May 30, 2025 • 23 mins
For the folks fortunate enough to have a good relationship with their grandfathers, they all seem to have endless stories of good times to share. This episode is no different with two examples; one from a grandchild by blood and the other by choice. We think you’ll enjoy them both.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I want you to stay a.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The airwaves have to offer.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate.
I've got some stories to share. Porridge, eggs and papaws.
Grandfather's really only one requirement to be one, and that's
to have a young and you like that, likes you,
(00:50):
willing to call you that now, whether it's a blood
relative or not, it's a moniker. I have myself, and
I'm pretty proud to be one. Unfortunately I only knew
one of mine, but to me, he was the best.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
He said.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
The bar is a grandparent for the rest of us
in my family who called him that, And I've got
a story about him, the father of my mother, a
grandparent in the traditional sense who loved the duty but
received it by default. But first I'm going to tell.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You this story.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
This opening story is about a non traditional grandfather, the
one who got the title through other circumstances. Just like
the traditional grandfather doesn't matter how he got it, it's
what he did with it once he received it. Brentley Smith,
a native of the Sooner State and living in what
she calls the heart of the Homeland. She's sent in
(01:50):
a story about Tim, her grandfather. And since we're slipping
up towards Father's Day in a few weeks, I thought
i'd talk about Grandpa's today. So, in Brentley's word to
my voice, here we go. Fresh pellets radded to the
stove before the fireplace inserted door was closed. He calmly
took a seat in the worn leather chair. With the
(02:12):
light low and the flames dancing that old oak tree
casting shadows on the wall, he knew the conditions were
just right.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
He put an.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oversized orange cowboy hat on top of his head and
begin to tell a story tonight.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's Goldilocks three Bears.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Now, conveniently, he doesn't have to seek out volunteers to
act out this tale, because there are already several little
people in the room who are more than willing and
eager for him to get started. We squeal and laugh
as we run from porridge bowl to porridge bowl, and
from Papa's.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Bed to Baby Bear's bed.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
When the Bear family returns to their cabin, we all
jump up and run to the woods outside. And that's
when our storyteller calls after us.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Remember there's bears. There's in them woods now.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Still to this day, when I wake up in the
early morning hours to climb a tree stand, my heart
pounds in my chest as I'm still waiting for those
bears to pop out of the woods that my grandparents
land in northeast Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Where there are, in fact no bears.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
My grandpa Tim is still acting out those stories with
that oversized orange hat on his head, but this time
it's with my own three little boys, and I'm no
longer the little one running from porridge.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Bowl to porridge bowl.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And what a better place to start In the beginning,
Tim married my grandma Kathy a month before I was born.
Biologically he's not my grandpa, but by love he is.
He chose to love the family he stepped into, and
that is a most precious thing to me. It also
(03:57):
speaks to the man I'm writing about today. When you
take the time to get to know people, you will
find that every now and then you come across someone
that seems refreshingly, rare, genuine to who God made them
to be, and you're attracted to their company like bees
to honey. Tim is one of those people. Husband, father,
(04:20):
business owner, gardener, paper boy, fisherman, auctioneer, cook, reader, teacher, veteran,
grandpa and great grandpa are just some of the titles
that fit this man. But there is one that he wears,
the best storyteller. The mind of this man is extraordinary,
(04:41):
and the best way I have found to describe it
is as his own personal filing cabinet, packed full of
details and pages from every person and interactions he's probably
ever had. I still have not figured out his secret
to keep it his memory so sharp, but I am
prone to believe it's founded in his love of learning creativity.
(05:04):
In the twenty nine years I've known to him, he's
on the more shop, created beautiful gardens, cooked many good meals,
rigged up his own fishing jugs, flies and lures, and
has devoured one book after another. Once he masters one skill,
he tackles another just to add to his list. And
(05:24):
that alone has been one of my biggest inspirations lately.
We've all benefited from his latest skill of leatherwork, dog collars, belts, guitars, traps, bracelets,
and knife sheaths, all made by his willing hands. He
grows tomato plants taller than anyone who walks by him,
(05:45):
and smokes the best Thanksgiving ham you'll ever want to eat.
