April 16, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of The Bear Grease Podcast, host Clay Newcomb is joined by Oklahoma man Johnny Johnston as he shares the honest, transparent, and nitty-gritty details of his life story and his relationship to wildlife law, but more importantly about the transformation that he underwent that brought him out of this dark time in his life.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I had it explained to me one time by a
judge in court. Not hunting seemed like I had killed
a turkey during the wrong dates and times. He said,
why did you do that? I said, well, where I'm from,
when your tomatoes get right, you pick them. When your
potatoes get right, you dig them. When your turkeys are right,
(00:29):
you go get you on. Yeah. But he said, that's
not the way we do it. You have laws at
govern when you kill them and when you can. But
he explained that to me.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I traveled a couple of hours south and slightly west
from my home on Wednesday, March twenty sixth, twenty twenty five,
to meet with a man who I was told might
be the most interesting man in Lafleur County, Oklahoma. I
hardly knew anything about him, in all though I talked
to people for a living. While I was in my truck,
(01:04):
and when I got within about two miles of his cabin,
I started to get nervous. He was described to me
as a kind man, loved by those who know him,
but with a checkered past and an uncanny expertise in
wild turkeys. Why he'd agreed to talk with me, I
wasn't sure, and I began to doubt why I had
(01:24):
agreed to come. This is real rural America, not the
curated version that I sometimes like to talk about. This
one has addiction, illegal hunting, and broken relationships. But I
had no idea I'd be impacted so much. This is
an unusual Bear Grease, dark at times, funny at others,
(01:49):
but I was surprised at the arc of redemption. You'll
have to forgive me because I'm still sorting out the details,
but I'd like to share with you the confession of
this former outlaw. I really doubt that you're going to
want to miss this one. My name is Clay Nukem,
(02:15):
and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore
things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,
and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live
their lives close to the land. Presented by f HF Gear,
American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed
(02:38):
to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I had a friend, and people that hunt know When
Ben Rogers Lee Ben Lee world Champion caller hunter good
friend being got killed in a vehicle accident, he was
at my turkey camp. We hunted the first part of Caeson,
and he tried to give me to quit and go
with him to Alabama. He said, you like this game,
(03:13):
You're good at it. I see it in you. I
see potential in you. You need to quit what you're
doing and go with me, and I ah make you
famous and me rich. And I said, no, I can't quit. Well,
O God, I've got a good job, good family, got cattle.
I can't do that.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
This is the voice of Johnny Johnston. You've probably never
heard of him, but I doubt that you'll forget him.
On the walk from the truck to the door of
his cabin, I estimated there to be no less than
twelve well taken care of hunting dogs scattered within sight, beagles,
running walkers, and bird dogs. To Johnny, being called a
(03:53):
hillbilly is a term of endearment, and he identifies as one.
And by his definition, the highest drinking qualification has nothing
to do with hounds or overalls. But it's not being superficial.
This story is about Johnny's life and we'll learn some
foundational stuff that started on this hunt with Ben Lee.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So he left, I stayed continued to Hunt. Hunt was
over into seasion. I was going to go out west
in Turkey Hunt and I had a gun and some
stuff at Octavia friend of mine's house, and I was
supposed to have been there that got my stuff, and
I never showed up, so we came looking for me
(04:38):
and found me. I had flipped my gep over, broke
my neck, broke my back, cut my left ear off,
crushed the foot bunge of rib. Critical condition. Well. They
loaded me in the back of a Bronco and took
me to the hospital, and my wife was there pretty upset.
(05:00):
I don't remember any of it. There was from drinking involved.
There is something to that drinking and drive. Because since
I've quit drinking fifteen years straight n or nineteen days ago,
I had a night of rouge.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
When people know to the day how long they've been sober,
the days prior to that were probably tough. Johnny is
from the small town of heaven Or, Oklahoma. He was
born in nineteen forty nine. He's seventy five years old.
He's been married to the same woman for fifty five years.
He's of average height. He has a wiry build with
(05:37):
dark eyes that squint tight when he smiles. We're inside
of his small white cabin with interior walls of rough
san oak turkey beards hanging wads from deer antlers like
clusters of grapes. Every single beard has a tag attached
to it. There's no cell service here, but he doesn't
on a cell phone or a computer. He never had.
(06:01):
Let's get back to the hospital. This wreck sounds really bad.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
But I was telling her they would fix me the
best they could right then, and they could later come
back and fix my ear. And I said, oh, I
forgot to tell you. My ear is in the right
front pocket of my Camelflaud.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
You told him that.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I told the doctor that on the gurner going into surgery,
and he said, go look at his clothes and see
if you find an ear. And a nurse came running
down the hall and said, I've got an ear. And
so they took my ear, and he said, well, we'll
do the best we can. And I raared up again
(06:43):
and said he so I on backwards where I hear
them turkeys walking behind me.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
That story tips us off to two things, how central
wild turkeys have been in his life, and that he
is a character. This whole story is about Johnny's life,
some of it very personal, but I'm interested in his
relationship with the law as it relates to wild turkeys.
People's relationship to the law is helpful in understanding our society,
(07:16):
not the one we think we have, but the one
we actually do have. Johnny is a rare find, willing
to be vulnerable. When a stranger showed up me and
asked about some of the darkest times of his life,
I think we should start off with that. Credit to
his ledger. In the last three years, no less than
half a dozen people have emphatically told me that I
(07:37):
needed to come here to Johnny's, including a game warden,
but nobody could really articulate why. There's a lot I
don't know about Johnny. So I'm going to begin with
a question about his friendship to a particularly famous turkey hunter.
You may have heard of him. Tell me about your
relationship with Ben Lee.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He's a super nice guy, big man walking this hooting,
this yap and this human I oversaw. He went from
daylight to the door, charged him turkey. He knew turkey,
he knew how to hunt. He had a call company
made call He was just a good, good fellow. I
(08:21):
liked you. He just had away with people.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Now, how did you meet him?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Through a friend of mine hunting down there and I
told him where they could find some turkeys, and they
went there and hunted, and he said, I want to
meet this guy told us about this spot where the
turkey dore and I tell many. He invited me up
there to talk, and we just went hunting and killed
a turkey and hit it off. He'd come down and
camped with me ever spring after that.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
This story isn't about Ben Rogers Lee, but his connection
to Johnny is beyond interesting. Ben was from Jackson, Alabama,
and has been referred to as the father of modern
turkey hunting. He started his call company, ben Lee Calls
in nineteen seventy and made a flurry of instructional tapes, videos, seminars,
(09:09):
and won five turkey calling World Championships. He was a
Southern style storyteller and was one of the great communicators
of American turkey hunting. Here's a clip of Ben Lee.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Sitting out there any woods. She's laid a few eggs,
you know. He gets up there in the morning at
four o'clock, you know, and old Ale, well he'll out
wakes him up here. Boy, he just had his law.
I mean, he just ready for ever thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So instructional tapes. We're a big then. Turkey hunting was
just getting going. Mouth called, we're just coming out. My
old turkey hunting friend, one that I hunted with, used
a gold horn and a piece of slate. Now, I excided,
could you get on a gold horn? They clucked a
couple of time i's and three soft yeps and put
(10:02):
it down, And that was completely reverse way being legal. Honey.
He never shut up. He walked calling turkey gobbled. He
didn't die in a brush ball. He'd start to at turkey,
calling and walking to it, and he'd get right on
them and put some turkey stuff to him. Well, he
(10:22):
told me one time, he said, you like this game,
but you got to keep in mind, if you hunt
these turkeys like they need to be hunting, you won't
have no friends, your family be mad at you, you'll
probably lose your job. He went on and on about
all bad things that can happen to you. I said, well,
(10:43):
it can't be that bad. He said, I'm talking about
if you really hunt turkey. Now there's people that turkey
hunt and there's people that really hunt them.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I get the feeding Johnny is one of those turkey
hunters that really hunts them, and that these hanging tagged
beards aren't the only turkeys. This man is killed. His
friendship with Ben Lee is going to lead us right
into something critical. Did you know him personally very well? Like, like,
was he married? Did he have a family?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
He had been married thirteen times?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Are you serious?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I'm serious, That's what he told me. I didn't know
all his wives. I knew Servello. But he said, if
you really hunt him, turkey's right. That's when he said
about the family and your job and all that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
He was speaking from experience, from experience, y'all? Was he was?
He kind of an outlaw?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Sort of would you say? Was? I hate the category people?
But yeah, he's kind of like myself.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Interesting, he was kind of like myself, he said, an outlaw.
I'd heard this about Johnny and Ben, but I didn't
know for sure about Johnny. I kind of put him
on the spot, and he it's hesitant to categorize his
old friend in this way. But Johnny kind of tells
stuff the way it is. But again, this story isn't
(12:08):
about Ben Lee, who passed away in a car accident
in nineteen ninety one at the age of forty six.
The story is about Johnny Johnston, and as you may know,
I have a lot of respect for people willing to
be honest about their past. I've often found people like
Johnny to be more honest than people with less visible
(12:29):
issues lurking in their past. And I know that people
like Johnny are usually cut from a different cloth. In
this next question, I cut right to the chase, and
you'll hear the nervousness in my voice was with you.
