Bear Grease - Ep. 365: This Country Life - Small Knife, Big Life

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Brent reflects on stories heard from old and new friends this past weekend at an event with Case Knives. Centered on the common thread of their love of knives and hunting, most of these stories end up being about something else entirely. He also reads a letter he received from a chance meeting that developed into a true friendship. Check your pockets! It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Shop This Country Life Merch Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Subscribe to the 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 Trotlining 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 from the Storemore Studio on Meat Eat Eaters 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. Small knife, big life.

Who could have imagined the blessings that pocket knives would have on my life, not me or anyone else around me? When my dad handed me the first one to put in my pocket when I was just a little boy, I would have never dreamed that one day our name would be associated with those same knives. A recent trip to Missouri brought a lot of that home for me, and I'd like nothing better than to share some of it with you now. But first, I'm going to tell you a story. A couple months back, I was in Montana at the meat eater office,

and we were having some meetings and activities and wound up doing some shooting out at a ranch owned by Mr. Mike Anderson. I had never met him before, and the access to his property was brokered by a friend of ours, Peter Howell. And Mr. Anderson rode up on a four-wheeler to watch some of the shooting and visit with a gaggle of folks he didn't know that were in the, process of trading trigger squeezes for metal pings. He wore what I assume would be similar to his daily attire as he went about his chores on

his ranch, faded blue jeans, a khaki work shirt, and black suspenders. His cap was dusty and weatherbeat, a description that might identify Mr. Anderson in a different setting, but here he was part of the landscape, and his 80-something-year-old eyes twinkled with delight against the sun-tanned face as he talked about his time there, a steward of the ranch he bought a half century ago. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself. I followed suit, and he looked at my case t-shirt and said, do you work for case knives? I told him about my association with him, a brief history of what most of you listening have heard before, and when I finished, he told me about a knife his father had given him when he was a young man.

We talked for a couple of hours. I was supposed to be shooting, but I skipped out to talk to this man about his life, his land, and the things that are still being made in America. Before we left, I got his address, and my friend Alex Zimmer, who manages the meat eater store in Bozeman, send him one of my signature knives. A week after it was delivered to his home, I received a handwritten letter from Mr. Anderson. So in his words, grammatical inflection and my voice, I'm going to read it to you now. August 13, 2025.

Dear Brent, today was Christmas in Montana. Santa Claus came to my mailbox with the finest present of all. Thank you very much for the case knife. Can one be too rich to think they have too many knives and guns? I don't think so. Through college, I was the advertising manager for the University of Idaho newspaper. Now, I mentioned this as my thoughts still turned to the question of how do I convey something of value to the public.

As I hold my new knife in one hand and write my thoughts with the other, here's my thought. You never truly own a case knife. You just hold it in trust for the next generation. I still carry the case knife my father gave me nearly 80 years ago. It has been lost, found, lost again, and found again. It is getting more careful attention now as I try to determine which one of my children will inherit it. I've used it to clean hundreds of fish, many birds, and a small herd of elk and deer.

Would I part with it for $10,000? I don't know if there's a number out there. that could get it out of my pocket. As for your gift, what a beautiful combination of workmanship. Thanks again. I represented a concern for over 40 years. They were founded in 1857

and had a history of excellence in all of their products from that date to today. History conveys to those who are a part of it, a special feeling, I am sure, is shared by the family that represents Case Nives. I hope so. The craftsmanship tells me that I am right about that. Again, many thanks. Warmest regards to you and yours. Mike. P.S. If you have a case catalog, I would appreciate having one. That, folks, is Mr. Mike Anderson, a true representative of a generation of people who

who worked hard for what they have and valued the sweat equity of those that came before them. Mr. Anderson made a difference in my life during a two-hour conversation. Sometimes that's all it takes. And that's just how it happened. I get asked all the time, which pocket knife should I carry? Which one should I buy my child for their first knife? And what age should I give it to them? Man, that's a hard question.

There are so many factors that go into the decision. What are they going to be doing with it? But most importantly, have you done your due diligence in preparing them for the responsibilities of being safe with one? How to take care of it properly and to use it when it's appropriate? A listener sent me a message not long after I started this country life. And he wanted to know about one as a present for his young and that was in elementary school. Now, I'll tell you, my first thought was to tell him no, bad idea.

But then I thought about the wooden knife kits that Case has, and I asked him if he was familiar with him, and since he wasn't, I sent him one with this advice. Why not make a father-son project out of it, learn about how pocket-knife works, how it's made, all the parts while teaching him about how to safely use one? The one I sent him as an exact replication of all the pieces to scale of a mini trapper like I tote in my pocket. But I've seen them in multiple patterns of different models, the canoe, the Texas toothpick, and teardrop models are easily found on the internet with simple search.

