Bear Grease - Ep. 472: This Country Life - Lessons From "Where the Red Fern Grows"

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Whether you call them lessons or just simple observations, Brent thinks there’s no better example of good ones than those presented in “Where the bred Fern Grows”. Come along as he points out a few of the ones that have been the most meaningful to him. It’s time for MeatEater’s “This Country Life” podcast. Thank you to our sponsors, Case Knives and Stor-Mor. 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 MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join me and follow the podcast conspiracy theories, where we explore what's really going on behind the official narrative. Like, what if the Loch Ness monster isn't a monster at all, but an elephant? What do the richest 1% know that we don't? Why are they building all those bunkers? And really, what the heck is going on with the Denver airport? Join me every week to see just how high up this goes on the Spotify podcast, Conspiracy theories. listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.

Lessons from where the red fern grows. Well, this one's going to be a little different this week. I'm talking about a book. A book that I've read, I can't tell you how many times, but I was reminded of it the other day and I haven't been able to quit thinking about it since. Join me at the fire. I'm going to tell you all about it.

Chapter 2. Paragraph 2. I was 10 years old when I first became infected with this terrible disease. I'm sure no boy in the world had it worse than I did. It's not easy for a young boy to want a dog and not be able to have one. It starts gnawing at his heart and gets all mixed up in his dreams. It gets worse and worse until finally it becomes unbearable. Sound familiar?

Well, that passage is for, from my all-time favorite book of where the red fern grows. And I was a grown man with grandkids when I found out it was classified as a children's book. A children's book? Are you kidding me? I read that book in elementary school. And I don't think it was part of the curriculum. It was a book I got out of the library after seeing the movie on TV for the first time, 1977.

I was the same age when I saw it as the character, Billy Coleman, in the movie. Now, why am I talking about this book today? I'll tell you why. A week or so ago, I was sitting on the couch one Sunday morning when my oldest daughter Amy sent me a text. Dad, do you think Tripp is old enough for us to read where the red fur and grows to him? Well, Tripp is my grandson, and he's seven in case y'all are wondering. I have to admit, I ask her if he was five or six. And she laughed and said, Dad, he's seven.

No surprise there, I still think of hers being five of our own self. Anyway, knowing what I know now, I said, no, it was written for kids nine and older. I went on to say that I want him to have a better understanding of what coon hunting is before you read it to him. I surmise that some of that is probably me wanting to take him with me when I'm. I go hunting and my lamenting for the opportunity to read it to him myself rather than give them my blessings to read it to him in my stead. Reading that book to my youngans has been more or lesser tradition, one that stopped with Bailey three years ago when she was 10 and lost interest after a few chapters. No worries, though. The subject matter isn't for everyone,

and while I could sit and read it now with the great anticipation of turning the next page, when I know almost word for word what's on there, it just didn't appeal to her. So I gave it up silently, and when she didn't ask why we weren't reading it, I knew I'd made the right decision as painful as it was for me. During mine and Amy's conversation about my favorite quote-unquote children's book, I told her it was the second greatest book ever written. And just like the actual greatest book ever, ever written. There's not a quote or a lesson from any passage that applies any more to children

than it does for adults. My son-in-law, Colin, said the first time his mother read it to him, he was nine or ten, and when he commenced a squalling, he didn't stop until he went smooth, the sleep, sitting in her lap. He also, bless his heart, he also added that his grandmother had passed away not too long before he read it, so that may have played a role in how he perceived it and how upset he got. But from that paragraph I read to you when this struggle started, it described a boy's longing for something that seemed unattainable.

A pair of red-bone puppies cost $25 each. Now, Billy learned that from finding an outdoor magazine some fishermen had left behind. In the Depression era, Oklahoma, Oklahoma Ozarks, where this story is set, the average income was less than $300 a year. $50 was two-month salary, and it took two years of him saving to get enough money. That magazine sent him on his journey of working toward the goal of getting his coonounds. Wilson Rawls' fictional story started me on mine.

