September 12, 2025 • 22 mins
Brent reflects on stories heard from old and new friends this past weekend at an event with Case Knives. Centered on the common thread of their love of knives and hunting, most of these stories end up being about something else entirely. He also reads a letter he received from a chance meeting that developed into a true friendship. Check your pockets! It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.
Connect with Brent and MeatEater
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips
Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube
Shop Bear Grease Merch
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trotlining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat
Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that
(00:27):
airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.
Small knife, big life. Who could have imagined the blessings
that pocket knives would have on my life? Not me
(00:48):
or anyone else around me. My dad handed me the
first one to put in my pocket when I was
just a little boy. I would have never dreamed that
one day our name would be associated with those same knives.
A recent trip to Missouri brought a lot of that
home for me, and I'd like nothing better than to
share some of it with you now. But first, I'm
(01:11):
going to tell you a story. A couple months back,
I was in Montowna at the med Eater office and
we were having some meetings and activities and wound up
doing some shooting out at a ranch owned by mister
Mike Anderson. I had never met him before, and the
(01:32):
access to his property was broken by a friend of ours,
Peter Howell, and mister Anderson rode up on a four
wheeler to watch some of the shooting and visit with
a gaggle of folks he didn't know that were in
the process of trading trigger squeezes for metal pings. He
wore what I assume would be similar to his daily
(01:52):
attire as he went about his chores on his ranch,
faded blue jeans, a khaki work shirt, and black suspenders.
His cap was dusty and weatherbeat, a description that might
identify mister Anderson in a different setting, but here he
was part of the landscape, and his eighty something year
(02:12):
old eyes twinkled with delight against his sun tanned face
as he talked about his time there. The steward of
the ranch he bought a half century ago, he stuck
out his hand and introduced himself. I followed suit, and
he looked at my case T shirt and said, do
you work for Case Knives. I told him about my
(02:32):
association with him, a brief history of what most of
you listening have heard before, and when I finished, he
told me about a knife his father had given him,
but he was a young man. We talked for a
couple of hours. I was supposed to be shooting, but
I skipped out to talk to this man about his life,
his land, and the things that are still being made
(02:56):
in America. Before we left, I got his address. I said,
my friend Alexzander, who manages the meat eater store in Bozeman,
send him one of my signature knives. A week after
it was delivered to his home, I received a handwritten
letter from mister Anderson. So in his words, grammatical inflection
and my voice, I'm going to read it to you now.
(03:20):
August thirteenth, twenty twenty five, Dear Brent, today was Christmas
in Montana. Santa Claus came to my mailbox with the
finest president of all. Thank you very much for the
case knife. Can can one be too rich to think
they have too many knives and guns? I don't think so.
(03:43):
Through college, I was the advertising manager for the University
of Idaho newspaper. Now I mentioned this as my thoughts
still turned to the question of how do I convey
something of value to the public. As I hold my
new knife in one hand and write my thoughts with
the other, here's my thought. You never truly own a
(04:06):
case knife, you just hold it in trust for the
next generation. I still carry the case knife my father
gave me nearly eighty years ago. It has been lost, found,
lost again, and found again. Is getting more careful attention
now as I try to determine which one of my
(04:26):
children will inherit it. I've used it to clean hundreds
of fish, many birds, and a small herd of elk
and deer. Would I part with it for ten thousand dollars?
I don't know if there's a number out there that
could get it out of my pocket. As for your gift,
what a beautiful combination of workmanship. Thanks again. I represented
(04:51):
a concern for over forty years. They were founded in
eighteen fifty seven and had a history of excellence in
all of their products from the that date to today.
History conveys to those who are part of it a
special feeling, I am sure is shared by the family
that represents case nives. I hope so the craftsmanship tells
(05:14):
me that I am right about that. Again, many thanks,
warmans regards to you and yours. Mike. PS. If you
have a case catalog, I would appreciate having one well, that, folks,
(05:34):
is mister Mike Anderson, a true representative of a generation
of people who worked hard for what they have and
value the sweat equity of those that came before them.
