Bear Grease - Ep. 424: This Country Life - The Arkansas Traveler

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

For the past several weeks, Brent's been hitting the road from Tennessee to Pennsylvania as a goodwill ambassador, and meeting people from all over the eastern half of the country. We get the hunt and sports show stops, but guest lecturing at the University of Tennessee? What were they thinking? Pull up a chair and find out for yourself. 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.

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 fieldwear gear at firstlight.

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. The Arkansas Traveler. Outdoor shows, dealer summits, and guest lectures at a university have kept me on the highway and in the air for the last few weeks.

I got home last night from another out-of-state trip that I'll tell you about later, but I've been making the rounds, and it's been great. I'm excited to tell you all about it and what I learned, and there's no better time to start than right now. The first hunting event I ever remember attending was the Dr. T.E. Ryan Memorial Fox Hunt. I couldn't tell you the year or exactly where it took place, but I can surmise I was only six or seven years old and it was held somewhere in the vicinity of Fort Isles, Arkansas. The hunt was named in honor of a famed South Arkansas country doctor who was said to have delivered upwards of 7,000 babies over his first. storied career in medicine from 1899 to 1964, when he passed away at the age of 86. My dad, as well as many others at one time or another,

were patients of Dr. Rines, and he told me that conversations with him during any diagnosis for a sickness would always turn to hounds before he left his office. So when the annual hunt was held, we would go occasionally to see folks and trade dogs, dogs here and there and visit with most of the men that my dad hunted with already, and of course, listen to the dog races. Now, compared to the hunting expos and outdoor shows of today, that is kind of a stretch,

but there was usually a vendor or two there making nameplates for dog collars and selling flashlights or a few other select hound-related hunting items. There weren't a lot of kids there or women, but there was always a few of each. Fast forward to the last couple of weeks and the places I've been in the world of hunting outdoor expos, and you can easily, easily see the huge progression that's been made in that arena. The first trip this year was to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Harrisburg is the capital of the Keystone State, and it was there that I met up with my friends from Case Knives to spend a couple days in their booth meeting and talking to folks that braved the February weather

to attend the show. The wind chill was 20 below zero, and the Susquehanna River was frozen over. There was three feet of snow piled up in the backyard of the Airbnb we were staying in. The snow that had been pushed off the streets lying the curves like river levees directing the flow of traffic along icy corridors of asphalt.

You don't have to be a detective to figure out that the people who live side by side in the town houses of Harrisburg, at least on Penn Street, they have dogs. I felt like Indiana Jones hopping around like I was meticulously picking and choosing each step to avoid stepping in disaster. I left Arkansas that had been shut down for a week due to teen digit cold and eight inches of snow. Now, that's what the folks out in PA call a Tuesday. Life was carrying on in what would have completely.

halted living for my folks down in the Southland. But there, in the Pennsylvania Farm Show complex, over a thousand exhibitors had gathered for a nine-day event under 650,000 square feet of roof. Now, that's 15 acres. If we were going to flood that space with a foot of water to duck hunt in, it would take nearly 5 million gallons to do it. The show runs for nine days,

and they told me that between 200 and 300,000 people will walk the halls and the rows of exhibits looking at the latest and greatest items associated with the outdoor sports. Kyle Clatterline, who runs the Zippo Case Museum and store in Bradford and marketing team guru, John Pantuso, and I manned booth 280 on Saturday and Sunday the first week of the show. Sweet Jesus. I wish you had a nickel just for everyone I met stopped to visit. I can't tell you how many pocket knives folks brought along that when they pulled them out of their pocket, they lived with, Grandpa gave me this knife, or I got this for my dad.

Those were the people I went to see, but didn't know they were coming. I talked to so many with similarly deep, rooted connections with the knives they brought and the stories that they told. I also met a bunch from that part of the world who are regular listeners of this show. It was a blessing for me to look at them face to face and see their expressions and hear what they enjoy and get out of this weekly calamity. That was the top list item for me outside of spending time with my case family. My only complaint? It just wasn't enough time to listen to everyone's laundry list of stories.

The people were so kind and generous with their time. but they didn't want to hold others up who were there to visit too. And they shuffled off just as they'd arrived, smiling, and looking as if they were having the time of their life. I never heard one complaint or one negative comment. Those Yankees know how to have a good time, and the hospitality they extended to me started the minute I got in the Uber car at the airport. My driver started off the conversation by introducing himself and asking me what I'm. I was doing in Pennsylvania.

When I told him about the sports show, we started talking about hunting and fishing. He said he loved fishing as a kid back in the country of his birth, and through his fairly thick accent, I learned that he was the father of three boys, seven, four, and three months. Through my fairly thick accent, he learned that I had three kids as well. It was a 20-minute ride from the airport to the place where I was. were staying with Kyle and John, and in that short span of time, I made a new friend. Asked him about the long hours of driving folks around, and he smiled and said that it was loud

at his house. The children were always making noise and breaking things, and he glanced back at me with a big smile and said, I told my wife that I'd work many hours if she'd stay at home with the children. I laughed when he said that. He looked back at me giggling and said, sir, you know. Then he told me their names and the pride in which he spoke about them made me know that just like me, we were both working but would really prefer to be at home with the folks that were breaking things and making all that racket. It was the same with the families I met at the show.

