February 21, 2025 • 22 mins
No one gets through life without help. That's the topic this week and the specifics Brent's sharing are all examples of people needing help and people helping. It's a perfect example of how we can make big differences with just a little effort. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood and you'll know why after listening to this week's episode of MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.
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Transcript
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 in 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. The helpers we get buy in this life,
never on our own. All of us, at one time
or another, need a little help, sometimes a lot of help,
(00:49):
but help just the same. And I'm gonna talk to
you today about the ones that give it. But first
I'm gonna tell you a story. It may have been
January or February, regardless of the particular month, it was cold,
raining and nasty outside when I was awoken from a nice,
(01:13):
warm slummer to the telephone in the middle of the night. Now,
such is the life of a deputy on call in
a rural county for an under manned sheriff's department. You
were really never off, even when you were off work.
But sometime after midnight, you know, when the good calls
come in. I answered the phone, trying to be coherent
(01:35):
enough to decipher what the dispatcher was telling me from
the other end of the line. Brent, are you awake? Yes,
I usually when I answer the phone. That was my
normal smart elect response to being woke up in the
middle of the night, knowing I was fixing half to
go somewhere I didn't want to go, which was anywhere
(01:56):
that wasn't under the warm covers where I was currently busy.
She said, I'm waking another deputy. There's a burglar in
progress at the old Simpson Place. Burglary in progress. That
got my attention, But I immediately knew that the old
Simpson Place was vacant. The Uttererly couple that lived there
(02:16):
forever were both deceased, and there wasn't an alarm system
there that I knew of. Actually, there weren't alarm systems
at all at any of the rural businesses that dotted
the county, much less of residence, especially one that no
one lived at during that time. Someone called it in. Yes,
(02:37):
they drove by there just now and saw a flashlight
of someone walking in front of the big picture window
that faces the road. I have them on the other
line call the Simpson Sun and make sure no one
is supposed to be there. Tell them we're on their
way and to stay by the phone. I'm getting dressed,
And with that, I hung up the phone and jumped
in the uniform coveralls that was staged in the living room,
(03:00):
along with my gun, belt, radio and boots, just for
such as an occasion as this. Now, in less than
five minutes, I was pulling up to the Sheriff's office,
where I would jump into the car with another deputy,
and the two of us would paint the road red
to the address of the complaint, knowing full well that
no one would be there when we got there. That's
(03:20):
the way it always was. They were never there. Our
response time was fast, considering what all had to transpire
before we actually got to the address of the call,
but still never fast enough to catch anyone on the scene.
Someone had to see something to report, get to a phone,
like a real phone that was connected to a house
(03:42):
and call it in. There weren't no cell phones. Describe
what was happening to the dispatcher, who then had to
figure out where they were talking about. And if Noah
had informed the dispatcher who was on a call, they
had to call the sheriff see who he wanted to send.
Then they had to call and wake up with the
deputy and explain everything all over again. It took a while,
(04:04):
and by the time all that happened, even if it
was legitimate burglary and not a false alarm or someone
out hunting or checking on livestock, the bad guy would
always be gone. Rolling up on an actual burglary in
progress is the super Bowl of patrol calls. What better
(04:25):
way to catch a burglar than red handed surprise, JOCKO,
better drop me my silverware and reach for the sky
if you don't want to leave here with more holes
in your person than you showed up with. Now, I
imagine saying something like that, And there may have been
a few more colorful metaphors thrown into spice it up,
but you get the idea. But in all the burglary
(04:46):
in progress calls I got dispatched too in the middle
of the night, most of them turned out to either
be a false alarm or the perpetrators were long gone
when we got there. It was the nature of the beast.
