00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukleman. This is a production of the bear Grease podcast called The bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast presented by FHF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. Welcome to the bear Grease Render Podcast, where we break down the actual bear Grease podcast. Our documentary style audio podcast that is in depth, research polished, produced intriguing stories about rural American life and on the bear Grease Render, we gather around an eclectic group of people to discuss the previous week's podcast. So welcome to all you knew people I have with me today. Brent Reeves, Lauren Molton of Meat Eater, longtime Meat Eater videographer, and Big Dirty Dave Gardner also pretty long time videographer of meat Eater. Great to have everybody. 00:01:35 Speaker 2: Great to be here. 00:01:36 Speaker 1: How does it feel to be here? 00:01:38 Speaker 2: It feels wonderful, especially when you have freshly killed the big old Missouri turkey. 00:01:43 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we're going to get into that. Brent was telling me just a minute ago. He was singing a song, And I asked him how many live concerts he's been to in his life? Give me the top three best concerts that you've ever been to? 00:01:58 Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, I would have to say Whaling Jennings Win and where nineteen eighty two, Pine Bluff Convention Center, Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Wow. Uh? Eagles really when the Eagles came back ninety something? I don't remember, okay, but that was at war Men Worial Stadium in Little Rocky Eagles. 00:02:24 Speaker 1: So Whaling Jennings Eagles number three. I'm going to ask you guys this gosh on three. 00:02:30 Speaker 2: Maybe Tom Petty, Man. 00:02:32 Speaker 1: Tom Petty, When did you see Tom Petty? 00:02:33 Speaker 2: Saw Tom Petty the last year he was touring. I may be partly responsible for him dying, but. 00:02:40 Speaker 1: Tom Petty's dead is a hammer, Okay, he is, Okay, And now tell me about I asked Brent if he'd ever been if he'd ever seen Elvis, and he said no. 00:02:54 Speaker 2: We had the chance to see him a year before he died, and tickets were left dollars and mamas that she couldn't afford tote all of us, so we didn't get to go. But I'm thinking she could have left everybody home with me and her. How old were you I would have been, that would have been in I'd have been eleven eleven? Okay, cool? 00:03:15 Speaker 3: Lord, Yeah, that's cool. 00:03:17 Speaker 1: Live concerts do you go? Have you been to some live concerts? 00:03:20 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:03:20 Speaker 1: Uh top two. 00:03:22 Speaker 3: As I was a younger guy, I went to a lot of concerts, and then I've worked the concerts scene through the last fifteen years. Work at the venue venue at the brewery that I worked at, so we had tons of big names come through there. Crosby, Stills, nashuh, Widespread Panic. I don't know, millions of decembris, a ton of concerts. But if you're asking me favorites, I don't know, Man, this is gonna shed some light on me. 00:03:50 Speaker 1: Uh oh, I'll just. 00:03:53 Speaker 3: I don't know if I can pinpoint favorites. Ok, favorites, That is hard. But the first show I ever saw with Steve Miller band that was pretty cool. I think I was about fourteen years old. 00:04:00 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:04:02 Speaker 3: Then saw Eric Clapton and Stevie ray Bond's last show there at Elpine Valley, Wisconsin. That was pretty incredible. Went to a bunch of Grateful Dead shows when I was in high school. Okay, that was fun, Dave. So they say, I don't remember. 00:04:21 Speaker 4: It the best concert I've ever met, too, it was probably I don't remember it much because I I think I was only three years old, wow, three, and my parents were real into country music and Garth Brooks came to the state Fair. My parents had me decked out. I was reel into Garth at the time. Parents had decked me out and you know, my little cowboy uniform, and we had like really good seats, like fifth or sixth row. Some lady gave me a rose to give to Garth, and my parents put me on the shoulders some bodyguard that was about seven feet tall, and he walked me up to the stage and everybody's like giving Garth gifts and stuff. And I hand him this rose and he waves to somebody on the side of the stage and the guy brings out a guitar. He signed it and gives it to me. 00:05:16 Speaker 3: No wow, yeah, yeah, that's still got it. 00:05:19 Speaker 1: This feels like a setup for Dave to tell. 00:05:21 Speaker 5: You, man, my wife, if we kill for that guitar. Yeah, well it's for sale some loans, you know, for the right price. 00:05:33 Speaker 1: So when you were three years old, decked out in your your western wear. Yeah, Garth Brooks gave you a sign of guitar. 00:05:40 Speaker 4: Yes, sir, that's money. Yeah, still at my parents' house. 00:05:45 Speaker 1: Is it for real? 00:05:45 Speaker 2: For so? 00:05:46 Speaker 4: I'd sell it for the right price, right give ballpark. Garth's got to retire though, you know, I think he's probably still giving out guitars, so I gotta make sure he's. 00:05:55 Speaker 1: Now we're looking at ten grand plus. 00:05:58 Speaker 4: Probably, yeah, whatever it is. 00:06:01 Speaker 1: I would you take nine? 00:06:05 Speaker 4: I don't know, probably not, Probably wouldn't take. 00:06:07 Speaker 1: Okay, Well, would you sell it for twenty? 00:06:10 Speaker 4: Probably? 00:06:11 Speaker 1: So we're looking okay, folks between ten and twenty thousand dollars. 00:06:15 Speaker 2: There, specifically to my wife, So you might as well say alexis. 00:06:18 Speaker 3: Instead of okay, Oh highest better. 00:06:23 Speaker 1: That's good. That's good. So later we're going to talk about the new the new Burgers series called con Man. That's what we're that's the direction that we're going. But before we get there, Brent Reeves, longtime longtime burg Grease Render guy and friend of mine. You have a new Meet Eater podcast out. 00:06:46 Speaker 2: Is that crazy? 00:06:47 Speaker 1: It is crazy? 00:06:49 Speaker 2: What were they thinking? 00:06:50 Speaker 1: Yeah? 00:06:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, this country life with me? Brent Reeve, Brent Reeves. 00:06:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, tell so tell us what this country life is a Well. 00:07:00 Speaker 2: It's gonna be about just hunting, fishing, just general country living. Everything that goes on, if it can be thought of or it's happened in rural America, it's on the list and it's fair game and we're gonna be talking about that and we're gonna be talking about things that will air quotes help you beat the system. 