People may have wanted to shake my hand and talk about how much they enjoy the show, but they really turned it up when they introduced me to their kids and their nieces and their next. and believe it or not some of their parents. It was all the same regardless of the demographic I was speaking to or the geographic location to where I was doing it. From a man seeking to find a better way of life for his family in the new country and the mass of people I met and watched in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to the generational lineage of people I met in Knoxville, Tennessee a week earlier.

That's right. We're going backwards in time, kids, your old Uncle, friend has been making tracks these past few weeks. In a week before I was in Pennsylvania, I had the dubious honor of being a guest lecturer at the University of Tennessee. Ronnie Cowan, a wildlife biologist and professor at the UT Institute of Agriculture,

he invited me to speak to his class on hunting heritage and how it connected with conservation. I was surprised and flattered and humbled by the invitation. and in the months of weeks leading up to being there, Ronnie kept referring to the task I'd agreed to do as relaxed and basically an episode of the show. Just talk about the stuff you talk about every week. Simple enough. I can do that. I was scheduled to speak in two sessions, one class on Monday and the other on Wednesday.

No worries. I got this. Talking is what I do. then a couple hours into my trip on Sunday before the first class that was scheduled to start the next morning, it was canceled due to the snow and ice that had carpet bombed the South. Forty years since the last time I attended a college class and I got a snow day. I was missing a scheduled college class. Some things never changed.

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 Phelps Game Calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Ronnie picked me up Monday morning and took me to the campus to show me the classroom where I should have been speaking that day, and would be speaking on Wednesday.

Then we walked over to the dean's office, where I met a host of ladies in administrative roles who run the Extension Department directed by Dr. Justin Reinhardt. Now, being an Arkansas fan, I thought it'd be fun to tease that group of ladies I'd only just met, and it was fun for them. I met my match quickly, and one of them bested my jabs with a knockout left hook

reminded me that they have a national championship in baseball. That was well played, Missy. Dr. Reinhardt and I visited in his office about growing up in the country and the things he did in his early years of extension work. We talked about my experiences with the extension office and people who worked there in Arkansas. Then he made me a little nervous by saying, Dr. Keith Carver, the senior vice chancellor,

is looking forward to attending your lecture. Lecture? Ronnie never said I was giving a lecture. Lectures are what professors and angry wife and parents give. I know this because I've sat through countless numbers of them in all three categories. This thing just got serious, and I'm having serious second thoughts that I may not have prepared enough to do this properly. Then he added that there would be other faculty members and guests in attendance. I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel so I could jump out the window my 11th floor room.

Friendly, you took this assignment far too lightly. Not only are you going to embarrass yourself and meat eater, but Missy from the dean's office is going to make me cry the next time she sees me. That night at supper Ronnie and his wife Paige and their daughter Emery treated me to some good groceries down at Calhouns on the river. If you're in Knoxville, I have to be in Knoxville. recommend it. Dr. Reinhardt joined us well and I was feeling more and more at ease with my new contingent of friends, even though that lecture thing was still nagging away in the recesses of

my brain. These were good people, and I felt as if I'd still be able to count them as friends after I crashed and burned in the classroom the day after tomorrow, and they all looked at me collectively and said, bless his heart. Tuesday morning started off early with coffee and a ride with Dr. Reinhardt, who by now, at his request, had become just good old Justin as we shared similar stories of our upbringing and affinity for bird dogs. We met Ronnie at a predetermined location and followed him out to the ancestral home of Elias Crawford. Now, the snow was heavy and blanketed the hills of a brilliant white and clearly visible through the leafless hardwoods that rose 1,100 feet above sea level in severe

County, Tennessee. There at a family-built cabin made from Hanhewn logs waited Elias, his wife, Victoria, and Sage, their three-year-old half-pint-sized nubbing of a daughter who was about to come my new bestest friend. Elias had a smoke going in the wood stove, and we introduced ourselves and got better acquainted while warming up and sharing a pot of coffee.

Now, the reason for our visit was for Ronnie to show me part of the curriculum and the demonstrations he does with his students by going on a bird hunt. Now, in the south, maybe up north too, I don't know, but down here when you say bird hunt, everybody knows you mean quail. And these weren't wild birds, but the gist of the exercise is an introduction of hunting as part of conservation and for many of the wildlife science students that take Ronnie's course. I was surprised to learn that a large percentage of those students had never fired a gun until participating in Ronnie's classes.

They learned strict gun safety and are properly educated on the use of firearms by certified instructors before ever being taken to the field. The Crawford family graciously host the students for this and other events, and Elias is an integral part of helping each receive the best experience possible. Well, not only demonstrating the time-honored tradition of hunting quail, but also how all three, man, quail and the environment are also interconnected. That was what Ronnie wanted me to address the following day in my lecture that I had respectfully asked Justin to refer to as a classroom visit so it might dampen some of my anxiety about who all was going to be there.