This one would more than likely be the same, but
we had to respond to it like we knew they
were there and we were going to catch them. The
(05:08):
rain was getting harder, and the temperature was just north
of freezing according to the bank thermometer, that we just
blew by going faster than we probably should have. In
those conditions, there was no need for the sirre in
the blue lights. There wasn't anyone else out except for
us and the burglar, who if what was reported was true,
was another fifteen minutes away at a country home that
(05:30):
sat two hundred yards off of gravel road that no
one had been to in weeks. The rain had slacked
up enough that when we got close to the driveway,
the deputy that was driving turned off the headlights and
we stuck our heads out the windows and watched the
house and both ditches as he turned in, and we
creeped up the long drive in the dark, stopping a
(05:51):
short distance from the house. The interior was dark as
a tomb except for the globe, a single light bulb
that I could see through picture window. Towards the back
of the house, the rain picked it back up along
with the wind. It was cold and miserable outside, but
it was masking our approach to the house. We slipped
in through a cracked door that led from the car
(06:13):
port into a utility room. There were muddy footprints stacked
on top of one another on the car port steps
and in tior some weren't dry, that led back and
forth to the rest of the house. My spidery sin
started tingling. Someone may be there now, but someone had
(06:33):
been very recently. The floor creaked with every step we
made through the kitchen towards the rear of the house,
where the light was shining. Guns drawn, I prayed the
wind and the rain wouldn't let whoever was in there.
If they were in there hear us coming, and I
peeked around the corner of the door that led from
the kitchen into the living room, and that's when I
(06:54):
saw there was no floor. The floor joists were exposed,
and all the floor and had been removed. Every room
that I could see from where I stood had no floor.
The single light bulble was from a lamp with no
shade that was laying across two spans of floor joists.
We cleared the rest of the house, there was no
one in there. Burglary in progress had once again turned
(07:18):
into a burglary after the fat call, But where'd the
barefooted guy go, the one that made all the tracks
that were still fresh on the steps of the utility room.
We had passed any vehicles on our way there, they
had to be close. No one was walking. I looked
behind the house and grown up in the trees and
bushes was an old barn, a hallway that went down
(07:41):
the center of the structure, as dark as a cave.
There are probably law enforcement folks listening to this right now, thinking, well,
you need to call some backup before you head out
of that barn, and they'd be right, that's exactly what
you do. However, there was no backup. Had it not
been for the foresight and this of the dispatcher, one
of us would have been there alone. It's just the
(08:04):
way it used to be and how we were used
to working as the same wind that was made famous
by Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald back in the early
nineteen hundreds. One riot, one ranger. But thankfully there were
two of us, and we hit the hall of that barn.
We turned on our flashlights and cleared all the stalls
in both rooms. There was nothing there. The only place
(08:28):
left to search was the hayloft back near the entrance
was the ladder that went up the hole in the
loft floor. It was nearly a carving copy of every
old barn laft ladder that I'd ever seen or climbed.
The old barn on our farm was almost the exact same,
except the ladder was at the opposite end of the hallway.
As you approached the barn, there was mud on the rungs,
(08:51):
and when I put my hands on it to climb up,
some of it squished up between my fingers. I turned
off and put away my flashlight, and I sent it
up the ladder with one hand while I held my
pistol in my right hand. I dug down as I climbed,
stand below the opening of the floor, even though I
could have easily stood up on the middle rung and
(09:11):
sing clearly into the barn loft. Placing both heels of
my boots on the same rung, I stood up with
my pistol in one hand and the light and the
other head and shoulders above the opening. In one fluid movement,
I leaned forward with my chest against the floor of
the loft, pointed my pistol, and turned on the flashlight
at the same time. Less than a foot from my
(09:34):
face was the business end of a shotgun that was
pointed directly between my eyes. The rest all happened in
slow motion. I could no longer hear the rain, I
didn't feel the cold. The whole world was like my lasses.
(09:55):
But I was thinking and reacting two moves ahead of
everything else that was going on around me. Instantly, I
shifted to one side, laid my flashlight on the floor,
still shining in the same direction, placed my finger on
the trigger of my duty weapon, aimed at the man's head,
and I pulled that shot gun down and handed it
to the deputy below me. Now, in the time it
(10:16):
took me to tell you that I could have done
what I did ten times, that's how fast it happened.
That's not something you practice. That's a blessing you received
when it ain't your time to go. I could plainly
see the top of the man's head, his shoulders, and
his arms laying alongside where the shotgun had been. It
(10:37):
had fallen asleep, sound asleep. Had he been waiting to
ambush us and just went to sleep. I don't know.
