January 3, 2025 • 20 mins
It’s the New Year and if you didn’t have black eyed peas and turnip greens on January 1st, you blew a golden opportunity to set yourself up for success. That’s what some people claim anyway. Brent’s skipping those common superstitions all together and digging into his childhood for some you may not be as familiar with. From keeping relationships strong, to getting rid of spirits, to determining the only proper time to talk about your dreams, Brent’s covering it all on this week’s “This Country Life” podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining 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 on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share. Superstitions crossing your fingers, looking for four
leaf clovers and avoiding the number thirteen, or some common
superstitions that nearly everyone knows about. I'm going to tell
(00:50):
you about some of the ones I grew up around
and maybe still practice to some degree. I'm going to
tell you all about it, but first I'm going to
tell you a story. Somewhere around nineteen eighty eight, we
were just driving down the road on the way to
(01:11):
the woods one day. Mister Leon was keeping the fire
stoked on a sale of Menthos cigarette and looking at
a copy of an ownership map that we were using
to locate some Georgia Pacific property lines we were going
to move some loggers onto in a few weeks. I
was a young man working for GP managing Timber. This
(01:32):
was before I was old enough to be a police
officer in Arkansas, and mister Leon Garlington was the crew boss.
He was a veteran of World War Two, having seen
some brutal fighting in the South Pacific. I respected him
and he tolerated me. He hated everybody, and most everything
made him mad. It all stemmed from the war, I'm sure.
(01:53):
But someone said he was contrary before he ever left
Arkansas for the other side of the earth. Regardless, I
looked up to him and I put a lot of
stock into what he said. And I've told the story
before about how mister Leon and I would drive out
to work one way and come back to town in a
different one. For those that haven't heard, I'll hit the
(02:16):
high points for you. No idea how long we'd been
working together managing Timber for GP, me driving and him
doing all the navigating, when after a million trips to
and from the woods, he adamantly refused to allow me,
the guy that was driving, to take the quickest way
home one afternoon because that was the way we had
(02:37):
driven out that morning. Mister Leon, I'm hot, I'm tired.
We can cut this trip back to the office in half.
If we would just go down the highway like we
came out this morning, No, we ain't going back that way?
Why not? That's when he took a drag off that
(02:58):
cigarette and slow blew it out the open window that
air conditionless truck and said, son, have you ever been ambushed? No, sir,
well I have. We ain't going back the same way
we came out. We never did ever in all the
years I worked with him. But this was another day,
(03:19):
and mister Leon was feeling pretty good that morning. He
hadn't wished anybody to be shot with a wooden bullet
so far that day. That was one of his favorite
dispersions to cast upon someone he didn't approve of. He
order to be shot with a wooden bullet was exactly
how he'd phrase it, and it was normally addressed toward
our co workers, whose work ethics he called into question
(03:43):
on a regular basis. Even though he hadn't spoken to
me yet, I was digging the vibe I was getting
from him, and I took a chance on getting a
wooden bullet wished in my direction. But anyway, I said,
mister Leon, I got a dang hoodol sitting on a
limb my window every night. I guess it's a hoodole.
(04:03):
It's making some kind of spooky racket. But every time
I go out to see it with a light, it
ain't there. It sounds like woo ooh. Now, to my surprise,
he didn't ignore me. He had done that in the
past a lot. How many nights has it been out there?
(04:26):
I said, I don't know, maybe two or three, and
it wakes me up in the middle of the night.
What does it sound like again? I did it again.
That ain't no whodol Son. That's a haint. Do what now?
That's a haint. You got something spooking you. How many
(04:50):
times have you gone up to an isle at night
and did not fly? That's a haint. And there ain't
but one way to cure it. You got to turn
your shoes upside down under the edge of the bed
when you lay down at night. And I kept waiting
for him to start laughing, But all he did was
keep the fire burning on the end of that cigarette
(05:10):
and never took his eyes off the map. He didn't
do a lot of joking. And I readily admit, coon
hunter or not, I ain't a big fan of the
dark not that I think there's spooks knocking about in it,
but something was, and someone I had looked up to
and put a lot of stock in what he said
had just given me a cure for what was really
(05:33):
starting to worry me. We didn't talk about it none
of the rest of the day, and I went to
bed that night to silence. No racket at all. My
work boots sitting by the door were I took them
off every day when I came home. Sometime in the
middle of the night, I woke up to that noise again.
