June 13, 2025 • 22 mins
Father's Day is this week, which means it's time for a celebration of family. In this week's episode, Brent invites you to be a part of his own family celebration as it involves every This Country Life listener. Then, he celebrates his father's life by reflecting on some personal journal entries he wrote over the last few months of his father's life. Brent views the connection of his memories and observations as being a lot closer to each listener than what they may think. This Country Life is all our country lives.
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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 con hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share. Pocket knives, squirrels, and Father's Day. It's
Father's Day again, and I'm gonna talk about two significant
events in my life. The big story took place over
(00:49):
forty days with glimpses of the past. It'll all makes
sense when we get to it. But first I'm gonna
tell you this one that has literally taken generations to tell.
As we celebrate those folks in our lives, both past
(01:10):
and present, who either biologically or lovingly earned the rank
and privilege historically afforded fathers, I want to talk to
you first about a recent honor bestowed upon my family
that could not have culminated at a more appropriate time
than right now. Now. I've told you all about it before,
but if you're a new listener, let me do a
quick summary of how we got here and the story
(01:33):
I'm fixing to tell this Country Life podcast number two,
which aired on April twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, one
hundred and eleven podcasts ago I talked about the stuff
that I told in my pockets, everything from pocket watches
to pocket knives, not casually but matter of factly mention
a particular brand of life that's near and dear to
(01:55):
my family and has been for the last six generations.
I had no ulterior motives, just real, organic, off the
cuff comments. Now that brand of knife was the exclusive
brand you'll find on any of us at any given time.
There are families in Deer, the Fords and Chevrolets, John
(02:16):
Deere and Massive Ferguson tractors, or Duke's mayonnaise, even a
particular weather man. But in our family the brand of
knife was and his case, knives of Bradford, Pennsylvania. Me
mentioning that during the second episode that aired of this
Weekly Struggle didn't light the fuse on my family's relationship
with the good folks at Bradford, had merely fanned the
(02:39):
flames that have been burning for over one hundred years now.
Someone and I don't know who it was, but God
bless them whoever it was, heard that episode and brought
it to Case's attention. Now, through that slight introduction, we
fast forward to where we sit now, with the wr
Case Company being a spot answer of this show, an
(03:02):
absolute fairy tale of a story that put me in
a place where my name is associated with an iconic
American company building products by hand every day that are
used by Americans every day all over this country, doing
the task required for putting in an honest day's labor,
like the three generations before me did. Now, before folks
(03:26):
start rolling their eyes and say, oh, Brent's doing a
commercial for a sponsor, let me stop you right there.
I have one hundred percent total control over what I
say on the show. And not only does meat eat
or not even make suggestions on the content need of
this case. In fact, they both prefer I talk less
about them so people don't get the impression I'm over
(03:46):
here selling used cars like Junior samples. I get to
talk about the things I like hockeyknives or one of them.
So with that said, let me get to the meat
on this bone. Last week, the Case Company and metiatter
released a knife that is the Brent Reeves signature. Many traffic,
(04:09):
months and months of planning and meetings resulted in a
deep red bone handled pocket knife that is the same
color of the first pocket knife I ever remember my
dad carrying. It means a lot to me and my family,
and none of it would have been possible had it
(04:30):
not been for you, You faithful folks who listen every week
and the ones who take the time to write reviews,
share the podcast with others and send in the best
stories that I get to share, and you show up
at events just to visit and talk about the different
things that we all love to talk about. I get
(04:52):
emotional talking about this object made of metal and bone,
not because of what it is, but by what it represents.
It's all of us together, from Cleveland County, Arkansas, and
McKean County, Pennsylvania, to every home, job, or car where
you're listening. Now, we're all in this together, and from
(05:13):
the bottom of my heart, I thank you all, and
you you are just how this all happened. Father's Day
a day set aside to honor the dads out there.