I never will know. The man was off his meds
and had been in and out of mental facilities the
majority this adult life. This would get him sent back
(10:58):
to one eventually, after he'd been a judicated for burglarizing
the old Simpson place and removing all the floor, he
taken it and stacked it up on the other side
of the barn. Now, one curious thing that made me
scratch my head and thankful that I still had one
after staring down the barrel of that shotgun was the
coon hide that he had wrapped around the stock tail
(11:19):
and all. He said in his statement that he shot
that coon when he was tearing up the floor, and
apparently the coon had taken up residents under the house
before he got there. Anyway, he shot the coon, cooked
and ate him, and adored his hide on his shotgun
as a trophy, which would have made getting clobbered with
that shotgun just a little bit worse for me anyway,
(11:41):
if there could have been such a thing. But what
wound up happening was he got help. He didn't know
he needed any, but he did. I counted as a
blessing to have been the one he nearly scared to
death with that shotgun. I'm proud of the way it
turned out. I'm thankful that the good Lord, let me
see the situation clearly enough that I didn't react in
(12:03):
a way that I would have been justified in doing so.
It made me value my life and my opportunities to
help others that much more. That guy needed help. I
needed to see that he got it, and he did.
And that's just how that happened. Being a helper. That
(12:35):
term I learned from mister Rogers. Yes, that mister Rogers,
the one who sang about being a good neighbor and
showed generations how easy it was to be one. But
his quote about being a helper was explaining to the
little folks and adults like me who were watching with
them that any time he saw something scary on the
news as a child, that his mother told him to
(12:58):
look for the helpers, but there was always someone going
to help those in trouble. He said. It was reassuring
and it made him feel better knowing that there was
always someone who was willing to help, And just like always,
mister Rogers was right. I spent my whole career trying
(13:18):
to help folks, and so did a lot of other
people right along with me. But that's not the people
I'm talking about now. I'm talking about the helpers who,
regardless of the situation someone is in, step up and
be a helper. I saw it firsthand. Over the course
of the last few weeks, two events were well publicized
(13:39):
as tragedies. A local Arkansas duck hunter was severely injured
in a boating accident there where I and a group
of my friends and colleagues had been filming for a
future First Life production. Then a horrific plane crash in Washington,
d C. That counted among its many victims a group
of hunters that had hunted with friends of mine Kansas Place.
(14:01):
A lot of us at meat eater At hunted this year.
Whole nation in an outdoor community rallied around each other
in prayer and raising money to support not only our
fellow sportion but their families as well. Through both of
those events, we are giving people, and when called upon
in times of darkness, the helpers bring light to the
(14:24):
shadows of sadness and despair. We have no ability to
erase the pain or bring back those that have been lost,
but we each have a way of helping through given
whether it's prayer, labor, or donations, it shows we care
and we'll share as much of the burden as we
can to allow those who can to recover or those
(14:48):
who can't to grieve. And then there's the other helpers,
the ones who step forward unprovoked by dire circumstances, the
helpers who, through the goodness of doing what's right, is
their only motivation. I met him almost five years ago.
He was a local fireman who had to supplement his
income by working his days off mowing yards. That told
(15:12):
me something about him right from the start. He served
his community in a noble and dangerous career, and his
compensation required augmentation for him to live comfortably, and yet
he still served. I would later find out he served
his nation too, although he never talks about it. I
invited him to give me an estimate on mowing, and
(15:34):
after meeting me, we talked about coon hunting. After he
saw whaling. I had been in the podcast Renner for
a while, and after watching my tree and walker run around,
he blurted it out, is that whaling? I smiled and
said yes. He said, I've seen that dog on Facebook.
Who are you? Just when I thought I'd gotten famous,
(16:00):
the fireman and old whaler put my feet squarely back
on terra FIRMA first time he mowed our yard. I
hid behind the fence and sprayed water on him like
he was raining when he was making laps in the
front yard jungle. The look on his face when he
stood up and saw me laughing over the fence with
that water hose my hand is one I'll never forget.