(05:54):
I didn't get out of bed. I knew I wasn't
going to see anything if I went out there. Never had.
I just laid there waiting on that haink to get
me wishing. I still thought it was just a hootile
and then I'd put my shoes under the bed, just
like mister Lehan had told me to do. Now about
the middle of the morning. It worked. The next day,
(06:16):
he asked me, put them shoes under your bed last night? No, sir,
did the spook come back? Yes, sir. He just shook
his head disappointedly and fired up another men. Though he
didn't mention anything about it. The rest of the day.
(06:37):
Well that night, after suppering, before cutting out the light,
the last thing I did was turned my boots and
every pair of shoes I owned upside down under the
edge of the bed. I never heard that noise again,
not once. I have no idea to this very day
what it was, and I have never heard that sound
(06:57):
again in any recordings of any speed seeds an owl
that inhabits North America. I've looked trying to replicate what
I heard and identify what it actually was. I don't know.
But the next day at work, I walked into the
coffee room. Mister Lenarm was sitting in his usual chair,
reading the newspaper, stained white cup of coffee steaming beside
(07:20):
the ash tray that was keeping that Mentha all ready
for him. He looked up at me when I walked in,
and I hopped up on the edge of the counter
where I normally sat, waiting on him, just to give
the sign it was time for us to head to
the truck and go to work. Until that time, he
ignored everything and everyone. He just sat there and read
(07:40):
the paper, oblivious to the rest of the world. He
picked up a cigarette and glanced up from the paper,
looking at me over his top of his glasses, and
he said, I just sleep last night. Now, it was
such an unusual happening that everyone else stopped talking and
turned to see if he'd actually he initiated a conversation
(08:01):
with someone. I smiled big at him, happy that he
was even talking to me. He never talked to anybody
up there, and only talked to me once we left.
But I looked at him, I said, I slept like
a baby, mister Leon. He winked at me, and he
went back to his paper. And that's just how that happened. Superstitions,
(08:33):
the world is full of them. Some of them are
very well known. As a Pennsylvania paper mogul Michael Scott
once said, I'm not superstitious. I am a little stitious.
The same goes for yours, truly. Then my wife and
kids might have a different opinion about that, as they
take great joy in poking fun of me about my
(08:53):
beliefs and habits. And I can't point to any reason
or reference for it other than I was raised that way,
or better yet, exposed to it as a child. No
one ever sat me down and said, Brent, do this
or don't do that, or you will die well, except
from my maternal grandmother, beautlessly, the same one that drug
(09:16):
me to the beauty parlor when misfortune befell me and
I got caught in her possession while in town. Mom
sly told me, as I mentioned on her before, that
if I drank milk and ate fish, I would die,
simple and quick, to the point it made a lasting
impression on me. I remember it like it was this morning.
(09:37):
We sat down to eat a big mess of fish
she just fried up, and she has Brent, what do
you want to drink? I want some sweet milk. I
don't remember how old I was, but I was still
in elementary school when she responded, and I quote, you
can't have milk and fish. It'll kill you, ma'am, It'll
kill you. I can't do that. She's some tea that
(10:02):
wasn't going to end well. And before I go any further,
let me say that my grandmother could sit on her behind, blindfolded,
with her right arm tied behind her back, and out
cooked Julia Chiles and Justin Wilson and out Clean, Mister Clean,
and the tidy bowl Man all at the same time.
But everyone has a weakness to Superman. It was kryptonite
(10:25):
to Achilles. It was his heel to my mama's life.
It was her sweet tea. I call it sweet tea
only because that's what he's supposed to be. She didn't
put sugar in it, she didn't like it. It wouldn't
drink it, so I'm not sure she even knew what
it was supposed to taste like. She was born in
(10:48):
nineteen twelve and raised on a farm seven and a
half miles north of Warren, Arkansas, picking cotton, milk and
cows and feeding chickens. You'd think with that resume, she'd
have been the queen of sweet tea, but you'd be wrong.
My mama liked sweet tea. My dad likes sweet tea.
My grandfather find A Sly. Her husband liked sweet tea,
(11:10):
but bless his heart, he didn't get to drink it.