In my case, it's the guy who, above all else
(05:36):
taught me how to have fun. A few of those
times have been shared with y'all here lessons I learned,
both from observations and from his direct instruction. The following
is the story I wrote not long after my dad
passed away. It's a detailed diary of strong remembrances of
different days during his stay in the hospital, and those
(05:58):
days were long and tenure short abbreviated. When does the
communication between whoever was fortunate enough to be sitting in
the room with him when he came to mixed in
between the hospital references as a hunt that comes to
mind anytime squirrels are mentioned, and it was running through
my mind as we raced toward what would be his
(06:19):
final night on earth. It remains a core memory of
my understanding of the love my father had for me
and the pride he had in me, both things that
he was adamant that I know now. He could be
upset with me, he mad at me, even disappointed, but
he always made me know how much he loved me,
(06:42):
something I've tried to emulate with the folks. I love
that's not just limited to family, and not just by actions,
but telling them too, Just like he did. I wrote
this story on in a few days after the seventh
of September in twenty eleven, with no intentions of anyone
outside of me ever reading it, and it skips back
(07:04):
and forth in time, making perfect sense to me as
I wrote it. The events freshened my mind and on
my heart. As the one who saw it all as
an eyewitness, My hope above all hope is that it'll
translate here for you. The phone woke me out of
(07:27):
a sound sleep. I had it in my hand before
the second ring was done, and nearly twenty years of
being a police officer, anytime the phone rings after bedtime,
it could only mean one thing, something is wrong. And
the caller ID said it was my aunt Diana, my
dad's youngest sister. She'd never call this lad unless it
(07:48):
was an emergency, and by being her, I immediately knew
it involved my dad. She said, Hey, I'm on the
way to Pine Bluff. Your dad is in the er.
He said, had some type of spell, and I think
they said something about life support coming to full alert.
I told her we're on the way. It was cold.
(08:15):
As we made our way through the cane thicket, Buck
would turn his head to grab a bigger bite of
switch cane leaves, all the while holding a steady course
Dad had set for him. As we closed in on peanuts, barking, Dad,
if this twenty two was to start shooting all by itself,
would you want me to just chunk it over yonder?
An acceptable, silly question for an eight year old boy
(08:37):
to ask, No, son, I just pointed out there until
he ran out of shells. But I don't expect it
to do that, though me neither. I was just asking,
all right, let's kill this squirrel. Now. When we get
up here, you slide off, run around the other side
of that tree, away from me and Buck, and I'll
wait for Jerry over here. When he gets here, all
(09:01):
the commotion will put that squirrel on your side of
the tree and you can kill him. Yes, Sir. I
buried my head in the middle of his back. I
squeezed my eyes shut, and I held on as tight
as I could to his waist. As we entered the
green brier portion of that thicket, the sharp thorns grabbed
the toe of my boots as I pinched him as
far as I could behind Dad's legs to keep the
(09:23):
briers and vines from pulling me off the back of
that saddle. I knew we'd broken free from the thicket
when the scratching sound of the brier scraping across that
leather gun scabbard subsided and peanuts bark grew louder. I
peecked around the right shoulder of the strongest man in
the world, and I saw peanuts bobtail wagging into blurs.
(09:44):
He barked and circled a huge oak tree, searching for
the squirrel that he knew was there. I pulled my
hands out of Dad's warm coat pockets and slid like
a snake off the back of that huge buckskin horse.
I no sooner hit the ground one. Dad handed me
the twenty two, and I ran past Peanut and the tree,
picking out a spot on the opposite side where I
(10:05):
could see most of the tree, and waited for that
squirrel to move. Your father has had a stroke. Only
time will tell how significant the damage will be. Now
complicating all of this is our inability to give him
the medication that thends his blood regulates his heartbeat. He's stable,
(10:27):
but the next twenty four hours will play a critical
role in the rest of his life and its quality.