Mister Anderson made a difference in my life during a
two hour conversation. Sometimes that's all it takes, and that's
(05:58):
just how it happened. I get asked all the time,
which pocket knife should I carry, which one should I
buy my child for their first knife? And what age
should I give it to him? Man, that's a hard question.
(06:20):
There are so many factors that go into the decision.
What are they going to be doing with it? But
most importantly, have you done your due diligence in preparing
them for the responsibilities of being safe with one, how
to take care of it properly and to use it
when it's appropriate. A listener sent me a message not
(06:41):
long after I started this country life, and you want
to know about one as a present for his youngin
that was in elementary school. Now, I'll tell you my
first thought was to tell him no bad idea, But
then I thought about the wooden knife kids that case has,
and I asked him if he was familiar with him,
and since he wasn't, I sent him one with this advice,
(07:04):
why not make a father's son project out of it?
Learn learn about how a pocket knife works, how it's made,
all the parts, while teaching him about how to safely
use one. The one I sent him is an exact
replication of all the pieces to scale of a mini trapper,
like I told in My Pocket, but I've seen them
(07:24):
in multiple patterns of different models. The canoe, the Texas, toothpick,
and teardrop models are easily found on the internet with
a simple search. That idea was well received and one
that I hope will catch you on with adults everywhere.
Bailey and I have put together several and I can
easily admit I had just as much or more fun
as she did putting them together. Appropriate age is one
(07:48):
you'll need to figure out yourself. No one is gonna
know you're young and better than you. A good rule
of thumb for handling a first knife is the blade
should be about as long as the person's ending finger
that's using it. Now. That is going to save you
some band aids, because it's easier to gauge where the
knife tip is when comparing where your fingertip would be
(08:12):
when you're skinning and cleaning fishing game, that knife should
be a natural extension of your hand, and with time
and practice, it will be. When my father handed me
his mini trapper after a squirrel hunt when I was
just a boy, he was teaching me how to skin
a squirrel. He was also showing me how much he'd
(08:33):
loved me, because as much as he'd loved squirrel hunting,
he wouldn't have eaten one if he'd been starving. Slapped
to death. For the uninitiated on my father's feelings about squirrels,
allow me to do a small review. He lived somewhat
of a dual life, as his love for squirrel hunting
put him in the midst of his greatest fear. He
(08:56):
had an issue with anything anything that looked like a ram.
He didn't like eating squirrels, he didn't like holding squirrels.
He didn't want anything to do with him outside of
hunting them with a dog. Whoever he was hunting with
was responsible for picking up the squirrels that were shot
out of the tree. If he was working a new
(09:19):
puffy and hunting by himself, or if others couldn't go
when he could, he'd bring them out either stuffs in
a saddle bag or tied to a lanyard on the
saddle horn, where he could easily dump them out or
drop them off at whoever's house he stopped at to
give him away or trade for a iron of snake
bite medicine. But he wouldn't waste them ever. But he
(09:41):
would have touched them only once after the dogs treat them,
and that was when he placed them in the saddle
bager on his lander. Unless I was with him. If
it was just me and him, we'd skin them out
to cook. And he hated every second of it. I
can see his face now as he the feet and
I began making an incision above that squirrel's exhaust pipe
(10:04):
at the base of his tail. Son. Now, that knife
is sharp, so don't cut too hard. Find the joint
where his tail connects to his behind. Eased the blade
through it, and continue down his backside a little bit.
Don't cut too hard. I cut too hard, and his
(10:25):
tail came off in my hand. And my dad, whose
only kryptonite was the idea of having to touch anything
that resembles a rat, now had to hold the carcass
of a reasonable fact simile of something whose only bushy
identifier that been carelessly removed by his baby boy, A
descriptor he used for me until he passed away when
(10:47):
I was forty five years old. The last ones I
remember him frying up for me to eat. He and
I sat at the table, and he had something else.
He had a disgusting look on his face while he
watched me rick every piece he was able to struggle
through that he'd fried for me. How much did that
(11:10):
man love me? Good night, nurse. But the gift of
that first knife was important to us, had signified the
subliminal passing of the torch, casual handing down of the
legacy of all who came before the person getting a knife.