Not good sweet tea at least I was. Mama Sly
made it. She had a gray stoneware a picture that
had two blue stripes on it that she put the
tea in when she made it. Could be sitting on
the table. When I sat down and saw it there,
I knew I was in for some tough swallowing ahead
(11:31):
of me if I drank it, so I always opted
for milk, except on Friday nights, when we always ate
fish like any self respected Southerner does. If we didn't
fix it at home, we loaded up and went out
to eat it. But on the occasion to which I'm referring,
I was sitting in my appointed chair on the east
side of the table, the chair I always set in
(11:53):
when I stayed there. My grandfather was at the head
on the south end, and directly across from me was
my sainted Mama. Slo poured me up a glass of
tea that was so stout you could have floated a
steel wedge in it. It was so dark you could
stand ankle deep in it and not see your feet.
I watched my Papall dump enough lemon juice and sugar
(12:13):
in it to make it somewhat palatable. I don't think
he really liked it. I think he drank it because
he loved my Mama's lye, and I loved her too.
So when I took a drink of it and I said,
this tea don't taste like Mama's, Papall cut his eyes
at me, and I don't know if he was thinking
that this fifth born grandson had been sent here as
(12:35):
his own personal Moses to deliver him from the bondage
of Mama slies Tea, or if he thought that statement,
I just spontaneously uttered after choking down the most bitter
solution this side of purified green per simmons had been
more dangerous than mixing milk and fish. We never found
out because my mama's slie said rather sternly, will I'll
(12:58):
fix you some water? Papaull kept eating and I didn't die.
I looked it up, and the myth of milk and
fish goes back a long way, and at its origins,
it's believed to have caused skin problems somewhere along the way.
When it reached that little farm seven and a half
miles north of Warren, Arkansas, possible skin problems had turned
(13:21):
into imminent death. Another superstition that I can attribute to
my mama's life was whenever we were walking side by
side and a pole or a parking meter, or a fence
post or any type of object came between us, she'd
say bread and butter. Now I never thought much about it,
For all I knew she was going over a grocery
(13:43):
list and I'm easily distracted. But the origins of the
saying go back a long time ago. Like most old
sayings like that, it's supposed to ward off any future
happenings that would separate the relationship. Something come between you
is that when butter is spread on bread, that you
can't take it off. I say it now, and I
(14:05):
have said it ever since I noticed her saying it
when I was just a kid. It was one of
a myriad of sayings, phrases, and observations that Alexis found
herself having to learn. When we got together. She struggled
with me saying dinner and meaning what she would call lunch,
to the point that I heard her in the kitchen
in her apartment one day saying, over and over breakfast dinner,
(14:27):
so breakfast dinner, so breakfast dinner. So I said, what
are you doing, to which she said, I'm trying to
learn a new language. That It came as no surprise
when we were walking to a restaurant one evening not
long after that, and a parking meter came in between
us and she said, peanut butter and jelly. I said
(14:47):
what she said, peanut butter and jelly. No biscuits and gravy.
Biscuits and gravy. That's it, I said, No, dear, it's
bread and butter. I appreciate you trying. One that really
got her one day when we were still dating, was
when I was driving us somewhere and a cat ran
across the road in front of us. This was back
(15:10):
when she still stayed away long enough to have a conversation,
instead of like now, when she builds herself a blanket
cocoon to hibernate in until we reach our destination that
could be as far away as another state or as
close as the grocery store. Anyway, the cat crossed the road,
and in mid conversation, I made an X with my
(15:30):
right index finger in the top left hand corner of
the windshield, turned my head and made a spitting noise
over my left shoulder, and continued on with whatever I
was saying, as if nothing had happened. When she didn't respond,
I looked over at her, and she was staring at me.
Her eyes were big, her mouth was partially open, and
(15:52):
her little bump of a nose snarled upwards in utter disgust.
I asked her, what's wrong? She said, are you spitting
in the car, because if you are and don't stop immediately,
this is a deal breaker. No, I didn't really spill,
I just made that racket. A cat crossed the road
in front of us. Now, I assume she didn't see
(16:14):
it as if that was going to make what I
had just done easier for her to understand. I've always
taken it for granted that everyone grew up like me
and what I did was just a social norm. Other folks,
my wife included, refer to them as social abnormalities. I
saw my dad do it a million times, and when
(16:35):
I asked you why, he said it was the ward
off bad luck. And it wasn't just limited to black cats.