I looked at my wife with a blank expression as
we stood in the hallway of the hospital after our
chance meeting with the neurosurgeon that had only hours before
operated on the strongest man in the world. Thank you, doctor,
(10:50):
was all I could muster. I'm not sure if Alexis
said anything to him or not. I recall her squeezing
my hand as we walked back toward the waiting room,
where nearly every one within my immediate family, close friends
and distant family, and some folks I'd never seen in
my life waited and supported one another. We prayed together,
we laughed together, we cried together, but mostly we just
(11:13):
sat around and loved my dad in each other, and
we waited. Every day, work, go to the hospital, go home, work,
go to the hospital, go home. Wait and wait and
wait and remember. My eyes strained to see where I
(11:38):
couldn't and watch for the tiniest movement that would give
my quorus location away. Look in the forks, watch up
the tree and out. Look for his ear it looked
like a little triangle sticking up. Or looked for his
tail to switch. You'll you'll find him. I repeated Dad's
instructions over and over in my mind as I followed
(11:59):
to the letter what he'd been teaching me, Peanut and
barking his plea for me to find him, and Jerry
rode up on his horse and around to my side
of the tree scrambled a gray squirrel, just like my
dad said he would. Two weeks after he went in
(12:24):
to the hospital, I saw his eyes blink and then
he looked at me with the prettiest blue eyes I'd
ever seen. Hi, Dad, I've been missing you. He focused
on my tired, smiling face and he winked at me.
I love you, son, he whispered, I love you to Paul.
(12:45):
He squeezed my hand and that had been holding his
for the last thirty minutes or so, and I squeezed back.
I talked to him for a good while. He watched
me as I talked to him, listening intently as I spoke.
In the case, he'd have an expression of understanding and calm,
reassuring me that he knew what I was saying. Of
(13:09):
the details of that conversation will remain between Dad, me
and the Good Lord who blessed me with one of
the few cognitive windows during that forty days we spent
at the hospital to communicate with my dad, just him
and me. But the gist of it was I was
gonna try hard to take care of his grandkids and
his daughter in law, and I could tell he was tired.
(13:32):
So when we finished talking, I told him I loved him,
and he squeezed my hand. He winked at me again,
and he drifted off to sleep. I seem Dad, I
see him the squirrel of inch his way toward a
big fork on my side of the tree. Each time
I settled a crosshair of the scope on his head
and prepared a fire, he'd inch out of my sights
(13:54):
and short spurts a few inches at a time. I
could see the hollow limb above the fork where I
feared he was going, and I raised my aim just
below where I thought he'd enter that hole. Dogs barked,
and Jerry and Dad both shook small saplings from where
they sat on their horses, keeping the noise of the
limbs and the leaves on the opposite side of the
(14:15):
tree from me, and the squirrel held my aim above
That squirrel trained on the spot where I hoped he'd
stop before we crawled into his waiting sanctuary. We just
finished supper when my phone rang with my aunt Diane again. Hello, Hey,
(14:38):
it's breathing. Isn't very good? Doctor says y'all better come on,
we're on the way. I said it calmly. The weather
had been hot and windy and humid over the past
month and a half. This night it was unseasonably cool,
wind wasn't blowing, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Yeah,
(15:00):
the stars were everywhere. When we walked outside. I called
my brother Tim as we were getting in the car.
I asked him you headed to the hospital. He said yes.
I said, was the wind blowing when you walked outside?
The question that he kind of caught him off guard.
He said, do what I said, the wind? Was it
(15:21):
blowing when you walked out to leave? He said, I
didn't notice why. I said, it wasn't blowing at my house.
It's cool tonight, the first night since dad's been in
the hospital. It's been worth a deurn to run his dogs.
You can hear a hound bark from Myles tonight. Dad's
going hunting, brother. And for a second it was only silence,
(15:47):
and then Tim said, well, I'll be he sure is
drive safe, don't be in a hurry. I'll see you there,
and I love you just a little more, just a
little more, I remember saying to myself as I caught
a glimpse of the squirrel as he entered the side
(16:09):
picture of the bottom of my scope. I had a
rock solid rest on a dogwood limb that was the
perfect height for the shot I was fixing to take
just a little more. And with that thought, the squirrel
sprinted the last two feet before I could even realize it,
and he disappeared into that home. I raised up from
that rifle and looked at Dad and Jerry, who were
(16:31):
laughing now at the expression on my face as I
looked back and forth from my hole in the tree
to where they sat watching me. Now, this is not
how I'd had all this worked out in my mind.
