapped out and let the other two fellows ride and just hung out on the bank. It wasn't long before we see the jet ski headed back at a high rate of speed, and as they got closer, I realized that one of my friends that left on the jet ski was replaced by a frantic woman that was freaking out so bad you couldn't understand what she was saying.

My buddy yelled for me to jump on and drive that he would explain on the trip back out. Apparently, the husband was pulling his wife on a tube and she fell off. He turned to pick her up and accidentally hammered the throttle and threw himself out. And since he didn't wear his kill switch,

the boat was running circles at full throttle. So we got to try and help the husband who was being helped to stay afloat by my friend that was left when the wife that he picked up was taken to show. shore. And that's when I realized we had a big task, because this was a very large man. No matter how hard we tried, there was just no way to get him on that jet ski. It kept flipping the three-seat

jet ski no matter how hard we tried to counterbalance it. Meanwhile, that boat, it's still running wide open and making circles, and that's when I realized what had to be done. We gave the husband all our life jackets because he was struggling to stay afloat at this point. My friend jumps back on a jet ski with me and we take off after that boat. Now, every two or three circles, that boat would level out and run straight for a couple hundred feet. We were terrified, but we timed it out just right and ran up beside that boat when it was going straight and I bailed off into it. I was so overwhelmed with relief that I actually got in the boat. I almost forgot the purpose of being there.

But I took control and I headed back to where the man was still floating on our life jackets. Now, after managing to get him back in his boat, we took it and him back to shore where his wife was being looked after by the EMTs that had been alerted. They started taking care of him too and he tells us that he had just bought the boat and it was his first time taking it out. And it would probably be his last. The husband thanked us And he tried to give us a lot of cash he had in his pocket

But we kept declining over and over He tells us that if we weren't there It would have cost him a lot more than a little cash And he picked up a rock And he placed the money under it and tells us Somebody will find it if y'all don't take it And he left And he left $1,000 under that rock

Which seemed like a million bucks to us kids Anyway, that's my money my story. Y'all stay safe out there. Good night nurse, Jesse. That's some straight-up mission impossible and James Bond caliber stunt work, my friend. Y'all saw a need and you took action. Nice job, man. And according to Jesse Crawford of Laurel Hill, Florida, that's just how that happened. What constitutes or qualify someone as a hero? Now, Mr. Webster says a hero is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. On the other hand, it can also mean a tasty sandwich.

Now, I hear that term thrown around a lot these days, noticeably to me more often than in times past, and it got me to wondering if we've got more heroes now than we used to, or do we just hear that term because of the information that we get bombarded with on social media? Now, Aldi Murphy was a pint-sized 17-year-old from Northeast Texas, and he attempted to enlist in the U.S. military after Japan attacked the United States in December of 1941. The Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, all of them turned him down because he was undersized and underaged. His older sister eventually provided a falsified affidavit stating his birth date was a year earlier than it actually was, and after that, he was accepted by the U.S. Army on the 30th day of June in 1942.

Aldi Murphy was 5 feet, 5.5 inches tall, and he weighed 112 pounds when he enlisted. The M1 rifle that he was issued upon graduating of basic and individual training weighed nearly a tenth of his own weight at 9.1.1.5 pounds. Murphy would fight the Germans in Europe, and over the next two and a half years would come home as the most decorated soldier of World War II. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, two silver stars, the Legion of Merit, two bronze stars, and three purple hearts, just to name a few. He was a one-man wrecking crew stacking up our nation's enemies like cordwood. To me, he is the quintuble. an essential definition of a hero and the world would be hard pressed to argue otherwise.

But what if no one knew his story? What if there had been no witnesses to his feats of courage in the face of danger? After all, it was his fellow soldiers who reported his actions to their superiors, not Murphy. The acknowledgement of his actions doesn't qualify him as a hero, only his actions. He saw a need in a desperate situation, and he is a need. acted. But what about the soldiers who were with him? They did a noble and heroic thing just by being there. They all took an oath to protect and defend our nation and added up their services, including their own lives, should the task require it. Are they not heroes? Well, I believe they

are, along with anyone else who's before or since who's taken that same pledge. I think we can all agree that there can be no greater measure of commitment than a person who's willing to sacrifice their life for the common good. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't.

This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something.

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. But the definition, remember, isn't just for courage. It's also an admiration for outstanding achievement. I asked my wife Alexis who her hero was, and without hesitation, she said, oh, it's you, Brent. No, I'm kidding. She didn't say that. She said, oh, it's my parents, but especially my mama. I told her to tell me why, and this was her answer.

She said when she and dad got married, she quit college. Then after having two kids, she went back and finished so we could all have a better life. Now, I was in elementary school when she started back to school, and it was hard on us for her being gone. but it only lasted a little while in the grand scheme of things, and I learned a valuable lesson from her. As hard as college was when I went, I had it easy compared to what she had to do being married

and raising me and my sister. She is an example of determination and strength. She is my hero. Well, I couldn't agree more, Alexis. Fighting off hordes of enemy soldiers single-handedly is an outstanding achievement. so was going back to college while raising a family. Jumping a five-strand bobwire fence in stride is an outstanding achievement. I saw my buddy Greg Hayes do that one night when we thought a watermelon farmer was trying to kill us, if y'all remember.