It was any and every cat that ever crossed the
road in front of us. It was learned behavior from
him to me, and I have no idea where he
got it from. My son Hunter does it as well
as my oldest daughter Amy, but the baby girl Cub
doesn't not yet. Anyway, something I was told I wasn't
(16:59):
supposed to to do as well was talk about a
dream I'd have before eating breakfast. I can't remember where
I heard that one from, but it was always just
been a part of my knowledge or lack of however
you want to look at it. The real was you
didn't talk about a dream before breakfast unless you wanted
it to come true. And most of my dreams over
(17:22):
ten years had me duking it out with someone, and
during the fight, my arms would only move in slow motion.
I could feel myself swinging as hard and fast as
I could, only to look like I was swimming in
my glasses now. The first time I sprung that one
on the lexus was at her parents' house. We'd all
gathered for breakfast, and she started, let me tell you
(17:44):
about this dream I had last night. WHOA Was it
a good dream? No, it was scary. You can't talk
about it until you eat something. What you can't talk
about it until you eat something or to come true?
She stared at me from across the table. Everyone else,
her parents, sister, and her grandmother's eyes are kind of
(18:04):
darting back and forth to each other. As I told
her to at least take a bite or something before
she talked about it, I could see her reevaluating her
life choices up to that moment as she looked at me,
contemplating how the rest of her life would play out
being married to me, and she slowly deliberately took a
bite from that fork as she had hovered in the
(18:25):
air above her plate. There I took a bite. Now
we don't have to worry about the flying monkeys from
the Wizard of Oz stealing the riding lawnmower and running
over our mailbox. Now we all laughed and laughed, and
it was funny. She's funny, But our mailbox has remained undamaged,
and that happened before Bathing was born, So who's laughing now?
(18:52):
Superstitions are a funny thing for me. They're more out
of a habit than a belief. And I don't think
milk and fish will kill you. I also don't think
knocking on wood would ward off any evil spirits or
spitting over your shoulder. We keep a cat from bringing
you harm, just like walking under a ladder ain't going
to hurt a thing. But why take a chance a
(19:14):
stilly tradition that connects me to the past and the
people that I think about when I do them or
talk about them to others. Explaining them to Lexis would
be the starting point to many conversations that would begin
with me telling her about Mama's lies, saying bread and butter,
and end up with us having spent time together, laughing
and talking and learning about each other's families. And we
(19:35):
still do that. If you're talking and laughing and learning
with the folks you love, man, that's about as lucky
as you can get. Thank y'all so much for listening
to us here on the Old Bear Grease Channel. I
hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's celebration,
and I look forward to talking to y'all again next week.
(19:56):
Until then, this is Brent Reeds signing off. I think
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining 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 on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share. Superstitions crossing your fingers, looking for four
leaf clovers and avoiding the number thirteen, or some common
superstitions that nearly everyone knows about. I'm going to tell
(00:50):
you about some of the ones I grew up around
and maybe still practice to some degree. I'm going to
tell you all about it, but first I'm going to
tell you a story. Somewhere around nineteen eighty eight, we
were just driving down the road on the way to
(01:11):
the woods one day. Mister Leon was keeping the fire
stoked on a sale of Menthos cigarette and looking at
a copy of an ownership map that we were using
to locate some Georgia Pacific property lines we were going
to move some loggers onto in a few weeks. I
was a young man working for GP managing Timber. This
(01:32):
was before I was old enough to be a police
officer in Arkansas, and mister Leon Garlington was the crew boss.
He was a veteran of World War Two, having seen
some brutal fighting in the South Pacific. I respected him
and he tolerated me. He hated everybody, and most everything
made him mad. It all stemmed from the war, I'm sure.
(01:53):
But someone said he was contrary before he ever left
Arkansas for the other side of the earth. Regardless, I
looked up to him and I put a lot of
stock into what he said. And I've told the story
before about how mister Leon and I would drive out
to work one way and come back to town in a
different one. For those that haven't heard, I'll hit the
(02:16):
high points for you. No idea how long we'd been
working together managing Timber for GP, me driving and him
doing all the navigating, when after a million trips to
and from the woods, he adamantly refused to allow me,
the guy that was driving, to take the quickest way
home one afternoon because that was the way we had
(02:37):
driven out that morning. Mister Leon, I'm hot, I'm tired.
We can cut this trip back to the office in half.
If we would just go down the highway like we
came out this morning, No, we ain't going back that way?