He's a master of talents, and the creativity he weaves
in his stories just adds to his list. Bloody Bones
and corn Bread may sound like the title of an
old Western nobby or maybe even a cordy horror movie. However,
(06:05):
this is still one of Tim's most famous campfire stories
from my childhood. Autumn nights in Oklahoma are perfect for
sitting around the campfire late past our bedtimes, watching the
flames the fire, the large brush piles ears attuned to
the owl hooting nearby. We would sit on the edge
of our seats stair wide eyed as we heard about
(06:26):
the little boy who was sent to the store by
his mother after school. He dawdled too long and had
to make his way home in the dark, resulting in
an ending that left us just scared enough to want
to hear it again. It left an impression mark on
all of us kids at that time, especially on my
little brother, whose elementary teacher had a lot of questions
(06:48):
from our mom after he copied it down for a
writing assignment.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Bringing that up still makes us bust into laughter.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
He may have mastered telling stories around the campfire, even
acting out classics like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but
I realize there is more to storytelling than just fiction.
Every single conversation I have with him is weaved with
thought provoking questions, a funny punchline, a lesson learned, wisdom shared,
(07:17):
and all said in love. For the last few years,
I've taken the liberty to record some of the everyday
conversations I have with him, or even some he is
having with others.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I love randomly pulling.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Them out on my phone and listening to some of
my favorite voices and stories from those speakers.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Stories told from his.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Time in Vietnam, a phone conversation he had with his brother,
laughter as he jokes about my uncle's fear of snakes.
Each recording is filled with stories of specific people in
exact locations and times throughout his life. He turns simple
everyday conversations into stories worth remembering. There is something special
(08:02):
and rare about him, and it's to regard people as
worth knowing and remember. It can skim through those files
in his memory until he lands on the exact one
he was searching for. Doesn't matter if it took place
just months ago or even decades back. He knows the
details of the people he grew up around and worked with,
he served with, where he did business with. He's a
(08:26):
master of storytelling because he understands that people and their.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Stories are the story.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
This has helped shape how I tell my own stories
in life and how I get the privilege of telling
them as the granddaughter of the true storyteller, one who
chose to love a gaggle of little kids who just
begged to hear Goldilocks in the Three Bears one more time,
and who always remember that there's bears in them woods.
(08:55):
And according to Brentley, it's just how that happened. Now,
do yourself a favor and follow Brentley on Instagram. She's
blogging away over at the Heart of the Homeland blog
and my favorite island Reva the Diva. Hanson is going
to post a LinkedIn where you can keep up with
(09:16):
Tim's granddaughter. In the show description, it is well worth
the look and the listen. Thank you Brentley, Thank you Tim.
My grandfather, fine Us Weaverslye was born in Malvern, a
(09:39):
city on the edge of the Washington Mountains in west
central Arkansas, on August eighteenth, nineteen thirteen. When he hit
the ground, he rounded the population number up to somewhere
around two thousand, six hundred and ninety. At the time
of his birth, Malvern had been the county seat of
government for thirty years. A new business concern was started
(10:01):
there that would later become Arkansas Power in Light, bringing
electricity to much of the state. The brickmaking industry would
also be a major influence in the area, with the
city claiming to be the brick capital of the world.
He grew up working hard and playing hard. He told
me stories about being bullied by bigger boys and getting
(10:21):
in fights for standing his ground and standing up for others.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
He said, if you needed to chunk.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
A rocket anyone that needed it, you didn't have to
take your eyes off the boy that was going to
get it to look for one. All you had to
do was reach down around your feet. There was always
one there. His family moved to southeast Tarkansas later on,
and there he worked in the local lumber.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Mill at night and farm during the day.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
These were hard times leading up to and during the
Great Depression. A ten year period from nineteen twenty nine
to nineteen thirty nine were over two hundred banks failed
in the state, wiping out the savings of men. He
married my grandmother, Beulah Player in nineteen thirty and by
nineteen thirty three my uncle Charles was born. A few
(11:09):
years later my mama, Betty lu would see the light
of day, and then at my aunt Patricia in nineteen
forty eight, who surprised everyone, most notably my grandmother. He
worked two jobs to support his family. A lot of
time he didn't have a car, so he walked to
the saw mill and warned from our farm seven miles
(11:30):
to town. After working all day in the fields, then
after eight hours at the meal he made that same
seven mile trek back home. That averages out to about
five and a half hours a day of just walking,
eight long hours at the saw mill, getting back home
for breakfast around ten am, just to go.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
To work in the fields until time to eat supper.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Take a nap, and start the long walk back to
town at eight that night. The Following World War Two,
times got better. He bought a store in town and
built a house across from it on North Martin Street.