He was supposed to stop just before he went in
that hole, and I'd squeezed the trigger and getting him
with one shot and making the strongest man in the
world proud of me. I imagine doing it all over again.
(16:58):
As I heard Dad tell me to get back on
the horse, I relived watching that squirrel out of the
corner of my eyes. He ent slowly toward where I
had that rival aimed below the hole in that tree.
I braced the rifle back on that dog wood limb.
I oriented the barrel toward that hole, placed my cheek
on the stock, and took aim. As I done just
prior to the squirrel making his escape. I settled the
(17:21):
crossairs on the imaginary squirrel, wishing I had had another
chance at him. When it was replaced by a real one,
I didn't think about it. I pushed his safety off.
I pulled the trigger and sent that squirrel toward the
ground with a head shot, and Peanut caught him in
mid air. Before I had time to realize that, another
(17:42):
squirrel came out of that hole and stopped in the
same spot. He met the same fate, except this one
landed on the ground with a thud. I picked him up.
I retrieved one Peanut had caught, and I carried him
both to my dad, who was grinning bigger than Jerry
or me. We tied him on the sack, and in
one pull he swung me up on the back of
(18:03):
his saddle. He called Peanut and we headed off to
find another one. That was good. Brent, I thought you'd
done let him get away, and then you got to
both of them, riding the nogging. I'm proud of you, son.
I was less than five minutes from the hospital, driving
(18:24):
faster than I should have been when Tim called me.
Tim lived a lot closer and would have been easily
there a few minutes before us. I knew what he
had to say even before I answered Hello. He said,
he's gone hunting. Dad's gone hunting. I remember thinking it
(18:45):
was a good night for cold hunting. I bet you
could have heard a hound bark for miles. We buried
my father in the family cemetery that bears our name
in Cleveland County, Arkansas, along side my great grandfather and
my grandfather. It's been fourteen fathers days without him, well
(19:06):
without his physical presence. He's still here. I see him
in my children. I see him and my brother. I
see him and me sometimes, and sometimes he catches me
a little by surprise when I do. Several months ago,
I got word from friends of mine that they were
going to be first time fathers. During those conversations, I
(19:27):
told them both that only when they held their babies
would they know how much their dads love them. I
talk to them both after each blessed event, and they
wholeheartedly agree that's the way it goes. That's the natural
order of things. The events of our existence that make
worthwhile our being where we are, they're all around us
(19:51):
for us to see, to hear, and participate in until
they aren't. We just have to look up from what
we're doing to see it. Some times, this podcast was
supposed to be delivered to Riva three days sooner than
it was because of a baseball game, a game that
our oldest daughter Amy and our son in law Colin
(20:12):
got tickets for all of us to go, and after
the game, my six year old grandson Trip wanted to
spend the night with us. So I kicked a self
imposed deadline to the curb and took off a day
from the computer to go to the ball game, to
bring my grandson home, and set up to midnight watching
Spider Man and answered an endless belt fed machine gun
(20:34):
of questions, most of which I could answer. I missed
a lot of those from his mama because I let
other things get in my way. A mistake got vowed
I wouldn't make twice. Just a little time. That's all
it takes, is just a little time. Paul, Why is
whaling bark so loud? When are they gonna fix the
(20:55):
hole in that road? Why is giraffe spelled with a g?
It ain't goud raft? All great questions coming from the
mind that looks to us for direction, safety, honesty, and love.
It's really just a conversation. It's a back and forth
search for interaction between generations, and it's okay for us
(21:17):
to say I don't know the most important part is
just being there for them to hear you say it.
Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there who,
whether by blood or choice, are answering questions, but mainly
just for standing still long enough to hear them. Bear Greece,
(21:41):
render this country life. And now the Backwoods University is
dropping on this feed. There's something for everyone, and we
sure appreciate all this. Until next week. This is Brent
Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful, don
Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from con hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airwaves have to offer. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share. Pocket knives, squirrels, and Father's Day. It's
Father's Day again, and I'm gonna talk about two significant
events in my life. The big story took place over
(00:49):
forty days with glimpses of the past. It'll all makes
sense when we get to it. But first I'm gonna
tell you this one that has literally taken generations to tell.
As we celebrate those folks in our lives, both past
(01:10):
and present, who either biologically or lovingly earned the rank
and privilege historically afforded fathers, I want to talk to
you first about a recent honor bestowed upon my family
that could not have culminated at a more appropriate time
than right now. Now. I've told you all about it before,
but if you're a new listener, let me do a
quick summary of how we got here and the story
(01:33):
I'm fixing to tell this Country Life podcast number two,
which aired on April twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, one
hundred and eleven podcasts ago I talked about the stuff
that I told in my pockets, everything from pocket watches
to pocket knives, not casually but matter of factly mention
a particular brand of life that's near and dear to
(01:55):
my family and has been for the last six generations.
I had no ulterior motives, just real, organic, off the
cuff comments. Now that brand of knife was the exclusive
brand you'll find on any of us at any given time.
There are families in Deer, the Fords and Chevrolets, John
(02:16):
Deere and Massive Ferguson tractors, or Duke's mayonnaise, even a
particular weather man. But in our family the brand of
knife was and his case, knives of Bradford, Pennsylvania. Me
mentioning that during the second episode that aired of this
Weekly Struggle didn't light the fuse on my family's relationship
with the good folks at Bradford, had merely fanned the
(02:39):
flames that have been burning for over one hundred years now.
Someone and I don't know who it was, but God
bless them whoever it was, heard that episode and brought
it to Case's attention. Now, through that slight introduction, we
fast forward to where we sit now, with the wr
Case Company being a spot answer of this show, an
(03:02):
absolute fairy tale of a story that put me in
a place where my name is associated with an iconic
American company building products by hand every day that are
used by Americans every day all over this country, doing
the task required for putting in an honest day's labor,
like the three generations before me did. Now, before folks
(03:26):
start rolling their eyes and say, oh, Brent's doing a
commercial for a sponsor, let me stop you right there.
I have one hundred percent total control over what I
say on the show. And not only does meat eat
or not even make suggestions on the content need of
this case. In fact, they both prefer I talk less
about them so people don't get the impression I'm over
(03:46):
here selling used cars like Junior samples. I get to
talk about the things I like hockeyknives or one of them.
So with that said, let me get to the meat
on this bone. Last week, the Case Company and metiatter
released a knife that is the Brent Reeves signature. Many traffic,
(04:09):
months and months of planning and meetings resulted in a
deep red bone handled pocket knife that is the same
color of the first pocket knife I ever remember my
dad carrying. It means a lot to me and my family,
and none of it would have been possible had it
(04:30):
not been for you, You faithful folks who listen every week
and the ones who take the time to write reviews,
share the podcast with others and send in the best
stories that I get to share, and you show up
at events just to visit and talk about the different
things that we all love to talk about. I get
(04:52):
emotional talking about this object made of metal and bone,
not because of what it is, but by what it represents.
It's all of us together, from Cleveland County, Arkansas, and
McKean County, Pennsylvania, to every home, job, or car where
you're listening. Now, we're all in this together, and from
(05:13):
the bottom of my heart, I thank you all, and
you you are just how this all happened. Father's Day
a day set aside to honor the dads out there.