(16:21):
And over the last five years we've hunted a lot together,
Hunter Gullick and me. He moved on from the fire
department and now serves our community as alignment whose main
task is keeping the lights on his mind, and everyone
else is home around us. So far, so good. Now
(16:43):
I'm switching gears here, so hang with me. You're gonna
be glad you did. But over the past few months,
my wife has been getting Bailey's haircut by a lady
in town who cuts a lot of our friends and kids' hair.
She and her husband both worked hard to support with
their family, a family made up of eight children, two
(17:05):
of which mom and dad share their DNA, six of
them just share mom and Dad's love. Mom and Dad
are helpers, the best kind of helpers, and of all
the members of this octetive kids, one has shown a
keen interest in coon hunting six year old Atticus, Alexis
(17:31):
and Bailey would return from visits to the salon where Atticus'
mom works with tales of how he loves everything about
coon hunting and coon dogs. Atticus and his dad listened
to your podcast and watch your videos. Alexis told me,
that's cool. Please tell them. I said, thank you, and
these reports from Attiges mom were a regular highlight whenever
(17:54):
Alexis was there. They have a Pomeranian that Atticus calls
his coon dog, so the next time she went, I
sent him a sign to case hat and a wooden
knife kit that Atticus and his dad could put together.
Shortly afterwards, I saw a video of him on social
media wearing that hat, holding that wooden knife kit, and
(18:15):
watching Steven Ellen and Claybow skinning a coon on TV.
Because Mama told Alexis how, Atticus was at school working
with his teacher on writing his letters when out of
the blue, he asked her if she had a dog,
and when his teacher said yes, she did, Atticus replied,
I can teach that dog how to trea a coon now,
(18:38):
Much to his teacher's delight, she said that's good to know.
But first he had to continue working on his jas.
Atticus could have been me, and at one time I
was Atticus. The only difference is I've never asked of
Pomeranian to tree a coon for me, although I've hunted
with some dogs that couldn't have been any worse than one.
(19:02):
But what does all this have to do with being
a helper? Once again, I'm glad you asked Hunter? Remember
him well? He and I were grabbing some supper last
week before going coon hunting. Alexis and Bailey met us
at our favorite burger joint, and we laughed and talked
about everything under the sun, including the young dog of
(19:23):
hunters that he and I would be taken that night
with whaling. But out of know where, Hunter made the
statement that he had won too many coon houns and
needed to find a home for John. John's a tree
and walker and a litter made to a good friend
of Mine's dog that is second to none. Life Honey
with John on many occasions, and he'll run and tree
(19:44):
a coon. Nothing fancy, never going to be a world champion.
But if you had to survive on coons to eat,
John wouldn't let you starve. Hunter said, I'd really like
to see him go to a kid. He'd be perfect
for a kid. He's gentle, he minds what, and he
would fit a kid that wanted to get started into
hunting or needed a dog, you know, anybody that might
(20:06):
want it. No, I don't guess. And with that I
focused back on my cheeseburger and whatever the conversation was
that Hunter had continued after announcing he wanted to rehome John.
Finally I processed it all and I said, wait a minute, Alexis,
text Atticus's mama and see if they'd let him have John. Now.
(20:29):
Two days after we had supper, Hunter, Atticus, and John
all became friends. Posted a picture on my social media
about getting Atticus a tracking collar and a handheld, and
the outpouring of folks who wanted to help was immediate
and a little overwhelming. Both of those items are quite expensive,
(20:50):
especially to a family who's income is already prioritized. Pictures
I've seen of Atticus and John since testament of helpers
being helpers, People who saw an opportunity and to full
advantage to help sponsor something wholesome and good. What could
(21:11):
be better than a little boy named Atticus's Coonham, John,
thank you so much for listening all of us here
at the Beargrease Channel. Be a helper with good intent.
Little can go a long way to be seeing more
(21:34):
of Atticus and John right here. But until next week,
this is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all, be careful, don't forget.