He kept a farm, increased the cattle production, and built
two modern for the time chicken houses to accommodate seventy
(12:17):
thousand laying hens. He sold that store and built a
second one on South Martin Street. I remember this one
being built in the mid seventies. This store was supported
by the egg farm and set across from the saw
mill he walked to and from all those years ago,
an every day reminder of how far he'd come by
(12:38):
the literal sweat of his brow. And in the back
of that new store was a process and planned for
the eggs brought to town from the chicken houses. The
collected eggs were washed, grated, separated, and boxed in big
cardboard cases for wholesale distribution on a refrigerated bob truck
driven by my Papa, another man who worked the route,
(13:01):
and even my high school aged brother Tim when he
wasn't driving the school bus. Of course, the egg machine
was a big conveyor belt that threw an assembly line
type operation, washed and sanitized first, then ran the eggs
through a dark room with lights that lit them up
from the bottom, allowing cracks to be easily seen by
the person grading them. Once pasted there, they were separated
(13:24):
by size and eventually rolled into stations where ladies packaged
them in styrofoam cartings and blazoned with Sly Egg Company
across the top. It was at that first door where
a stranger challenged Papa's patience with rude behavior and an
inappropriate language in front of my teenage mother and grandmother.
It didn't bowld well for the stranger, who, along with
(13:47):
sporting knots on his head and a bloody nose, has
the idea that an old man had done it to him,
my grandfather's premature white hair and giving him the look
of someone twenty years older than he was. I talked
about this that in great detail on episode three or
one of This Country Life entitled The Country Store. You
or to listen to that one if you hadn't already.
(14:09):
But my grandfather's temperament was that of a man of faith,
whose family, above all else, came first. His patience with
his grandkids was legendary. His quiet and lovable sense of
humor endeared him to all who knew him privately, and
his honesty and integrity and dedication to doing what was right,
common sense, and putting his family above all else except
(14:29):
the Good Lord was the standard by which we were
all measured. His tolerance for anything outside of that was nonexistent.
And I believe that the combination of working so hard,
literally around the clock, to take care of his family
was what prompted the story I'm fixing to.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Tell you now.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Papa would give anyone the shirt off his back. He
forgave debts owed him by folks who were trying but
unable to pay. He'd lived that life as a young
man raising a family in hard times, and he recognized
what true effort was of a man doing all he could.
Those folks might wake to find groceries sitting on their
front porch that had been delivered during the hours of darkness,
(15:13):
no bill, no note, just necessities for those that needed them.
My grandparents' home sat across from the old store on
North Martin Street, and every day he made his way
to the farm to do what had to be done. Cows, hey, chickens, eggs.
There was always something to do. He never had time
to do anything else. He didn't hunt and I only
(15:36):
saw him fish half a dozen times. The majority of
those times when he came across from me and my
friends fishing behind the chicken house. Is he was going
about his chores. He didn't take time away from providing
for all of us. He was forced to go to
the doctor once, and after some tests, the doctor concluded
that he had had a heart attack sometime in the
(15:56):
recent passed and wondered why he hadn't told anyone. I
didn't have time, that was his response. He had a
high tolerance for pain and zero tolerance for a thief.
And a thief had found his way onto our farm.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
They were stealing.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Chickens and eggs, the two main ingredients of an egg farm.
We lived on that farm, but over half a mile
away from the chicken houses by the road, and over
a quarter of a mile straight through the woods. Someone
was slipping on their property during the middle of the
night and stealing the eggs. From what we learned later,
chickens too. I'm sure you're thinking stealing eggs. Those folks
(16:38):
were probably just hungry. Well, it wasn't just a few eggs.
It was cases of eggs. In each case held thirty
six dozen some of y'all, who was tempting fate by
stealing eggs from a man who took overwhelmingly personal everything
that involved his family. They weren't just stealing from him.