Did you did you ever have any Did the law
(12:54):
ever mean anything to you? No? Why wouldn't it because
most people it does.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
The law itself? Or you mean a turkey law, Yeah, yeah,
when turkey's gobbled the hunting them.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
You just weren't afraid of getting in trouble.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, never crossed my mind. I had it explained to
me one time by a judge in court, not hunting.
It seems like I had killed a turkey during the
wrong dates and times. He said, why did you do that?
I said, Well, where I'm from, when your tomatoes get right,
(13:31):
you pick them. When your potatoes get right, you dig them.
When your turkeys are right, you go get you on. Yeah,
but he said that's not the way we do it.
You have laws that govern when you kill them and
when you can. He explained that to.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Me, Americans are intrigued by people willing to break the
law period. If you need convincing, just look at the
top movies, podcasts, and books we read. Heck, look at
the top Bear Grease podcast. But I'm still trying to
understand why. I think examinations of extremes help calibrate society
(14:13):
in some tribal, primitive way, almost like we get the
signal for normal by bouncing off the outliers. But there's
no debate about it. What's ironic is that we are
a society of rule followers. If our civilization gets smashed
by a comet and archaeologists dig it up and start
making conclusions about us, they'll find that this country was
(14:36):
built on law and order. The vast majority of people
who come to a stop sign in the middle of
the night, even though they know that no one is watching,
they're gonna stop, I mean at least a rolling stop,
And in many places of the world they wouldn't at all,
even when they know people are watching. Americans are rule followers,
(14:58):
despite the independent liber the aholic, brash exterior. But the
outliers are worth examination, and Johnny was an outlier when
it came to wildlife law. We need to know more
about his past. Now, let me this is kind of
(15:19):
a personal question. But would your parents have raised you
to just obey the law?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, just like in general. Yeah, you would have known
nobody can't steal or you can't.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
O My folks were by the book all the way.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, how did how did you get from that to
being willing to break the law?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I don't know, just getting in the world and not
really caring, just doing pretty much what I wanted to do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Now, did you ever really get in trouble? Did you
ever get caught, like killing a legal turkey?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah? I just didn't ever give it a whole lot
of thaw when turkeys are goblin. I just went on.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Always like this can make people feel uncomfortable, especially people
that love wildlife and conservation and talk about it a lot.
But this is part of the rural America that I
grew up around. Turkey laws were often seen as mere suggestions.
This next story is about the man who taught Johnny
(16:20):
to turkey hunt, and the first time they got caught.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I can't talk about turkeys with talking about my old friend,
the man that taught me out of turkey hunt superman. Yeah,
we've been caught. He lived at Tallahaney, Oklahoma, and I'm
calling his name. He's dead and gone now and he's
respected by every turkey hunter or that part of the world.
Way ain't caught turkey killing. This man I've ever met,
(16:48):
have ever known. And I knew that he hunted a
law back when I started. I didn't even know him.
I went he was horsemen, had a good race horse,
stood a race sore stallion, and now I was kind
of a horseman back in the day, and that's how
I knew him. But I looked him up and got
acquainted with him, and I said, here's what I want.
(17:11):
I want you to teach me how to turkey hunt.
No old board, I want to know it all. Well,
he said, next spring, you'll just have to come over here,
we'll go. I said, when when he said, oh, first
of March, had a good time.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
If you're a turkey hunter, you'll know that ninety eight
percent of American turkey seasons don't open in the first
of March. This was an invite to get an illegal
early start.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Okay, so first of March I went to day with
it and we hunted and he what lettle I know
about a turkey? That old gentleman taught me he was
slicking a snottled the door knob. Now he used a wingbone,
(17:59):
or a piece of can or a briar leaf or
a peach leaf later on in the year, or a
sleigh called very little, very light. You could be sitting
next to him and barely hear him call. But he
didn't call to a turkey unless he was seventy yards close.
He used the terrain, the lamb, to cover of darkness
(18:23):
to get to him. He said, there's no such thing
as working a turkey. People talked about working a turkey
for two hours. He said that should never happen. If
they're right on that turkey, they're having killed in ten minutes.
One cluck, two clucks. That's not put the call up.
And he showed me some moves pretty slick. He's a
(18:46):
good guy, but he didn't pay a lot of attention
to season. When a turkey gobbled. He went. We were
one day in there behind his place and two turkeys.
He give me to easy. He wasn't. He took the
hard one further and we met back. We had two turkeys,
(19:11):
he said. We was walking back to the jeep and
one gobbled off in fe a little rough candy that injurors,
give me out turkey, I'm going gee. So I went
off down there. Nothing, couldn't do nothing with him. Watered
him around a couple of hours, come back, went to
the g well. He said, we've been caught. We may
(19:35):
we've been called well, he said, I've been called game
boardeners there when I got here, got a ticket. You
got two tickets. So that's the first time we'd ever
been in any problem, and we on it all time.
Poor ze.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
What did he tell the game boarding that you were
down there?
Speaker 1 (19:54):
No, he wasn't. Never told that. He said, I heard.
I hurried up and took the ticket because I know
you was going shoot any minute.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
This is where the story starts to get complicated. It
was back in the mid seventies. It would be the
start of about thirty years of illegal turkey hunting for Johnny.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
My dad used to get on to me a low
or hunting too much.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Really so your dad, Oh yeah, I knew that you
were illegally hunting.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Oh yeah, he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
What would he say to you?
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I'd call him and asked for a ride somewhere, let
me out and picked me up at a certain time.
He knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
What would he say? Do you remember anything specific? Like
he was like, Johnny, this is bad. You're gonna get
in trouble.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You no better than now.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
But he still helped you.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, he would. He didn't like it, but he would.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah. Did he ever hide guns in the woods?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Oh? Man, Yeah, I had a couple of logs up here.
I'd put him in and I had a no shotgun.
I'd very proud of I put it in there in
the wood. Rats he just stopped cheot it all up.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So it's just like in a couple of days.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, they just eat on it
and eat on it. So I'd get me a big
PVC and pipe put it in camp. And another time
or two I got a chuckle control burns. They cause
you some pugalty. I had a gun back over here
and stay in here in the camper. And I came
(21:25):
in that day and took a nap and I got up.
You couldn't see for the smoke. I thought, crap, I've
got a Browning shot gun and a log right in
that far, so I'll get it on my four wheeler
and i'll take off up very well. I'll come around
and then just people ever were bulldoders and fire lighters,
(21:46):
and I was trying to get around, and I was
trying to stop.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Didn't burn your guy up.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Now, I got through them and got through it. Boy,
it's pretty smoky and it's getting pretty cloth. Yeah. Another time,
a funny little deal. I got a chuffle out, hit
a turkey and a gun up here on a dead
end road, and I went back up there again. It later,
(22:13):
everything good, everything okay, And there was a bulldozer and
a lot boy sitting there not ten foot from my
turkey in that gun. Well, but he run over that
gun when he unloaded that older but he didn't he
minced it about that for yeah, and they were doing
something and we knuck around about the gun turkey and
(22:35):
got out of there.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
This is some pretty serious outlawn. Illegal turkey hunters often
hid guns in the woods where they knew turkeys were close,
so they could drive to and from the spot without
a gun in the truck, making it almost impossible for
game wardens to pin them down. It might seem unusual
for us to be talking about this so openly, but
(22:58):
the reason he's so comfortable is that today Johnny doesn't
have anything to hide, because when he hit the bottom
fifteen years, three hundred and nineteen days ago, everything was
laid bare. That story is coming. I'd rather someone tell
it to me like it happened than try to sugarcoat it.
(23:18):
I think we need to fill in the gaps in
Johnny's history, though, I'm interested in his upbringing.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I was born in Haveneror in Oklahoma, ordinary people. My
dad worked for the railroad. All my family worked for
the railroad. I grew up just a normal boy, playing sports,
and my dad quail hunted John I just went crazy
about it. I love it. That's what I do, that's
my lie. And I played sports and rodeo. Was raised
(23:50):
on a horse, rode a horse to a ball practice,
and rode a horse everywhere I went swimming and over time,
and the hunting part of it that I just kind
of figured it out on my own. My dad, dear
honted a little bit and he'd take me and he
gave me a thirty thirty and I just started there
hunt and just talking to people and learning how to
(24:15):
hunt and doing it and learning from my mistake. That's
a big thing we can learn in our lives by
our mistakes. I disliked life. I was raised in church,
and I don't know where I went wrong, but I
liked the world better. I did think the hard way,
and I made a lot of bad choices. But I'm
(24:40):
not that way anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I'm not that way anymore. He said. That's actually what
all the people that told me about Johnny said. That's
really why I'm here. I want to learn more about
Johnny's life.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
One time, my mom made me go of college. When
I got out of school, I said, no, I don't
want to go, but yeah, you're going. I had a
hard time getting along. I'd be late for class, drinking
with a big part of my lot. And they suggested
that I take a samaistra off and kind of find
myself well in the process. I was going to college
(25:22):
at Talaquaw, fell in with a band of hippies and
I stayed on the Illinois's River Bridge and the freedo
van for Samarster and I got quite an education. And
when I left there, I went to work on a
railroad and for the summer. Then I was gonna go
back to school straighten up, and I never happened. I
(25:44):
stayed with the railroad and retired there.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Johnny started working for the railroad in nineteen seventy and
was a train engineer for decades, but the spring of
nineteen seventy five was the first time that he ever
turkey hunted. This is when it all started.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
It was around seventy five, started having a turkey on
and I didn't know anyone that had ever a turkey on.