Why not? That's when he took a drag off that
(02:58):
cigarette and slow blew it out the open window that
air conditionless truck and said, son, have you ever been ambushed? No, sir,
well I have. We ain't going back the same way
we came out. We never did ever in all the
years I worked with him. But this was another day,
(03:19):
and mister Leon was feeling pretty good that morning. He
hadn't wished anybody to be shot with a wooden bullet
so far that day. That was one of his favorite
dispersions to cast upon someone he didn't approve of. He
order to be shot with a wooden bullet was exactly
how he'd phrase it, and it was normally addressed toward
our co workers, whose work ethics he called into question
(03:43):
on a regular basis. Even though he hadn't spoken to
me yet, I was digging the vibe I was getting
from him, and I took a chance on getting a
wooden bullet wished in my direction. But anyway, I said,
mister Leon, I got a dang hoodol sitting on a
limb my window every night. I guess it's a hoodole.
(04:03):
It's making some kind of spooky racket. But every time
I go out to see it with a light, it
ain't there. It sounds like woo ooh. Now, to my surprise,
he didn't ignore me. He had done that in the
past a lot. How many nights has it been out there?
(04:26):
I said, I don't know, maybe two or three, and
it wakes me up in the middle of the night.
What does it sound like again? I did it again.
That ain't no whodol Son. That's a haint. Do what now?
That's a haint. You got something spooking you. How many
(04:50):
times have you gone up to an isle at night
and did not fly? That's a haint. And there ain't
but one way to cure it. You got to turn
your shoes upside down under the edge of the bed
when you lay down at night. And I kept waiting
for him to start laughing, But all he did was
keep the fire burning on the end of that cigarette
(05:10):
and never took his eyes off the map. He didn't
do a lot of joking. And I readily admit, coon
hunter or not, I ain't a big fan of the
dark not that I think there's spooks knocking about in it,
but something was, and someone I had looked up to
and put a lot of stock in what he said
had just given me a cure for what was really
(05:33):
starting to worry me. We didn't talk about it none
of the rest of the day, and I went to
bed that night to silence. No racket at all. My
work boots sitting by the door were I took them
off every day when I came home. Sometime in the
middle of the night, I woke up to that noise again.
(05:54):
I didn't get out of bed. I knew I wasn't
going to see anything if I went out there. Never had.
I just laid there waiting on that haink to get
me wishing. I still thought it was just a hootile
and then I'd put my shoes under the bed, just
like mister Lehan had told me to do. Now about
the middle of the morning. It worked. The next day,
(06:16):
he asked me, put them shoes under your bed last night? No, sir,
did the spook come back? Yes, sir. He just shook
his head disappointedly and fired up another men. Though he
didn't mention anything about it. The rest of the day.
(06:37):
Well that night, after suppering, before cutting out the light,
the last thing I did was turned my boots and
every pair of shoes I owned upside down under the
edge of the bed. I never heard that noise again,
not once. I have no idea to this very day
what it was, and I have never heard that sound
(06:57):
again in any recordings of any speed seeds an owl
that inhabits North America. I've looked trying to replicate what
I heard and identify what it actually was. I don't know.
But the next day at work, I walked into the
coffee room. Mister Lenarm was sitting in his usual chair,
reading the newspaper, stained white cup of coffee steaming beside
(07:20):
the ash tray that was keeping that Mentha all ready
for him. He looked up at me when I walked in,
and I hopped up on the edge of the counter
where I normally sat, waiting on him, just to give
the sign it was time for us to head to
the truck and go to work. Until that time, he
ignored everything and everyone. He just sat there and read
(07:40):
the paper, oblivious to the rest of the world. He
picked up a cigarette and glanced up from the paper,
looking at me over his top of his glasses, and
he said, I just sleep last night. Now, it was
such an unusual happening that everyone else stopped talking and
turned to see if he'd actually he initiated a conversation
(08:01):
with someone. I smiled big at him, happy that he
was even talking to me. He never talked to anybody
up there, and only talked to me once we left.
But I looked at him, I said, I slept like
a baby, mister Leon. He winked at me, and he
went back to his paper. And that's just how that happened. Superstitions,
(08:33):
the world is full of them. Some of them are
very well known. As a Pennsylvania paper mogul Michael Scott
once said, I'm not superstitious. I am a little stitious.
The same goes for yours, truly. Then my wife and
kids might have a different opinion about that, as they
take great joy in poking fun of me about my
(08:53):
beliefs and habits. And I can't point to any reason
or reference for it other than I was raised that way,
or better yet, exposed to it as a child. No
one ever sat me down and said, Brent, do this
or don't do that, or you will die well, except
from my maternal grandmother, beautlessly, the same one that drug
(09:16):
me to the beauty parlor when misfortune befell me and
I got caught in her possession while in town. Mom
sly told me, as I mentioned on her before, that
if I drank milk and ate fish, I would die,
simple and quick, to the point it made a lasting
impression on me. I remember it like it was this morning.