March the first is the Black Bear Bonanza at the
(21:54):
Benton County Fairgrounds, Arkansas. BHA has all the info you
can just google Black Bear Bonanza twenty twenty five. Come
see us
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 in 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. The helpers we get buy in this life,
never on our own. All of us, at one time
or another, need a little help, sometimes a lot of help,
(00:49):
but help just the same. And I'm gonna talk to
you today about the ones that give it. But first
I'm gonna tell you a story. It may have been
January or February, regardless of the particular month, it was cold,
raining and nasty outside when I was awoken from a nice,
(01:13):
warm slummer to the telephone in the middle of the night. Now,
such is the life of a deputy on call in
a rural county for an under manned sheriff's department. You
were really never off, even when you were off work.
But sometime after midnight, you know, when the good calls
come in. I answered the phone, trying to be coherent
(01:35):
enough to decipher what the dispatcher was telling me from
the other end of the line. Brent, are you awake? Yes,
I usually when I answer the phone. That was my
normal smart elect response to being woke up in the
middle of the night, knowing I was fixing half to
go somewhere I didn't want to go, which was anywhere
(01:56):
that wasn't under the warm covers where I was currently busy.
She said, I'm waking another deputy. There's a burglar in
progress at the old Simpson Place. Burglary in progress. That
got my attention, But I immediately knew that the old
Simpson Place was vacant. The Uttererly couple that lived there
(02:16):
forever were both deceased, and there wasn't an alarm system
there that I knew of. Actually, there weren't alarm systems
at all at any of the rural businesses that dotted
the county, much less of residence, especially one that no
one lived at during that time. Someone called it in. Yes,
(02:37):
they drove by there just now and saw a flashlight
of someone walking in front of the big picture window
that faces the road. I have them on the other
line call the Simpson Sun and make sure no one
is supposed to be there. Tell them we're on their
way and to stay by the phone. I'm getting dressed,
And with that, I hung up the phone and jumped
in the uniform coveralls that was staged in the living room,
(03:00):
along with my gun, belt, radio and boots, just for
such as an occasion as this. Now, in less than
five minutes, I was pulling up to the Sheriff's office,
where I would jump into the car with another deputy,
and the two of us would paint the road red
to the address of the complaint, knowing full well that
no one would be there when we got there. That's
(03:20):
the way it always was. They were never there. Our
response time was fast, considering what all had to transpire
before we actually got to the address of the call,
but still never fast enough to catch anyone on the scene.
Someone had to see something to report, get to a phone,
like a real phone that was connected to a house
(03:42):
and call it in. There weren't no cell phones. Describe
what was happening to the dispatcher, who then had to
figure out where they were talking about. And if Noah
had informed the dispatcher who was on a call, they
had to call the sheriff see who he wanted to send.
Then they had to call and wake up with the
deputy and explain everything all over again. It took a while,
(04:04):
and by the time all that happened, even if it
was legitimate burglary and not a false alarm or someone
out hunting or checking on livestock, the bad guy would
always be gone. Rolling up on an actual burglary in
progress is the super Bowl of patrol calls. What better
(04:25):
way to catch a burglar than red handed surprise, JOCKO,
better drop me my silverware and reach for the sky
if you don't want to leave here with more holes
in your person than you showed up with. Now, I
imagine saying something like that, And there may have been
a few more colorful metaphors thrown into spice it up,
but you get the idea. But in all the burglary
(04:46):
in progress calls I got dispatched too in the middle
of the night, most of them turned out to either
be a false alarm or the perpetrators were long gone
when we got there. It was the nature of the beast.