I didn't even know what a turkey call was. I
knew two older men and my dad told me that
they had killed turkeys, they had hunted them. So I
went and talked to them and they showed me a
few moves on a turkey call. And that April we
(26:25):
had a caesar and I got a call off mister
Phillips and went up on the hill. We had a
cabin and I'd seen some turkeys there deer hunt, and
I went up on the hill and laid my gun
up against a tree and whacked a box and a
turkey gobble and shot me. And I looked and it
running right at me, and I dropped my call and
(26:45):
shot the turkey and they run off. I was the
first encounter I d had with a wild turkey, and
I was hooked right to them.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Did you get the turkey or to get away from them?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Oh? We got away, but I was walking around the
way he went looking for him, and I heard another
one goble and I called to him and he came,
and I've shot him and got him. So I'm a
turkey killer now and I've hunted them ever since, justlike
they've done something to my mama. I've had the opportunity.
(27:19):
I hung with doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. One of my
favorite people was the chief of the Cherokee Nation. He's
a good god. My mom was part Indian. I'm a
quarter but I like Indians. I've got a good spirit,
a good feel for the wood, water and the wind.
(27:40):
They like all that stuff. I may be part of
why I'm drawn to it. I don't know. I like them.
I respect turkeys. I got more respect for a turkey
gobbler than a lot of people. I'll promise you.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
A statement like this, coming from a confessed lawbreaker, could
certainly ruffle your feathers. But I think what he's really
saying is that turkey hunting meant so much to him
that he was willing to risk it all to hunt them.
But the functionalization of that passion was awry. There are
some things in life that seem to be built for temptation,
(28:17):
uniquely appealing but forbidden. In a goblin Turkey before season
has been the downfall of many a man. I've never
known a woman to be a turkey outlaw, and if
you've listened to me enough, you know that I pray
that this story in no way glorifies breaking the law,
and I don't think Johnny wants it to either. But
(28:39):
like in most things that deal with human nature, they
are nuanced, interesting, if examined in detail, and insightful. If
you're willing to listen to people talk who have a
different life experience than you, There are so many tidbits
of interest in Johnny's story. It's like being confused on
a covey rise by how many he targets are in
(29:01):
front of you. The thing that stands out most to
me is Johnny's honesty about a dishonest past. He's not
blaming anyone for his decisions, and he's not seeking attention
or any kind of glory at all. I pride his
arm to get him to talk to me. And I'm
the one that came to him. And if something goes awry,
(29:23):
and the fact that this story was released, it's Clay
Nukeom that's to blame, not Johnny. Johnny remembered a story
from the nineteen eighties that he thinks I need to hear.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
I probably need to tell you that story, don't. I
had a cabin on Poto Mount and leap it's a
mail roof, and I got up there with a hammer
and every time I was beating that rich cap down,
trying to get a nail in it to pull that
rich cap down. Every time i'd hit that maidle of
Turkey ago. This was a couple of weeks before season.
(30:00):
I was gonna hunt there of that seat. But every
time I'd hit that, she dire bowl off man. Well
rain that night, big rain, bad ruin man. There won't
be nobody overwhere, So I just drove around. I know
close to where he was from my cabin, but I
(30:20):
could get up there that get wet and walk down
that road and I'd be right on it. And I
yep to him and he go all right back. When
he come there were three ol' Oh boy, I don't
need three. I believe I'm gonna get one. And it's
a good deal. I did a lot of calling just
(30:40):
seeing what I could get by with. I don't close
enough kill I cut, squawked and cackle. Yeah the boy.
They was putting the show on. So I shot one,
got it, went back to my truck, discharged to set
it over in the back of the truck, and my
game more than friend. Randy Fennel cut up behind my truck.
He was in a rushball right there behind my truck.
(31:02):
Got you, boy, you sure do? I couldn't lie had
run so I said, you ain't not a bad day yourself?
Did you hear all that? Randy? Oh? Yeah, I heard
it all. That's good as a gift. It's just too early.
I'm gonna have to take it. You for well. I
don't blame me. You ain't not a bad day. Here's
your gun, here's your truck, here's your turkey. What else
(31:23):
you need? Well? He said, I hate to see you
taking that hard. I'm job security for you. Do you
hear all that goblin this morning? I ain't going nowhere.
You making it that? Yes, I said, you can make
a name for yourself right there. I ain't going nowhere.
I'm gonna take your gun. I said, well, you can
catch me a couple more times before I'm getting nervous,
(31:45):
and I said, get in. It's started rain again. He
had soaking wet. He had sat in the rain, probably
biggest part of the morning in the dark, because he
didn't come in there out of senior truck. But I say,
get in. I'll take you to your truck. After all this,
you will give me a ride. Well, I'm a good guy.
If you knew me, you'd like me. I ain't a
bad guy. You make a name for yourself right there.
(32:08):
I hope they promote you and move you to Oklahoma City.
Get you out of the wood. I hauled him right
to his strug. We still talk now.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, when you describe how calm you were today forty
years later, as you tell that story, you're like super calm,
And I think a lot of times we kind of
rewrite stuff in our head. Were you that calm? For real?
When that guy you didn't care.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
No, he'd tell you the same thing. If we were
here today, he'd tell you the same thing.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Okay, So there's these rock climbers, these these free climbers
that climb these big granite faces out and out west,
and they talk about how those guys are superhuman when
it comes to dealing with anxiety, and they're just able
to climb on these rocks where me or you, a
normal guy, I would be scared to death. Their brain
(33:02):
doesn't equate the consequence of falling like a normal person.
I still don't understand why you wouldn't be afraid, because
it's not like you're rich and could just pay tickets.
No big deal. They're going to take your truck, they're
gonna take your gun, just for what you had going
on in your life. And at that time too, I
guess you were were you an alcoholic at that time?
(33:23):
So I mean there was a lot of I guess
of rough stuff going on much.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So it's just it's just like turkey O eaton was
not something you were worried about.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
When I loaded them in the truck, I had a
thought that nervoushed me just a little bit. Right between
me and m laying on a seat with a bag
of dope and a deer horn pipe, and I very
casually screwted a glove over it. Now, that unnerved me
(33:53):
a little bit, But as far as killing a turkey
a few days early, now, I didn't bother them at all. Yeah,
getting caught in I don't know. Maybe I'll just look
at it different.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
We're starting to see that his problems with the law
were bigger than just turkeys. He could have left out
that little detail, but he didn't, and I appreciate that.
What's ironic is that today marijuana is legal in most places,
but at the time Johnny might have gone to jail
for it. But I'd like to examine his statement about
looking at wildlife laws different. That could sound like the
(34:29):
typical excuse, But Johnny brings up an interesting point that,
if not addressed, could assault the intellectual integrity of our discussion,
which I am greatly enjoying. My point is nuanced, and
it has to do with how different generations view life
(34:52):
laws and ethics. By my observation, some people, emphasis on
some in rural America that were adults by the nineteen sixties,
viewed game laws as mere suggestions and it was even
validated by the legal system of the time, as they
simply ticketed people with relatively minimal consequences, making the crime
(35:17):
feel not that much different than a speeding ticket. I'm
not suggesting that it was ever right to break the law.
The Bible says that men should obey the laws of men,
and by doing so, they're ultimately obeying God, and that
book was written long before nineteen sixty. But people raised
later in the progression of American conservation were more likely
(35:39):
to respect and obey wildlife laws. By the nineteen nineties,
average hunters were becoming indoctrinated with functional ideas about conservation,
and it became much more mainstream to obey the law,
to the point that outlawing has fallen more and more
out of style. At least this is what I have
witnessed with my own eyes. But you'll have to listen
(36:02):
to this and tell me what you think.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
What about today, though, Johnny, Because because what I've what
I've heard from people, and I feel like what I've
heard from you is that you don't break the law
anymore on purpose?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
No, why not. I'm just a better person than I
used to be. I used to just didn't care. I
care now I don't go before season that.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
What about now, probably with more knowledge of conservation, if
everybody killed twenty turkeys a year, that would.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
For sure be bad, it'd be wrong.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
What about from that angle, from just a conservation angle.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Now, the way our turkeys are number numbers are down,
they don't need to be over on at Luckdade.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
But so part of your deal was back in the
day we had so many there were so few turkey
hunters that you just couldn't figure out why it was wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Right, didn't see that much wrong, isn't it. When I
first started hunting over here meant seventies, I'd come over
here for two weeks and never see a turkey under hunt.
This whole country, all of it, never even see a hunter.
Nobody hunting overhere. Andy's probably full of turkeys any anywhere
(37:18):
you stop, my no difference. Anywhere you stop, you if
you're a turkey go.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
And so you're sitting here saying the game and Fish
tells me I can kill two turkeys. I mean, you're
you're gonna kill more than that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Probably it's a different time.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
It was a different time, he said. And I want
to point out that He's literally describing a former time.
Penalties were different, Turkey populations were higher, Turkey hunter numbers
were way lower, and it was more common for his
generation and their mentors to take wildlife laws less. Seriously,
all this stuff makes me grateful for the generations of
(37:56):
American game wardens that have been the interface of the
law in our society as it gradually has shifted from
the market hunting mentalities of the eighteen hundreds to the
hyper informed conservation mind frames of the average modern hunter.
