Bear Grease - Ep. 469: Backwoods University - Ginsburg and Scalia: The Ties That Bind Us

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

In our final chapter of our series with Antonin Scalia, we will be taking a close look at why this man was so loved and respected by everyone that knew- including people that completely disagreed with him. On top of that, we'll learn how hunting, wild game, and the outdoors played a critical role in it. Connect with Lake Pickle and MeatEater Lake Pickle on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It supports the work that earns the season. Check out FirstLight's new fieldware collection at firstlight.com. Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. And I want to give a big shout out to Onyx Hunt for their support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. And on today's episode, it's part two and the final chapter of our time spent in the woods with Supreme Court Justice Antonine Scalia.

And like I alluded to in part one, what we're going to get into and discover today is without a doubt the best part of this entire story. We're going to learn why this man was so highly respected by everyone, even the people that disagreed with him. And we're going to learn how hunting and wild game played a linchpin role in all of it. And how a love for the outdoors that he found through a couple of good friends down in Mississippi would stick with him until the final days of his life. This story is going to stick with you, my friends. Trust me. Let's dive in. I will miss the challenges and the laughter he provoked.

His pungent eminently quotable opinions so clearly stated that his words never slipped from the reader's grasp. The roses he brought me on my birthday, the chance to appear with him once more as supernumeraries at the opera. How blessed I was to have a working colleague and dear friend of such captivating brilliance, high spirits, and quick wit. In the words of a duet for Tennis Scalia and Soprano Ginsburg, we were different, yes, in our interpretation of written text. Yet one in our reverence for the court and its place in the U.S. system of governance. A eulogy.

A speech delivered at a Ulyss. a funeral meant to honor and celebrate the life of the person who has passed. I've heard them given. I'm sure y'all have two. And while at this point in my life, I have never had to give a eulogy, I have seen the combination of pressure and gratefulness that a person endures when they've been asked to give one. It's a weighty speech, a final send-off, a last chance to say what you need to say about a person that you love, cherish, appreciate, and likely a lot of other positive and strong emotions. And if you see or hear a person giving a eulogy, it's a safe bet that they were very close to the person they're talking about. What you just heard was a small clip from Ruth

Bader Ginsburg's eulogy of Antonine Scalia at his memorial service in Washington, D.C. in March of 2016. And while we're going to hear more from her and this speech later on in this story, I felt it extremely important that we hear this part at the very beginning. and let it set the tone for this whole episode. You see, if you're unfamiliar with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she herself was on the Supreme Court, and if you were to look at the collective works, decisions, opinions, and dissents of Scalia and Ginsburg

next to each other in comparison, if you were to lay them out on a table on paper where you could see them, most would come to the conclusion that they are total and complete polar opposites of one another, with completely opposing ideologies, with completely different, opinions on how laws should be interpreted. Yet, they were close friends, so close that she gave a

eulogy at his memorial service. How does that happen? I mean, really, how does that happen? My friends, I told you this story is going to stick with you. And I mean it. It has certainly stuck with me. I remember back in 2021 when Clay put out the Daniel Boone series on Bear Grease. That series alone is what hooked me in as a listener of his show. Somewhere in those episodes, he said something along the lines of he would have ridden a mule across the country just to meet Daniel Boone, look him in the eye, and exchange a few words. And I don't have a mule, but I would walk, crawl, or borrow a mule if Clay would lend me one and ride it from Mississippi to Saskatchewan just to shake Justice Antonin Scalia's hand, because I just think he is that respectable. Let's find out why. As we pick

this back up, we're still at the property that they call Wyoming Plantation down in South Mississippi. It's a blistering hot and sunny day, and I'm following behind Judge David Bramlett as he leads me to an old fire pit situated just outside the hunting camp. Tell me about this fire pit. This is where the justice was sitting when he tipped over back when he fell over. And we got him up, sat back down, wanted his scotch. And it's frightened us, you know. As I said earlier, you can see the headlines in Times, Piki Un, Justice Scalia, severely hurt in Mississippi on a deer, huh? Was this a, so you all spent a lot of time around this fire pit then?

Every night. Every night we did. What about that skinning rack back there? That over here. That's where we skinned to 11, right there. All the 11 deer, that picture. you showed me. Yes. Goodness gracious.