00:07:21 Speaker 1: So tell me the structure of the podcast, because it's great. I love the structure of it. 00:07:27 Speaker 2: It'll start out with like I'm gonna do a little intro and talk about tell folks what we're going to talk about in the main subject, and then I'm gonna tell a story, like a five minute story, something happened in my life to me or about me or someone I know, and it may relate to the subject we're talking about, it may not. It may just be a story I like to tell, and then we'll get into the main subject and get that covered. The whole thing's gonna last about twenty minutes, so. 00:07:55 Speaker 1: It's a very short listen and it's a monologue monologue with the Brent, and it's going to cover country skills. So when you listen to it, you're going to gain a country skill, but you're also going to get a lot of great stories. And it's funny. It's not a comedy bit, but it's designed to be funny, entertaining stories that teach you a country skill that will help you beat the system. 00:08:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's uh, and they're all true. I'm not making up any of it. It all happened to me or someone I know. 00:08:29 Speaker 1: I think we should go ahead and tell them what some of the episodes are. I think we can leak that information. What do you think? 00:08:36 Speaker 2: Sure? 00:08:37 Speaker 3: Uh? 00:08:38 Speaker 2: Some of them be like how to train, how to pick out a squirrel dog where you go to do that, how to catch catfish on the troidline. 00:08:49 Speaker 1: So one episode is how to transcroll Dog. So that's what you'll see, how to transcrod off. But when you listen to it, you're gonna hear us some great couple of unique story worries about Brent's life in the in the squirrel dog world and his dad's stories. And then he's going to go into how to find a squirrel dog how to train it. 00:09:10 Speaker 2: You know, I've had a habit. I can remember everything but math and anything time but that we're talking, you and I are talking, I'll remember a story. I'll be reminded of a story, and then we go off on a tangent and I'll tell a five minutes story about something that happened. That's more or less how that thing's going to go. I'm going to start out with the story, and then we're going to start Then we're going to start with the subject of what we're going to talk about, Say it's finding a squirrel dog where you go to do that, and I'm gonna give you tips on how to do that, and then through there, I'm going to throw in some anecdotal stuff that has happened to me or my dad or my friends or something that will relate to it. 00:09:46 Speaker 1: Yeah. So another episode is how to run a trot line, so country skills. You need to know how to run a trot line. There's a podcast on duck camp etiquette, so how to handle you yourself if you're in a duck camp because Brent was an outfitter for twenty six years. 00:10:05 Speaker 2: Right. 00:10:06 Speaker 1: There's a podcast on what a country man needs to carry in his pockets and it's a whole podcast is about what you have in your pockets. Very interesting. We have a podcast about how to buy a pickup truck, Lauren, your one day, your son is going to be like, he's going to need a truck, and if he listens to this podcast, he's going to have a leg up on knowing the ins and outs, what the way people treat their trucks, the way they handle selling a truck, and this is going to give him a skill that he's going to need. Very valuable. Okay, So yeah, that's the kind of stuff it is. But it's fun. It's a lot of fun. 00:10:51 Speaker 2: And so and if you subscribe to beggar As, you're automatically going to get it. 00:10:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's on this feed. So if you're listening to this, you're subscribe most likely to the Bear Grease podcast feed and it'll be on there. 00:11:04 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:11:05 Speaker 1: So this is this is big news. 00:11:08 Speaker 2: It's been a lot of fun. 00:11:10 Speaker 1: Big news, big news. 00:11:12 Speaker 4: Soon it might be Bear Grease on the This Country Life feed. 00:11:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's probably what's gonna happen. Probably what's gonna happen, Brent, how do we come up with the name of This Country Life? 00:11:25 Speaker 2: Do you remember we were sitting in a restaurant you're. 00:11:29 Speaker 1: Sitting at Herman's Steakhouse and Fville, So. 00:11:32 Speaker 2: You missed in in my wife tablecloths. 00:11:35 Speaker 1: This this place is a famous steakhouse. It's in Fayetville, Arkansas. Fable is a nice town. You would drive past Herman's and you would think that it was an abandoned building. 00:11:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like a bomb shelter. 00:11:47 Speaker 1: It's a it's an old house. Yeah, that sets in a part of town that has now been developed. But then there's just this old house sitting on the road and they've actually fixed it up a lot from what it was like, yeah, twenty years ago. 00:11:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been on a staple for people going to razorback games for years. 00:12:03 Speaker 1: You would think that you would drive past it and it's clear that it was once a residential house and now all this big stuff is growing up around it. And they have, you know, this like neon sign that says Hermans, and the parking lot will just be full of cars. And it's a steakhouse. And you go in there and there's these red table red checker tablecloths and they give you salting crackers and salsa. Have you ever heard that? Have you ever had that before? 00:12:27 Speaker 2: No? 00:12:27 Speaker 1: Sir, I never have either. Have you ever had it before? 00:12:30 Speaker 2: Hermans is only place I've ever done. 00:12:32 Speaker 1: They give you a big bowl of fresh salsa and salting crackers like a Mexican restaurant. We give you chips and sausage, and then you order steaks and whatnot. And Missy and I were eating dinner with Brent and his wife at Herman's yep at Herman and then what happened Brent. 00:12:46 Speaker 2: Well, you looked up and said you ought to do a podcast, and I thought, what in the world about? And that's all I know is just country living is all I know about? And you said, there it is right there. It kind of evolved from that in that conversation, and then we started putting some stuff together, getting some ideas, and it came together pretty pretty quick. 00:13:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we we had we had an idea of this country life and yeah it all. I bet the podcast is pretty close. The finished version of it is pretty close to what we developed at that table that night. Oh and I can't take Misty and Alexis were. 00:13:30 Speaker 2: Very much, so, very much so. Yeah, it wasn't just me and you. No, they had the ideas about just like the format and the length and whether or not I'd be talking to people or just talking, and it just it grew from that. It didn't grow much from that. We just kind of refined it a little bit. 00:13:49 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So let us know what you think of the podcast. It's going to come out every Friday, So it's going to be weekly every Friday. 00:13:56 Speaker 3: We got a sneak peek on the boat yep, and I thought it was all. It was great. You should take a listen. 