We've still got problems today, but things are getting better.
(38:17):
I'm still, though, trying to figure out Johnny's motivation. I've
got a question for him, and I'm going to bring
up two familiar names from Bear Greece's past that we
did on a series called Genuine Outlaws, which started on
episode fifty two. We did this series on Louidale and
(38:37):
Charlie Edwards. It was real clear that they enjoyed getting
away from game ordens and that was a part of
the fun that they had and it felt like and
kind of what the people around them. And I never
interviewed Louidlle and Charlie because they were they had passed
away by the time I did this, it was clear
that they that was part of the reason that they
(38:59):
want wanted to kill stuff illegally. It was just kind
of the thrill of getting away with it.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah was that?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Do you think that was a part of what you did? Not?
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Really, I just liked it. I just liked hunting turkeys
and the time to hunt thems when they're double is
just that simple. Yeah, that's simple. But no, not not
just trying to get away with it. It just I
don't know. I just did it. Uh, you know. I
didn't bait them or hunt them in the summer and
shoot them over water, set around the water hole and
(39:29):
try to kill them. I didn't do that. If you
hunt a turkey with a turkey call and a shotgun,
you're not gonna hurt the population, just shoe gobbler. That's
the way I looked at it. I'm not saying that's right,
and if everybody did that it would be bad. But
as far as being scared.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
No, Back in those days, though, a ticket might have
been just like one hundred and fifty dollars. Just go
pay your ticket, is that right?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah? I got call one time, I got caught. I
think two hundred and seventy dollars, and after Turkey season,
I made a deal with the DA that I could
pick up trash with the inmates from our prison here
at Hodgy to pay for the rest of it. And
that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
See you picked up trash.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
I paid him a little cash and picked up trash
with them in money. Boy, they made me a lot
of deals, but I couldn't take any of them either.
I said, I'll be in here full time with you
all right now. Got a couple of months here picking
up trash. But that's worth killing the turkey. You can't
put a price on killing the turkey.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Really, that's the way you would well look at it.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
But as much as I've done it, I've been chased around.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
But do you think they were after you?
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Oh? Yeah, yeah No.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Do you think they ever worked you undercover?
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I think, what are.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
You pointing out there?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Old bricks? Uh huh. I had a couple of gentlemen
show up here, wanted to do that, do this brick work? Yeah?
I said, well, yeah, it'd be a good idea and
needed one, but don't have it. I said, well, well
we're gonna build you one. I didn't think nothing about it,
and they start calling my house. I didn't have a
phone here. They started calling my house looking for me,
(41:16):
and they showed back up and find me in town,
and I found that strange. They got nearly through and
he said, you don't know what to think about us,
do you? I said, well, no, at really, but I
thank you. Probably worked for the Waldlife Department, maybe undercover
trying to catch me. They'd asked me all kinds of
(41:38):
turkey stuff and deer stuff and how men were they
hunters claimed to be. I don't know. I wasn't going
to go wanting one, but they just keep coming back,
coming back, coming back, and I finally he said, you
don't know what to think about us, do you? I said, well,
I think you're undercover, probably trying to catch me in
some kind of violations. And they loaded their stuff up
(42:00):
them left, and I hadn't seen them.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Since you're pretty certain they were undercover guys.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, sometimes if you listen, you can hear stuff. If
you've got your ears open and your eyes open, you
might get a tip from somebody that And I was
kind of on the look.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
You were just suspicious of these guys. Yeah, yeah, So
did you get a tip from somebody else. Yeah, how
does that make you feel? I mean, at the time,
did that that didn't scare you?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
No, it made me feel good that that man thought
enough of me to save me a problem. Oh well,
I wasn't a bit afraid of them. Now, game ardens
are just people. I'm not afraid of them. People say
them coming A lot of times. I've been hunting with
people and game warding drive up and they just go
all to pieces. They we ain't done nothing wrong. The
(42:49):
man ain't gonna bother Ruugh.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Johnny's transparency today is notable. We're going to learn the
nitty gritty of why he changed. But first here's a
lighter story about an interaction with a game warden that
happened during a legal hunting season, and then after this
we're gonna get real serious.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
There was an old gentleman we know was calling to
a turkey, so we just laid in the ditch. We
didn't them want to mess him up. We just laying there. Listen,
he'd whacked the turkey of gob We wasn't coming. We'd
played with him quite a bit. He was not a player.
He had gobbled over his fun and I said, look
coming up a road there and there come a game
(43:36):
order sneaking up a road. Now we're laying our full
caval fog right in the ditch. And he got right
even with me, and I said, get somewhere and say
down here. The wild turkeys were hunting here. We can't
kill him. You walking up down the road here, what's
better to you? And it haddled him, kind of blowed
him up or something. He went for a gun, but
(43:59):
it last day. Boy, you don't need no gun. Now
we're just haven't. Another man called this turkey said down
here with if you won't hunt with us, you need
to get here early and work from camifalauge. If you
ain't got a shot gun, all out you want.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
And now is this before season?
Speaker 1 (44:14):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
This is during legal season.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, but yeah, we've had from wardens here.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Johnny has painted a clear picture of his days of outlawing.
But the one thing that those half a dozen people
did tell me one by one before I met Johnny
is that he is different today. He's changed, they said.
Even the game wardens suggested this. Throughout this story, you've
(44:46):
heard that Johnny used to be an alcoholic. And from
one story we learned that he used some drugs. I
wanted to know how that started and why he changed,
so I asked him.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Well, I just made some bad choices hanging out with
the wrong people, and I'd been around whild caf whiskey
and home brew, and I just didn't handle it very well.
And then I got over here. After I got my cabin,
(45:22):
there was a preacher that coon hunted a lord. He
would stop by the seaman. I was usually too drunk
to talk to him, but I know he was here.
I was raised in church, trained up in church, like
the boat books sell, but I just let the world
get the best of me. But when that preacher started
(45:43):
coming here, it kind of got me to thinking. And
I woke up one morning up the creek here. I'd
been on a pretty bad drunk and when I woke
up that particular morning, I didn't know where I was,
how I got there. I didn't know any of them.
People didn't know where my truck was. I finally found
(46:07):
someone I know and got them to take me to
my truck. In fact, i'd been gone about six months.
I come over there hunt and it was after Turkey's
evening and I still hadn't been on so I lost
about everything, my wife, my family, my friends, my place,
cattle tractors, but I didn't care. And I woke up
(46:31):
one morning up here and I thought, you're in a
bad way, and the only hope for you of Jesus.
And by that preacher coming here, I think that kind
of rekindled the spirit that had been instilled in me
as a kid. And I decided I needed to get
(46:51):
right with the Lord and get my life right and
try to get my family back. And so I stopped
on top of Horseshoe Mountain one morning, just getting daylight,
and I asked the Lord to help me. I'm in
a bind, save me, take this addiction from me, give
(47:15):
me my life back. And I drove on to the
cabin and I went out here by this fire pit,
and the sun was coming up then, and I saw
a transformation in the east with that sun shining through
the clouds like I had never seen before. Had to
(47:36):
be a sign from God, a glimpse of heaven, maybe
orange purple, blue cloud raised a light shining through them.
Pretty amazing, And my life was changed after to that
fire pit. Believe it or not, it was easier than
(47:59):
you think. When you get Jesus involved in it. He
took when I gave my life to him, he took
that addiction from me. Been fifteen years, three hundred and
nineteen days, and I'll serve it. I believe, and he
took that from me. Yeah, I'd been locked up, dried
(48:20):
out in jail for public drunk, all kind of stuff.
But when I got Jesus in my life through the
Holy Spirit, he took that addiction from I quit smoking,
I quit drinking, I quit everything right there to a
fire pit. It took a few months, but I had
(48:42):
some time. I waited. I got my life back, I
got my wife's back, my family back. Lord bless me
with a good cabin, a new house. And I went
from being an alcoholic with a drug addiction to a
deacon and an order to minister. And some people get
(49:05):
saved at an early age. I got to preach. Your
friend told me he was saved when he was nine
years old, never broke any laws. I said, what you
get saved from? Yeah, I've done it all. What I
hadn't done all, this, hadn't never thought over, didn't want
to try it. I've done it all, and that ain't
(49:28):
no secret. But I'm not that way anymore. Jesus has
given me a whole new life, the whole new heart,
and the whole new mind. Today I've got my wife back,
my family bad, Yeah, bout everybody equipment, Yeah, Jesus fixed
all that. Better than that over be. I still like
(49:52):
a hunt. He goes with me. He likes mountains.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
It's it's clear that Johnny has been through the ringer,
but it sounds like he's got things figured out now.
There's more to people than the worst days of their past,
and there's more for you than the worst days of
your past. The confessions of this former outlaw is really
a story of redemption. Thank you, Johnny for sharing the
(50:24):
nitty gritty of your story. I can't thank you enough
for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast.
Please share this podcast with someone that you know that
might be struggling, or somebody that just enjoys a genuine story.
(50:44):
Thank you all so much. Keep the wild places wild,
because that's where the bears live.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
A lot of train whistled right under the whistle. I've
lost quite a bit of my hearing.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I used to get here good and of course good,
but now I have to have someone go with me
because my son in law said, if you hear a
Turkey John it, don't go to it. Said, down's dark calling.