(16:58):
He would have just likely ignored that now they were
stealing from his family. It was how we all survived,
being invested partners and heirs to this whole operation. A
significant portion of our income came from that farm, the
farm that had been in my maternal family for five
generations by the time I witnessed birth. Now, the way
(17:19):
my grandfather saw it, the thief, by taking the chief
commodity from that farm, was snatching food out of his
grandkid's mouths and closed off their backs. He never said
(17:40):
a word about it to me. Even years later, when
I was a policeman, my mama told me that he
figured he knew who was doing it and sent word
through the grapevine that it needed to stop.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
But it didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Now what happened next is still up for debate. But
the person that was suspected of doing it was well
known in our rural areas being a thief. He was
also a regular customer at our farm. Some folks a
lot actually would stop by the farming buy eggs unwashed
fresh out of the chicken. My grandfather more or less
(18:14):
just covered the costs of the feet it took to
keep the chicken alive enough to lay the eggs, and
more or less was settling them for nothing. But this
guy hadn't been by in a long time. A local
restaurant started cutting back on their weekly egg order. These
folks were all acquainted. Didn't take charlote holmes to figure
(18:36):
out where the majority of the eggs were going and
how they were getting there. So in drew Papa overreaction,
he grabbed a rifle and waited for several nights on
the egg thief to return. My grandmother feared and he
was going to wind up in prison over someone stealing
a bunch of eggs and a few chickens. Now, before
(19:01):
someone starts balling about why he didn't call the shriff,
allow me to clear that up for you. These were
different times, right or wrong, and the sheriff had two
deputies for the whole county. There were no game cameras
to hang, there was no burglar alarm to install, and
outside of driving by the farm when they were in
the area or dragging off.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
A bullet ridden egg thief.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
There really wasn't a whole lot that they could have done. Besides,
grandfather didn't have time to wait on whatever they would
or wouldn't do.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Anyway, he decided to handle it himself.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
There are two persons my brother Tim and I believe
could have warned the thief. One of them would have
done so inadvertently since they worked on the farm and
lived nearby. It could have been overheard on the party
line phone system, a singular line that all the families
shared that lived near there during that time, including the suspect.
They may have been talking about what was on and
(20:01):
knowing my grandfather made a general statement that got back
to the suspect, mister Finance will shoot him if he
catches him.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That's a very plausible theory.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Listening on other folks conversations was a big pastime for
several nosy roses out in the country, but I think
it was a valued family friend. Tim still on the
fence between the two, but I think my grandfather mentioned
the situation to him when he was sending word through
the grapevind that he needed to stop. Later on, during
a visit to the farm to get eggs, that man
(20:33):
found out that it hadn't stopped, and seeing the level
of disgust my grandfather had with the whole situation, he
took it upon himself to point blank tell the fellow
what fate awaited him.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I doubt my grandfather told him what he was going
to do.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
He wouldn't have wanted to put him in a position
to have to testify against him in court, or why
he didn't report it to the authorities. It's my belief that,
knowing my grandfather and how folks handled their own business
back then, I believe that man paid him a visit. Regardless,
my grandfather spent several nights at that farm, lying in
wait to catch whoever it was, and thankfully no one
(21:11):
ever showed up. Had the thief suddenly repented and changed
his ways doubtful. Had the offender been warned of what
might befall him if he continued his recklessness, more than likely,
and that warning saved two families a lot of potential grief.
As a follow up, in the time they would have
(21:32):
taken for the restaurant in town to run out of eggs,
the amount coincidentally and eerily similar to what had been stolen,
they up their orders back to normal, and the suspected
egg thief he returned to the farm in broad daylight
with most of his family and farm workers there as
a witness buying eggs, this time from my grandfather. And
(21:59):
that's just how that happened. It took a lot of
gumption for him to return. It took a lot of
self control from my grandfather not to say anything. But
it only took one person getting involved with concerned and
keeping the peace that made the difference. In a time
now where we stare at our screens and block out
(22:19):
the world around us with headphones and earbuds, take a break,
look around and listen.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You might be surprised what you can hear.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And who you might say. Thank y'all so much for
listening to this country life, bear grease and the render
all up your ears for my brother from across the
big Muddy Robert Lake Pickle, whose Backwoods University podcast will
(22:51):
be dropping right here on the same feed next month.
And as I promised, I've got something coming out just
in time for Father's Day on June the first that's
really sharp, like literally sharp, Come on, you know what
it is? Until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off.