I was too young to realize any of that when
I got my first one, and as happy as I
(11:31):
was to get it, I deserved it only in keeping
with the tradition that there would come a time during
the day when I wouldn't need a knife, a sharp knife,
doing chores on the farm, or skinning a critter i'd caught,
or cleaning fish. I was expected to handle my own business,
we all were. There wasn't a set of written instructions.
(11:53):
There there wasn't a Reeve's legacy playbook from which to
operate from in the literal sense, just an observational education
on how to do things and what to use when
you did. Just like the ones who came before us,
there was a lot of do it your way until
you come up with a better one, because no one
(12:14):
was going to do it for you. Those were thoughts, feelings,
and things involving those knives that I believed to be
singularly hours. I found out a couple of years ago
how wrong I was. Now I was reminded of that
fact last weekend in Levendon, Missouri. I was invited by
(12:41):
the Reed family to come speak at their Celebration of
the Ozarks event at their Shepherd Hill store. The Reeds
are longtime residents of the area and what I'd consider
to be case family royalty. In nineteen seventy two, miss
Ida Reed and her husband Reed that's right, his name
is Reed Red opened Shepherd Hills Gift Shop. It was
(13:04):
located in the front of a motel in Lebanon on
historic Route sixty six highway now that stretched through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas,
New Mexico, Arizona, and winding up on the west coast
of California. The sole mission for this store was to
(13:25):
raise the funds to send their sons, Rod and Randy
to college, and it worked. They started out being a
factory outlet for Chicago Cutlery, and then in the early
nineteen nineties they started selling case knives. Fifty three years later,
that business has grown to two additional locations, one an
(13:48):
hour and a half south in Branson and the other
three hundred and seventeen miles east in Eddyville, Kentucky, miss Ida.
Is still sir as president of Shepherd Hills, and mister
Reid passed away several years ago. Rod and Randy run
the day to day operations. Rod's wife, Becky, handles the
(14:11):
catalog sales on website and runs the camp case for
kids during the celebration each year. Randy sons are involved
as well, and that family has built what started out
as a humble gift shop with a singular focus and
powerful mission into the largest case knife dealership in the world.
(14:33):
With the Reed grandsons I met who were helping out
during the event last weekend, that tallied four generations. That's
special and even though I consider them Case family royalty.
They were working hard to serve everyone else. Every minute
I was there all of them. There was no air
of authority around any of them. And that's how you
(14:56):
accomplished something big. Everyone works together and stays mission and focus.
These folks understand that their customers are the lifeblood of
this family business, but they treat their customers more like
family and not the weird cousin your mama makes you
be nice to every Christmas at MEM's house. Now the
(15:16):
family that you can't wait to see, even if you
saw me yesterday, That event could just as easily be
called a family reunion. I saw people and collectors there
that I saw in Bradford, Pennsylvania, when I was out
there last year. The reason for me being there was
to speak at the case Collector's Club dinner. Over five
(15:39):
hundred individuals, couples, and families gathered to eat in fellowship. Afterwards,
we relocated to a theater where the captive of audience
was forced to listen to me for about twenty minutes
and privileged to hear from Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant
Major Matthew Williams. I talked to about my family's history
(16:01):
and legacy. With the knives and detailed the message I
received from Case when they heard the episode I did,
explaining our history what started at all, and in that message,
Case said, we like the way you talked about our knives,
and I got that message. I read the word hour,
and I guess you could interpret that as them talking
(16:23):
about their knives, but I didn't take it that way.
It boastered my own equity and that of my families.
I took it as they included me and mine in
the term hour, including my presentation. And then Sergeant Major
Williams took the stage and spoke about duty and dedication, discipline,
(16:43):
loyalty and sacrifice. It is very moving now, it is
a very moving story and a great example of service
before self. I highly encourage you to look up Sergeant
Major William's citation for receiving the Medal of Honor and
read it for yourself. It's truly incredible. The next day,
(17:04):
we greeted the several thousand folks that had made the
trip from all over Creation to be there. Robert Green,
Brandon and Chrissy Lynch, Jeremy and Jacob Sloan, Donnie Baker,
and my lifelong friends Mary and Toby Neebyer, and countless
others that I had the opportunity to meet that are
now new friends of mine. We ate chilli and hot
(17:26):
dogs and laughed and talked about knives, hunting, fishing, and
living in the country, and everyone had a story to
tell me, some of them waiting patiently for their turn
to talk to me, and I was glad to hear them.
