Bear Grease - Ep. 493: This Country Life - Mine for Now, Theirs for Always

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

You never truly know the impact your words can have on another person. On the rare occasion when you do it can sometimes be overwhelming. Our words can carry weight and meaning especially for those searching for answers. Brent had a unique opportunity to meet some new friends recently in a casual setting where he learned firsthand how impactful those words can be. We think you're really gonna like this episode of MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Cast and Blast Outdoors: https://www.instagram.com/castnblast__outdoors?igsh=MW9vY2lnaWt6NnliZg== https://youtube.com/@cnb-outdoors?si=4RRWDbgc3vbQJ4-O 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.

Hunting season is right around the corner, and first light season opener sale kicks off August 18. You can save up to 40% site wide, and this year they're rolling out new 24-hour daily deals throughout the sale. So it's worth checking back every day because those deals are going to change. There are also a few pieces I really like that are on sale for the first time ever, including the 308 pant and navigator hoodie. If you've been waiting to replace some worn-out gear, fill a hole in your system, or just get ready for the season. Now's the time.

Head over to firstlight.com and gear up for the season. Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hutton 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 Eater's Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast,

the airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Mine for now, there's for always. I have traveled far and wide in this incredible job of mine. I have seen some incredible sites, worked alongside, and met some incredible people. Of all the things that I get to see and do,

it is the people that keep raising the standard. I met some just last week. and I'm going to tell you about him now, so meet me at the fire. Let's get started. I saw him standing in line at the Starbucks in Adina, Minnesota. I had just gotten my order. If you're curious, it was black coffee with three packs of honey squeezed in to negate the bitterness of that terrible coffee and taste closer to what I make at home.

I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks coffee or their ridiculous names for some. small, medium, and large, but it was convenient. And my pals, Clay Newcomb, Alyssa, and Connor Smith, and I were on the hunt for caffeine. We were there to kick off the new meat eater store opening by welcoming folks in for a visit on the first day of business. He said my name as I walked past and I stopped to say hello to a man I'd never met before. I got a friendly vibe right away and I noticed his Matthews archery cap above his. his friendly smile. He said his name was Carrie and answered yes when I asked him if he was coming to the event that was scheduled to start in two hours. He also said he was there with

his daughter who wanted a drink that I can only assume is like the ones I get for my daughter Bailey. An amalgamation of seemingly made up words and potions that when said out loud has me looking around to see if the furniture is floating and when mixed together resembles a bullfrog after making a couple laps in a margarita blender. I've got Bailey's order memorized, but I have no idea what the majority of it means. Venti, Asai, strawberry lemonade, no inclusions, light ice. Just like the farmhands that taught me how to cuss in Spanish

when I was just a kid working right alongside them in our tomato patch, I didn't have a clue what I was saying, or on which occasion was appropriate to use what they taught me. Judging by how much they laughed at my feeble attempts to gain street crib with my usage of the phrases I'd learned, I never did figure it out. I might have been ordering Bailey's preferred elixir way back in the 1970s, or casting aspersions upon the world in general at the delight of my Hispanic colleagues. No way to really know. I don't speak Spanish or Starbucks. Anyway, I told Carrie I felt his pain, and I looked forward to visiting with him at the store.

Then I joined my folks at our table. We made our way over to the store and were greeted by a whole passel of folks standing in line waiting to get in. The store crew finished the final touches, and at 10 a.m., the doors flung open and in-walked folks from Minnesota and Wisconsin by the droves. the night before we'd attended a little get-together there with some outdoor industry folks to tour the store and to get all of us from out of town familiar with the layout. I met some guys that have an Instagram page and a YouTube channel called Cast and Blast Outdoors. Riva's going to drop a link in the description if you'd like to check them out, and I hope you do. But Luke, Cody, Kegan, and Vinny are lifelong friends of each other who, like a lot of folks, these days record their adventures when they're outdoors having fun.

The difference here is they never led with that when I met them. I meet a lot of people who are trying to get in the outdoor industry, and I always offer what limited knowledge I have on it at every opportunity. Anyone that knows my story knows I backed my way into it through a series of unplanned events. And after 20 years of trying to squeeze my way in behind the scenes on the production side, I wound up just the opposite. These guys just wanted to visit, and in a sea of folks I didn't know, I felt familiar with them from the very beginning. They're all professional young men with families, and the four of them are just as unassuming as anyone you might run into at an outdoor store, a trailhead, or a boat ramp, which ain't that big of a stretch to do.