00:14:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, man. It's a lot of fun doing it. Got a lot of good folks working on it. Yeah. 00:14:08 Speaker 1: So we're in Missouri at Turkey Camp. We've come up to a place that Brent has hunted for last twenty five years, five plus years. 00:14:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, a long time. 00:14:17 Speaker 1: You got some family, you got some friends up here that's been kind of like family to you for a long time. 00:14:23 Speaker 2: Long time. 00:14:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, And this morning you killed a turkey. You and Big Dirty We did tell me about. 00:14:32 Speaker 2: It, man, Win. As you know, the wind was blowing this morning as hard as it could blow, I think. And on our fourth setup, on the second turkey that we sat down on, we finally got him to hear us. We had we'd snuck into a place and in this field where this turkey was, and he was just kind of just over a terrace row from us. There's a little bit of a little bit of topo up here, so it allowed us to get up to the edge to where we thought this turkey was. And Dave actually slipped up around some cedar trees and looked over that ter stroke and see that turkey down in there. This is nine twenty at that time, and he said he was just gobbling his brains out. And he come back and sit down and grabbed a camera and we started calling it. We had a lull in the wind enough that I could get some called out to him, and he answered, and then it was just as fast as he could struck coming to us. And of course he seen the decoyd and he came right on in there and went They had a little boxing match out there. And I told Dave when I shot him, you know, he was boxing that Jake Decoy. The bad thing about it is that he went to glory thinking that that Jake killed him. 00:15:48 Speaker 4: Hmm. 00:15:49 Speaker 1: That's good. So Lauren and I this morning had a we should have been in the same situation. We were hunting the edge of a big cor cornfield and the birds they roosted in the spot we didn't think they were, and so we were kind of set up in the timber. They weren't in the timber. They were out on the edge of this cornfield. So right at daylight, you know, just about fly down time, we kind of got out and put a decoy out about twenty yards in the edge of this big field. Two adult gobblers and several jakes go out into this cornfield and they're just around a little hump from us. We can't see them, but they're goblin. And I start and I've got decoys out and we're on the edge of the timber and everything's good. Yeah, and I start calling. They answered, They answer, the answer, the answered. Just the harder I called, the more I called, I was calling my mouth calling a slate call, the more they got fired up. And sure enough we just hear him getting closer and closer, big gobbler, and finally we see him strutting out there at probably two hundred and fifty yards and he sees the decoy and here he comes, just running, and I mean, we just think, well. 00:16:59 Speaker 2: Here we go. 00:17:00 Speaker 1: We've got a jake, a half struck jake, in a sit down hen and he sees him and everything's good, and he comes up over the hill and is running and then but directly behind him are four jakes about fifty yards behind him. That the closer he gets to us, he comes into one hundred yards, and I think those jakes spooked him because he stopped and he kind of started looking behind him, and then he cut hard and made a big loop and just kind of disappeared, and those jakes ended up coming in. Uh, they didn't come all the way in, but Uh, Anyway, the more I think about Lauren, I think that it's possible that they they saw us. What do you think, or just didn't like we were head pretty good. We were by some falling logs and whatnot. 00:17:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we were concealed pretty well. I don't know. I mean, who knows. It could have been any but this bird. 00:18:01 Speaker 1: So the big gobbler peels out and then the jakes come in to probably one hundred yards and just and I'm not really trying to call them in, and they kind of fade off, and then we start calling again and that same gobbler comes back. The jakes are gone, and so now he's coming back alone, and I think, oh, good, well, he'll got him, got him. He comes back in to one hundred and fifty yards and stands in the same spot for no less than twenty five minutes and just gobbles every time I call, every time a crow calls, every time another turkey gobbles and just stands there and watches our decoys for thirty I mean, for so long. I thought to myself, this is going to be this is going to take a long time for him to ever get here. And he finally skirted off and around got onto this other field. We circle all the way around him, like walk probably close to a half mile to get complete the opposite side of him, and I'm losing the jake. I think he's afraid of the Jake decoy, That's what I think. So I just stake out the single hen and think, oh man, he'll come now, and uh, because I'm on the opposite side of him the way he kind of was wanting to go, it was great called and uh he gobbled, gobbled, gobbled, gobbled, but never would move an inch, just sat on the edge of that field, just watching where we were, and we're just gobble at us. And then he just walked away. 00:19:31 Speaker 2: I don't there's a hard to kill right there. 00:19:33 Speaker 1: Two year old turkey probably that's been roughed up by Jake's I mean it's on private land, so it's not like he's been messed with. We're the first part people to hunt that place this year, right, So I can't understand it, but uh yeah, these field turkeys to kill him in the timber Man. 00:19:50 Speaker 2: It's hard. It's really hard. It's fine to see him, it isn't. And if you're calling, you know a lot of times, you know, I'm not a fan of decoys, but if you're hunting fields, got to have them. Yeah, because when they get to where they can see where, they know where that calling is, and they can tell within you know, a turkey can tell within a foot where that racket's coming from. And they don't see a hen there. Yeah, they ain't coming. Lots of times they ain't. Yeah. 00:20:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, So we got one more day here, we got one more day. 00:20:20 Speaker 3: We'll get it done. 00:20:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna talk about it. Wendy Tuesday. You don't want to talk about Tuesday night. 00:20:25 Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna embarrass you. 00:20:27 Speaker 2: You ain't gonna embarrass me. 00:20:29 Speaker 1: Go ahead, tell them. 00:20:30 Speaker 2: Well, Tuesday morning, it all worked out, worked out great, just like we thought it was going to. Had turkey goblin on the roost. He answered us from the roost, flew down from the roost, and we watched him on film walk two hundred and fifty yards, gobbling and strutting every step of the way, all the way into thirty five yards. I'm having a flashback right now and when I pulled the trigger the first time and the second time, what's he doing? As far as I know, he's still doing it. 00:21:12 Speaker 1: I think he flew to Mexico. 