Bear Grease - Ep. 301: This Country Life - The Country Store

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

The country store was more than just a place to buy necessities. It may have started out that way, but for whatever reason, spots where people regularly gather soon turn into something else. In this case for Brent, the country store became a special place and today he's talking about the experiences he had there. Meet us at the back of the store and grab a chair, it's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Black Bear Bonanza: https://www.backcountryhunters.org/black_bear_bonanza_2025 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 Eat Eater's Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. The Country Store.

The country store was the hub of a lot of activity throughout a rural community. Times have changed and with less people living in the country and with modern development moving the city limits further and further away from town, those places are becoming a thing of the past. I'm talking about them and what I think we're missing when they're going away and what we can do to preserve everything that was the country store. I think you'll like it even if you've never been. been in one. And after you listen, you may realize that maybe, just maybe, you have. But first,

I'm going to tell you a story. Finis. That's P-H-I-N-I-E-S. Finis Sly. My maternal grandfather had a head full of white hair, and it had turned that way early in his life, making him look older than he was. Now one thing he was not was quote unquote an old man, even when he was one. He was strong and smart as anyone educated beyond his high school diploma and was a reader of everything. He was self-educating himself on anything he could pick up and read at night before bedtime. Readers Digest, Popular Mechanics, National Geographic, Progressive Farmer, and Western novels were his favorite. He was also the epitome of a southern gentleman.

He worked every day at the farm, and at that time, our family store, Sly's grocery. Sunday after church, would find him at the farm looking after the chickens, the hogs and the cows. He put a lot of work into his farm and his business, and so did the folks that worked for him. He believed in doing things the right way, treating folks like he wanted to be treated and had a low tolerance for anything else. Let me jump a whole generation later. And while I was occasionally attended college, I worked as a weekend dispatcher at the local police department.

The chief of police at that time in the mid-80s had been the chief since the late 50s. And he told me a story once about my grandfather in our store. He said he was standing outside the police department talking with someone when a man from out of town walked up to him nursing a black eye and a bloody nose. He claimed to have been attacked and assaulted by an old man at a store on the edge of town. The man said the altercation was unprovoked and proceeded to explain to the chief the location of where the incident occurred. He had the man waited City Hall while he drove out to my grandfather's store, reasonably sure that he knew who the alleged perpetrator was since everyone in town knew my grandfather. What he didn't know since he knew my grandfather so well was what had actually happened

and why. Now upon arrival he said he remembered my mother sitting on the counter in the store laughing when he walked in. My grandfather standing in front of the counter ready to meet his fate and my grandmother saying, well, finest, that temper of yours has landed you in jail this time. Now, my mother said she and other folks who were in the store shopping when the fight occurred saw the whole thing from start to finish and were standing there waiting ready to tell their side of the story. Here's what happened. The man unknown to my grandfather had asked for a tank of gas and a bill of groceries on credit. My grandfather explained to him that since he didn't know him and he didn't have anyone with him

that could vouch for his ability to pay him back, he wouldn't be able to help him out. But if he could get someone to speak up for him, he'd be glad to help him. The man got angry, and my grandfather told him to leave the store. And as he was leaving, he said some very profane things to my grandfather, which probably would have been bad enough, but he made the mistake of saying it in front of my mother, who was just a teenage girl at the time, and my grandmother, who was a son. saint all the time. According to the chief of police and my mother,

my grandfather grabbed an axe handle as he walked by a barrel full of them that were for sale and it sat beside the door as he walked out following the man. Words were exchanged outside about his lack of manners and shortly thereafter, a lesson in manners was given and received. Sly's grocery store in Warren, Arkansas. A place where you could get staples like groceries, gas, and educated on manners. No arrests were made. More on that place in a minute.

But that's just how that happened. The big indoor mall, the strip mall, and all the other businesses that would become the modern-day places to meet, eat, and shop all have the country store to thank. The rural business for exploring Europeans trading goods and services, started soon after they hit the bank in search of a better life, adventure, and treasure. Everyone at one time or another had to make a Walmart run, and that started not long after May the 13th of 1607 when 104 enterprising men and boys started making tracks from their boats westward on the beaches of Virginia after four and a half month at sea that kicked off from London, England.