You're already too close.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
If you can hear it, you're already hear gobble.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
You're already too close.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
That's funny at hup
I had it explained to me one time by a
judge in court. Not hunting seemed like I had killed
a turkey during the wrong dates and times. He said,
why did you do that? I said, well, where I'm from,
when your tomatoes get right, you pick them. When your
potatoes get right, you dig them. When your turkeys are right,
(00:29):
you go get you on. Yeah. But he said, that's
not the way we do it. You have laws at
govern when you kill them and when you can. But
he explained that to me.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I traveled a couple of hours south and slightly west
from my home on Wednesday, March twenty sixth, twenty twenty five,
to meet with a man who I was told might
be the most interesting man in Lafleur County, Oklahoma. I
hardly knew anything about him, in all though I talked
to people for a living. While I was in my truck,
(01:04):
and when I got within about two miles of his cabin,
I started to get nervous. He was described to me
as a kind man, loved by those who know him,
but with a checkered past and an uncanny expertise in
wild turkeys. Why he'd agreed to talk with me, I
wasn't sure, and I began to doubt why I had
(01:24):
agreed to come. This is real rural America, not the
curated version that I sometimes like to talk about. This
one has addiction, illegal hunting, and broken relationships. But I
had no idea I'd be impacted so much. This is
an unusual Bear Grease, dark at times, funny at others,
(01:49):
but I was surprised at the arc of redemption. You'll
have to forgive me because I'm still sorting out the details,
but I'd like to share with you the confession of
this former outlaw. I really doubt that you're going to
want to miss this one. My name is Clay Nukem,
(02:15):
and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore
things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,
and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live
their lives close to the land. Presented by f HF Gear,
American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed
(02:38):
to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I had a friend, and people that hunt know When
Ben Rogers Lee Ben Lee world Champion caller hunter good
friend being got killed in a vehicle accident, he was
at my turkey camp. We hunted the first part of Caeson,
and he tried to give me to quit and go
with him to Alabama. He said, you like this game,
(03:13):
You're good at it. I see it in you. I
see potential in you. You need to quit what you're
doing and go with me, and I ah make you
famous and me rich. And I said, no, I can't quit. Well,
O God, I've got a good job, good family, got cattle.
I can't do that.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
This is the voice of Johnny Johnston. You've probably never
heard of him, but I doubt that you'll forget him.
On the walk from the truck to the door of
his cabin, I estimated there to be no less than
twelve well taken care of hunting dogs scattered within sight, beagles,
running walkers, and bird dogs. To Johnny, being called a
(03:53):
hillbilly is a term of endearment, and he identifies as one.
And by his definition, the highest drinking qualification has nothing
to do with hounds or overalls. But it's not being superficial.
This story is about Johnny's life and we'll learn some
foundational stuff that started on this hunt with Ben Lee.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So he left, I stayed continued to Hunt. Hunt was
over into seasion. I was going to go out west
in Turkey Hunt and I had a gun and some
stuff at Octavia friend of mine's house, and I was
supposed to have been there that got my stuff, and
I never showed up, so we came looking for me
(04:38):
and found me. I had flipped my gep over, broke
my neck, broke my back, cut my left ear off,
crushed the foot bunge of rib. Critical condition. Well. They
loaded me in the back of a Bronco and took
me to the hospital, and my wife was there pretty upset.
(05:00):
I don't remember any of it. There was from drinking involved.
There is something to that drinking and drive. Because since
I've quit drinking fifteen years straight n or nineteen days ago,
I had a night of rouge.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
When people know to the day how long they've been sober,
the days prior to that were probably tough. Johnny is
from the small town of heaven Or, Oklahoma. He was
born in nineteen forty nine. He's seventy five years old.
He's been married to the same woman for fifty five years.
He's of average height. He has a wiry build with
(05:37):
dark eyes that squint tight when he smiles. We're inside
of his small white cabin with interior walls of rough
san oak turkey beards hanging wads from deer antlers like
clusters of grapes. Every single beard has a tag attached
to it. There's no cell service here, but he doesn't
on a cell phone or a computer. He never had.
(06:01):
Let's get back to the hospital. This wreck sounds really bad.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
But I was telling her they would fix me the
best they could right then, and they could later come
back and fix my ear. And I said, oh, I
forgot to tell you. My ear is in the right
front pocket of my Camelflaud.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
You told him that.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I told the doctor that on the gurner going into surgery,
and he said, go look at his clothes and see
if you find an ear. And a nurse came running
down the hall and said, I've got an ear. And
so they took my ear, and he said, well, we'll
do the best we can. And I raared up again
(06:43):
and said he so I on backwards where I hear
them turkeys walking behind me.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
That story tips us off to two things, how central
wild turkeys have been in his life, and that he
is a character. This whole story is about Johnny's life,
some of it very personal, but I'm interested in his
relationship with the law as it relates to wild turkeys.
People's relationship to the law is helpful in understanding our society,
(07:16):
not the one we think we have, but the one
we actually do have. Johnny is a rare find, willing
to be vulnerable. When a stranger showed up me and
asked about some of the darkest times of his life,
I think we should start off with that. Credit to
his ledger. In the last three years, no less than
half a dozen people have emphatically told me that I
(07:37):
needed to come here to Johnny's, including a game warden,
but nobody could really articulate why. There's a lot I
don't know about Johnny. So I'm going to begin with
a question about his friendship to a particularly famous turkey hunter.
You may have heard of him. Tell me about your
relationship with Ben Lee.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He's a super nice guy, big man walking this hooting,
this yap and this human I oversaw. He went from
daylight to the door, charged him turkey. He knew turkey,
he knew how to hunt. He had a call company
made call He was just a good, good fellow. I
(08:21):
liked you. He just had away with people.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Now, how did you meet him?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Through a friend of mine hunting down there and I
told him where they could find some turkeys, and they
went there and hunted, and he said, I want to
meet this guy told us about this spot where the
turkey dore and I tell many. He invited me up
there to talk, and we just went hunting and killed
a turkey and hit it off. He'd come down and
camped with me ever spring after that.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
This story isn't about Ben Rogers Lee, but his connection
to Johnny is beyond interesting. Ben was from Jackson, Alabama,
and has been referred to as the father of modern
turkey hunting. He started his call company, ben Lee Calls
in nineteen seventy and made a flurry of instructional tapes, videos, seminars,
(09:09):
and won five turkey calling World Championships. He was a
Southern style storyteller and was one of the great communicators
of American turkey hunting. Here's a clip of Ben Lee.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Sitting out there any woods. She's laid a few eggs,
you know. He gets up there in the morning at
four o'clock, you know, and old Ale, well he'll out
wakes him up here. Boy, he just had his law.
I mean, he just ready for ever thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So instructional tapes. We're a big then. Turkey hunting was
just getting going. Mouth called, we're just coming out. My
old turkey hunting friend, one that I hunted with, used
a gold horn and a piece of slate. Now, I excided,
could you get on a gold horn? They clucked a
couple of time i's and three soft yeps and put
(10:02):
it down, And that was completely reverse way being legal. Honey.
He never shut up. He walked calling turkey gobbled. He
didn't die in a brush ball. He'd start to at turkey,
calling and walking to it, and he'd get right on
them and put some turkey stuff to him. Well, he
(10:22):
told me one time, he said, you like this game,
but you got to keep in mind, if you hunt
these turkeys like they need to be hunting, you won't
have no friends, your family be mad at you, you'll
probably lose your job. He went on and on about
all bad things that can happen to you. I said, well,
(10:43):
it can't be that bad. He said, I'm talking about
if you really hunt turkey. Now there's people that turkey
hunt and there's people that really hunt them.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I get the feeding Johnny is one of those turkey
hunters that really hunts them, and that these hanging tagged
beards aren't the only turkeys. This man is killed. His
friendship with Ben Lee is going to lead us right
into something critical. Did you know him personally very well? Like, like,
was he married? Did he have a family?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
He had been married thirteen times?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Are you serious?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I'm serious, That's what he told me. I didn't know
all his wives. I knew Servello. But he said, if
you really hunt him, turkey's right. That's when he said
about the family and your job and all that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
He was speaking from experience, from experience, y'all? Was he was?
He kind of an outlaw?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Sort of would you say? Was? I hate the category people?
But yeah, he's kind of like myself.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Interesting, he was kind of like myself, he said, an outlaw.
I'd heard this about Johnny and Ben, but I didn't
know for sure about Johnny. I kind of put him
on the spot, and he it's hesitant to categorize his
old friend in this way. But Johnny kind of tells
stuff the way it is. But again, this story isn't
(12:08):
about Ben Lee, who passed away in a car accident
in nineteen ninety one at the age of forty six.
The story is about Johnny Johnston, and as you may know,
I have a lot of respect for people willing to
be honest about their past. I've often found people like
Johnny to be more honest than people with less visible
(12:29):
issues lurking in their past. And I know that people
like Johnny are usually cut from a different cloth. In
this next question, I cut right to the chase, and
you'll hear the nervousness in my voice was with you.
Did you did you ever have any Did the law
(12:54):
ever mean anything to you? No? Why wouldn't it because
most people it does.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
The law itself? Or you mean a turkey law, Yeah, yeah,
when turkey's gobbled the hunting them.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
You just weren't afraid of getting in trouble.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, never crossed my mind. I had it explained to
me one time by a judge in court, not hunting.