It's like that. Everywhere I go people tell me stories,
and no two are ever the same, And yet ninety
(17:47):
percent of them are about the one that got away
or the one that they got But that's never the
important part of the story. When sometimes they think that's
the point of their story. But I watch them when
they tell them to me, and I watch how they
tell it. If being a policeman for a third of
(18:09):
a century taught me one thing, it's if you want
to learn how someone feels about something, let them tell
you about an event that affected them strongly. That sounds
simple to do, and it is. But most folks are
just waiting for their turn to talk. In any conversation
they're hearing, they're just not listening. I watched a person
(18:31):
after person who told me a story about a deer,
a fish, a dog or a relative, and I watched
how they told the story, how they emphasize the things
that were important to them, and the time they spent
on specific details of the tale. I heard a grown
man tell me a story about a deer hunt where
he talked about the biggest deer he ever shot. He
(18:55):
shot it when he was twelve, and he described the
deer so poorly that I doubt I could pick it
out of a two deer lineup. But the old truck
his dad took him hunting in was a two tone
white overred sixty nine Ford short wheelbase pickup. His dad
was wearing overalls, a flannel shirt, and an old canvas
(19:17):
hunting coat that he still has. Dear story. He wasn't
telling me a dear story. He was telling me about
a time he shared with his dad, and it just
happened to kill the biggest deer of his life as
an anecdote now in his head. He was telling me
about the deer hunt, but all his emotion, inflection and
(19:39):
wistfulness was any time he mentioned his father. I heard
dozens of stories, mostly just like that, and I loved
every one of them. A few were truly about the game,
being pursued, but the biggest part of them, either knowingly
or unknowingly, were odes to an older time, a time
(20:00):
the world seemed smaller, the times were simpler, and success
was measured by the company you shared and not the
tag you field. Just like last weekend, we sold all
the remaining Brent Reeves signature case knives and enough hatch
to outfit a couple of Major League Baseball teams. Success absolutely,
(20:20):
and I'm so thankful for all the support you faithful
folks afford this show, with your online reviews and sharing
them with others, and all the T shirts that we
all seemed to enjoy. I appreciate it very much. But
outside of that, I got to know my colleague Laura
Muscari a little better. I held some of the prettiest
babies a fella could hold. I got to spend time
(20:43):
with Travis, Miss Becky, Mss Kathy, Mister Rodney, Mister Andy,
and his grandsons, a gaggle of young men I planned
to be sitting beside a tree with next spring. When
I was speaking after the dinner, I looked out and
I saw an auditorium of over five people watching and
listening to what I was talking about and as is
(21:04):
par for the course, I got a little emotional a
couple of times while trying to express my thoughts and
feelings about those those little knives that inn around about
way have afforded me this big life in doing so,
I looked on the front row, and sitting there was
my youngest daughter, Bailey. I saw her wipe a tear
(21:26):
as I talked about her grandfather man she never got
to meet, And beside her sat my wife Alexis, her
her hands pressed together prayerfully, her eyes overflowing, and her
expression want of love and support, and her confidence in
me that I could finish the task that I'd been
(21:47):
asked to do. Suddenly I felt relaxed. After all, I
was there with my people, and I was talking about
our knives. Just like the dear story that man told me.
I wasn't talking about knives. I was talking about what
(22:07):
and who they represent. Man. They represent some really good folks.
Thank y'all so much for listening. Me and o'clay Bow
will be at the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff in Springdale, Arkansas, tomorrow, Saturday,
September thirteenth. Be there for b Square. That's your choices
(22:31):
until next week. This is Brent Reeves, sign it off.
Y'all be careful.