(23:13):
Y'all be careful.
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I want you to stay a.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The airwaves have to offer.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate.
I've got some stories to share. Porridge, eggs and papaws.
Grandfather's really only one requirement to be one, and that's
to have a young and you like that, likes you,
(00:50):
willing to call you that now, whether it's a blood
relative or not, it's a moniker. I have myself, and
I'm pretty proud to be one. Unfortunately I only knew
one of mine, but to me, he was the best.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
He said.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
The bar is a grandparent for the rest of us
in my family who called him that, And I've got
a story about him, the father of my mother, a
grandparent in the traditional sense who loved the duty but
received it by default. But first I'm going to tell.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You this story.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
This opening story is about a non traditional grandfather, the
one who got the title through other circumstances. Just like
the traditional grandfather doesn't matter how he got it, it's
what he did with it once he received it. Brentley Smith,
a native of the Sooner State and living in what
she calls the heart of the Homeland. She's sent in
(01:50):
a story about Tim, her grandfather. And since we're slipping
up towards Father's Day in a few weeks, I thought
i'd talk about Grandpa's today. So, in Brentley's word to
my voice, here we go. Fresh pellets radded to the
stove before the fireplace inserted door was closed. He calmly
took a seat in the worn leather chair. With the
(02:12):
light low and the flames dancing that old oak tree
casting shadows on the wall, he knew the conditions were
just right.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
He put an.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oversized orange cowboy hat on top of his head and
begin to tell a story tonight.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's Goldilocks three Bears.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Now, conveniently, he doesn't have to seek out volunteers to
act out this tale, because there are already several little
people in the room who are more than willing and
eager for him to get started. We squeal and laugh
as we run from porridge bowl to porridge bowl, and
from Papa's.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Bed to Baby Bear's bed.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
When the Bear family returns to their cabin, we all
jump up and run to the woods outside. And that's
when our storyteller calls after us.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Remember there's bears. There's in them woods now.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Still to this day, when I wake up in the
early morning hours to climb a tree stand, my heart
pounds in my chest as I'm still waiting for those
bears to pop out of the woods that my grandparents
land in northeast Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Where there are, in fact no bears.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
My grandpa Tim is still acting out those stories with
that oversized orange hat on his head, but this time
it's with my own three little boys, and I'm no
longer the little one running from porridge.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Bowl to porridge bowl.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And what a better place to start In the beginning,
Tim married my grandma Kathy a month before I was born.
Biologically he's not my grandpa, but by love he is.
He chose to love the family he stepped into, and
that is a most precious thing to me. It also
(03:57):
speaks to the man I'm writing about today. When you
take the time to get to know people, you will
find that every now and then you come across someone
that seems refreshingly, rare, genuine to who God made them
to be, and you're attracted to their company like bees
to honey. Tim is one of those people. Husband, father,
(04:20):
business owner, gardener, paper boy, fisherman, auctioneer, cook, reader, teacher, veteran,
grandpa and great grandpa are just some of the titles
that fit this man. But there is one that he wears,
the best storyteller. The mind of this man is extraordinary,
(04:41):
and the best way I have found to describe it
is as his own personal filing cabinet, packed full of
details and pages from every person and interactions he's probably
ever had. I still have not figured out his secret
to keep it his memory so sharp, but I am
prone to believe it's founded in his love of learning creativity.
(05:04):
In the twenty nine years I've known to him, he's
on the more shop, created beautiful gardens, cooked many good meals,
rigged up his own fishing jugs, flies and lures, and
has devoured one book after another. Once he masters one skill,
he tackles another just to add to his list. And
(05:24):
that alone has been one of my biggest inspirations lately.
We've all benefited from his latest skill of leatherwork, dog collars, belts, guitars, traps, bracelets,
and knife sheaths, all made by his willing hands. He
grows tomato plants taller than anyone who walks by him,
(05:45):
and smokes the best Thanksgiving ham you'll ever want to eat.