We talked for 20 minutes or so about their upcoming trip to Alaska. a do-it-yourself caribou hunt from a drop-off camp. And it was during that conversation when I suggested someone should be filming this, and they piped up about their YouTube channel. The excitement that they all shared was more about the grand adventure they were going on than anything that could come as a result of their production. But those are the things that people gravitate towards, the organic highs and lows of an adventure that's pure and unrehearsed.

the chemistry that presents between them as a result of their obvious brotherhood, even though DNA test wouldn't take put the two of the four in that group. Not only did they talk about their adventures and narrate me through the seemingly limitless scores of trophy photos that always seemed to come out when someone recognizes me, but I absolutely love by the way. But not only did they talk about those, but they also talked about how supportive of their wives and their families are. Details and how they spoke of them made me know that these fellows are actually aware

that the real trophies are the ones waiting on them at home, regardless of where they go and the things they see. I wish them well on their journey next month. I pray for their safe return, and I look forward to seeing what they do on their channel. Which brings me back to Saturday morning. Remember, Carrie? He was the fellow I met in Starbucks,

which was actually the day after I met those four guys with cast and blast. Well, Carrie and his daughter had followed the serpentine line of people through the store until they reached the table where Clay and I were standing. We shook hands, and he introduced me to his 11-year-old daughter, Kaylee, who had long finished whatever drink he'd gotten her before they reached our spot. I'd talked to 20 or 30 people by that time we all squared up to visit, but I was very ill-prepared for what was about to happen. Carrie Palacio was born in Garden City, Kansas.

Garden City is in Finney County. As of the 2020 census, the population of that locale was a smudge over 28,000. They have the Garden City Community College and the Lee Richardson Zoo, the largest zoological park in western Kansas. There, you can see everything from live. rhinos, coopers, and kangaroos. But if you want to see where Carrie first started making tracks over 40 years ago, you'd have to head up north on State Highway 25 out of Garden City and hang of left at Liotie.

Somewhere between there and Tribune, Kansas is the farm where Carrie grew up, and a family farm was located. Carrie's career moved him to Minnesota 20 years ago, and it's there in the North Star State where Carrie and his family. family make their home. A series of health problems plagued Carrie's father back on the family farm in Kansas.

And it was the catalyst that caused Carrie to urge his parents to relocate from rural Kansas to an area in Minnesota an hour and a half away from arguably one of the best medical facilities in the world, Mayo Clinic. They moved northeast in 2020, but Carrie's father returned

each year for harvest season. bringing truth to the old saying you can take the boy out of the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy. And it was there on a family farm in extremely rural Kansas that Carrie's father, Louis Palacio, died of a heart attack on November 19th, 20, 25. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello! My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free I-Hare radio app. Blot going up.

Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHare radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. Meat Eater's season opener sale is live.

And if you've been waiting to gear up for your hunt, now's the time. Buy one, get one free on all Meat Eater. T's and hoodies. 50% off select game bags and deals on gear from some of our favorite brands. First Light, Phelps, FHF, Maltry, Yeti, and more. And for after the hunt, we have a limited time offer to save on our most popular seasonings like backstrap brew, campfire crust, and backcountry bark. Or get the six-pack to try them all.

Our favorite time of year is right around the corner. Head over to the meat eater store.com to check out our season. Open or sell. Carrie escorted his mother back to Kansas to make the necessary arrangements one dozen times like those and counted amongst the final possessions of his father two pocket knives, one of which that had belonged to Louis' father, Joe, that had passed away 12 years earlier. They were the things he wanted most, the things he connected with that were a tangible object he could hold in his hand, something that they had held.

and theirs. And on the long ride back to Minnesota on November the 21st, 2025, those two items occupied space in Carrie's pockets. With his mother finally sleeping through the pain and loss of his father, her husband's clothes folded neatly in her lap as she rested, Carrie turned on a podcast to help him pass the time. Episode 187 of this country life popped up. The title is Things Lost and Found, and it was published on February the 8th, 2024.

In that episode, I talked about a buffalo someone found. Yeah, I said a buffalo. Also a shotgun, a friend of mine found, and a pocket knife that belonged to my father that I lost. I went back to that place to look for it that was ironically and, Kansas, the very state Kerry was driving in when he tuned it in. It was almost a year ago, but according to Carrie, the comforting message he got from that old episode and some of the ones that followed were instrumental in his healing process. So while we visited and talked about the different things that Carrie and Kaylee liked to hunt,

Carrie made a decision. The conversation had reached the peak the way they do in those events where people are patiently waiting their turn to visit and they started to walk away. But before they did, Carrie said, I want to give you something. He reached in his pocket and he pulled out a pocket knife and he said, it's not a case, but this was my grandfather's. My dad carried it after he died and I got it after dad died last year. I want you to have it. The look on my face I'm sure would have been one to see. The volume of noise in that story that that it caused us to talk a few octaves above normal had faded away as all my attention was focused on carry.

And I couldn't hear anything else but him. I looked him in the eyes. I tried to do the math on what he just said. Had I heard him right? Did he really say what I thought he said? I didn't fully understand what was going on and why. I mean, if I heard him correctly, how could I be worthy of such a monumental heir to him gift? Carrie dropped a small three-bladed knife into my hand and I stared at it for a second before looking up and when I did I caught the movement of my friend and colleague Alyssa Smith who was taking pictures for folks.