It seems like I had killed a turkey during the
wrong dates and times. He said, why did you do that?
I said, Well, where I'm from, when your tomatoes get right,
(13:31):
you pick them. When your potatoes get right, you dig them.
When your turkeys are right, you go get you on. Yeah,
but he said that's not the way we do it.
You have laws that govern when you kill them and
when you can. He explained that to.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Me, Americans are intrigued by people willing to break the
law period. If you need convincing, just look at the
top movies, podcasts, and books we read. Heck, look at
the top Bear Grease podcast. But I'm still trying to
understand why. I think examinations of extremes help calibrate society
(14:13):
in some tribal, primitive way, almost like we get the
signal for normal by bouncing off the outliers. But there's
no debate about it. What's ironic is that we are
a society of rule followers. If our civilization gets smashed
by a comet and archaeologists dig it up and start
making conclusions about us, they'll find that this country was
(14:36):
built on law and order. The vast majority of people
who come to a stop sign in the middle of
the night, even though they know that no one is watching,
they're gonna stop, I mean at least a rolling stop,
And in many places of the world they wouldn't at all,
even when they know people are watching. Americans are rule followers,
(14:58):
despite the independent liber the aholic, brash exterior. But the
outliers are worth examination, and Johnny was an outlier when
it came to wildlife law. We need to know more
about his past. Now, let me this is kind of
(15:19):
a personal question. But would your parents have raised you
to just obey the law?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, just like in general. Yeah, you would have known
nobody can't steal or you can't.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
O My folks were by the book all the way.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, how did how did you get from that to
being willing to break the law?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I don't know, just getting in the world and not
really caring, just doing pretty much what I wanted to do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Now, did you ever really get in trouble? Did you
ever get caught, like killing a legal turkey?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah? I just didn't ever give it a whole lot
of thaw when turkeys are goblin. I just went on.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Always like this can make people feel uncomfortable, especially people
that love wildlife and conservation and talk about it a lot.
But this is part of the rural America that I
grew up around. Turkey laws were often seen as mere suggestions.
This next story is about the man who taught Johnny
(16:20):
to turkey hunt, and the first time they got caught.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I can't talk about turkeys with talking about my old friend,
the man that taught me out of turkey hunt superman. Yeah,
we've been caught. He lived at Tallahaney, Oklahoma, and I'm
calling his name. He's dead and gone now and he's
respected by every turkey hunter or that part of the world.
Way ain't caught turkey killing. This man I've ever met,
(16:48):
have ever known. And I knew that he hunted a
law back when I started. I didn't even know him.
I went he was horsemen, had a good race horse,
stood a race sore stallion, and now I was kind
of a horseman back in the day, and that's how
I knew him. But I looked him up and got
acquainted with him, and I said, here's what I want.
(17:11):
I want you to teach me how to turkey hunt.
No old board, I want to know it all. Well,
he said, next spring, you'll just have to come over here,
we'll go. I said, when when he said, oh, first
of March, had a good time.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
If you're a turkey hunter, you'll know that ninety eight
percent of American turkey seasons don't open in the first
of March. This was an invite to get an illegal
early start.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Okay, so first of March I went to day with
it and we hunted and he what lettle I know
about a turkey? That old gentleman taught me he was
slicking a snottled the door knob. Now he used a wingbone,
(17:59):
or a piece of can or a briar leaf or
a peach leaf later on in the year, or a
sleigh called very little, very light. You could be sitting
next to him and barely hear him call. But he
didn't call to a turkey unless he was seventy yards close.
He used the terrain, the lamb, to cover of darkness
(18:23):
to get to him. He said, there's no such thing
as working a turkey. People talked about working a turkey
for two hours. He said that should never happen. If
they're right on that turkey, they're having killed in ten minutes.
One cluck, two clucks. That's not put the call up.
And he showed me some moves pretty slick. He's a
(18:46):
good guy, but he didn't pay a lot of attention
to season. When a turkey gobbled. He went. We were
one day in there behind his place and two turkeys.
He give me to easy. He wasn't. He took the
hard one further and we met back. We had two turkeys,
(19:11):
he said. We was walking back to the jeep and
one gobbled off in fe a little rough candy that injurors,
give me out turkey, I'm going gee. So I went
off down there. Nothing, couldn't do nothing with him. Watered
him around a couple of hours, come back, went to
the g well. He said, we've been caught. We may
(19:35):
we've been called well, he said, I've been called game
boardeners there when I got here, got a ticket. You
got two tickets. So that's the first time we'd ever
been in any problem, and we on it all time.
Poor ze.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
What did he tell the game boarding that you were
down there?
Speaker 1 (19:54):
No, he wasn't. Never told that. He said, I heard.
I hurried up and took the ticket because I know
you was going shoot any minute.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
This is where the story starts to get complicated. It
was back in the mid seventies. It would be the
start of about thirty years of illegal turkey hunting for Johnny.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
My dad used to get on to me a low
or hunting too much.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Really so your dad, Oh yeah, I knew that you
were illegally hunting.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Oh yeah, he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
What would he say to you?
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I'd call him and asked for a ride somewhere, let
me out and picked me up at a certain time.
He knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
What would he say? Do you remember anything specific? Like
he was like, Johnny, this is bad. You're gonna get
in trouble.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You no better than now.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
But he still helped you.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, he would. He didn't like it, but he would.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah. Did he ever hide guns in the woods?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Oh? Man, Yeah, I had a couple of logs up here.
I'd put him in and I had a no shotgun.
I'd very proud of I put it in there in
the wood. Rats he just stopped cheot it all up.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So it's just like in a couple of days.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, they just eat on it
and eat on it. So I'd get me a big
PVC and pipe put it in camp. And another time
or two I got a chuckle control burns. They cause
you some pugalty. I had a gun back over here
and stay in here in the camper. And I came
(21:25):
in that day and took a nap and I got up.
You couldn't see for the smoke. I thought, crap, I've
got a Browning shot gun and a log right in
that far, so I'll get it on my four wheeler
and i'll take off up very well. I'll come around
and then just people ever were bulldoders and fire lighters,
(21:46):
and I was trying to get around, and I was
trying to stop.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Didn't burn your guy up.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Now, I got through them and got through it. Boy,
it's pretty smoky and it's getting pretty cloth. Yeah. Another time,
a funny little deal. I got a chuffle out, hit
a turkey and a gun up here on a dead
end road, and I went back up there again. It later,
(22:13):
everything good, everything okay, And there was a bulldozer and
a lot boy sitting there not ten foot from my
turkey in that gun. Well, but he run over that
gun when he unloaded that older but he didn't he
minced it about that for yeah, and they were doing
something and we knuck around about the gun turkey and
(22:35):
got out of there.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
This is some pretty serious outlawn. Illegal turkey hunters often
hid guns in the woods where they knew turkeys were close,
so they could drive to and from the spot without
a gun in the truck, making it almost impossible for
game wardens to pin them down. It might seem unusual
for us to be talking about this so openly, but
(22:58):
the reason he's so comfortable is that today Johnny doesn't
have anything to hide, because when he hit the bottom
fifteen years, three hundred and nineteen days ago, everything was
laid bare. That story is coming. I'd rather someone tell
it to me like it happened than try to sugarcoat it.
(23:18):
I think we need to fill in the gaps in
Johnny's history, though, I'm interested in his upbringing.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I was born in Haveneror in Oklahoma, ordinary people. My
dad worked for the railroad. All my family worked for
the railroad. I grew up just a normal boy, playing sports,
and my dad quail hunted John I just went crazy
about it. I love it. That's what I do, that's
my lie. And I played sports and rodeo. Was raised
(23:50):
on a horse, rode a horse to a ball practice,
and rode a horse everywhere I went swimming and over time,
and the hunting part of it that I just kind
of figured it out on my own. My dad, dear
honted a little bit and he'd take me and he
gave me a thirty thirty and I just started there
hunt and just talking to people and learning how to
(24:15):
hunt and doing it and learning from my mistake. That's
a big thing we can learn in our lives by
our mistakes. I disliked life. I was raised in church,
and I don't know where I went wrong, but I
liked the world better. I did think the hard way,
and I made a lot of bad choices. But I'm
(24:40):
not that way anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I'm not that way anymore. He said. That's actually what
all the people that told me about Johnny said. That's
really why I'm here. I want to learn more about
Johnny's life.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
One time, my mom made me go of college. When
I got out of school, I said, no, I don't
want to go, but yeah, you're going. I had a
hard time getting along. I'd be late for class, drinking
with a big part of my lot. And they suggested
that I take a samaistra off and kind of find
myself well in the process. I was going to college
(25:22):
at Talaquaw, fell in with a band of hippies and
I stayed on the Illinois's River Bridge and the freedo
van for Samarster and I got quite an education. And
when I left there, I went to work on a
railroad and for the summer. Then I was gonna go
back to school straighten up, and I never happened. I
(25:44):
stayed with the railroad and retired there.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Johnny started working for the railroad in nineteen seventy and
was a train engineer for decades, but the spring of
nineteen seventy five was the first time that he ever
turkey hunted. This is when it all started.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
It was around seventy five, started having a turkey on
and I didn't know anyone that had ever a turkey on.