He's a master of talents, and the creativity he weaves
in his stories just adds to his list. Bloody Bones
and corn Bread may sound like the title of an
old Western nobby or maybe even a cordy horror movie. However,
(06:05):
this is still one of Tim's most famous campfire stories
from my childhood. Autumn nights in Oklahoma are perfect for
sitting around the campfire late past our bedtimes, watching the
flames the fire, the large brush piles ears attuned to
the owl hooting nearby. We would sit on the edge
of our seats stair wide eyed as we heard about
(06:26):
the little boy who was sent to the store by
his mother after school. He dawdled too long and had
to make his way home in the dark, resulting in
an ending that left us just scared enough to want
to hear it again. It left an impression mark on
all of us kids at that time, especially on my
little brother, whose elementary teacher had a lot of questions
(06:48):
from our mom after he copied it down for a
writing assignment.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Bringing that up still makes us bust into laughter.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
He may have mastered telling stories around the campfire, even
acting out classics like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but
I realize there is more to storytelling than just fiction.
Every single conversation I have with him is weaved with
thought provoking questions, a funny punchline, a lesson learned, wisdom shared,
(07:17):
and all said in love. For the last few years,
I've taken the liberty to record some of the everyday
conversations I have with him, or even some he is
having with others.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I love randomly pulling.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Them out on my phone and listening to some of
my favorite voices and stories from those speakers.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Stories told from his.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Time in Vietnam, a phone conversation he had with his brother,
laughter as he jokes about my uncle's fear of snakes.
Each recording is filled with stories of specific people in
exact locations and times throughout his life. He turns simple
everyday conversations into stories worth remembering. There is something special
(08:02):
and rare about him, and it's to regard people as
worth knowing and remember. It can skim through those files
in his memory until he lands on the exact one
he was searching for. Doesn't matter if it took place
just months ago or even decades back. He knows the
details of the people he grew up around and worked with,
he served with, where he did business with. He's a
(08:26):
master of storytelling because he understands that people and their.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Stories are the story.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
This has helped shape how I tell my own stories
in life and how I get the privilege of telling
them as the granddaughter of the true storyteller, one who
chose to love a gaggle of little kids who just
begged to hear Goldilocks in the Three Bears one more time,
and who always remember that there's bears in them woods.
(08:55):
And according to Brentley, it's just how that happened. Now,
do yourself a favor and follow Brentley on Instagram. She's
blogging away over at the Heart of the Homeland blog
and my favorite island Reva the Diva. Hanson is going
to post a LinkedIn where you can keep up with
(09:16):
Tim's granddaughter. In the show description, it is well worth
the look and the listen. Thank you Brentley, Thank you Tim.
My grandfather, fine Us Weaverslye was born in Malvern, a
(09:39):
city on the edge of the Washington Mountains in west
central Arkansas, on August eighteenth, nineteen thirteen. When he hit
the ground, he rounded the population number up to somewhere
around two thousand, six hundred and ninety. At the time
of his birth, Malvern had been the county seat of
government for thirty years. A new business concern was started
(10:01):
there that would later become Arkansas Power in Light, bringing
electricity to much of the state. The brickmaking industry would
also be a major influence in the area, with the
city claiming to be the brick capital of the world.
He grew up working hard and playing hard. He told
me stories about being bullied by bigger boys and getting
(10:21):
in fights for standing his ground and standing up for others.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
He said, if you needed to chunk.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
A rocket anyone that needed it, you didn't have to
take your eyes off the boy that was going to
get it to look for one. All you had to
do was reach down around your feet. There was always
one there. His family moved to southeast Tarkansas later on,
and there he worked in the local lumber.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Mill at night and farm during the day.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
These were hard times leading up to and during the
Great Depression. A ten year period from nineteen twenty nine
to nineteen thirty nine were over two hundred banks failed
in the state, wiping out the savings of men. He
married my grandmother, Beulah Player in nineteen thirty and by
nineteen thirty three my uncle Charles was born. A few
(11:09):
years later my mama, Betty lu would see the light
of day, and then at my aunt Patricia in nineteen
forty eight, who surprised everyone, most notably my grandmother. He
worked two jobs to support his family. A lot of
time he didn't have a car, so he walked to
the saw mill and warned from our farm seven miles
(11:30):
to town. After working all day in the fields, then
after eight hours at the meal he made that same
seven mile trek back home. That averages out to about
five and a half hours a day of just walking,
eight long hours at the saw mill, getting back home
for breakfast around ten am, just to go.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
To work in the fields until time to eat supper.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Take a nap, and start the long walk back to
town at eight that night. The Following World War Two,
times got better. He bought a store in town and
built a house across from it on North Martin Street.