Who had to skin all of them, you? If you listen to the stories that these men share, it sounds like they're just telling old tales about a close friend and hunting buddy, but it casts a completely different light on it entirely when you factor in that these stories are about a Supreme Court justice. I think sometimes it's easy for us to forget

the human side of public figures, celebrities, well-known political figures, Supreme Court justices. Honestly, it's hard for me to really put a finger on why, but I just really enjoy hearing these stories of Antonin Scalia just hanging out at a deer camp with his friends. Y'all take from that what you will. In the last episode, we learned a little bit about who Justice Scalia was. We learned about how important the Supreme Court is

in shaping the social and legal landscape of the United States of America. We learned that Justice Scalia was a man of brilliance, wit, and courage, but also a man that was humble, kind, and appreciated by pretty much everyone that knew it. We also learned that after turning down a few invitations to come speak in Mississippi, he finally said yes when an opportunity to fish and turkey hunt was offered along with the deal. And that one hunt turned into a 20-year-long friendship between the Justice, Charles Pickering, Wesley Breeland, and David Bramlett, who all three shared with the several stories in the last episode, including a pretty comical one involving an accidental three-deer morning

in Justice Scalia's first ever deer hunt. And we heard these stories while sitting inside a rustic camphouse at Wyoming plantation, a place that Justice Scalia would travel down to and hunt with those guys for several years. We're still sitting inside that same camp, and that is where we're going to pick this one back up. Lean in, because it's not going to take long for us to get into the good stuff. Justice Scalia, when he would start calling, he would ratchet it up. What does that mean?

What do you mean? Do a lot of calling. Yeah. And loud calling. What would he use? He was a box calling? Yeah. And so one evening he and our Wesley had invited some friends out to his lakehouse to have dinner with us.

And he cranked it up. And I heard in a minute, way through the woods, a turkey gobble. And then that turkey sort of was circling around like you could hear him gobbling. and after a while I heard him coming toward us and the turkey came on up into the field and when he got there I said now hold on Mr. Justice he did he came right in front of us

and I said okay Mr. Justice he's close enough to shoot him and he shot him and killed him and then he and I walked across the pond down with that turkey where the friends were waiting for us to come up to must of my knowledge that was the only turkey that I knew of specifically that he himself called up and killed

So it was good that he had that experience. Yeah, it's great. But another thing we didn't mention, he was tough. In this way, he would get up way before daylight and be ready to go when you were ready. And he would hunt longer than you would want him to. I remember going out there several times, and he said, you came too early.

It's 10th, 30 in the morning. And then he'd want to hunt in the afternoon. And we didn't mention that he killed a number of his. these Russian hogs we have here, too, and I have a picture of that for you. As I sat there in that camphouse, laughing at Judge Pickering, talking about Justice Scalia, quote, ratcheting it up on a turkey call, and looking at the picture of the three of them with the large hog hanging up on a skinning rack, I thought I had already hit my quota on cool facts for the day. I mean, honestly, I did.

But that's when Judge Bramlett threw me a curveball that I did not see coming. And he took that back to Washington, but he took all that kind of wild game. Absolutely. Washington. Yes, indeed. Was he, do you know, I mean, was he just feeding other members of the court? No, he took it back for Professor Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg, husband who was a gold-made cook. They had New Year's dinner together every year.

Yes, sir. And that's what they want. So, again, I'm going back to just my view of the justice from the outside looking in, not knowing him as a person. his friendship with like Justice Ginsburg. Yes. Legendary, right? You have these two people, and this is my perspective, right?

You have these two people from politically almost like pretty much opposites of one another. But this grand friendship. We're going to be hearing more from Justice Ginsburg and more about this unlikely yet legendary friendship. And how in an even more unlikely manner, hunting plays into it. Well, it's time to dive into that first. And to really do it justice, we need to have a good understanding of both individuals. We already know who Justice Antonin Scalia is at this point, but it's time we learn more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg, will you raise your right hand and repeat after me?

I, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, do solemnly swear. I, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1933. She attended college at Cornell University, and like her colleague, Antonine Scalia, attended Harvard Law School. However, she transferred to Columbia Law School and graduated from there. She was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by President Carter in 1980.