In my case, it's the guy who, above all else
(05:36):
taught me how to have fun. A few of those
times have been shared with y'all here lessons I learned,
both from observations and from his direct instruction. The following
is the story I wrote not long after my dad
passed away. It's a detailed diary of strong remembrances of
different days during his stay in the hospital, and those
(05:58):
days were long and tenure short abbreviated. When does the
communication between whoever was fortunate enough to be sitting in
the room with him when he came to mixed in
between the hospital references as a hunt that comes to
mind anytime squirrels are mentioned, and it was running through
my mind as we raced toward what would be his
(06:19):
final night on earth. It remains a core memory of
my understanding of the love my father had for me
and the pride he had in me, both things that
he was adamant that I know now. He could be
upset with me, he mad at me, even disappointed, but
he always made me know how much he loved me,
(06:42):
something I've tried to emulate with the folks. I love
that's not just limited to family, and not just by actions,
but telling them too, Just like he did. I wrote
this story on in a few days after the seventh
of September in twenty eleven, with no intentions of anyone
outside of me ever reading it, and it skips back
(07:04):
and forth in time, making perfect sense to me as
I wrote it. The events freshened my mind and on
my heart. As the one who saw it all as
an eyewitness, My hope above all hope is that it'll
translate here for you. The phone woke me out of
(07:27):
a sound sleep. I had it in my hand before
the second ring was done, and nearly twenty years of
being a police officer, anytime the phone rings after bedtime,
it could only mean one thing, something is wrong. And
the caller ID said it was my aunt Diana, my
dad's youngest sister. She'd never call this lad unless it
(07:48):
was an emergency, and by being her, I immediately knew
it involved my dad. She said, Hey, I'm on the
way to Pine Bluff. Your dad is in the er.
He said, had some type of spell, and I think
they said something about life support coming to full alert.
I told her we're on the way. It was cold.
(08:15):
As we made our way through the cane thicket, Buck
would turn his head to grab a bigger bite of
switch cane leaves, all the while holding a steady course
Dad had set for him. As we closed in on peanuts, barking, Dad,
if this twenty two was to start shooting all by itself,
would you want me to just chunk it over yonder?
An acceptable, silly question for an eight year old boy
(08:37):
to ask, No, son, I just pointed out there until
he ran out of shells. But I don't expect it
to do that, though me neither. I was just asking,
all right, let's kill this squirrel. Now. When we get
up here, you slide off, run around the other side
of that tree, away from me and Buck, and I'll
wait for Jerry over here. When he gets here, all
(09:01):
the commotion will put that squirrel on your side of
the tree and you can kill him. Yes, Sir. I
buried my head in the middle of his back. I
squeezed my eyes shut, and I held on as tight
as I could to his waist. As we entered the
green brier portion of that thicket, the sharp thorns grabbed
the toe of my boots as I pinched him as
far as I could behind Dad's legs to keep the
(09:23):
briers and vines from pulling me off the back of
that saddle. I knew we'd broken free from the thicket
when the scratching sound of the brier scraping across that
leather gun scabbard subsided and peanuts bark grew louder. I
peecked around the right shoulder of the strongest man in
the world, and I saw peanuts bobtail wagging into blurs.
(09:44):
He barked and circled a huge oak tree, searching for
the squirrel that he knew was there. I pulled my
hands out of Dad's warm coat pockets and slid like
a snake off the back of that huge buckskin horse.
I no sooner hit the ground one. Dad handed me
the twenty two, and I ran past Peanut and the tree,
picking out a spot on the opposite side where I
(10:05):
could see most of the tree, and waited for that
squirrel to move. Your father has had a stroke. Only
time will tell how significant the damage will be. Now
complicating all of this is our inability to give him
the medication that thends his blood regulates his heartbeat. He's stable,
(10:27):
but the next twenty four hours will play a critical
role in the rest of his life and its quality.