This one would more than likely be the same, but
we had to respond to it like we knew they
were there and we were going to catch them. The
(05:08):
rain was getting harder, and the temperature was just north
of freezing according to the bank thermometer, that we just
blew by going faster than we probably should have. In
those conditions, there was no need for the sirre in
the blue lights. There wasn't anyone else out except for
us and the burglar, who if what was reported was true,
was another fifteen minutes away at a country home that
(05:30):
sat two hundred yards off of gravel road that no
one had been to in weeks. The rain had slacked
up enough that when we got close to the driveway,
the deputy that was driving turned off the headlights and
we stuck our heads out the windows and watched the
house and both ditches as he turned in, and we
creeped up the long drive in the dark, stopping a
(05:51):
short distance from the house. The interior was dark as
a tomb except for the globe, a single light bulb
that I could see through picture window. Towards the back
of the house, the rain picked it back up along
with the wind. It was cold and miserable outside, but
it was masking our approach to the house. We slipped
in through a cracked door that led from the car
(06:13):
port into a utility room. There were muddy footprints stacked
on top of one another on the car port steps
and in tior some weren't dry, that led back and
forth to the rest of the house. My spidery sin
started tingling. Someone may be there now, but someone had
(06:33):
been very recently. The floor creaked with every step we
made through the kitchen towards the rear of the house,
where the light was shining. Guns drawn, I prayed the
wind and the rain wouldn't let whoever was in there.
If they were in there hear us coming, and I
peeked around the corner of the door that led from
the kitchen into the living room, and that's when I
(06:54):
saw there was no floor. The floor joists were exposed,
and all the floor and had been removed. Every room
that I could see from where I stood had no floor.
The single light bulble was from a lamp with no
shade that was laying across two spans of floor joists.
We cleared the rest of the house, there was no
one in there. Burglary in progress had once again turned
(07:18):
into a burglary after the fat call, But where'd the
barefooted guy go, the one that made all the tracks
that were still fresh on the steps of the utility room.
We had passed any vehicles on our way there, they
had to be close. No one was walking. I looked
behind the house and grown up in the trees and
bushes was an old barn, a hallway that went down
(07:41):
the center of the structure, as dark as a cave.
There are probably law enforcement folks listening to this right now, thinking, well,
you need to call some backup before you head out
of that barn, and they'd be right, that's exactly what
you do. However, there was no backup. Had it not
been for the foresight and this of the dispatcher, one
of us would have been there alone. It's just the
(08:04):
way it used to be and how we were used
to working as the same wind that was made famous
by Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald back in the early
nineteen hundreds. One riot, one ranger. But thankfully there were
two of us, and we hit the hall of that barn.
We turned on our flashlights and cleared all the stalls
in both rooms. There was nothing there. The only place
(08:28):
left to search was the hayloft back near the entrance
was the ladder that went up the hole in the
loft floor. It was nearly a carving copy of every
old barn laft ladder that I'd ever seen or climbed.
The old barn on our farm was almost the exact same,
except the ladder was at the opposite end of the hallway.
As you approached the barn, there was mud on the rungs,
(08:51):
and when I put my hands on it to climb up,
some of it squished up between my fingers. I turned
off and put away my flashlight, and I sent it
up the ladder with one hand while I held my
pistol in my right hand. I dug down as I climbed,
stand below the opening of the floor, even though I
could have easily stood up on the middle rung and
(09:11):
sing clearly into the barn loft. Placing both heels of
my boots on the same rung, I stood up with
my pistol in one hand and the light and the
other head and shoulders above the opening. In one fluid movement,
I leaned forward with my chest against the floor of
the loft, pointed my pistol, and turned on the flashlight
at the same time. Less than a foot from my
(09:34):
face was the business end of a shotgun that was
pointed directly between my eyes. The rest all happened in
slow motion. I could no longer hear the rain, I
didn't feel the cold. The whole world was like my lasses.
(09:55):
But I was thinking and reacting two moves ahead of
everything else that was going on around me. Instantly, I
shifted to one side, laid my flashlight on the floor,
still shining in the same direction, placed my finger on
the trigger of my duty weapon, aimed at the man's head,
and I pulled that shot gun down and handed it
to the deputy below me. Now, in the time it
(10:16):
took me to tell you that I could have done
what I did ten times, that's how fast it happened.
That's not something you practice. That's a blessing you received
when it ain't your time to go. I could plainly
see the top of the man's head, his shoulders, and
his arms laying alongside where the shotgun had been. It
(10:37):
had fallen asleep, sound asleep. Had he been waiting to
ambush us and just went to sleep. I don't know.