I didn't even know what a turkey call was. I
knew two older men and my dad told me that
they had killed turkeys, they had hunted them. So I
went and talked to them and they showed me a
few moves on a turkey call. And that April we
(26:25):
had a caesar and I got a call off mister
Phillips and went up on the hill. We had a
cabin and I'd seen some turkeys there deer hunt, and
I went up on the hill and laid my gun
up against a tree and whacked a box and a
turkey gobble and shot me. And I looked and it
running right at me, and I dropped my call and
(26:45):
shot the turkey and they run off. I was the
first encounter I d had with a wild turkey, and
I was hooked right to them.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Did you get the turkey or to get away from them?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Oh? We got away, but I was walking around the
way he went looking for him, and I heard another
one goble and I called to him and he came,
and I've shot him and got him. So I'm a
turkey killer now and I've hunted them ever since, justlike
they've done something to my mama. I've had the opportunity.
(27:19):
I hung with doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. One of my
favorite people was the chief of the Cherokee Nation. He's
a good god. My mom was part Indian. I'm a
quarter but I like Indians. I've got a good spirit,
a good feel for the wood, water and the wind.
(27:40):
They like all that stuff. I may be part of
why I'm drawn to it. I don't know. I like them.
I respect turkeys. I got more respect for a turkey
gobbler than a lot of people. I'll promise you.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
A statement like this, coming from a confessed lawbreaker, could
certainly ruffle your feathers. But I think what he's really
saying is that turkey hunting meant so much to him
that he was willing to risk it all to hunt them.
But the functionalization of that passion was awry. There are
some things in life that seem to be built for temptation,
(28:17):
uniquely appealing but forbidden. In a goblin Turkey before season
has been the downfall of many a man. I've never
known a woman to be a turkey outlaw, and if
you've listened to me enough, you know that I pray
that this story in no way glorifies breaking the law,
and I don't think Johnny wants it to either. But
(28:39):
like in most things that deal with human nature, they
are nuanced, interesting, if examined in detail, and insightful. If
you're willing to listen to people talk who have a
different life experience than you, There are so many tidbits
of interest in Johnny's story. It's like being confused on
a covey rise by how many he targets are in
(29:01):
front of you. The thing that stands out most to
me is Johnny's honesty about a dishonest past. He's not
blaming anyone for his decisions, and he's not seeking attention
or any kind of glory at all. I pride his
arm to get him to talk to me. And I'm
the one that came to him. And if something goes awry,
(29:23):
and the fact that this story was released, it's Clay
Nukeom that's to blame, not Johnny. Johnny remembered a story
from the nineteen eighties that he thinks I need to hear.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
I probably need to tell you that story, don't. I
had a cabin on Poto Mount and leap it's a
mail roof, and I got up there with a hammer
and every time I was beating that rich cap down,
trying to get a nail in it to pull that
rich cap down. Every time i'd hit that maidle of
Turkey ago. This was a couple of weeks before season.
(30:00):
I was gonna hunt there of that seat. But every
time I'd hit that, she dire bowl off man. Well
rain that night, big rain, bad ruin man. There won't
be nobody overwhere, So I just drove around. I know
close to where he was from my cabin, but I
(30:20):
could get up there that get wet and walk down
that road and I'd be right on it. And I
yep to him and he go all right back. When
he come there were three ol' Oh boy, I don't
need three. I believe I'm gonna get one. And it's
a good deal. I did a lot of calling just
(30:40):
seeing what I could get by with. I don't close
enough kill I cut, squawked and cackle. Yeah the boy.
They was putting the show on. So I shot one,
got it, went back to my truck, discharged to set
it over in the back of the truck, and my
game more than friend. Randy Fennel cut up behind my truck.
He was in a rushball right there behind my truck.
(31:02):
Got you, boy, you sure do? I couldn't lie had
run so I said, you ain't not a bad day yourself?
Did you hear all that? Randy? Oh? Yeah, I heard
it all. That's good as a gift. It's just too early.
I'm gonna have to take it. You for well. I
don't blame me. You ain't not a bad day. Here's
your gun, here's your truck, here's your turkey. What else
(31:23):
you need? Well? He said, I hate to see you
taking that hard. I'm job security for you. Do you
hear all that goblin this morning? I ain't going nowhere.
You making it that? Yes, I said, you can make
a name for yourself right there. I ain't going nowhere.
I'm gonna take your gun. I said, well, you can
catch me a couple more times before I'm getting nervous,
(31:45):
and I said, get in. It's started rain again. He
had soaking wet. He had sat in the rain, probably
biggest part of the morning in the dark, because he
didn't come in there out of senior truck. But I say,
get in. I'll take you to your truck. After all this,
you will give me a ride. Well, I'm a good guy.
If you knew me, you'd like me. I ain't a
bad guy. You make a name for yourself right there.
(32:08):
I hope they promote you and move you to Oklahoma City.
Get you out of the wood. I hauled him right
to his strug. We still talk now.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, when you describe how calm you were today forty
years later, as you tell that story, you're like super calm,
And I think a lot of times we kind of
rewrite stuff in our head. Were you that calm? For real?
When that guy you didn't care.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
No, he'd tell you the same thing. If we were
here today, he'd tell you the same thing.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Okay, So there's these rock climbers, these these free climbers
that climb these big granite faces out and out west,
and they talk about how those guys are superhuman when
it comes to dealing with anxiety, and they're just able
to climb on these rocks where me or you, a
normal guy, I would be scared to death. Their brain
(33:02):
doesn't equate the consequence of falling like a normal person.
I still don't understand why you wouldn't be afraid, because
it's not like you're rich and could just pay tickets.
No big deal. They're going to take your truck, they're
gonna take your gun, just for what you had going
on in your life. And at that time too, I
guess you were were you an alcoholic at that time?
(33:23):
So I mean there was a lot of I guess
of rough stuff going on much.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So it's just it's just like turkey O eaton was
not something you were worried about.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
When I loaded them in the truck, I had a
thought that nervoushed me just a little bit. Right between
me and m laying on a seat with a bag
of dope and a deer horn pipe, and I very
casually screwted a glove over it. Now, that unnerved me
(33:53):
a little bit, But as far as killing a turkey
a few days early, now, I didn't bother them at all. Yeah,
getting caught in I don't know. Maybe I'll just look
at it different.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
We're starting to see that his problems with the law
were bigger than just turkeys. He could have left out
that little detail, but he didn't, and I appreciate that.
What's ironic is that today marijuana is legal in most places,
but at the time Johnny might have gone to jail
for it. But I'd like to examine his statement about
looking at wildlife laws different. That could sound like the
(34:29):
typical excuse, But Johnny brings up an interesting point that,
if not addressed, could assault the intellectual integrity of our discussion,
which I am greatly enjoying. My point is nuanced, and
it has to do with how different generations view life
(34:52):
laws and ethics. By my observation, some people, emphasis on
some in rural America that were adults by the nineteen sixties,
viewed game laws as mere suggestions and it was even
validated by the legal system of the time, as they
simply ticketed people with relatively minimal consequences, making the crime
(35:17):
feel not that much different than a speeding ticket. I'm
not suggesting that it was ever right to break the law.
The Bible says that men should obey the laws of men,
and by doing so, they're ultimately obeying God, and that
book was written long before nineteen sixty. But people raised
later in the progression of American conservation were more likely
(35:39):
to respect and obey wildlife laws. By the nineteen nineties,
average hunters were becoming indoctrinated with functional ideas about conservation,
and it became much more mainstream to obey the law,
to the point that outlawing has fallen more and more
out of style. At least this is what I have
witnessed with my own eyes. But you'll have to listen
(36:02):
to this and tell me what you think.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
What about today, though, Johnny, Because because what I've what
I've heard from people, and I feel like what I've
heard from you is that you don't break the law
anymore on purpose?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
No, why not. I'm just a better person than I
used to be. I used to just didn't care. I
care now I don't go before season that.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
What about now, probably with more knowledge of conservation, if
everybody killed twenty turkeys a year, that would.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
For sure be bad, it'd be wrong.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
What about from that angle, from just a conservation angle.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Now, the way our turkeys are number numbers are down,
they don't need to be over on at Luckdade.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
But so part of your deal was back in the
day we had so many there were so few turkey
hunters that you just couldn't figure out why it was wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Right, didn't see that much wrong, isn't it. When I
first started hunting over here meant seventies, I'd come over
here for two weeks and never see a turkey under hunt.
This whole country, all of it, never even see a hunter.
Nobody hunting overhere. Andy's probably full of turkeys any anywhere
(37:18):
you stop, my no difference. Anywhere you stop, you if
you're a turkey go.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
And so you're sitting here saying the game and Fish
tells me I can kill two turkeys. I mean, you're
you're gonna kill more than that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Probably it's a different time.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
It was a different time, he said. And I want
to point out that He's literally describing a former time.
Penalties were different, Turkey populations were higher, Turkey hunter numbers
were way lower, and it was more common for his
generation and their mentors to take wildlife laws less. Seriously,
all this stuff makes me grateful for the generations of
(37:56):
American game wardens that have been the interface of the
law in our society as it gradually has shifted from
the market hunting mentalities of the eighteen hundreds to the
hyper informed conservation mind frames of the average modern hunter.
We've still got problems today, but things are getting better.