He kept a farm, increased the cattle production, and built
two modern for the time chicken houses to accommodate seventy
(12:17):
thousand laying hens. He sold that store and built a
second one on South Martin Street. I remember this one
being built in the mid seventies. This store was supported
by the egg farm and set across from the saw
mill he walked to and from all those years ago,
an every day reminder of how far he'd come by
(12:38):
the literal sweat of his brow. And in the back
of that new store was a process and planned for
the eggs brought to town from the chicken houses. The
collected eggs were washed, grated, separated, and boxed in big
cardboard cases for wholesale distribution on a refrigerated bob truck
driven by my Papa, another man who worked the route,
(13:01):
and even my high school aged brother Tim when he
wasn't driving the school bus. Of course, the egg machine
was a big conveyor belt that threw an assembly line
type operation, washed and sanitized first, then ran the eggs
through a dark room with lights that lit them up
from the bottom, allowing cracks to be easily seen by
the person grading them. Once pasted there, they were separated
(13:24):
by size and eventually rolled into stations where ladies packaged
them in styrofoam cartings and blazoned with Sly Egg Company
across the top. It was at that first door where
a stranger challenged Papa's patience with rude behavior and an
inappropriate language in front of my teenage mother and grandmother.
It didn't bowld well for the stranger, who, along with
(13:47):
sporting knots on his head and a bloody nose, has
the idea that an old man had done it to him,
my grandfather's premature white hair and giving him the look
of someone twenty years older than he was. I talked
about this that in great detail on episode three or
one of This Country Life entitled The Country Store. You
or to listen to that one if you hadn't already.
(14:09):
But my grandfather's temperament was that of a man of faith,
whose family, above all else, came first. His patience with
his grandkids was legendary. His quiet and lovable sense of
humor endeared him to all who knew him privately, and
his honesty and integrity and dedication to doing what was right,
common sense, and putting his family above all else except
(14:29):
the Good Lord was the standard by which we were
all measured. His tolerance for anything outside of that was nonexistent.
And I believe that the combination of working so hard,
literally around the clock, to take care of his family
was what prompted the story I'm fixing to.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Tell you now.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Papa would give anyone the shirt off his back. He
forgave debts owed him by folks who were trying but
unable to pay. He'd lived that life as a young
man raising a family in hard times, and he recognized
what true effort was of a man doing all he could.
Those folks might wake to find groceries sitting on their
front porch that had been delivered during the hours of darkness,
(15:13):
no bill, no note, just necessities for those that needed them.
My grandparents' home sat across from the old store on
North Martin Street, and every day he made his way
to the farm to do what had to be done. Cows, hey, chickens, eggs.
There was always something to do. He never had time
to do anything else. He didn't hunt and I only
(15:36):
saw him fish half a dozen times. The majority of
those times when he came across from me and my
friends fishing behind the chicken house. Is he was going
about his chores. He didn't take time away from providing
for all of us. He was forced to go to
the doctor once, and after some tests, the doctor concluded
that he had had a heart attack sometime in the
(15:56):
recent passed and wondered why he hadn't told anyone. I
didn't have time, that was his response. He had a
high tolerance for pain and zero tolerance for a thief.
And a thief had found his way onto our farm.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
They were stealing.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Chickens and eggs, the two main ingredients of an egg farm.
We lived on that farm, but over half a mile
away from the chicken houses by the road, and over
a quarter of a mile straight through the woods. Someone
was slipping on their property during the middle of the
night and stealing the eggs. From what we learned later,
chickens too. I'm sure you're thinking stealing eggs. Those folks
(16:38):
were probably just hungry. Well, it wasn't just a few eggs.
It was cases of eggs. In each case held thirty
six dozen some of y'all, who was tempting fate by
stealing eggs from a man who took overwhelmingly personal everything
that involved his family. They weren't just stealing from him.