I never will know. The man was off his meds
and had been in and out of mental facilities the
majority this adult life. This would get him sent back
(10:58):
to one eventually, after he'd been a judicated for burglarizing
the old Simpson place and removing all the floor, he
taken it and stacked it up on the other side
of the barn. Now, one curious thing that made me
scratch my head and thankful that I still had one
after staring down the barrel of that shotgun was the
coon hide that he had wrapped around the stock tail
(11:19):
and all. He said in his statement that he shot
that coon when he was tearing up the floor, and
apparently the coon had taken up residents under the house
before he got there. Anyway, he shot the coon, cooked
and ate him, and adored his hide on his shotgun
as a trophy, which would have made getting clobbered with
that shotgun just a little bit worse for me anyway,
(11:41):
if there could have been such a thing. But what
wound up happening was he got help. He didn't know
he needed any, but he did. I counted as a
blessing to have been the one he nearly scared to
death with that shotgun. I'm proud of the way it
turned out. I'm thankful that the good Lord, let me
see the situation clearly enough that I didn't react in
(12:03):
a way that I would have been justified in doing so.
It made me value my life and my opportunities to
help others that much more. That guy needed help. I
needed to see that he got it, and he did.
And that's just how that happened. Being a helper. That
(12:35):
term I learned from mister Rogers. Yes, that mister Rogers,
the one who sang about being a good neighbor and
showed generations how easy it was to be one. But
his quote about being a helper was explaining to the
little folks and adults like me who were watching with
them that any time he saw something scary on the
news as a child, that his mother told him to
(12:58):
look for the helpers, but there was always someone going
to help those in trouble. He said. It was reassuring
and it made him feel better knowing that there was
always someone who was willing to help, And just like always,
mister Rogers was right. I spent my whole career trying
(13:18):
to help folks, and so did a lot of other
people right along with me. But that's not the people
I'm talking about now. I'm talking about the helpers who,
regardless of the situation someone is in, step up and
be a helper. I saw it firsthand. Over the course
of the last few weeks, two events were well publicized
(13:39):
as tragedies. A local Arkansas duck hunter was severely injured
in a boating accident there where I and a group
of my friends and colleagues had been filming for a
future First Life production. Then a horrific plane crash in Washington,
d C. That counted among its many victims a group
of hunters that had hunted with friends of mine Kansas Place.
(14:01):
A lot of us at meat eater At hunted this year.
Whole nation in an outdoor community rallied around each other
in prayer and raising money to support not only our
fellow sportion but their families as well. Through both of
those events, we are giving people, and when called upon
in times of darkness, the helpers bring light to the
(14:24):
shadows of sadness and despair. We have no ability to
erase the pain or bring back those that have been lost,
but we each have a way of helping through given
whether it's prayer, labor, or donations, it shows we care
and we'll share as much of the burden as we
can to allow those who can to recover or those
(14:48):
who can't to grieve. And then there's the other helpers,
the ones who step forward unprovoked by dire circumstances, the
helpers who, through the goodness of doing what's right, is
their only motivation. I met him almost five years ago.
He was a local fireman who had to supplement his
income by working his days off mowing yards. That told
(15:12):
me something about him right from the start. He served
his community in a noble and dangerous career, and his
compensation required augmentation for him to live comfortably, and yet
he still served. I would later find out he served
his nation too, although he never talks about it. I
invited him to give me an estimate on mowing, and
(15:34):
after meeting me, we talked about coon hunting. After he
saw whaling. I had been in the podcast Renner for
a while, and after watching my tree and walker run around,
he blurted it out, is that whaling? I smiled and
said yes. He said, I've seen that dog on Facebook.
Who are you? Just when I thought I'd gotten famous,
(16:00):
the fireman and old whaler put my feet squarely back
on terra FIRMA first time he mowed our yard. I
hid behind the fence and sprayed water on him like
he was raining when he was making laps in the
front yard jungle. The look on his face when he
stood up and saw me laughing over the fence with
that water hose my hand is one I'll never forget.