I only jumped four out of the five, and the one I didn't make it over was the one that was the most important. Greg left me in his dust to fend for myself. But in his defense, it was the first time either of us had been shot at, and had I had the ability to jump like he did, I'd have done the same. Besides, someone had to live to go back and tell the story what happened. But what he did was an athletic achievement. What I did was a demonstration of gravity. The real hero of that scenario was the farmer,

who taught us both a lesson that night. A terrible shot, heck of a watermelon grower, not to mention a great fence builder too. Then there are the folks like Claybow and I talked to a couple of weeks ago, game wardens who go to work every day to protect our wildlife. There's also other officers and agents that I've worked with over the years who I witnessed putting themselves at risk to keep the peace and protect lives and property. I don't place them above anyone else who sees an issue and addresses it.

It just takes one person to take action and set the example. That's missing from a lot of where we find ourselves today in my opinion. Take any event, historic, dramatic, traumatic, or otherwise, and the majority of folks that stick around to see what happens are video and someone else getting involved with their telephones. Did the advent of the cell phone turn most into observers? There's obviously still folks getting involved and taking action or there wouldn't be anyone to film doing it. But are people really much different now than back in the day. It seems like the only folks

that get involved in mass these days is when two folks are fixing to mix it up on the baseball field. Opposing players will start squaring up and it looks like a stampede of players running in from every direction. They're almost always holding the two aggressors back from each other

instead of just letting them duking it out and getting it over with. You know, if they'd just let that happen, maybe they wouldn't have had to put that pitch clock in to speed up the game because fans were getting bored and turning the channel. Now, if you want to garner up some interest for your ballgame, let folks think a fight could break out at any moment, a real Donnybrook, and let them use whatever they're holding when it does. Folks these days will be tuning in by the droves if they think they're going to get to see

some cat get drove in the ground like a tit peg with a bat. If you really want to speed the game up, give both bat boys a taser. and tell them they can zap anybody they think is taking too long. Start the game at 4.30, and you'll still be able to make it home in time for supper. Nine innings of baseball, one hour, 18 minutes. I'm just kidding about all that. Well, mostly. Anyway, it seems like we've become a population of watchers instead of doers,

and I was guilty as anyone. I was digging around on my phone several months ago, looking for some show notes I'd taken, and I swiped to a page I'd never. paid any attention to. And there was a graph on there that showed me how much time I was spending looking at social media. For the love of humanity, that was an eye-opener. I tried to justify some of it in my mind because social media is a part of my job. And also, I like to keep up my family and my friends on there, too. But that amount of time shown on there was ridiculous,

at least in my mind it was. We don't take our eyes off what's in our hands. We don't take our eyes off what's in our hands, we're going to miss what's going on all around us. If we miss what's going on all around us, we're going to miss the opportunity to act when action is needed. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as pulling people from a burning building or saving a person who's falling through the ice. It could be as simple as helping someone through a door onto a curb or just stopping to say hello. But back to the definition of hero, another part of it was to be admired or idealized. Well, that's pretty easy for me. That's my brother Tim. He and I have done some ridiculously dumb things together, but he always does the right thing. And I'll say it before

anywhere. I'm probably the bad influence. But he'd rather be at home than anywhere. He likes to hear about the places I go and all but fain's interest in actually going if the place or the activity is more than a day's drive away. But any place he ever went that I wanted to go, he'd let me, or he'd make sure he invited me, especially when I was young and more of a hindrance than an asset. I always had a spot. He showed interest in me. He made time for me, and he gave me a mark to shoot for and being a good. person. He's one of the best people I know and he treats everyone the same. That's something to be admired and emulated. The big question when I started way back

before I mentioned Audie Murphy or had the idea to issue weapons to Bat Boys was what constitutes a hero. Well the answer in my mind is heroes don't have to wear uniforms of any kind or do anything amazing. They just have to show up when the opportunity arises for someone to take action for good, regardless of the situation or the consequences if anyone is around to notice. It could be monumental and get attention worldwide or is seemingly insignificant as showing compassion and being kind. Your definition may be different than mine and you may not agree with how I look at it and that's cool too. Society uses the term hero a lot. Maybe too much these days. I don't know.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't apply. That's for each person to decide on their own and in their own time. Just don't take too long. You never know where one of those bat boys with a taser might be. I still think that's a good idea. It would dang sure speed the lottery ticket line up at the old convenience store. I know you want to be a millionaire and not have worked for it, but all I'm trying to do is pay for these peanut M&Ms and get on down the road.

Hey, have y'all checked out the new Mid-Eater Podcast Network, YouTube channel yet? Well, if you haven't, you ought to. That reminds me of an old saying that my maternal grandpa would say whenever he heard someone say you ought to do something. Here's an example. Finus, my grandpa's name was Finus. Finus, you ought to move them cows to the back pasture before the rain. His reply would be an otter's butt is slicker than a beavers. No idea what that means, but if anyone does let me know, but if anybody, you... said he ought to do something regardless of what it was, that was his response. It's good.

I like it. Also, if you have the time, leave us a review and share mine and Claybow Show with other folks you think that might like them. It's a good way to support us. Also, y'all have been sending in some great stories. We're reading them all and archiving them for when the time is right and for another project that we're working on so y'all keep them coming. Funny stories, poignant stories, story.

about the outdoors, mishaps, close calls. They're really good. Y'all keep sending them. That's going to do it for me this week. Try to stay cool until next week. This is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful.

First Lights Fieldwear 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. Built to perform, built to last. Check out.

First Light's new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.