00:21:14 Speaker 2: I think he did. 00:21:16 Speaker 4: I think we spoke him this morning. 00:21:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we walked under one this morning, and I mean on the same limb. 00:21:22 Speaker 1: So so I was up about thirty yards in the woods let's just say north of Brent because it was uphill, and the idea was I was going to call a little bit back in the timber and this bird was going to come through this field. And it worked out incredibly well. 00:21:38 Speaker 2: Hey, we couldn't have drawn it up any better. 00:21:40 Speaker 1: And I would, I would learn that Brent thought I was overcalling way too much. 00:21:46 Speaker 2: I was. I was about to have a stroke. 00:21:49 Speaker 4: I was sitting there just shaking no stop. 00:21:53 Speaker 2: No, I was thinking about being miked up. I thought, well, they're going to listen to this and I'm not just shaking my head. 00:21:58 Speaker 1: No, no, you know that's the problem with turkey hunting with people. There are about one hundred ways to skin a cat. And you know who the person that I've hunted with that calls, he would call more than my If I had a ten year old Baron Neukem with a box call, Yeah, you know. 00:22:16 Speaker 3: Who that was. 00:22:17 Speaker 2: You told me this morning. 00:22:18 Speaker 1: Wilber Primo. They down there, they say that he'll leave yelp marks on one after he kills him. 00:22:25 Speaker 2: Well, you know that's how they when they started out, and there's some of their first videos of what they said. You know, the people are going to say, we called too loud and we called too much. Well. 00:22:36 Speaker 1: I was raised by or I was mentored by some really well Scott Brown's really who I would say, taught me a lot about turkey. Henton Gary Nukomb taught me the foundations of turke Inton. But Scott Brown taught me a lot about turke Hinton. And man, he'd he'd rather yelp a three note yelp and sit there and have him come in. I mean, but we're hunting public land tough turkeys. Yeah, and I mean pretty much. He says, if a turkey knows where you're at, you don't need to be calling to me. 00:23:09 Speaker 2: Yeah. My dad, my brother's dad and law mister Billy Bryant, who mentored all of us on how to on how to kill turkeys, and he's killed a passle of them. It was three yips and lay your call down. 00:23:20 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:23:21 Speaker 2: He said, you know, if that turkey ever answers you, you stay at that tree sometime during the day, he's going to come by there. 00:23:27 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:23:28 Speaker 2: And he's Keith killed a lot of turkeys just like that. 00:23:31 Speaker 1: Uh. Well, I knew you. I knew you thought I was calling too much. And then word on the street is I don't call enough. 00:23:38 Speaker 2: Yeah I heard that too. 00:23:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's another hunts in Missouri. 00:23:43 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was like that dude doesn't call enough. Man, I was calling at that turkey like crazy. 00:23:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, you were Wilbury and Primost this morning. 00:23:51 Speaker 1: We did that morning before when our friend was with us. Great guy. 00:23:56 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:23:57 Speaker 1: Uh and so you know, anyway, me. 00:23:59 Speaker 2: And Dave did that this morning. We were letting it rip. 00:24:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, oh like it. Hey, oh really, So we had this conversation yesterday because Brent said you called way too much and it worked great except for his shooting exactly. And then and then the next day the word on the street was I didn't call enough. That's all I can say about that, And so Brent was like, uh, Brent was what did you say? You h I'm trying to remember how it all went down. Anyway, we were talking about calling and anyway about the reason why you called so much up here. Well, somebody told you at the gas station that, oh, you got to call these turkeys. 00:24:41 Speaker 2: Up Oh yeah, he did. I was getting a tire fixed he told me. 00:24:43 Speaker 1: That's what he said, you got to call these turkeys up here. Well, this morning, when those birds were out in that cornfield, I've never called so much of my life. I was calling with two calls at the same time. I wasn't even waiting for one to finish. I mean, they thought something bad was going on. And the more I did it, the more they got fired up and came yeah. I mean maybe they're. 00:25:06 Speaker 2: Right, that's some truth to it. 00:25:07 Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyway, so you missed the turkey at thirty five yards. We're not exactly sure what happened. 00:25:14 Speaker 2: No, I think my shotguns shooting a little local. 00:25:16 Speaker 1: Well, and you were using some shells that we decided we don't like. 00:25:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like them. I'm shooting. I went back to my old favorites this morning. 00:25:23 Speaker 1: You're shooting some number nine bismuth. Yeah, and in there it's not tungsten tungsten. Yeah, And it was just a that number nine is a very small pellet and I mean you yeah, anyway, we did, we decided after we we decided we didn't like that. 00:25:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the number five. That's what I went back to this morning and it worked. Five. 00:25:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Con Man, Lauren? What does so? The title of this series is, it's called con Man, and it's about a man named Asa Carter. If you hadn't listened to the podcast, this isn't gonna make any sense. You need to go back and listen to the episode titled con Man The Education of Little Tree And what what does con Man mean? Lauren? 00:26:18 Speaker 3: Con Man is a confidence man short for confidence man, but the definition is a man who cheats or tricks someone by gaining the trust or persuading them to believe something that's not true. Mm hmm ah. Lots of fun little other words that go along with con Man, like what was it? Uh, they're all listed here. Another word crook, hustler, swindler, bunko, bilker, bilkerker. 00:26:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, you ever heard that day like you built somebody out of some money. You gotta watch those. 