(16:58):
He would have just likely ignored that now they were
stealing from his family. It was how we all survived,
being invested partners and heirs to this whole operation. A
significant portion of our income came from that farm, the
farm that had been in my maternal family for five
generations by the time I witnessed birth. Now, the way
(17:19):
my grandfather saw it, the thief, by taking the chief
commodity from that farm, was snatching food out of his
grandkid's mouths and closed off their backs. He never said
(17:40):
a word about it to me. Even years later, when
I was a policeman, my mama told me that he
figured he knew who was doing it and sent word
through the grapevine that it needed to stop.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
But it didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Now what happened next is still up for debate. But
the person that was suspected of doing it was well
known in our rural areas being a thief. He was
also a regular customer at our farm. Some folks a
lot actually would stop by the farming buy eggs unwashed
fresh out of the chicken. My grandfather more or less
(18:14):
just covered the costs of the feet it took to
keep the chicken alive enough to lay the eggs, and
more or less was settling them for nothing. But this
guy hadn't been by in a long time. A local
restaurant started cutting back on their weekly egg order. These
folks were all acquainted. Didn't take charlote holmes to figure
(18:36):
out where the majority of the eggs were going and
how they were getting there. So in drew Papa overreaction,
he grabbed a rifle and waited for several nights on
the egg thief to return. My grandmother feared and he
was going to wind up in prison over someone stealing
a bunch of eggs and a few chickens. Now, before
(19:01):
someone starts balling about why he didn't call the shriff,
allow me to clear that up for you. These were
different times, right or wrong, and the sheriff had two
deputies for the whole county. There were no game cameras
to hang, there was no burglar alarm to install, and
outside of driving by the farm when they were in
the area or dragging off.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
A bullet ridden egg thief.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
There really wasn't a whole lot that they could have done. Besides,
grandfather didn't have time to wait on whatever they would
or wouldn't do.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Anyway, he decided to handle it himself.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
There are two persons my brother Tim and I believe
could have warned the thief. One of them would have
done so inadvertently since they worked on the farm and
lived nearby. It could have been overheard on the party
line phone system, a singular line that all the families
shared that lived near there during that time, including the suspect.
They may have been talking about what was on and
(20:01):
knowing my grandfather made a general statement that got back
to the suspect, mister Finance will shoot him if he
catches him.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That's a very plausible theory.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Listening on other folks conversations was a big pastime for
several nosy roses out in the country, but I think
it was a valued family friend. Tim still on the
fence between the two, but I think my grandfather mentioned
the situation to him when he was sending word through
the grapevind that he needed to stop. Later on, during
a visit to the farm to get eggs, that man
(20:33):
found out that it hadn't stopped, and seeing the level
of disgust my grandfather had with the whole situation, he
took it upon himself to point blank tell the fellow
what fate awaited him.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I doubt my grandfather told him what he was going
to do.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
He wouldn't have wanted to put him in a position
to have to testify against him in court, or why
he didn't report it to the authorities. It's my belief that,
knowing my grandfather and how folks handled their own business
back then, I believe that man paid him a visit. Regardless,
my grandfather spent several nights at that farm, lying in
wait to catch whoever it was, and thankfully no one
(21:11):
ever showed up. Had the thief suddenly repented and changed
his ways doubtful. Had the offender been warned of what
might befall him if he continued his recklessness, more than likely,
and that warning saved two families a lot of potential grief.
As a follow up, in the time they would have
(21:32):
taken for the restaurant in town to run out of eggs,
the amount coincidentally and eerily similar to what had been stolen,
they up their orders back to normal, and the suspected
egg thief he returned to the farm in broad daylight
with most of his family and farm workers there as
a witness buying eggs, this time from my grandfather. And
(21:59):
that's just how that happened. It took a lot of
gumption for him to return. It took a lot of
self control from my grandfather not to say anything. But
it only took one person getting involved with concerned and
keeping the peace that made the difference. In a time
now where we stare at our screens and block out
(22:19):
the world around us with headphones and earbuds, take a break,
look around and listen.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You might be surprised what you can hear.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And who you might say. Thank y'all so much for
listening to this country life, bear grease and the render
all up your ears for my brother from across the
big Muddy Robert Lake Pickle, whose Backwoods University podcast will
(22:51):
be dropping right here on the same feed next month.
And as I promised, I've got something coming out just
in time for Father's Day on June the first that's
really sharp, like literally sharp, Come on, you know what
it is? Until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off.
(23:13):
Y'all be careful.
Host
Clay Newcomb
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