(09:37):
We sat down to eat a big mess of fish
she just fried up, and she has Brent, what do
you want to drink? I want some sweet milk. I
don't remember how old I was, but I was still
in elementary school when she responded, and I quote, you
can't have milk and fish. It'll kill you, ma'am, It'll
kill you. I can't do that. She's some tea that
(10:02):
wasn't going to end well. And before I go any further,
let me say that my grandmother could sit on her behind, blindfolded,
with her right arm tied behind her back, and out
cooked Julia Chiles and Justin Wilson and out Clean, Mister Clean,
and the tidy bowl Man all at the same time.
But everyone has a weakness to Superman. It was kryptonite
(10:25):
to Achilles. It was his heel to my mama's life.
It was her sweet tea. I call it sweet tea
only because that's what he's supposed to be. She didn't
put sugar in it, she didn't like it. It wouldn't
drink it, so I'm not sure she even knew what
it was supposed to taste like. She was born in
(10:48):
nineteen twelve and raised on a farm seven and a
half miles north of Warren, Arkansas, picking cotton, milk and
cows and feeding chickens. You'd think with that resume, she'd
have been the queen of sweet tea, but you'd be wrong.
My mama liked sweet tea. My dad likes sweet tea.
My grandfather find A Sly. Her husband liked sweet tea,
(11:10):
but bless his heart, he didn't get to drink it.
Not good sweet tea at least I was. Mama Sly
made it. She had a gray stoneware a picture that
had two blue stripes on it that she put the
tea in when she made it. Could be sitting on
the table. When I sat down and saw it there,
I knew I was in for some tough swallowing ahead
(11:31):
of me if I drank it, so I always opted
for milk, except on Friday nights, when we always ate
fish like any self respected Southerner does. If we didn't
fix it at home, we loaded up and went out
to eat it. But on the occasion to which I'm referring,
I was sitting in my appointed chair on the east
side of the table, the chair I always set in
(11:53):
when I stayed there. My grandfather was at the head
on the south end, and directly across from me was
my sainted Mama. Slo poured me up a glass of
tea that was so stout you could have floated a
steel wedge in it. It was so dark you could
stand ankle deep in it and not see your feet.
I watched my Papall dump enough lemon juice and sugar
(12:13):
in it to make it somewhat palatable. I don't think
he really liked it. I think he drank it because
he loved my Mama's lye, and I loved her too.
So when I took a drink of it and I said,
this tea don't taste like Mama's, Papall cut his eyes
at me, and I don't know if he was thinking
that this fifth born grandson had been sent here as
(12:35):
his own personal Moses to deliver him from the bondage
of Mama slies Tea, or if he thought that statement,
I just spontaneously uttered after choking down the most bitter
solution this side of purified green per simmons had been
more dangerous than mixing milk and fish. We never found
out because my mama's slie said rather sternly, will I'll
(12:58):
fix you some water? Papaull kept eating and I didn't die.
I looked it up, and the myth of milk and
fish goes back a long way, and at its origins,
it's believed to have caused skin problems somewhere along the way.
When it reached that little farm seven and a half
miles north of Warren, Arkansas, possible skin problems had turned
(13:21):
into imminent death. Another superstition that I can attribute to
my mama's life was whenever we were walking side by
side and a pole or a parking meter, or a fence
post or any type of object came between us, she'd
say bread and butter. Now I never thought much about it,
For all I knew she was going over a grocery
(13:43):
list and I'm easily distracted. But the origins of the
saying go back a long time ago. Like most old
sayings like that, it's supposed to ward off any future
happenings that would separate the relationship. Something come between you
is that when butter is spread on bread, that you
can't take it off. I say it now, and I
(14:05):
have said it ever since I noticed her saying it
when I was just a kid. It was one of
a myriad of sayings, phrases, and observations that Alexis found
herself having to learn. When we got together. She struggled
with me saying dinner and meaning what she would call lunch,
to the point that I heard her in the kitchen
in her apartment one day saying, over and over breakfast dinner,
(14:27):
so breakfast dinner, so breakfast dinner. So I said, what
are you doing, to which she said, I'm trying to
learn a new language. That It came as no surprise
when we were walking to a restaurant one evening not
long after that, and a parking meter came in between
us and she said, peanut butter and jelly. I said
(14:47):
what she said, peanut butter and jelly. No biscuits and gravy.