00:26:58 Speaker 3: Old grift hustle, bunko. I've never heard of bunko either, swindle, flim flam, gaffle, bamboozled. And then the victims of those people are mark suckers, stooges, mugs, rubs, or gulls. Okay, okay, but confidence man is kind of the deal confidence man. 00:27:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, so so as Carter. He could have been called a lot of things, but con man is a pretty good description of what he did the last part of his life when he became Forrest Carter. And on the next episode, the whole thing is about Forrest Asa Carter, and it's about why he did what he did, some of the details of his life, the details of the ruse. It wasn't just a pen name, and I think that's what this first episode gave a little bit of information on the author of the Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter, who wasn't Forrest Carter at all, but was actually Aci Carter. And then we revealed that Asad Carter was a vehement white supremacist and had a radio broadcast produced over one hundred radio episodes that were very kind of wild, you know, racial stuff. And he had a print publication he led his own sect of the KKK that was called the Original Sons of the Confederacy. So it was like he was like saying, hey, the normal guys, aren't that aren't the real deal, Like we're the real deal. And he was a speechwriter for George Wallace, which we revealed on the podcast. And but he wrote this book under this name, Forrest Carter, and it wasn't just a pen name. We'll learn that wasn't just a pen name. He actually turned into Forrest Carter. It changed his life, changed the way that he talked, changed, the way that he dressed. Was Forrest Carter to everyone. And then he died when he was fifty four. But he wrote The Education of Little Tree, which is essentially an adolescent book. It's kind of like a where the Red Fern Grows book, and it was really a unique situation that rarely happens in literature, very rare that a book would posthumously, like after the death of the author, would go on the New York Times bestseller list. So the book was published in nineteen seventy six originally and it just had minimal fame or minimal it didn't do that well. I think they printed five thousand books at some university press, and then the book began to just have this like grassroots grassroots exposure. And then it was reprinted in nineteen eighty eight somebody else, and then in nineteen ninety one it went on the New York Times bestseller list and was put on Oprah Winfrey's Book club list, and it was on trajectory to be an American classic, American adolescent classic, like Where the Red Fernt Grows. Kids were reading it in schools all across the country. It was this book that was just full of wisdom, moral lessons, and it was intriguing to read. And it was written by this man that was a Cherokee Indian that was believed and so the story was just fantastic and people loved it. And then I'll give you a little spoiler alert. Doctor Dan T. Carter, my guest on the podcast Relation No relation to Asa Carter. You guys thought that was a little confusing, all the Carter's card this Carter that, which is true. But Dante Carter, I went to his house in North Carolina. Incredible guy, very very nice guy. He's eighty one years old, sharp as attack, like just very very intelligent, very you know, he's just he's just all there. And he he is the one who exposed Forrest Carter in nineteen ninety one with an op ed that he wrote in the New York Times, and and it was it was like, what who is this guy? 00:31:39 Speaker 2: Hold the phone? 00:31:40 Speaker 1: Yeah? And it was before internet, so it was easier to do that because there was this you know, there were a lot of people that knew, people that knew, really knew as of Carter, knew what was going on. But it's not like they could go on Facebook and tell everybody, oh yeah. 00:31:54 Speaker 2: What you mean. It easier to keep it quiet, yeah. 00:31:57 Speaker 1: Or or they were telling you know. So he said that when Barbara Walters in the nineteen seventies interviewed Forrest Carter, which is wild and there are Dan T. Carter says that there are zero audio recordings or video of that. Because I asked him I said, hey, where can I find that? And he said it doesn't exist. He said, back during the seventies, the Good Morning America Show, they literally were erasing tape. They would film something and after a certain period of time they would erase the tape and like reuse it again. And you can't go on YouTube. 00:32:37 Speaker 2: You can do. 00:32:37 Speaker 1: I mean, somebody find it. It's not there, but there's no video because I was gonna look at that interview and it was Forest Carter, the Cherokee Indian talking to Barbara Walters. 00:32:50 Speaker 3: Yeah that was before VCRs, before any of that recording capability at home. 00:32:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it was there that he uh uh like they said Dan Tea Carter said that the lines lit up at at the Good Morning America Show saying hey, that's not Forrest Carter, that's Ace of Carter. And they were just like, nah, that's not true. This guy's legitimate and there's no way for them to type it in and check this guy out. What do you think of that? What do you think of that day? 00:33:29 Speaker 4: It's pretty wild, can't help it couldn't happen today, that's for sure. 00:33:33 Speaker 1: What are the implications do you think of This is a question everybody. Never before have We've never lived in a world where people had this much access to information. I mean it makes you wonder what kind of stuff has gone on forever before about the year two thousand, with. 00:33:53 Speaker 2: People anything that anybody could get away with. Yeah, that's what's gone on. I'm sure it's since the first fellow wanted to trick the other one. 00:34:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure it's much much more difficult to be a confidence man now. 00:34:07 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:34:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna do a new show called Modern con Man. 00:34:14 Speaker 2: H wild. 00:34:16 Speaker 1: Well, what stood out to you guys about this episode? So many wild things and and I'm I'm I'm talking a lot here. You know, the section of the speech from George Wallace. I debated on putting that in there. I asked a couple of people if I should put it in there, and they were like, yeah, put it in there. 00:34:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a historical rights. 00:34:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's it's historical, and this is these are tales that need to things that need to be talked about and discussed. Yeah, I'll tell you what I got from that from from the first part. Now, I think it'll only be solidified by the second part. Obviously, I hadn't heard it yet, but people, for that guy to be to live that double life, for him to write such a poignant story and touching, heartfelt story. People are inherently good, and they choose to be bad. He chose to hate other races other than his own. He chose to be that way. But he obviously had something inside him that would fuel that story his mind to be able to create such a such a great story, and it was a great story. 00:35:33 Speaker 1: That's a that's a great that's a great way to say it. 00:35:36 Speaker 2: It is. 00:35:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. And the big question in my mind the whole time was is are they seeking some sort of redemption? Like are you in repentance for all the negative things that you were doing before? Because he wasn't the only one, right, I mean, Wallace kind of repented after as well. 00:35:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, so yourself back. 00:35:59 Speaker 3: A lot of his. He's trying to like fix his wrongs. 