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trotlining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat
Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that
(00:27):
airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.
Small knife, big life. Who could have imagined the blessings
that pocket knives would have on my life? Not me
(00:48):
or anyone else around me. My dad handed me the
first one to put in my pocket when I was
just a little boy. I would have never dreamed that
one day our name would be associated with those same knives.
A recent trip to Missouri brought a lot of that
home for me, and I'd like nothing better than to
share some of it with you now. But first, I'm
(01:11):
going to tell you a story. A couple months back,
I was in Montowna at the med Eater office and
we were having some meetings and activities and wound up
doing some shooting out at a ranch owned by mister
Mike Anderson. I had never met him before, and the
(01:32):
access to his property was broken by a friend of ours,
Peter Howell, and mister Anderson rode up on a four
wheeler to watch some of the shooting and visit with
a gaggle of folks he didn't know that were in
the process of trading trigger squeezes for metal pings. He
wore what I assume would be similar to his daily
(01:52):
attire as he went about his chores on his ranch,
faded blue jeans, a khaki work shirt, and black suspenders.
His cap was dusty and weatherbeat, a description that might
identify mister Anderson in a different setting, but here he
was part of the landscape, and his eighty something year
(02:12):
old eyes twinkled with delight against his sun tanned face
as he talked about his time there. The steward of
the ranch he bought a half century ago, he stuck
out his hand and introduced himself. I followed suit, and
he looked at my case T shirt and said, do
you work for Case Knives. I told him about my
(02:32):
association with him, a brief history of what most of
you listening have heard before, and when I finished, he
told me about a knife his father had given him,
but he was a young man. We talked for a
couple of hours. I was supposed to be shooting, but
I skipped out to talk to this man about his life,
his land, and the things that are still being made
(02:56):
in America. Before we left, I got his address. I said,
my friend Alexzander, who manages the meat eater store in Bozeman,
send him one of my signature knives. A week after
it was delivered to his home, I received a handwritten
letter from mister Anderson. So in his words, grammatical inflection
and my voice, I'm going to read it to you now.
(03:20):
August thirteenth, twenty twenty five, Dear Brent, today was Christmas
in Montana. Santa Claus came to my mailbox with the
finest president of all. Thank you very much for the
case knife. Can can one be too rich to think
they have too many knives and guns? I don't think so.
(03:43):
Through college, I was the advertising manager for the University
of Idaho newspaper. Now I mentioned this as my thoughts
still turned to the question of how do I convey
something of value to the public. As I hold my
new knife in one hand and write my thoughts with
the other, here's my thought. You never truly own a
(04:06):
case knife, you just hold it in trust for the
next generation. I still carry the case knife my father
gave me nearly eighty years ago. It has been lost, found,
lost again, and found again. Is getting more careful attention
now as I try to determine which one of my
(04:26):
children will inherit it. I've used it to clean hundreds
of fish, many birds, and a small herd of elk
and deer. Would I part with it for ten thousand dollars?
I don't know if there's a number out there that
could get it out of my pocket. As for your gift,
what a beautiful combination of workmanship. Thanks again. I represented
(04:51):
a concern for over forty years. They were founded in
eighteen fifty seven and had a history of excellence in
all of their products from the that date to today.
History conveys to those who are part of it a
special feeling, I am sure is shared by the family
that represents case nives. I hope so the craftsmanship tells
(05:14):
me that I am right about that. Again, many thanks,
warmans regards to you and yours. Mike. PS. If you
have a case catalog, I would appreciate having one well, that, folks,
(05:34):
is mister Mike Anderson, a true representative of a generation
of people who worked hard for what they have and
value the sweat equity of those that came before them.
Mister Anderson made a difference in my life during a
two hour conversation. Sometimes that's all it takes, and that's
(05:58):
just how it happened. I get asked all the time,
which pocket knife should I carry, which one should I
buy my child for their first knife? And what age
should I give it to him? Man, that's a hard question.
(06:20):
There are so many factors that go into the decision.