And in 1993, she was nominated to the Supreme Court. by President Clinton, and shortly thereafter confirmed by a 96-3 vote. She served on the Supreme Court from then on until her death in September of 2020. During her time on the court, she garnered quite the reputation for herself, becoming well known for her sharp dissents, her resilience, seeing as she did survive several bouts with cancer, and she really became a cultural icon, earning the nickname the notorious RBG by her dedicated supporters. and for our intents and purposes on this podcast, also known for her close friendship with her ideological adversary, Justice Antonine Scalia.

I met Nino for the first time when he was giving a speech to some unit of the ABA. It must have been the administrative law section. At law section probably, yeah. And it was on a case that had recently been decided by the D.C. Circuit. it was before either of us got there. And I was listening to him and disagreeing with a good part of what he said, but thought he said it in an absolutely

captivating way. I think we should leave it at that great point. Are you two ever going to agree on big issues and still maintain the friendship? We agree on a whole lot of stuff. You do. Ruth is really bad, only on the knee-jerk stuff. The other thing...

Unlikely and seemingly contradictory friendship became a popular piece of conversation among the news and entertainment outlets and even got written into an opera of all things. People just couldn't seem to grasp or quit talking about why either of them were able to get along with one another. When he would start to leave down here, he would take all the game we could put in his bag to carry it back. And the reason he was carrying it back is just the Ginsburg's husband would like to cook. And on New Year's Day, he would take the game that was killed down here, the fish,

and he would prepare it for Nino's family and for Justice Ginsburg's family. So they really did have a, they disagreed greatly. They were poles apart on their judicial philosophy, but they were close friends. So just a little fact that I can't fly past here. So some of the venison that was taken off of this place was, served at Justice Ginsburg's table is what you're saying. Oh, New Year's Day. They had, they had dinner together every New Year's, the Gensbergs and the Scalia's. Now, that's pretty cool. And I shipped him Venison for years. Really?

From Baton Rouge. Man. That's how we got it up there. You know, we had coolers and had dry ice and shipped from Washington. Picture this. It's New Year's Day, sometime in the early 2000s, and the families of Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg are gathering up for their annual tradition of New Year's Day dinner, a tradition that was such a staple in their friendship that it was talked about often in the press. And just what are they dining upon at this special dinner? Wild game. The deer and the hog meat that Scalia had acquired while hunting down in Mississippi, and sometimes it was even shipped to him from Baton Rouge or Mississippi to D.C.

Antonine Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two of the most powerful judges in the world, eating Wild Game Together. Now, if that ain't the coolest fun fact that you'll hear all week, frankly, I want to hear what tops it, because that right there is pretty dadgum cool. I mean, really, let's ponder on this one for a second. I don't think I'm reaching too far when I say

that the vast majority of listeners of this show and this podcast, podcast feed know how special hunting in the outdoors is to our lives. We know how special it is to sit down at a table for a meal that is made up of something that we went out and hunted and brought in ourselves. It's a feeling like none other and that's not an exaggeration. And of course we know the bonds and the friendships that can be formed through a mutual love and appreciation for wildlife and wild places. Of course we know it. We've lived it. We've experienced it. The ties that bind us, my friends, the ties that bind us. And I feel like I would be doing such a disservice to our shared value system if I didn't spend some time and put some emphasis on this small but paramount detail.

That Scalia-Gensburg friendship, that legendary friendship that is still being talked about to this very day was regularly celebrated by the same wild game that came from the same wild places that you and I cherish so much. But this story and its unlikely outcomes is far from over. Pride Months Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. IHeart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride.

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a very excellent marksman. So with a rifle, he was deadly. Now, when we started hunting and we did, started doing some wing shooting, he was not very good at it, but then with the time he quit hunting with us, he was very good wing shooting. And he brought Justice Kagan down with him.

He brought Justice Kagan down with him. That was the last sentence we got there from Judge Charles Pickering. Brought her down to come hunting to be more specific. Justice Elena Kagan, another Supreme Court Justice. She was appointed to the court in 2010 by President Barack Obama, and much like Justice Ginsburg, often had opposing ideologies compared to Scalia. As I sat there, looking through photos of these men duck hunting and quail hunting with Justice Scalia and Kagan, I can't help but wonder how all this happened. And honestly, I'm even more impressed because Scalia has now introduced Justice Ginsburg to Wild Game and has now introduced Justice Kagan to hunting. How cool is that? All right, specifics.