I learned that lesson myself, not long after seeing the movie. Irregardless, if Billy Coleman could sell fur to get his hounds, save up his money, so could Brent. What it took him two years to do, I accomplished in one winter. However, I didn't just run out and set some traps and wait for the money to come rolling in. I had to buy some traps first. Traps of my own, not from my older brother Tim's cat. Being newlywed, he was trapping to supplement his own income and didn't have the luxury of living at home with mama cooking his meals like I did. Nope, I was going to earn money trapping.

I was going to have to invest my own funds. A dozen one and a half single spring Victor traps would cost around $20 in 1977. It takes a lot of farm chores to make $20 when most of my wages were covered in the four. of groceries. My pap' boss lie was the outlier in this equation, even though he wasn't a hunter himself or cared much for dogs. However, he was an excellent grandfather. And as I've stated here before, he was the sole benefactor of my, as he called it,

walking around money. I worked on the farm for him. And I got a dozen traps. With Tim's tutelage, I started laying still. Totally on my own. I did my own skinning. The only thing he helped me with was taking me to the fur buyer. Money in hand, I waited for some puppies to come up for sale.

Now, Billy Coleman was writing letters back and forth to some folks in Kentucky that were selling red-bone puppies. I was waiting on Mr. Lloyd Corker down at the Corker's Feed Store in Warren, Arkansas, to tell my dad when he had a new litter, Tree and Walkers. I never knew why Wilson Rawls, the author of that story, had Billy longing for a red-bone hounds when the dog from his childhood that helped inspire the whole story was a blue tick named Rowdy. A real dog that he would hunt the river bottoms with at night and read and tell stories to during the day. But the first lesson gleaned by me for Mr. Rawls' fictional story

was that like Billy, I had to labor to put myself in position to be able to afford the dog. I did that, and one day my dad told me to get my money and get in the truck. We were going to the feed store. A trip to town and a small loan from dad to make up the difference, and I walked out of that feed store grinning like a mule-eating sawbriars, totaling a $75 registered tree and walker puppy in my arms like it was a bait. What I had watched in the span of a 97-minute movie was going to take a lot longer in real life, and I had no idea how hard it was going to be.

The book and the movie describing and demonstrate the rigors of training a pair of hunting dogs, getting a tree dog started as a bigger task than it seems if you've never trained a hound. Having two to train does more than double the work. I'd say it triples it at least. As individuals, you're dealing with two dogs. You put them together as juveniles, and they create a whole other persona that you won't find when they're separate.

It takes a patient and talented trainer to handle two at once, and most times they're looking for the one that's quickest to show the promise. Once that's determined, the slower one to develop, now he's going to find another home. At least that's the way you're going to. usually goes these days.

And doing that, you have to spend time with that dog. And through a video montage of growth, trials, and tribulations, you can see that carried out in the movie and read about it in the book. I saw the movie first, and then I read the book. You'd think that by doing it in that order, the reel that played in my head as I read along would show the people from the movie as each character. But for me, that's... That's not how it worked, not for this one.

And I really don't know why that is. Maybe it's because I identified more closely with the task at hand and the end goal of the struggle Billy was going through, more so than the people within the story. I knew what it was like to experience the want of a hunting dog as a child because I was one longing for the same thing Wilson Raw so accurately described in the book while I was reading it. I guess to me there was no Billy in that story.

There was only me. Even to this day, I find myself thinking back to those days when that book is mentioned or something triggers a random memory. I've got a young hound named Jesse that I'm sure some of you are wondering about. Well, she's finally getting the attention she deserves, and I'll give an update on her a little later this summer. But that story, that story details the struggle. involved in training and dog and is a premium metaphor for any hard thought goal or task.

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That's f-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. Patience when dealing with a young dog is paramount. To give them the benefit of the doubt, there will be times when I think, this clowns, just ain't getting it. But maybe it ain't them. Maybe I'm not communicating it well enough for them to understand. My father, Buddy Reeves, was a dog man. He had a well-deserved reputation for some of the best tree dogs around and had the best one, a mountain cur named peanut. I've told you about him before. But I was sitting beside him on the front porch one afternoon, while the last Mountain Kerr he owned, Buck was stretched out sunning in the front yard, taking a nap.