What are they going to be doing with it? But
most importantly, have you done your due diligence in preparing
them for the responsibilities of being safe with one, how
to take care of it properly and to use it
when it's appropriate. A listener sent me a message not
(06:41):
long after I started this country life, and you want
to know about one as a present for his youngin
that was in elementary school. Now, I'll tell you my
first thought was to tell him no bad idea, But
then I thought about the wooden knife kids that case has,
and I asked him if he was familiar with him,
and since he wasn't, I sent him one with this advice,
(07:04):
why not make a father's son project out of it?
Learn learn about how a pocket knife works, how it's made,
all the parts, while teaching him about how to safely
use one. The one I sent him is an exact
replication of all the pieces to scale of a mini trapper,
like I told in My Pocket, but I've seen them
(07:24):
in multiple patterns of different models. The canoe, the Texas, toothpick,
and teardrop models are easily found on the internet with
a simple search. That idea was well received and one
that I hope will catch you on with adults everywhere.
Bailey and I have put together several and I can
easily admit I had just as much or more fun
as she did putting them together. Appropriate age is one
(07:48):
you'll need to figure out yourself. No one is gonna
know you're young and better than you. A good rule
of thumb for handling a first knife is the blade
should be about as long as the person's ending finger
that's using it. Now. That is going to save you
some band aids, because it's easier to gauge where the
knife tip is when comparing where your fingertip would be
(08:12):
when you're skinning and cleaning fishing game, that knife should
be a natural extension of your hand, and with time
and practice, it will be. When my father handed me
his mini trapper after a squirrel hunt when I was
just a boy, he was teaching me how to skin
a squirrel. He was also showing me how much he'd
(08:33):
loved me, because as much as he'd loved squirrel hunting,
he wouldn't have eaten one if he'd been starving. Slapped
to death. For the uninitiated on my father's feelings about squirrels,
allow me to do a small review. He lived somewhat
of a dual life, as his love for squirrel hunting
put him in the midst of his greatest fear. He
(08:56):
had an issue with anything anything that looked like a ram.
He didn't like eating squirrels, he didn't like holding squirrels.
He didn't want anything to do with him outside of
hunting them with a dog. Whoever he was hunting with
was responsible for picking up the squirrels that were shot
out of the tree. If he was working a new
(09:19):
puffy and hunting by himself, or if others couldn't go
when he could, he'd bring them out either stuffs in
a saddle bag or tied to a lanyard on the
saddle horn, where he could easily dump them out or
drop them off at whoever's house he stopped at to
give him away or trade for a iron of snake
bite medicine. But he wouldn't waste them ever. But he
(09:41):
would have touched them only once after the dogs treat them,
and that was when he placed them in the saddle
bager on his lander. Unless I was with him. If
it was just me and him, we'd skin them out
to cook. And he hated every second of it. I
can see his face now as he the feet and
I began making an incision above that squirrel's exhaust pipe
(10:04):
at the base of his tail. Son. Now, that knife
is sharp, so don't cut too hard. Find the joint
where his tail connects to his behind. Eased the blade
through it, and continue down his backside a little bit.
Don't cut too hard. I cut too hard, and his
(10:25):
tail came off in my hand. And my dad, whose
only kryptonite was the idea of having to touch anything
that resembles a rat, now had to hold the carcass
of a reasonable fact simile of something whose only bushy
identifier that been carelessly removed by his baby boy, A
descriptor he used for me until he passed away when
(10:47):
I was forty five years old. The last ones I
remember him frying up for me to eat. He and
I sat at the table, and he had something else.
He had a disgusting look on his face while he
watched me rick every piece he was able to struggle
through that he'd fried for me. How much did that
(11:10):
man love me? Good night, nurse. But the gift of
that first knife was important to us, had signified the
subliminal passing of the torch, casual handing down of the
legacy of all who came before the person getting a knife.
I was too young to realize any of that when
I got my first one, and as happy as I
(11:31):
was to get it, I deserved it only in keeping
with the tradition that there would come a time during
the day when I wouldn't need a knife, a sharp knife,
doing chores on the farm, or skinning a critter i'd caught,
or cleaning fish. I was expected to handle my own business,
we all were. There wasn't a set of written instructions.