You went duck hunting with Justice Scalia. How was it? Well, you know, I haven't gone duck hunting yet, although that's on the trip list. But I do go. It's on the bucket list, actually. I shoot birds with him. Farrell, you know, two or three times a year now. The way this started, I'll tell you the story, I met with about 80 senators individually. And quite a lot of them, both Republicans and Democrats, ask you about your views on the Second Amendment,

but because you don't say anything about your views on anything, then they ask you, they try to figure out, well, what are your views on the Second Amendment likely to be? And they'll say, well, have you ever held a gun? Have you ever gone hunting? Do you know anybody who's gone hunting? And you know me, Jeff, I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and this was not something we really did, you know?

And so I kept on having these conversations where I would say, well, no, and no, and no, and I was... And finally somebody said to me, you know, one of the sets of these questions, And I said, you know, Senator, I said, if you were to invite me hunting, I would really love to go. And this look of total horror passed over his face. You know, has this woman just invited herself hunting with me? And I thought, well, I've gone too far. And then I sort of pulled back and I said, well, I didn't really mean to invite myself, but I'll tell you what.

If I'm lucky enough to be confirmed, I will ask Justice Scalia to take me hunting. And I went to Justice Scalia when I got onto the court, and I said, this is the only promise I made during my entire confirmation proceedings. So you have to help me fulfill it. And he thought it was hilarious. He thought it was a total crack-up. And so there you go. Now, allow me to sidebar for a second here to challenge all my fellow hunters and anglers.

The next time that you get a chance to take a newbie hunting or fishing, don't pass on it. I know it's not always convenient, but you really never know what the impact might be. I mean, just think about what we heard, a woman who grew up in Manhattan that knew virtually nothing about hunting. She asked one senator to take her hunting,

he turns her down. And I think it speaks so much about the character of Antonine Scalia that Kagan felt confident that he would take her hunting before she ever even asked him. What a great ambassador for the world of hunting. So you were saying you're the only man who's rode in a mule-drawn carriage with Justice Kagan on a quail hunt?

I say that in a jocular way, but it's true. She was a lovely person. It is a lovely person. And I had such a wonderful time being with her on those two occasions. And that's something, I mean, obviously we're here to mainly talk about, you know, Justice Scalia and him. But one thing that I just couldn't, I had to focus in on, especially with putting. in an episode like we're going to do on this out. It's like in today's modern times, I feel like there's such a rift and such a divide between people

that looking at men like Justice Scalia and Justice Kagan and his friendship with Ginsburg and like finding a personal friendship despite political differences, I just, I always, I respected that about him then and I respected about him now, and I think it's just so important to highlight it. It was. And another thing about it, you know, I told you about A-Volt, how plain it was with a tar-paper siding. And here, this is nice place, but it's simple.

It's not opulent. He enjoyed these places, the simple. We also went to some of the nicest lodges in the nation to hunt. He enjoyed those, too. But he enjoyed the simple as well as he did opulent. And right over there is that wood stove. when he liked to split his own wood. We would cut wood, and it would be in pieces, you know,

eight inches, a round piece, eight inches, and he split it himself. With an axe. Yeah, with an axe. He'd go out there and split his own wood. He wanted to split his own wood. But he had a very comfortable and fine relationship with Justice Kagan. I'll say that. He did indeed.

He did with all the justices. As I said earlier, we didn't talk. about any cases, but he did talk about the court a little bit, and I wanted to know his relationship with the justices. I never heard him say one unkind word about any of them. He felt a camaraderie with the court and with each individual member of the court. Earlier in the episode, I mentioned the links that I would have gone through to be able to shake Justice Antonin Scalia's hand, because I just have so much respect for the man. And I do feel that way, strongly.

But the main driving force behind why I feel that way is not because of his appreciation for hunting and the natural resources, nor his seemingly unquenchable curiosity about the world around him, or even his decisions that he made on the bench. And while I do appreciate those things, the main source of my respect for him is the way that he treated people, all people. Not just people that agreed with him. He treated everyone with the same respect, courtesy, and kindness, and that's evident through the stories I've read and heard from the people. that knew him from all walks of life and all kinds of viewpoints. We once asked

how we could be friends, given our disagreement on lots of things. Justice Scalia answered. I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you've got to get another day job. You don't want to be a judge.