(38:17):
I'm still, though, trying to figure out Johnny's motivation. I've
got a question for him, and I'm going to bring
up two familiar names from Bear Greece's past that we
did on a series called Genuine Outlaws, which started on
episode fifty two. We did this series on Louidale and
(38:37):
Charlie Edwards. It was real clear that they enjoyed getting
away from game ordens and that was a part of
the fun that they had and it felt like and
kind of what the people around them. And I never
interviewed Louidlle and Charlie because they were they had passed
away by the time I did this, it was clear
that they that was part of the reason that they
(38:59):
want wanted to kill stuff illegally. It was just kind
of the thrill of getting away with it.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah was that?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Do you think that was a part of what you did? Not?
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Really, I just liked it. I just liked hunting turkeys
and the time to hunt thems when they're double is
just that simple. Yeah, that's simple. But no, not not
just trying to get away with it. It just I
don't know. I just did it. Uh, you know. I
didn't bait them or hunt them in the summer and
shoot them over water, set around the water hole and
(39:29):
try to kill them. I didn't do that. If you
hunt a turkey with a turkey call and a shotgun,
you're not gonna hurt the population, just shoe gobbler. That's
the way I looked at it. I'm not saying that's right,
and if everybody did that it would be bad. But
as far as being scared.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
No, Back in those days, though, a ticket might have
been just like one hundred and fifty dollars. Just go
pay your ticket, is that right?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah? I got call one time, I got caught. I
think two hundred and seventy dollars, and after Turkey season,
I made a deal with the DA that I could
pick up trash with the inmates from our prison here
at Hodgy to pay for the rest of it. And
that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
See you picked up trash.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
I paid him a little cash and picked up trash
with them in money. Boy, they made me a lot
of deals, but I couldn't take any of them either.
I said, I'll be in here full time with you
all right now. Got a couple of months here picking
up trash. But that's worth killing the turkey. You can't
put a price on killing the turkey.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Really, that's the way you would well look at it.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
But as much as I've done it, I've been chased around.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
But do you think they were after you?
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Oh? Yeah, yeah No.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Do you think they ever worked you undercover?
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I think, what are.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
You pointing out there?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Old bricks? Uh huh. I had a couple of gentlemen
show up here, wanted to do that, do this brick work? Yeah?
I said, well, yeah, it'd be a good idea and
needed one, but don't have it. I said, well, well
we're gonna build you one. I didn't think nothing about it,
and they start calling my house. I didn't have a
phone here. They started calling my house looking for me,
(41:16):
and they showed back up and find me in town,
and I found that strange. They got nearly through and
he said, you don't know what to think about us,
do you? I said, well, no, at really, but I
thank you. Probably worked for the Waldlife Department, maybe undercover
trying to catch me. They'd asked me all kinds of
(41:38):
turkey stuff and deer stuff and how men were they
hunters claimed to be. I don't know. I wasn't going
to go wanting one, but they just keep coming back,
coming back, coming back, and I finally he said, you
don't know what to think about us, do you? I said, well,
I think you're undercover, probably trying to catch me in
some kind of violations. And they loaded their stuff up
(42:00):
them left, and I hadn't seen them.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Since you're pretty certain they were undercover guys.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, sometimes if you listen, you can hear stuff. If
you've got your ears open and your eyes open, you
might get a tip from somebody that And I was
kind of on the look.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
You were just suspicious of these guys. Yeah, yeah, So
did you get a tip from somebody else. Yeah, how
does that make you feel? I mean, at the time,
did that that didn't scare you?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
No, it made me feel good that that man thought
enough of me to save me a problem. Oh well,
I wasn't a bit afraid of them. Now, game ardens
are just people. I'm not afraid of them. People say
them coming A lot of times. I've been hunting with
people and game warding drive up and they just go
all to pieces. They we ain't done nothing wrong. The
(42:49):
man ain't gonna bother Ruugh.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Johnny's transparency today is notable. We're going to learn the
nitty gritty of why he changed. But first here's a
lighter story about an interaction with a game warden that
happened during a legal hunting season, and then after this
we're gonna get real serious.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
There was an old gentleman we know was calling to
a turkey, so we just laid in the ditch. We
didn't them want to mess him up. We just laying there. Listen,
he'd whacked the turkey of gob We wasn't coming. We'd
played with him quite a bit. He was not a player.
He had gobbled over his fun and I said, look
coming up a road there and there come a game
(43:36):
order sneaking up a road. Now we're laying our full
caval fog right in the ditch. And he got right
even with me, and I said, get somewhere and say
down here. The wild turkeys were hunting here. We can't
kill him. You walking up down the road here, what's
better to you? And it haddled him, kind of blowed
him up or something. He went for a gun, but
(43:59):
it last day. Boy, you don't need no gun. Now
we're just haven't. Another man called this turkey said down
here with if you won't hunt with us, you need
to get here early and work from camifalauge. If you
ain't got a shot gun, all out you want.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
And now is this before season?
Speaker 1 (44:14):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
This is during legal season.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, but yeah, we've had from wardens here.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Johnny has painted a clear picture of his days of outlawing.
But the one thing that those half a dozen people
did tell me one by one before I met Johnny
is that he is different today. He's changed, they said.
Even the game wardens suggested this. Throughout this story, you've
(44:46):
heard that Johnny used to be an alcoholic. And from
one story we learned that he used some drugs. I
wanted to know how that started and why he changed,
so I asked him.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Well, I just made some bad choices hanging out with
the wrong people, and I'd been around whild caf whiskey
and home brew, and I just didn't handle it very well.
And then I got over here. After I got my cabin,
(45:22):
there was a preacher that coon hunted a lord. He
would stop by the seaman. I was usually too drunk
to talk to him, but I know he was here.
I was raised in church, trained up in church, like
the boat books sell, but I just let the world
get the best of me. But when that preacher started
(45:43):
coming here, it kind of got me to thinking. And
I woke up one morning up the creek here. I'd
been on a pretty bad drunk and when I woke
up that particular morning, I didn't know where I was,
how I got there. I didn't know any of them.
People didn't know where my truck was. I finally found
(46:07):
someone I know and got them to take me to
my truck. In fact, i'd been gone about six months.
I come over there hunt and it was after Turkey's
evening and I still hadn't been on so I lost
about everything, my wife, my family, my friends, my place,
cattle tractors, but I didn't care. And I woke up
(46:31):
one morning up here and I thought, you're in a
bad way, and the only hope for you of Jesus.
And by that preacher coming here, I think that kind
of rekindled the spirit that had been instilled in me
as a kid. And I decided I needed to get
(46:51):
right with the Lord and get my life right and
try to get my family back. And so I stopped
on top of Horseshoe Mountain one morning, just getting daylight,
and I asked the Lord to help me. I'm in
a bind, save me, take this addiction from me, give
(47:15):
me my life back. And I drove on to the
cabin and I went out here by this fire pit,
and the sun was coming up then, and I saw
a transformation in the east with that sun shining through
the clouds like I had never seen before. Had to
(47:36):
be a sign from God, a glimpse of heaven, maybe
orange purple, blue cloud raised a light shining through them.
Pretty amazing, And my life was changed after to that
fire pit. Believe it or not, it was easier than
(47:59):
you think. When you get Jesus involved in it. He
took when I gave my life to him, he took
that addiction from me. Been fifteen years, three hundred and
nineteen days, and I'll serve it. I believe, and he
took that from me. Yeah, I'd been locked up, dried
(48:20):
out in jail for public drunk, all kind of stuff.
But when I got Jesus in my life through the
Holy Spirit, he took that addiction from I quit smoking,
I quit drinking, I quit everything right there to a
fire pit. It took a few months, but I had
(48:42):
some time. I waited. I got my life back, I
got my wife's back, my family back. Lord bless me
with a good cabin, a new house. And I went
from being an alcoholic with a drug addiction to a
deacon and an order to minister. And some people get
(49:05):
saved at an early age. I got to preach. Your
friend told me he was saved when he was nine
years old, never broke any laws. I said, what you
get saved from? Yeah, I've done it all. What I
hadn't done all, this, hadn't never thought over, didn't want
to try it. I've done it all, and that ain't
(49:28):
no secret. But I'm not that way anymore. Jesus has
given me a whole new life, the whole new heart,
and the whole new mind. Today I've got my wife back,
my family bad, Yeah, bout everybody equipment, Yeah, Jesus fixed
all that. Better than that over be. I still like
(49:52):
a hunt. He goes with me. He likes mountains.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
It's it's clear that Johnny has been through the ringer,
but it sounds like he's got things figured out now.
There's more to people than the worst days of their past,
and there's more for you than the worst days of
your past. The confessions of this former outlaw is really
a story of redemption. Thank you, Johnny for sharing the
(50:24):
nitty gritty of your story. I can't thank you enough
for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast.
Please share this podcast with someone that you know that
might be struggling, or somebody that just enjoys a genuine story.
(50:44):
Thank you all so much. Keep the wild places wild,
because that's where the bears live.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
A lot of train whistled right under the whistle. I've
lost quite a bit of my hearing.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I used to get here good and of course good,
but now I have to have someone go with me
because my son in law said, if you hear a
Turkey John it, don't go to it. Said, down's dark calling.
You're already too close.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
If you can hear it, you're already hear gobble.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
You're already too close.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
That's funny at hup
Host
Clay Newcomb
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