(16:21):
And over the last five years we've hunted a lot together,
Hunter Gullick and me. He moved on from the fire
department and now serves our community as alignment whose main
task is keeping the lights on his mind, and everyone
else is home around us. So far, so good. Now
(16:43):
I'm switching gears here, so hang with me. You're gonna
be glad you did. But over the past few months,
my wife has been getting Bailey's haircut by a lady
in town who cuts a lot of our friends and kids' hair.
She and her husband both worked hard to support with
their family, a family made up of eight children, two
(17:05):
of which mom and dad share their DNA, six of
them just share mom and Dad's love. Mom and Dad
are helpers, the best kind of helpers, and of all
the members of this octetive kids, one has shown a
keen interest in coon hunting six year old Atticus, Alexis
(17:31):
and Bailey would return from visits to the salon where Atticus'
mom works with tales of how he loves everything about
coon hunting and coon dogs. Atticus and his dad listened
to your podcast and watch your videos. Alexis told me,
that's cool. Please tell them. I said, thank you, and
these reports from Attiges mom were a regular highlight whenever
(17:54):
Alexis was there. They have a Pomeranian that Atticus calls
his coon dog, so the next time she went, I
sent him a sign to case hat and a wooden
knife kit that Atticus and his dad could put together.
Shortly afterwards, I saw a video of him on social
media wearing that hat, holding that wooden knife kit, and
(18:15):
watching Steven Ellen and Claybow skinning a coon on TV.
Because Mama told Alexis how, Atticus was at school working
with his teacher on writing his letters when out of
the blue, he asked her if she had a dog,
and when his teacher said yes, she did, Atticus replied,
I can teach that dog how to trea a coon now,
(18:38):
Much to his teacher's delight, she said that's good to know.
But first he had to continue working on his jas.
Atticus could have been me, and at one time I
was Atticus. The only difference is I've never asked of
Pomeranian to tree a coon for me, although I've hunted
with some dogs that couldn't have been any worse than one.
(19:02):
But what does all this have to do with being
a helper? Once again, I'm glad you asked Hunter? Remember
him well? He and I were grabbing some supper last
week before going coon hunting. Alexis and Bailey met us
at our favorite burger joint, and we laughed and talked
about everything under the sun, including the young dog of
(19:23):
hunters that he and I would be taken that night
with whaling. But out of know where, Hunter made the
statement that he had won too many coon houns and
needed to find a home for John. John's a tree
and walker and a litter made to a good friend
of Mine's dog that is second to none. Life Honey
with John on many occasions, and he'll run and tree
(19:44):
a coon. Nothing fancy, never going to be a world champion.
But if you had to survive on coons to eat,
John wouldn't let you starve. Hunter said, I'd really like
to see him go to a kid. He'd be perfect
for a kid. He's gentle, he minds what, and he
would fit a kid that wanted to get started into
hunting or needed a dog, you know, anybody that might
(20:06):
want it. No, I don't guess. And with that I
focused back on my cheeseburger and whatever the conversation was
that Hunter had continued after announcing he wanted to rehome John.
Finally I processed it all and I said, wait a minute, Alexis,
text Atticus's mama and see if they'd let him have John. Now.
(20:29):
Two days after we had supper, Hunter, Atticus, and John
all became friends. Posted a picture on my social media
about getting Atticus a tracking collar and a handheld, and
the outpouring of folks who wanted to help was immediate
and a little overwhelming. Both of those items are quite expensive,
(20:50):
especially to a family who's income is already prioritized. Pictures
I've seen of Atticus and John since testament of helpers
being helpers, People who saw an opportunity and to full
advantage to help sponsor something wholesome and good. What could
(21:11):
be better than a little boy named Atticus's Coonham, John,
thank you so much for listening all of us here
at the Beargrease Channel. Be a helper with good intent.
Little can go a long way to be seeing more
(21:34):
of Atticus and John right here. But until next week,
this is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all, be careful, don't forget.
March the first is the Black Bear Bonanza at the
(21:54):
Benton County Fairgrounds, Arkansas. BHA has all the info you
can just google Black Bear Bonanza twenty twenty five. Come
see us
Host
Clay Newcomb
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