Tears were welling up in her eyes as I looked at her in disbelief. Her expression confirming that what I'd heard was just what I thought. You want me to have this? I choked the words out as best I could. and with my voice breaking, feeling the enormous weight of what was happening. Carrie looked at me with a facial expression full of relief and emotion, and he nodded his head and started to walk away, but I wouldn't let him leave. Why would you give this to me?

That little knife weighed only a few ounces, but it felt like anvil's on a yoke that had just been placed on my shoulders. Is this guy lost his mind? Did he not know what he was doing? I'm not worthy of such a gift. But I could see the gratitude in his eyes, and he said, I wanted to thank you for what you did for me. You helped me through a really tough time.

And then he just turned to walk away with this beautiful daughter. No crying aloud, Brent. That's what Alyssa said, and I snapped back at her. I ain't crying in an effort not to match what was on the verge of followed out of her eyes in front of the mass of people that were in that building. Carrie and Kaylee had gotten halfway across the store when I called for him to come back. I had to shake his hand one more time and get a picture with him and maybe get another clue why he'd done what he'd done. They came back and posed for a photo, and that's all I got out of it.

He simply walked out of that store and disappeared with me having no way of knowing his last name or where to reach out to him. All my years of investigative experience had disappeared in a puff of smoke about the size of a little black and silver pocket knife. Brent, why didn't you get his phone number? Or at least his last name. That event and our conversation had been at the forefront of every idle moment I'd had since he and Kaylee left. I had no other explanation for anything until later that night. I was sitting on a plane in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, taxing toward the runway about to take off when I got a message on Instagram from Carrie.

Turns out it was the second message I had gotten from him. The first one was sitting in August of 2024, a little over a year before he would lose his father. When he'd sent that message, that little knife he'd given me a few hours before was still in his father's business. pocket. It was a picture he'd taken in an antique store somewhere of some old knives. The caption said he was walking around listening to an episode of this country life when he saw those knives and thought I might like to see them. I get a lot of those kinds of messages. I try to answer them all as best I can, and even though I had answered it very promptly, I didn't remember doing it, even looking at the photo and reading our short exchange from back then.

But this message said he really enjoyed meeting me and had gotten out of there without taking a picture on his phone and asked me if I'd share one of the ones that I'd had Alyssa take for me. It was a wash of relief to be able to find this man and know who he was. I immediately took a screenshot of his profile, and I thought to myself, I got you now, buddy. My response was a bit long. The picture I sent with him, I asked him to hug his mama for me,

and I could call him after I got back home so we could talk some more. He agreed to do both. Today, when we talked on the phone, I asked him when he decided to give me that knife. His answer caught me just as off guard as the gift itself did. He said it was two people in front of us and everyone before me. And you took your hat off to shake every woman's hand, even Kayle's. I thought this is a man I'd be proud to tell my grandma was coming over for Sunday dinner. Carrie said some other very nice things, but as much as I like to talk and be the class clown,

my least favorite subject is me. Carrie went on to say that the memories of his grandfather and his father didn't live in that life. They lived in him, and it was a moment of closure for him to be able to pass that object on to me as a thank you for helping him navigate a storm of loss in his life. It allowed him to release some feelings that he needed to get gone. Now, I'll go knuckle and skull with anyone who'd berate or question carries actions. Judgment of another's motivation without standing in his shoes is about as bad as it gets. And I'll admit that my first instinct was to refuse what he'd given me, but I knew when I looked at him and how he'd done it, that it was,

was my responsibility to accept it. I couldn't bring it back with me on the plane with no checked baggage, so I had the store ship it to me. And it has a spot right here beside my desk. And right here is where it will remain until the moment Carrie should decide he'd like it back, or seven years from now when Kaylee graduates high school, whichever comes first. The instructions are in the case alongside it should I make a hasty, exit, but until then it is my honor and privilege to hold it for them.

These are the things we do, not for ourselves, but for each other, the way it should be done with acceptance and respect. I made some new friends, and I learned some new things about myself on this trip, none of which were expected, all of which I am thankful. Thank you all so much for listening to all of us here. on the Barry Grease channel. Clay, Lake and I appreciate it very much. Until next week, this is Brent Reeve.

Signing all. Y'all be careful. Hunting season is right around the corner and first light season opener sale kicks off August 18. You can save up to 40% site wide and this year they're rolling out new 24-hour daily deals throughout the sale. So it's worth checking back every day because those deals are going to change.

There are also a few pieces I really like that are on sale for the first time ever, including the 308 pant and navigator hoodie. If you've been waiting to replace some worn out gear, fill a hole in your system, or just get ready for the season. Now's the time. Head over to firstlight.com and gear up for the season.