The old Buck was a jam-up tree dog and had mannerism similar to Peanut, even though they were not of the same lineage. We had company that had stopped to visit after seeing us on the porch. We were whaling away the afternoon in the cool of the approaching fall and joined each other's company in the sudden change in temperature. The conversation was naturally about dogs, And the man asked Dad how he always wound up with puppies that made good squirrel dogs. His immediate answer was, I can just about tell you which puppy and the litter is going to make before they get their eyes open. Well, that man laughed at him and said, well, tell me so I'll know.

I'll tell you, I was wondering my own self, because this was going to be as big of a news flash to me as it was the man who'd stopped by. Now my dad never broke his gaze from Buck who was laying like in a coma-like state of relaxation. His breathing so measured I had to watch his belly close to make sure he was still doing it. And then dad said with the most obvious answer that was so simple and profound, all in the same sentence. His answer to the question, all prospective hunting dog owners want to know was contained in a five-word statement, fact. the one that gets honey. My father was a tier one master of quick wit and sarcasm,

but he wasn't being either when he said that. The pup that gets the chance to bond, learns how to communicate and develops trust with his human when all things are equal, will have a distinct advantage over those with limited opportunities. I've always thought and have told countless people that if I have a dog of any kind that I want to perform a task for me and the dog just can't seem to understand what I want him to do,

maybe it ain't the dog. Maybe I'm not telling him what I want him to do in a way he can understand. For the last 15,000 years, it has been ingrained in canines to do what we want them to do and they want to please us. We just have to be able to properly tell them. Where the red fern grows in my dad's front porch are great examples of recognizing the limitations may have to do more with us than the dog. Priceless lessons we can apply not only to dogs, but to everyone we come in contact with.

Billy made a deal with his hounds that if they treat a coon, that he'd do the rest, no matter what. And in the book, they treat one in a huge sycamore tree. And Billy, true to his word, gnawed on that. tree with his chop axe for two days, ultimately to exhaustion before a sudden gust of wind finished the job for him. Loyalty was the lesson in blistered hands and aching back, hunger, and despair were the price paid to learn it. It was also very obvious that loyalty was a two-way street. His hounds recognized that he was holding up to his end of the bargain. They stayed with him while he worked on the seemingly impossible.

task of getting that coon out of that tree, a reward for Billy from them and the culmination of effort. Now, on a personal note, I'd have patted old wedding on the head telling him good boy, and we'd have taken off from there to go for a tree of another one, but that's just me. It'd be hard to tell the story without pointing out, at least to me, that the lessons within this book, in this movie, are all rooted in love. It seemingly followed. from the pages all over the floor if you hold the book spying up. Love is what that whole thing is about and drives every facet of the store from the first page to the last.

From the time Billy picks those puppies up from the station, he'd already loved them. Just the idea of having them was overwhelming. I'm going to read to you now. Another passage, this one is from chapter 5. It is the day Billy picks up his post. puppies from the train station. In the moment, in my mind, that represents the closest thing to the overwhelming feeling of unbounded love to having children that a child can experience.

On arriving at the depot, my nerve failed me. I was afraid to go in. I didn't know what I was scared of, but I was scared. Before going around to the front, I peaked in a window. The station master was in his office looking at some papers. He was wearing a fun little cap that had no top in it. He looked friendly enough, but I still couldn't muster up enough courage to go in. I cocked my ear to see if I could hear puppies crying, but I couldn't hear nothing.