The hours flew by and I was up bright and early the next morning, preparing for class to start that afternoon. I felt that important for me to get up early that way I'd have as much time as possible to stress about volunteering in the volunteer state to do an upper-class college-level lecture being attended by the vice-chancellor at the university. Then as if by a judicial decree, it was no governor's last last night. minute reprieve, it was time to hit toward the classroom where literally tens of people were assembled to listen to what was loosely rumored to be a lecture. Dr. Keith Carver stood outside the door, a sentinel for the education being provided to the students who would eventually be forming statutes and laws governing how we interacted with the environment and its native inhabitants. A learned protector for all who studied there under his watch.

I thought to myself, Brentley, this is your last chance to run away because just like back in the old SWAT days once you make entry, it's mission first and there's no turning back. I was as nervous as I've ever been, and I never really get nervous, especially when I'm talking about something I'm familiar with

and what they wanted me to talk about is what I talk about every week. So why was I nervous? I don't know. But after Dr. Carver introduced me to every important person even remotely connected to the University of Tennessee's Institute of Agriculture that would be attending my lecture, I was seriously considered feigning a heart attack or having a real one. I had made up my mind at that point. Either way, I was about to be leaving on a stretcher. All right, let's get started.

Wait a minute, who said that? Ronnie. Dadgummit, Ronnie. We're really going to do this? I blacked out partially during Ronnie's introduction of me and came to about 10 minutes into my lecture. I was doing pretty good. I assumed everyone appeared to be awake and paying attention. Well, I mean, they ain't chunking nothing at me, and regardless, the more I talked,

the more I relaxed and enjoyed it. Two-thirds of my presentation was just me bumping my gums about my life and experiences with sporadic moments of clarity. Then I opened up the floor to, anyone who wanted to ask a question, and that's when we really started communicating. I was more than impressed by Ronnie students. A few had actually reached out to me on social media long before I'd ever been invited to speak there. One couple, Rusty and Alexis, both students of Ronnie's, are engaged to be married.

I remembered him reaching out, telling me about the engagement, and me saying I prefer an Alexis over any other. And I met another student, Russell White, who's getting ready to graduate before long with his degree. He went to college after being in the service. And he said he was led to go into wildlife management after listening to this country life and how I talked about my love for wild things. That was a humbling moment, and one I didn't take lightly or have stopped thinking about the impact that we all. all have on each other. I want to wish Rusty, and Alexis and Russell and all the students that I met there that

day, the best of luck in their careers. The rest of you need to know that the Institute of Agriculture at the University of Tennessee is doing some great things. And some great people are behind it. Keith Carver, Justin Reinhart, Ronnie Cowan, and my favorite Vals fan, Miss Missy Kitts, just to name a few. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a couple of ladies that I met in Dr. Reinhard's office, Dawn and Ashley. These ladies compiled a huge box of swag from the university, and they send it to our house.

I get packages all the time, but when I saw it was from the Ag Institute, I knew it was going to be something really good. I opened it up, and there was an envelope with a card addressed to me, and on the outside of the envelope it read, this card is for Brent. The rest is for Bailey. I opened the card and I read a very heartfelt thanks from Dr. Justin Reinhardt. Then addressed to Bailey was this note. Bailey, we know that you're a razorback at heart and rightfully so, but we would like to extend an invitation for you

to visit the University of Tennessee when the time comes for you to pick your college. Now, how cool is that? I can tell you, Bailey thought he was very cool. That's how I've spent the last few weeks, traveling back and forth across the eastern half of this country, visiting old friends and making new ones. In one of my trips in and around Tennessee, I was asked to speak at the Storemore Dealer Summit in Nashville.

Now, this convention was for the company dealers that sell the buildings like the one I have where I'm currently recording this podcast. you know the store more studio i would arrive late in the evening and get up the next morning and have a cup of joe and speak for 15 minutes to all the good folks on behalf of the owners of the company then i'd be on my way to the next event which for the sake of clarity was the first trip i talked about in pennsylvania i'm not purposely trying to confuse you it just comes naturally to me anyway i wasn't there long or as my grandmother used to say

when referencing a quick turnaround, that lasted about as long as John did in the Army. Now, I never knew who John was or why he left the Army so quickly, but that would accurately describe how long I was with the folks at store more, and more's the pity. We've gotten to know them over these last few months,

the owner and CEO Darren Warren's story is phenomenal. And I've talked before about how he turned a about, with childhood cancer into a philanthropy for the folks that helped heal them at St. Jude's hospital so they in turn can help others. Darren's amassed a family within that business that I, for one, am happy to have been adopted into. Graham and Kevin and Caitlin and my new friend John and so many others that take pride in what

they do and serving others. That's something I can get behind. If you think about it, all the things I've talked about, about in this episode is about those kinds of people. From the Uber driver to the students at the University of Tennessee, all of them in some capacities are or will be serving others either directly or indirectly. American novelist Henry Miller said,

Once destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. With even the smallest amount of imagination, we can all find that connection between what we do, and serve another's, even if it's just a weekly attempt at making you smile and wanting you to feel at home. Thank you so much for listening. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves, signing all. 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.