I bet the lads were getting a little spicy, by the time they hit the East Coast, unfortunately, the first Washington Terrier was still 1,359 miles away in Fort Worth, Texas, and wouldn't be invented for another 327 years. Now, that's a long time to wait for clean drawers. Fortunately, there was someone willing to fill the void for services, the country store, or a reasonable facsimile of what we know is one soon after. I told you about the little store of my youth not far from where we live that sat in the

Y of the gravel road, that if you went right coming from town when you got there, it would take you to our house. If you took a left, you were headed toward Crane Lake or the Saline River. That little country store was owned and operated by a lifelong resident of the community who ran it until he retired. It was sold to an enterprising family whose questionable handwas. was brought to light back on episode 113 of this country life. You should go back and listen to that one if you hadn't already.

Anyway, the country store in most places was the department store of today. They didn't have it. They could order it. They couldn't order it. More than likely, didn't need it. Everything from canned groceries to bread, leather goods, clothes, and bullets and beans could be bought there with credit accounts for those the country. qualified. The qualifications being that their word was good, and when and if there was ever a problem,

someone would be standing before the grocer with the reason why they needed extra time to pay or make an offer to trade something of value or time and labor against their unpaid balance. Remember my grandpa, Papal Sly, the Southern gentleman's store owner, well, he and his wife, Bula, known to us all including my friends as Mama Sly, lived in town across the road from that store. They had sold it by the time I got old enough to remember it, but my mother told me stories of my grandfather extending credit to folks that needed help and toting the note for him for a long time or sometimes forgiven some debts altogether for families that were just struggling but trying. He delivered some groceries to those that didn't.

have a car and not everyone did back then. He'd load the pickup with the orders people had called him, and my grandmother had gathered up from the shelves. Then he would make his deliveries and collect what was owed him. Most families that had accounts at the store worked for the lumber mills in town who would pay their bills from the previous weeks on payday as new groceries were delivered from their orders. It was a good system and it worked.

For the most part, there were a few that tried to get by and take the same. advantage of my grandfather's generosity. Excuses were cheap and plentiful, and even when he knew better, my mother told me he'd give them the benefit of the doubt until they crossed the line. She liked to go with him when he made his rounds, delivering groceries and collecting the money. Regardless of the task, he'd let her go with him. A little girl sitting beside him as they went through the neighborhoods, dropping off goods

and collecting payments. She hopping out of the truck and her little ruffled dresses and bowing both. in her hair, walking with him to greet all the people that she knew that traded in her daddy store. She told me that one day after several stops, he pulled up to someone's house that was notorious not only for not paying his bills but for not taking care of his family, not the way he should have, spending more time looking for something to drink and work and provide and feed his wife and children.

My grandfather got out of the truck, and as she slid over in the seat to get out too, he said, no, baby, you stay here this time. And with that, my grandfather reached behind the seat of the truck and took out a hammer and walked up the path to the front door of the house and called a man out on the porch. She said, he came out and I could hear Daddy talking to the man and the man talking back, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. They were both talking really low. Then the man went back in the house and he came back with some money. and handed it to my daddy like he was mad. And he started to go back in the house, but Daddy wouldn't let him leave.

Then your grandpa counted some money out, stuck it in his shirt pocket, and handed the man back what was left. The man looked surprised, and they shook hands. And he never said what they talked about or exactly what happened on that porch, but after I got older, I knew why he took the hammer with him. But I also know that he gave the man back money. that he owed my daddy with a promise to use it for his family. 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 backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses,

no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th.

Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. The first example I highlighted in this opening story of this podcast about my grandfather may make him seem like he was a mean or a violent person. And if you think that, you'd be wrong. The second account described him perfectly. He was a well-respected member of the community, who would give all he could until the given took away from his ability to take care of his family. Family was his first priority, and he believed everyone else's priority should be family as well.

He stopped at nothing to take care of his and would do all he could to take care of others. Country stores were a lot of things. The main things they were was a community gathering place for friends and neighbors to visit. A few miles up the road in New Edinburgh, Arkansas, there were several stores that fit this mold over time, but only one remains there now. It was there that we would gather sometimes after a morning of hunting during turkey season. We checked the sign-in sheet to see if anyone had killed a turkey and met at the back to hear everyone's report from what had gone on. During the summer, we'd be there buying crickets and croppy jigs, asking and lying about where

the fish were or weren't biting. My all-time favorite was when it was cold outside and there was a fire in the wood stove and the old men were holding court, reading the paper and drinking coffee and solving all the world's problems right there in the back of that storm. You can warm your hands, you're behind, and your soul with stories of long ago from the folks who witnessed and lived in. Those places are fewer and further between now,

but they're still around. Eleven years ago, back when I was still having to really work for a living, my job took me to a little community in the Delta region of eastern Arkansas. Farming was and still is the main employer in that area and nestled between large expanses of plowed ground rests the tiny community of Melwood, Arkansas. Sporting a bustling population of 21, it lies one mile due west of Island 65. the famous Jackson Point Hunting Club on the Mississippi River.