Bird was chirping. It was a yellow canary in a cage. The station master walked over and gave it some water, and I thought anyone that is kind of birds surely wouldn't be mean to a boy. With my courage built up, I walked around to the front, eased myself past the office. He glanced at me and turned back to his papers. I walked clear around the depot and again walked slowly past the office,

glancing from the corner of my eye, saw the station master looking at me and smiling. He opened the door and came out on the platform. I stopped and leaned against the building. Yawning and stretching his arms, he said, It sure is hot today. It doesn't look like it's ever going to rain. I looked up at the sky and said,

Yes, sir, it is hot, and we sure could do with the good rain. We need one bad up where I come from. He asked me where I lived. I told him. Up the river away. You know, he said, I have some puppies in there for a boy that lives up on the river.

His name is Billy Coleman. I know his dad, but never have seen the boy. I figured he'd be in after him today. On hearing this remark, my heart jumped up in my throat. I thought surely it was going to hop right out on the depot platform. I looked up and I tried to tell him who I was, but something went wrong. When the words finally came out, they only sounded like a squeaky old pulley on our well when Mama drew up a bucket of water.

I could see a twinkle in the station master's eyes. He came over and laid his hand on my shoulder. and in a friendly voice he said, So you're Billy Coleman. How's your dad? I told him Papa was fine and handed him to slip my grandpa had given me. Well, they sure are fine-looking pups,

he said. You'll have to go around to the freight door. I'm sure my feet never touched the ground as I flew around the building. He unlocked the door and I stepped in looking for my dogs and I couldn't see anything but boxes, barrels, and old trunks and some rolls of bobwire.

The kindly stationmaster walked over to one of the boxes. Do you want boxing all, he asked? I told him I didn't want the box. All I wanted was the dogs. How are you going to carry him? he asked. I think they're a little too young to follow. I held out my gunny sack. He looked at me.

He looked at the sack and chucked on. He said, well, I guess dogs can be carried that way as anything else, but we'll have to cut a hole in there for them to stick their head through so they won't smother. Getting a claw hammer, he started tearing off the top of the box. His nails gave way and bored splintered. I heard several puppy whimpers. I didn't walk over.

I just stood and waited. After what seemed like hours, the box was open. He reached in, lifted the pups out, and set them down on the floor. Well, there they are, he said. What do you think of? I didn't answer. I couldn't. All I could do was stare at them.

They seemed to be blinded by the light and kept blinking their eyes. One sat down on his little rear and started crying. The other one was waddling around and whimpering. I wanted so much to step over and pick them up. Several times I tried to move my feet, but they seemed to be nailed to the floor. I knew the pups were mine, all mine, yet I couldn't move. My heart started acting like a drunk grasshopper. I tried to swallow and couldn't.

My Adam's apple wouldn't work. One pup started my way. I held my breath. On he came until I felt a scratchy little foot on mine. The other pup followed. A warm puppy tongue caressed my sore foot. I heard the station master say, Well, they already know you.

I knelt down and gasped them in my arms. I buried my face between their wiggling bodies and cried. The station master sensing something more than just two dogs and a boy waited in silence. There is so much more to talk about that I believe I could do a whole series on this book alone. But there are some listening right now that while they may have heard about the book, they never read it. There's also some young people that listen. And I'm so grateful and thankful to have their ears for a few moments each week. I haven't done this in a while, but I'm giving y'all an assignment, homework, if you will.

Read this book or listen to the audio book instead of watching either version of the movie. Let Billy and every character fit the ones you imagine in your mind as you read. You'll find that what each of those characters represents in emotion, good or bad, is way more important than what they look like. Let me and Miss Reva know what you think about it, And what, if anything, speaks to you the most? Man, I sure hope you enjoyed this one. I know I did.

It's like visiting with a childhood friend. It's a simple story with such a wonderful, wonderful message. Until next week, this is me and old Wayland saying y'all be careful. Join me and follow the podcast Conspiracy theories, where we explore what's really going on behind the official narrative. Like, what if the Loch Ness must be. Monster isn't a monster at all, but an elephant. What do the richest 1% know that we don't?

Why are they building all those bunkers? And really, what the heck is going on with the Denver airport? Join me every week to see just how high up this goes on the Spotify podcast, Conspiracy Theory. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.