00:36:02 Speaker 1: Right, So you're saying a question in your mind is was Forrest Carter quote unquote the way for Asa Carter to repent for what. 00:36:11 Speaker 3: He did a little bit? Yeah, I mean to go as far as changing your identity and talking differently and pretending to be someone completely different you're looking to to get rid of that past life. 00:36:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's the question that we're going to talk about on the next episode a lot. Because so where this came from was when Steve Vanella listened to our Where the Redferns Grows podcast where we talked about Wilson Rawls, who was the author, this incredible author of Where the Red Fern Grows. He was kind of a one hit wonder author and he in the research I've I've found that he had gone to prison more than once. Was wild and that was not talked about when that book came out. It was not talked about at all. And and the crimes were were minor, I mean it was not It was larceny of domestic stock, domestic chickens, which that may not be the full story. You typically don't send someone to prison for stealing chickens. So and there were and then there was an armed up, not armed but there was some burglary, so you know, I mean, it was clear the guy had a rough early life. It was when he was in his twenties, but then he ends up writing this book. And so the question was was this book away for him to kind of fix his past? And it seemed possible this one, I don't I don't want to. I don't want to give away too much. But it's way more complicated when you hear the whole story. And that's why it's called con Man and not redemption Man, because it gets pretty wild. It gets pretty wild the more you look into you know. But that is a great question, great question. What stood out to you, Lauren about the about the podcast? 00:38:09 Speaker 3: It was a giant twist. You know, I wasn't anticipating that he was part of a the KKK, you know, that was what are you talking about? Like, how do you bridge the gap from an author of Cherokee supposed Cherokee Nations to KKK? What are you talking about? 00:38:28 Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, it is a wild twist, isn't it? 00:38:30 Speaker 3: Wild twist? 00:38:31 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:38:33 Speaker 3: And you gotta wonder about the motivations, like I don't you know, like everybody's got their their motivations. So that was the big takeaway. What what in the world motivated this guy? And and you know, obviously it was a pretty uh well renowned writer ahead of time. It's writing speeches and so movies. Yeah, it's mind blowing. 00:39:00 Speaker 2: That was crazy. 00:39:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, were you expecting that no, So he wrote The Outlaw Josee Wales, which he titled his book Gone to Texas. But Clint Eastwood took the book and turned it into a movie called The Outlaw Josee Wales, And that was Clint Eastwood's breakout movie. Which is wild because it to be a screenwriter and to write a movie. And he didn't write the movie, but to have a book made into a movie, it's a big deal. There was presumably a fair bit of money he made from that. And then but The Outlaw Josee Wales is an interesting story because the protagonist, the guy that you can't help but love, is a Confederate soldier. Do you remember the story, Brent? Did you ever watch that movie? 00:39:50 Speaker 2: The movie? Yeah, one hundred times. 00:39:52 Speaker 1: Do you remember the Do you remember the story? 00:39:55 Speaker 2: Yeah? So I remember the story. Yes. 00:39:58 Speaker 1: Basically, it's the end of the Civil War and there is like one band of Confederates that are hiding out that haven't haven't haven't given up, uh, and they're the Union army is trying to hunt down these these rebels and there's a the captain comes to all these Confederate rebels and says, hey, guys, the war's over, like, we got to give ourselves up. If we give ourselves up to this camp down here, everything's gonna be okay. They're gonna let us go. It's not gonna be a big deal. And all the guys agree to go except for Josie Wales, and you know, he's like, I ain't going. And well, all those guys go down there, and it turns out it's a trap. Yeah, the the Confederate General that all these guys trusted had been paid off. And they go down there and rather than giving them what do you call it when you're you're forgiven of crime, clemency brether giving them clemency, they kill him. They kill all these guys. And Jesse Wales is up in the mountains and he hears the gunfire and he sees what's happening and he goes down and anyway, the whole thing is this Confederate soldier that you know has been burned by the system and everybody cheated him, and he goes into Comanche country. So and and it's always about the hating the establishment. That was that that's in everything that Ace had touched was that the government will burn you. And oh, it gets so wild in this next episode because you're going to see how that fits back into this deep racism that he he bought into. It'll all make sense. But Dave, what stood out to you about it? 00:41:55 Speaker 4: I thought, Yeah, I mean I had the same question these guys. Was his uh was in this looking for redemption? But the story with I'm totally spacing on the guy's name. Now, who had the key to the songbox? 00:42:13 Speaker 3: Uh? 00:42:13 Speaker 1: Coon Jack? 00:42:14 Speaker 4: Coonjack? 00:42:16 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:42:16 Speaker 4: And I wonder if in a way, like he was trying to use coon Jack as like a metaphor for. 00:42:23 Speaker 1: Himself, tells tell us about Coonjack? 00:42:26 Speaker 4: He you know, uh, he had been fighting his whole life and and. 00:42:31 Speaker 1: This was a story that this is inside the book The Education of a Little Bit. Yes, the grandfather was telling little Tree, who's the little grandson, a story from his childhood, and he tells the story of this old man named coon Jack. 00:42:46 Speaker 4: So go ahead then, Yeah, and Konjack had been fighting his whole life and now was just and uh, the end of it was, you know, you have to know someone or he loved him after that because he knew who he was, right, you know, knew where he came from and kind of understood him and so and that was the whole uh yeah, trying to put that thought together now, you know. So then it was really interesting that he put that in there, being this clan leader, right, like you have to know somebody to love him. And then like so it was just like I wonder if Konjack was kind of a metaphor for himself. But then also like yeah, so, yeah, he's really interesting. 