I looked at my wife with a blank expression as
we stood in the hallway of the hospital after our
chance meeting with the neurosurgeon that had only hours before
operated on the strongest man in the world. Thank you, doctor,
(10:50):
was all I could muster. I'm not sure if Alexis
said anything to him or not. I recall her squeezing
my hand as we walked back toward the waiting room,
where nearly every one within my immediate family, close friends
and distant family, and some folks I'd never seen in
my life waited and supported one another. We prayed together,
we laughed together, we cried together, but mostly we just
(11:13):
sat around and loved my dad in each other, and
we waited. Every day, work, go to the hospital, go home, work,
go to the hospital, go home. Wait and wait and
wait and remember. My eyes strained to see where I
(11:38):
couldn't and watch for the tiniest movement that would give
my quorus location away. Look in the forks, watch up
the tree and out. Look for his ear it looked
like a little triangle sticking up. Or looked for his
tail to switch. You'll you'll find him. I repeated Dad's
instructions over and over in my mind as I followed
(11:59):
to the letter what he'd been teaching me, Peanut and
barking his plea for me to find him, and Jerry
rode up on his horse and around to my side
of the tree scrambled a gray squirrel, just like my
dad said he would. Two weeks after he went in
(12:24):
to the hospital, I saw his eyes blink and then
he looked at me with the prettiest blue eyes I'd
ever seen. Hi, Dad, I've been missing you. He focused
on my tired, smiling face and he winked at me.
I love you, son, he whispered, I love you to Paul.
(12:45):
He squeezed my hand and that had been holding his
for the last thirty minutes or so, and I squeezed back.
I talked to him for a good while. He watched
me as I talked to him, listening intently as I spoke.
In the case, he'd have an expression of understanding and calm,
reassuring me that he knew what I was saying. Of
(13:09):
the details of that conversation will remain between Dad, me
and the Good Lord who blessed me with one of
the few cognitive windows during that forty days we spent
at the hospital to communicate with my dad, just him
and me. But the gist of it was I was
gonna try hard to take care of his grandkids and
his daughter in law, and I could tell he was tired.
(13:32):
So when we finished talking, I told him I loved him,
and he squeezed my hand. He winked at me again,
and he drifted off to sleep. I seem Dad, I
see him the squirrel of inch his way toward a
big fork on my side of the tree. Each time
I settled a crosshair of the scope on his head
and prepared a fire, he'd inch out of my sights
(13:54):
and short spurts a few inches at a time. I
could see the hollow limb above the fork where I
feared he was going, and I raised my aim just
below where I thought he'd enter that hole. Dogs barked,
and Jerry and Dad both shook small saplings from where
they sat on their horses, keeping the noise of the
limbs and the leaves on the opposite side of the
(14:15):
tree from me, and the squirrel held my aim above
That squirrel trained on the spot where I hoped he'd
stop before we crawled into his waiting sanctuary. We just
finished supper when my phone rang with my aunt Diane again. Hello, Hey,
(14:38):
it's breathing. Isn't very good? Doctor says y'all better come on,
we're on the way. I said it calmly. The weather
had been hot and windy and humid over the past
month and a half. This night it was unseasonably cool,
wind wasn't blowing, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Yeah,
(15:00):
the stars were everywhere. When we walked outside. I called
my brother Tim as we were getting in the car.
I asked him you headed to the hospital. He said yes.
I said, was the wind blowing when you walked outside?
The question that he kind of caught him off guard.
He said, do what I said, the wind? Was it
(15:21):
blowing when you walked out to leave? He said, I
didn't notice why. I said, it wasn't blowing at my house.
It's cool tonight, the first night since dad's been in
the hospital. It's been worth a deurn to run his dogs.
You can hear a hound bark from Myles tonight. Dad's
going hunting, brother. And for a second it was only silence,
(15:47):
and then Tim said, well, I'll be he sure is
drive safe, don't be in a hurry. I'll see you there,
and I love you just a little more, just a
little more, I remember saying to myself as I caught
a glimpse of the squirrel as he entered the side
(16:09):
picture of the bottom of my scope. I had a
rock solid rest on a dogwood limb that was the
perfect height for the shot I was fixing to take
just a little more. And with that thought, the squirrel
sprinted the last two feet before I could even realize it,
and he disappeared into that home. I raised up from
that rifle and looked at Dad and Jerry, who were
(16:31):
laughing now at the expression on my face as I
looked back and forth from my hole in the tree
to where they sat watching me. Now, this is not
how I'd had all this worked out in my mind.