At least not a judge on a multi-member panel. Well, after we got the invitation to go to Florida, and then we began to get the invitations to go all over. The next several years, we didn't hunt much in Mississippi. And just before he died, he said, I want to go back to Mississippi next year. I want to go where it all started. And he was planning to come back the spring after he died.

No kidding. He died in February. Yes, sir. I remember. I remember hearing about it. I would have, that was in 2015? 2016. 2016.

This morning, his body is on its way back to Virginia after it was determined. The 79-year-old died of natural causes. The late Supreme Court Justice suddenly passed away during a hunting trip to Texas over the weekend. On the morning of February 13th, 2016, while on a quail hunting trip in Texas, Justice Antonine Scalia was found dead. It was later determined that he had died of natural causes.

And while I do find it somewhat poetic that his passing did come on a hunting trip, his death did come as a surprise to many, some of which the three men who we have been hearing from. Man. Man. And he was planning to come back here the year that he passed. Yes. Yes.

He was all said that he was coming, the first week of April, I believe. And I think it's pretty incredible that he acknowledged that this is where it all started, and that's why he wanted to come back here. Yes, yes. Well, he enjoyed it. The last time I talked to him on the phone,

he said he was coming back the next year, and that was, as I say, 2013. And he said this. He said, I miss it. I remember him saying that. If he said, I want to come back, I miss it. And I apologize if I ask some hard questions.

What did it, on a personal level, I want to ask all three of y'all this. On a personal level, what did his friendship mean to you? Well, you always like to be exposed to greatness. And being a friend, you know, was being related to the love. Lake greatness. And then there was a warmth there. I mean, aside from the fact that there was a great individual, we came to where we enjoyed being around one another and with our wives.

And so it was a personal loss of a good friend and a great man. Oh, it was really unique that's coming from where I came from. To even know on a personal level, a man of that statue was unique. And to be able just to sit down and talk to it. And we spent a lot of time together at Turkey Hunt, talked about a lot of things. And just to know somebody that had the knowledge that he had, he knew something. he knew something about everything. Well, you admire his knowledge about, as Westie said, many things,

his curiosity about life in the South. If you want a friend, you've got to be a friend. I tried to be a friend to him, and I think I was, and he was most certainly a friend to me. And I think about him all the time. To this day? Yes, sir. I sat in that old camphouse for over an hour with those men, listening to stories that just kept coming, one after the other.

Most of them about Scalia, some of them not. Some of them would make me laugh. Some of them would make me smile. Some of them flat out made me wish I could have been there to see it in person. And all of them let me know without a shadow of a doubt that these men were friends of Antonine Scalia. And he was a friend to them. I've always believed that you can tell a lot about a person. by the way their friends talk about them.

And I have no doubt after hearing the words of so many that Antonine Scalia was a beloved man, by everyone that knew him. And frankly, I think there's a lot we can learn from it. Courage, integrity, how to be a friend, how to separate ideas from people, how to stay curious, and to not be afraid to offer wild game to someone

or take them hunting. Man, what a guy. He'll go down in history as one of the most important. important Supreme Court justices ever, and also one of the greatest. With him, a peace of my own life is carried to the grave. Yet our eyes are upon thee. We believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

God bless you, brother Nina. God bless you. were different, yes, in our interpretation of written texts, yet one in our reverence for the court and its place in the U.S. system of governance. I want to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University, as well as Bear Greece in this country life. If you enjoyed this series on Justice Antonine Scalia, share it with someone this week. Maybe someone you haven't talked to in a while, or heck, maybe a real. Maybe a relative that you don't talk to anymore because you argue too much about politics. If Scalia and

Ginsburg can be friends, anyone can. And stick around because there's a whole lot more on the way. If you do off-season work, you know it beats up gear, scouting, land work, crawling through briar patches, brush, weather, long days, first light field wear is built for all that. No shortcuts. Purpose built durable. Hard wearing where it needs to be versatile where it matters. It supports the work that earns the season. Check out First Lights new fieldware collection at firstlight.com.