This place is exactly what I assumed it would feel like walking into my grandfather's store 60 years ago and worn, and what it did feel like, walking into the one in New Edinburgh where I lived later in life. I was there around dinner time or lunch, if you prefer, but I went in to get a cold drink and something to eat, and the smell of cooking food drew me to the back of the store, and I ordered the plate lunch. I don't remember what it was. I just remember it was good and hadn't been microwaved. I sat down at a table and across from me sat several folks who were older than me. They weren't eating, not yet anyway, but I could tell this was their group and regular place to

meet, to sit and to visit. I needed to be on down the road at another point of interest that was the focus of my trip. I was on a schedule and the 20 minutes I had allotted to eat. I was, I was on a schedule. and the 20 minutes I'd allotted to eat that day quickly turned into an hour and a half. I got home that evening, two hours late, and told Alexis about my day when she asked, and it was the best day I'd had at work in a long time. It inspired me to write the following day what I'd like to read to you now. February 17, 2014, 2.14, 2.5 hours from my home is a forgotten farming community, a post office that could fit inside my house stands next to a general store.

The flag of our nation flaps gently in the breeze, and here it seems, time stands still. The old folks are positioned behind and in front of the counter in places one can imagine are theirs, places that they assumed yesterday, places they will be tomorrow, and places they will be as long as they're able. The floor creaked with age as I walked inside, but it held firm. It held the way things hold that were built when the measure of a craftsman was gazed by time, not budget. Invited, I sat down and we talked, and for an hour I talked with four old strangers who spoke of family in simple times. Little Rock was a faraway place that they chose not to go.

Why should they? Everything and everyone they needed was here, and for an hour they let me watch. I missed those folks today in the times of which that encounter reminded me. The majority of you who will read this and played a part one way or another in my life, and without you good or bad, I wouldn't be where I am today, and today, my friends, I'm in a good place. Now that's what I wrote that day, and all these years later, I still get the same feeling of reverence reading it now as I did then.

Makes me want to get up and drive over there to see my old friends at a place I have never returned to see people whose names I never learned and people I'd never seen before that day, but made a lasting impression on me just the same. Melwood's grocery is still open. I have no idea how long it's been there, and even though I've only been there once in person, I've been there a thousand times in my memory. Just like Mr. Almas Mark's store at the Y in the county road where my brothers and sisters, cousins and I would make our way to either walking, riding bicycles, horses, or hitching

a ride from someone headed in that direction. A four-and-a-half-mile trip on a hot, dusty gravel road that held the promise of adventure and discovery between home and a Coke. If we had enough money, a candy bar or two to share. Those roads are all paved now and have been for a long time, and I drive them now without kicking up a torrent of dust as I make my way along those roads that six generations of my family before me is well. I wonder what they thought about as they traveled along,

passing familiar homes and places. At what point did the reverence for this land and the community become so strong among the folks who've lived there. It's always been an important place in my life. Naturally, everyone's home is, but sometimes it takes moving away just to see how important those places are. Or visiting a place for the first time that is so similar to your own, you feel right at home from the beginning.

Places like these are all around us. And they don't necessarily have to be isolated rural stories, with hot, dusty, barefooted youngets running in and out of. A park bench, a diner, church, a friend's front porch, any place where we have an occasion to pause and enjoy the company of familiar faces, even those of strangers, all looking for the same thing. Kind word from an old friend. Or a new one.

Tomorrow is March the 1st, and me, Bear John, and his Papi Claibault will be attending the Black Bear Bonanza at the Benton County Fairgrounds in Bentonville, Arkansas. Look up the Black Bear Bananza 2025 and get directions and ticket information. It's going to be a lot of fun, so load the wagon and y'all come see us. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves, signing all. Y'all be careful. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleepy. that 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.