00:43:35 Speaker 1: He thinks Koonjack basically grew up in the Civil War and then the government took his land and he stayed and fought for his land. And so Konjack is this old man embittered that wants to fight everybody, and he wants to fight the He pulls a he basically shows a pistol at church when the guys he said, there have been people talking bad about him. By the way, picked up he had the key to the songbook box. And so coon Jack flashes a pistol in church and says, hey, I'll use this on anybody that says I'm doing this wrong. And Grandpa's dad, Little Tree's great grandfather stands up and just just smooths the situation over, gives a lot of dignity the coon Jack and says we're so sorry. You've done a fantastic job at the songbook box, you quepe doing it, and the way that he handles it with such wisdom and grace and empathy is pretty touching. And that's why it's so wild to read all this stuff from that written basic carter because this guy, I mean, I couldn't have made up that story. That would have shown the deep intricacies of somebody that's really broken and hurt, and a very understanding, empathetic response to that brokenness that actually should help the broken person. Because the great grandfather stands up and goes, coon Jack, you're doing a great job. We love you, and then Grandpa, great Grandpa. It's kind of confusing, but basically the old man then tells the young boy, we love people. You can only love someone if you understand him. So this is what's going on with coon Jack, and we love him. 00:45:19 Speaker 2: It's like and it made a statement that that you know, why why did he get to upset over that? And he's he said that the key to this home box is all he has. Yeah, so that was his that was his reason for being his his focus in life and something that he could call his own and have have power over it because he he lost his land, he lost the war, you know everything, He had lost everything, his whole life, and you know it would be different if this was a true story. But this can't mate all that stuff up. Yeah, that's that's what gets me. Yeah that, I mean, a beautiful way to explain something like that. 00:45:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, in the book, I was the hardest part of a podcast like this is trying to find you know, I can't read the whole book on the podcast. That would have been cool if just every single person that listened to this podcast had read the whole book. Couldn't happen. So I just cherry picked maybe like four or five sections to read that stood out to me. If you'd have read it, Brent, I promise you, you wouldn't have picked the ones that I picked. Like those weren't even the high points. Because when I interviewed Steve Ranella, who's a guest on the podcast and a main player on the next podcast too, he was talking about stuff that I didn't even remember in our talk. He would go, but what about the story about that? And I'd be like, oh, I forgot about that, Like you know, so you just pick up on different things and so I was just trying to like highlight these places where you see that this author was connected authentically to human nature and what appeared to be really genuine love and empathy for people. And I mean, there's our wild question is how do you get access to that? I thought it was such a great to me. It made sense because Steve said when he reads the book the Things about Nature, it's full of really great stuff. Fox hunting, you know, they trap turkeys. They there's a lot of stuff about nature and the mountains and predation and the way. I read the part about the Way on the podcast. There's a section called the Way, and the Way is the Cherokee descriptor of the way of life. And he talks about how the hawk catches the slow quail so that the slow quail doesn't make more slow quail, so only the fast quail survive. And then the hawk most of the time catches the mice and the rodents that raid the nests of the quail, and so talcon the hawk it actually helps the quail. And that's the way. The way he talks to Little Tree about white tailed deer management, which totally goes against what we would do today, but he told. He told little Tree to not shoot the biggest deer, but to shoot the smallest one, to shoot the smaller, weaker deer, and let the let the big ones go, he told, he said, only take what you need. And he said the reason there are wars and their strife in the world is because people take more than they need, and they spend their lives trying to protect the excess. And he said, if people only took what they needed, we wouldn't have all these problems. 00:48:44 Speaker 2: In the world. Who can argue with that? 00:48:47 Speaker 1: And and and they call that the way and and and then this is like a writing thing that when you see it, you're just like you want it, Little Tree says, And I knew that, Grandpa, and I knew something that most people didn't. He always was throwing that in there, that they just kind of had this thing that like they had this thing figured out and the rest of the world didn't. And h and so Steve had said, I'm kind of on a rabbit trail there. But in that as as Asa Carter described the natural world, he Steve was like, that guy had been in the mountains, that guy had been fox hunting, that guy had plowed with a mule. That guy had grown corn, That guy had had picked ripe watermelons to understand what they're ripe. That guy had made moonshine or been been around moonshine, and he's he said that was authentic. Well, when I read the stuff about empathy and human nature, it's like this guy was deeply in touch, more probably than most, more than me, with with with how people operate, which Darren lots of questions. It's kind of fascinating. Who is this guy? Why was he so crazy? How could he do that? How was he connected to that kind of authenticity but still connected with all this wild stuff? 00:50:11 Speaker 2: He was. 00:50:13 Speaker 1: Very intriguing, very intriguing, Yeah, for sure. 00:50:17 Speaker 4: And then how do we grapple with that today? 00:50:20 Speaker 2: Right? 00:50:20 Speaker 4: Like, how do we take that book today? And like do we just blacklist it or do we you know, take the book for what it is, but you know, recognize that it's not autobiographical and. 00:50:33 Speaker 2: It was very who was it? 00:50:38 Speaker 4: Look at who was written by? 00:50:41 Speaker 1: So yeah, so what do you think, Dave, if you had kids, what do you let your kids read it? Knowing what you know? 00:50:48 Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, probably, but you know I'd like to wait until they're maybe a little bit older, and then they can kind of so you can kind of understand and start to explain some of the complexities of it. Yeah, you know, explain like who this guy was in what this book is and what it's not. Yeah, you know, it's not a historical piece. It's not. But it's a story and it has good lessons in it. But this guy that wrote it did some terrible things. 00:51:21 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. What about you, Lauren? What do you think? 