He was supposed to stop just before he went in
that hole, and I'd squeezed the trigger and getting him
with one shot and making the strongest man in the
world proud of me. I imagine doing it all over again.
(16:58):
As I heard Dad tell me to get back on
the horse, I relived watching that squirrel out of the
corner of my eyes. He ent slowly toward where I
had that rival aimed below the hole in that tree.
I braced the rifle back on that dog wood limb.
I oriented the barrel toward that hole, placed my cheek
on the stock, and took aim. As I done just
prior to the squirrel making his escape. I settled the
(17:21):
crossairs on the imaginary squirrel, wishing I had had another
chance at him. When it was replaced by a real one,
I didn't think about it. I pushed his safety off.
I pulled the trigger and sent that squirrel toward the
ground with a head shot, and Peanut caught him in
mid air. Before I had time to realize that, another
(17:42):
squirrel came out of that hole and stopped in the
same spot. He met the same fate, except this one
landed on the ground with a thud. I picked him up.
I retrieved one Peanut had caught, and I carried him
both to my dad, who was grinning bigger than Jerry
or me. We tied him on the sack, and in
one pull he swung me up on the back of
(18:03):
his saddle. He called Peanut and we headed off to
find another one. That was good. Brent, I thought you'd
done let him get away, and then you got to
both of them, riding the nogging. I'm proud of you, son.
I was less than five minutes from the hospital, driving
(18:24):
faster than I should have been when Tim called me.
Tim lived a lot closer and would have been easily
there a few minutes before us. I knew what he
had to say even before I answered Hello. He said,
he's gone hunting. Dad's gone hunting. I remember thinking it
(18:45):
was a good night for cold hunting. I bet you
could have heard a hound bark for miles. We buried
my father in the family cemetery that bears our name
in Cleveland County, Arkansas, along side my great grandfather and
my grandfather. It's been fourteen fathers days without him, well
(19:06):
without his physical presence. He's still here. I see him
in my children. I see him and my brother. I
see him and me sometimes, and sometimes he catches me
a little by surprise when I do. Several months ago,
I got word from friends of mine that they were
going to be first time fathers. During those conversations, I
(19:27):
told them both that only when they held their babies
would they know how much their dads love them. I
talk to them both after each blessed event, and they
wholeheartedly agree that's the way it goes. That's the natural
order of things. The events of our existence that make
worthwhile our being where we are, they're all around us
(19:51):
for us to see, to hear, and participate in until
they aren't. We just have to look up from what
we're doing to see it. Some times, this podcast was
supposed to be delivered to Riva three days sooner than
it was because of a baseball game, a game that
our oldest daughter Amy and our son in law Colin
(20:12):
got tickets for all of us to go, and after
the game, my six year old grandson Trip wanted to
spend the night with us. So I kicked a self
imposed deadline to the curb and took off a day
from the computer to go to the ball game, to
bring my grandson home, and set up to midnight watching
Spider Man and answered an endless belt fed machine gun
(20:34):
of questions, most of which I could answer. I missed
a lot of those from his mama because I let
other things get in my way. A mistake got vowed
I wouldn't make twice. Just a little time. That's all
it takes, is just a little time. Paul, Why is
whaling bark so loud? When are they gonna fix the
(20:55):
hole in that road? Why is giraffe spelled with a g?
It ain't goud raft? All great questions coming from the
mind that looks to us for direction, safety, honesty, and love.
It's really just a conversation. It's a back and forth
search for interaction between generations, and it's okay for us
(21:17):
to say I don't know the most important part is
just being there for them to hear you say it.
Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there who,
whether by blood or choice, are answering questions, but mainly
just for standing still long enough to hear them. Bear Greece,
(21:41):
render this country life. And now the Backwoods University is
dropping on this feed. There's something for everyone, and we
sure appreciate all this. Until next week. This is Brent
Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful, don
Host
Clay Newcomb
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