That idea was well received and one that I hope will catch on with adults everywhere. Bailey and I have put together several, and I can easily admit I had just as much or more fun as she did putting them together. other. Appropriate age is one you'll need to figure out yourself. No one is going to know your young and better than you. A good rule of thumb for handling a first knife is the blade should be about as long as the person's index finger that's using it. Now that is going to save you some band-aids because it's easier to gauge where the knife tip is when comparing where your fingertip would be when you're skinning and cleaning fish and game.

That knife should be a natural extension of your hand, and with time and practice, it will be. When my father handed me his mini-trapper after a squirrel hunt when I was just a boy, he was teaching me how to skin a squirrel. He was also showing me how much he loved me, because as much as he loved squirrel hunting, he wouldn't have eaten one if he'd been starving, slapped to death. For the uninitiated on my father's feelings about squirrels Allow me to do a small review He lived somewhat of a dual life As his love for squirrel hunting

Put him in the midst of his greatest fear He had an issue with anything Anything that looked like a rat He didn't like eating squirrels He didn't like holding squirrels He didn't want anything to do with him Outside of hunting them with a dog Whoever he was hunting,

with was responsible for picking up the squirrels that were shot out of the tree. If he was working a new puppy and hunting by himself or if others couldn't go when he could, he'd bring them out either stuffed in a saddle bag or tied to a lanyard on the saddle horn where he could easily dump them out or dropped them off at whoever's house he stopped that to give them away or trade for a kind of snake bite medicine. But he wouldn't waste them ever. But he would have touched them only once. after the dogs treat them, and that was when he placed them in the saddlebagger on his

lanyard, unless I was with him. If it was just me and him, we'd skin them out to cook, and he hated every second of it. I can see his face now as he held the feet, and I began making the incision above that squirrel's exhaust pipe at the base of his tail. Son, now that knife is sharp, so don't cut too hard. Find the joint where his tail connects his behind, ease the blade through it, and continue down his backside a little bit. Don't cut too hard. I cut too hard.

And his tail came off in my hand, and my dad, whose only kryptonite was the idea of having to touch anything that resembled a rat. Now had to hold the carcass of a reasonable facsimile of something whose only bushy identifier had been carelessly removed by his baby boy. A descriptor he used for me until he passed away when I was 45 years old. The last ones I remember him frying up for me to eat, he and I sat at the table and he had something else. He had a disgusting look on his face while he watched me wreck every piece he was able to struggle through that he'd fried for me. How much did that man love me? Good night, nurse.

but the gift of that first knife was important to us. It signified the subliminal passing of the torch. Casual handing down to the legacy of all who came before the person getting a knife. I was too young to realize any of that when I got my first one, and as happy as I was to get it, I deserved it only in keeping with the tradition that there would come a time during the day when I would need a knife, a sharp knife doing chores on the farm or skinning a critter I'd caught or cleaning fish.

I was expected to handle my own business. We all were. There wasn't a set of written instructions. There wasn't a Reeves legacy playbook from which to operate from in the literal sense. Just an observational education on how to do things and what to use when you did. Just like the ones who came before us, there was a lot of, do it your way until you come up with a better one because no one was going to do it for you. Those were thoughts, feelings, and things involving those knives that I believe to be singularly hours. I found out a couple years ago how wrong I was and I was reminded of that fact last weekend in Lebanon, Missouri. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper,

from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen mountains. backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, iHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. I was invited by the Reed family to come speak at their celebration of the Ozarks event at their Shepard Hill store.

The reeds are longtime residents of the area in what I'd consider to be Case family royalty. In 1972, Miss Ida Reed and her husband, Re, that's right, his name is Rearie, opened Shepard Hills gift shop. It was located in the front of a motel in Lebanon on historic Route 66. Highway. Now, that stretched through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and winding up on the west coast of California. The sole mission for this store was to raise the funds to send their sons, Rod and Randy, to college. And it worked. They started out being a factory outlet for Chicago cutlery, and then in the early 1990s, they started to do. They started to

selling case knives. 53 years later, that business has grown to two additional locations, one an hour and a half south in Branson and the other 317 miles east in Eddiville, Kentucky. Miss Ida is still serving as president of Shepard Hills. Mr. Ree passed away several years ago. Rod and Randy run the day-to-day operations. Rod's wife, Becky, handles the catalog sales and website and runs the camp case for kids during the celebration each year.

Randy's sons are involved as well, and that family has built what started out as a humble gift shop with a singular focus and powerful mission into the largest case knife dealership in the world. With the Reed grandsons I met who were helping out during the event last weekend, that tallied four generations. That's special. And even though I consider them Case family royalty,

they were working hard to serve everyone else, every minute I was there, all of them. There was no air of authority around any of them. And that's how you accomplish something big. Everyone works together and stays mission-focused. These folks understand that their customers are the lifeblood of this family business, but they treat their customers more like family.