Biscuits and gravy. That's it, I said, No, dear, it's
bread and butter. I appreciate you trying. One that really
got her one day when we were still dating, was
when I was driving us somewhere and a cat ran
across the road in front of us. This was back
(15:10):
when she still stayed away long enough to have a conversation,
instead of like now, when she builds herself a blanket
cocoon to hibernate in until we reach our destination that
could be as far away as another state or as
close as the grocery store. Anyway, the cat crossed the road,
and in mid conversation, I made an X with my
(15:30):
right index finger in the top left hand corner of
the windshield, turned my head and made a spitting noise
over my left shoulder, and continued on with whatever I
was saying, as if nothing had happened. When she didn't respond,
I looked over at her, and she was staring at me.
Her eyes were big, her mouth was partially open, and
(15:52):
her little bump of a nose snarled upwards in utter disgust.
I asked her, what's wrong? She said, are you spitting
in the car, because if you are and don't stop immediately,
this is a deal breaker. No, I didn't really spill,
I just made that racket. A cat crossed the road
in front of us. Now, I assume she didn't see
(16:14):
it as if that was going to make what I
had just done easier for her to understand. I've always
taken it for granted that everyone grew up like me
and what I did was just a social norm. Other folks,
my wife included, refer to them as social abnormalities. I
saw my dad do it a million times, and when
(16:35):
I asked you why, he said it was the ward
off bad luck. And it wasn't just limited to black cats.
It was any and every cat that ever crossed the
road in front of us. It was learned behavior from
him to me, and I have no idea where he
got it from. My son Hunter does it as well
as my oldest daughter Amy, but the baby girl Cub
doesn't not yet. Anyway, something I was told I wasn't
(16:59):
supposed to to do as well was talk about a
dream I'd have before eating breakfast. I can't remember where
I heard that one from, but it was always just
been a part of my knowledge or lack of however
you want to look at it. The real was you
didn't talk about a dream before breakfast unless you wanted
it to come true. And most of my dreams over
(17:22):
ten years had me duking it out with someone, and
during the fight, my arms would only move in slow motion.
I could feel myself swinging as hard and fast as
I could, only to look like I was swimming in
my glasses now. The first time I sprung that one
on the lexus was at her parents' house. We'd all
gathered for breakfast, and she started, let me tell you
(17:44):
about this dream I had last night. WHOA Was it
a good dream? No, it was scary. You can't talk
about it until you eat something. What you can't talk
about it until you eat something or to come true?
She stared at me from across the table. Everyone else,
her parents, sister, and her grandmother's eyes are kind of
(18:04):
darting back and forth to each other. As I told
her to at least take a bite or something before
she talked about it, I could see her reevaluating her
life choices up to that moment as she looked at me,
contemplating how the rest of her life would play out
being married to me, and she slowly deliberately took a
bite from that fork as she had hovered in the
(18:25):
air above her plate. There I took a bite. Now
we don't have to worry about the flying monkeys from
the Wizard of Oz stealing the riding lawnmower and running
over our mailbox. Now we all laughed and laughed, and
it was funny. She's funny, But our mailbox has remained undamaged,
and that happened before Bathing was born, So who's laughing now?
(18:52):
Superstitions are a funny thing for me. They're more out
of a habit than a belief. And I don't think
milk and fish will kill you. I also don't think
knocking on wood would ward off any evil spirits or
spitting over your shoulder. We keep a cat from bringing
you harm, just like walking under a ladder ain't going
to hurt a thing. But why take a chance a
(19:14):
stilly tradition that connects me to the past and the
people that I think about when I do them or
talk about them to others. Explaining them to Lexis would
be the starting point to many conversations that would begin
with me telling her about Mama's lies, saying bread and butter,
and end up with us having spent time together, laughing
and talking and learning about each other's families. And we
(19:35):
still do that. If you're talking and laughing and learning
with the folks you love, man, that's about as lucky
as you can get. Thank y'all so much for listening
to us here on the Old Bear Grease Channel. I
hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's celebration,
and I look forward to talking to y'all again next week.
(19:56):
Until then, this is Brent Reeds signing off. I think
Host
Clay Newcomb
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