00:51:26 Speaker 3: That's a good question, you know, do you tell him who the author really was? Do you give him the book and just have them experience it for what it is and don't say anything. Yeah you know, I mean and maybe later bring that up or share the podcast with him, so that that is their education and enlightenment after reading the book. Yeah, you know, I don't know. 00:51:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think, Brent? 00:51:50 Speaker 2: What? To me, a good story is a good story, And I don't have to buy into his politics or his philosophy on life, or his judgment of other people's if I'm if if that story is a good story and entertaining, I don't care who wrote it, because I don't go anything further than the last page. That's that's the time to put that book down and pick up another one. To me, that is, and I wouldn't have any problem at all reading it to my children because anything that if that book is the way you say it is, and I trust your judgment that it's a poignant story about life of a little person. It's fictional. It's not made out to be autobiographical. That I is that correct? 00:52:38 Speaker 1: Well, it's he wrote it as like based on a true story. 00:52:43 Speaker 2: Okay, well then then then then I would start the book off that this is not true, this is this is just a this is just a fun story, and we're going to read it. 00:52:52 Speaker 1: Sweetie, I want you to read this book. It was written by a con man. 00:52:56 Speaker 4: Podcast. 00:52:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how I look at it. 00:53:00 Speaker 1: You know, the bigger question we get into into the second episode. You should have just skipped this render and listened to the second. But we talk about does character matter because and the bottom line is that in some places it does. In some places, well, well, the character matters everywhere. What I'm saying is, could you get something from a source that lacked character because the the book standing alone and somebody might read it and have problems with something, you know, uh, that other people wouldn't. I mean, you know, it's not like I buy into the the cosmology of the Native Americans. I mean that's there, that's their stories and stuff just about the creation of the earth and all this stuff. Like I'm not I'm not getting behind that. But what I am saying is that it there. The book has legitimately got some great stuff in it, but there are places in life where you don't want anything from something that comes from a very flawed source. And we're going to talk about that kind of stuff on the next podcast. Lots of foreshadowy, lots of foreshadowing on this one, lots of foreshado. But no I would. I would let my kids read the book. Now, whether I would tell them about it right away or not, I don't know, because it's so hard to read the book, and I've spoiled it for everyone. But it's so hard to read the book with this knowledge and really take in the book as you would if you knew nothing, if you didn't know anything, you just read it, you would you would might come away with with different conclusions about it. But but nobody was. You don't be mad at me because you weren't going to read this book in twenty twenty three, because that's a joke. You're supposed to laugh. Yes, it was on my book list. No it wasn't, because it was the blacklisting of that book when Oprah took it off her book list in two thousand and seven, and when which was years after it came out, which is kind of interesting. It took a while for it to like trickle through the world. It people just haven't read it. And so I on the podcast talked to Steve about how I had a difficult time finding an academic person that would talk to me. Now, now Dan T. Carter talked to me about Asa Carter. But Dante Carter is not necessarily an expert on the book The Education at Little True. Typically you can find an academic expert on a piece of literature, for instance, on Where the Red Fern Grows. I interviewed a guy at the University of Arkansas that was like, heck, yeah, this is this is in my field of literature. You know, have students read this book, Yes, I will talk to you. We sent out emails everywhere and just got nothing from anybody. And at first, well the one person that did respond said, hey, you know, this book has been blacklisted, right, And I was like, yeah, that's why I want to talk about it. And but so I couldn't understand if people didn't want to do it because it was blacklisted, or if because it was blacklisted nobody read it and knew about it. There's two reasons why people wouldn't have emailed me back. You understand. 00:56:35 Speaker 2: Did you resolve that in any fashion? None? 00:56:39 Speaker 1: And it's it's totally anecdotal because you know that there'll probably be people that write in and be like, well, I'm a literature professor and would have been glad to have talked to you. But the typical amount of work that we put into trying to find the best sources for interviewees about topics and and we do, me and me and Isaac, We put a lot of work into finding really great guests. We could not find on this one. We were like scratching our heads. Steve was actually like option B. Steve Vanella was like the B team. I was like, well okay, Steve, go ahead, No he and he was fantastic. Was Steve's idea originally this podcast. Steve read this book back in college and then he he after listening to Where the Red fern Grows said, Hey, you ought to do one on educational litlty. I didn't know about the book. Steve knew you. I never heard of it, and uh no, Steve was great man. He read, he re read the book, and so he was coming hot off of rereading the book and he did better than an academic. Well he Steve is a literary I'd call him a literary expert in most most most types of literature. He's able to critique it and so anyway, he was fantastic. H Well, guys. 00:58:02 Speaker 2: Closing thoughts, looking forward to the next episode. If if there is a bigger twist coming in the second episode as there was in the first, if it was three episodes, I wouldn't be able to. 00:58:16 Speaker 1: Take it, wouldn't be able to take it. 00:58:18 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was It was cool. It's definitely got me hooked and wanting to listen to the second. 00:58:24 Speaker 2: Great. 00:58:24 Speaker 4: I'd like to read the book too. Yeah, yeah, I wonder if is it hard to find? 00:58:29 Speaker 1: No You get by on Amazon. 00:58:31 Speaker 4: It's going to be on the New York Times bestseller list again. 00:58:35 Speaker 1: Podcast No shoot Man, you can get it on They're giving them away for free on paperback man on Amazon we're trying to get we're trying to liquidate these things. Well, hey, listen to this Country Life with Brent Reeves. It's going to be great. You've already heard one episode that's come out before this one, but it's going to be every Friday we'll be able to hear it. Thank you guys for listening to the bear Groase Render, and we'll see you next time. 00:59:08 Speaker 4: It's gonna eat some catfish. 00:59:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, we're about to fry some catfish and turkey breasts. 00:59:11 Speaker 2: Get the grease Hig