And not the weird cousin your mama makes you be nice to every Christmas at Memo's house. No, the family that you can't wait to see, even if you saw them yesterday. That event could just as easily be called a family reunion. I saw people and collectors there that I saw in Bradford, Pennsylvania, when I was out there last year. The reason for me being there was to speak at the case, Collectors Club dinner. Over 500 individuals, couples and families gathered to eat and fellowship.

Afterwards, we relocated to a theater where the captive audience was forced to listen to me for about 20 minutes and privileged to hear from Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant Major Matthew Williams. I talked about my family's history and legacy with the knives and detailed the message I received from Case when they heard the episode of. I did explaining our history, what started at all. And in that message, Kay said, we liked the way you talked about our knives. I got that message.

I read the word our. And I guess you could interpret that as them talking about their knives, but I didn't take it that way. It bolstered my own equity in that of my families. I took it as they included me and mine in the term our. I concluded my presentation, and then Sergeant Major Williams took the stage and spoke about duty and dedication, discipline, loyalty, and sacrifice. It is a very moving story and a great example of service before self.

I highly encourage you to look up Sergeant Major Williams' citation for receiving a Medal of Honor and read it for yourself. It's truly incredible. The next day we greeted the several thousand folks that had made the trip from all over creation to be there. Robert Green, Brandon, and Chrissy Lynch, Jeremy and Jacob Sloan, Donnie Baker, and my lifelong friends Mary and Toby Niebuyer and countless others that I had the opportunity to meet that are now new friends of mine. We ate chili and hot dogs and laughed and talked about knives, hunting, fishing, and living in the country. and everyone had a story to tell me. Some of them waiting patiently for their turn to talk to me,

and I was glad to hear them. It's like that everywhere I go. People tell me stories. And no two are ever the same, and yet 90% of them are about the one that got away or the one that they got. But that's never the important part of the story when sometimes they think that's the point of their story.

but I watch them when they tell them to me, and I watch how they tell it. If being a policeman for a third of a century taught me one thing, it's if you want to learn how someone feels about something, let them tell you about an event that affected them strongly. That sounds simple to do, and it is, but most folks are just waiting for their turn to talk in any conversation. They're hearing, they're just not listening.

I watched person after person who told me a story about a deer, a fish, a dog, or a relative, and I watched how they told the story, how they emphasized the things that were important to them and the time they spent on specific details of the tale. I heard a grown man tell me a story about a deer hunt where he talked about the biggest deer he ever shot. He shot it when he was 12. and he described the deer so poorly that I doubt I could pick it out of a two-deer lineup. But the old truck his dad took him hunting in was a two-tone white over red, 69 Ford short wheel-based pickup.

His dad was wearing overalls, a flannel shirt, and an old canvas hunting coat that he still has. Deer story? He wasn't telling me a deer story. He was telling me about a time. he shared with his dad and it just happened to kill the biggest deer of his life as an anecdote. Now, in his head, he was telling me about the deer hunt, but all his emotion, inflection, and wistfulness was any time he mentioned his father.

I heard dozens of stories mostly just like that, and I loved every one of them. A few were truly about the game being pursued, but the biggest part of them, either knowingly or unknowingly, were odes to an older time, a time when the world seemed smaller, the times were simpler, and success was measured by the company you shared, and not the tag you filled. Just like last weekend,

we sold all the remaining Brent Reeve's signature case knives and enough hats to outfit a couple of Major League Baseball teams. Success, absolutely. And I'm so thankful for all the support, you faithful folks, afford this show with your online reviews, and sharing with others and all the t-shirts that we all seem to enjoy. I appreciate it very, very much.

But outside of that, I got to know my colleague, Laura Muscari, a little better. I held some of the prettiest babies a fellow could hold. I got to spend time with Travis and Miss Becky, Miss Kathy, Mr. Rodney, Mr. Randy, and his grandsons. A gaggle of young men I planned to be sitting beside a tree with next spring. When I was speaking after the dinner, I looked out and I saw an auditorium of over 500 people watching and listening to what I was talking about. And as is par for the course, I got a little emotional a couple of times

while trying to express my thoughts and feelings about those little knives that in a roundabout way have afforded me this big life. In doing so, I looked on the front row. And sitting there was my youngest daughter Bailey. I saw her wipe a tear as I talked about her grandfather, a man she never got to meet. And beside her set my wife Alexis, her hands pressed together prayerfully.

Her eyes overflowing in her expression, one of love and support, and her confidence in me that I could finish the task that I'd been asked to do. Suddenly, I felt relaxed. After all, I was there with my people, and I was talking about our knives. Just like the deer story, that man told me. I wasn't talking about knives.

I was talking about what and who they represent. The man, they represent some really good folks. Thank you all so much for listening. Me and O'Claybow will be at the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff in Springdale, Arkansas, tomorrow, Saturday, September 13th. Be there or be square. That's your choices. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves.

Sign it all. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call,

I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts.

Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.