(11:53):
There there wasn't a Reeve's legacy playbook from which to
operate from in the literal sense, just an observational education
on how to do things and what to use when
you did. Just like the ones who came before us,
there was a lot of do it your way until
you come up with a better one, because no one
(12:14):
was going to do it for you. Those were thoughts, feelings,
and things involving those knives that I believed to be
singularly hours. I found out a couple of years ago
how wrong I was. Now I was reminded of that
fact last weekend in Levendon, Missouri. I was invited by
(12:41):
the Reed family to come speak at their Celebration of
the Ozarks event at their Shepherd Hill store. The Reeds
are longtime residents of the area and what I'd consider
to be case family royalty. In nineteen seventy two, miss
Ida Reed and her husband Reed that's right, his name
is Reed Red opened Shepherd Hills Gift Shop. It was
(13:04):
located in the front of a motel in Lebanon on
historic Route sixty six highway now that stretched through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas,
New Mexico, Arizona, and winding up on the west coast
of California. The sole mission for this store was to
(13:25):
raise the funds to send their sons, Rod and Randy
to college, and it worked. They started out being a
factory outlet for Chicago Cutlery, and then in the early
nineteen nineties they started selling case knives. Fifty three years later,
that business has grown to two additional locations, one an
(13:48):
hour and a half south in Branson and the other
three hundred and seventeen miles east in Eddyville, Kentucky, miss Ida.
Is still sir as president of Shepherd Hills, and mister
Reid passed away several years ago. Rod and Randy run
the day to day operations. Rod's wife, Becky, handles the
(14:11):
catalog sales on website and runs the camp case for
kids during the celebration each year. Randy sons are involved
as well, and that family has built what started out
as a humble gift shop with a singular focus and
powerful mission into the largest case knife dealership in the world.
(14:33):
With the Reed grandsons I met who were helping out
during the event last weekend, that tallied four generations. That's
special and even though I consider them Case family royalty.
They were working hard to serve everyone else. Every minute
I was there all of them. There was no air
of authority around any of them. And that's how you
(14:56):
accomplished something big. Everyone works together and stays mission and focus.
These folks understand that their customers are the lifeblood of
this family business, but they treat their customers more like
family and not the weird cousin your mama makes you
be nice to every Christmas at MEM's house. Now the
(15:16):
family that you can't wait to see, even if you
saw me yesterday, That event could just as easily be
called a family reunion. I saw people and collectors there
that I saw in Bradford, Pennsylvania, when I was out
there last year. The reason for me being there was
to speak at the case Collector's Club dinner. Over five
(15:39):
hundred individuals, couples, and families gathered to eat in fellowship. Afterwards,
we relocated to a theater where the captive of audience
was forced to listen to me for about twenty minutes
and privileged to hear from Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant
Major Matthew Williams. I talked to about my family's history
(16:01):
and legacy. With the knives and detailed the message I
received from Case when they heard the episode I did,
explaining our history what started at all, and in that message,
Case said, we like the way you talked about our knives,
and I got that message. I read the word hour,
and I guess you could interpret that as them talking
(16:23):
about their knives, but I didn't take it that way.
It boastered my own equity and that of my families.
I took it as they included me and mine in
the term hour, including my presentation. And then Sergeant Major
Williams took the stage and spoke about duty and dedication, discipline,
(16:43):
loyalty and sacrifice. It is very moving now, it is
a very moving story and a great example of service
before self. I highly encourage you to look up Sergeant
Major William's citation for receiving the Medal of Honor and
read it for yourself. It's truly incredible. The next day,
(17:04):
we greeted the several thousand folks that had made the
trip from all over Creation to be there. Robert Green,
Brandon and Chrissy Lynch, Jeremy and Jacob Sloan, Donnie Baker,
and my lifelong friends Mary and Toby Neebyer, and countless
others that I had the opportunity to meet that are
now new friends of mine. We ate chilli and hot
(17:26):
dogs and laughed and talked about knives, hunting, fishing, and
living in the country, and everyone had a story to
tell me, some of them waiting patiently for their turn
to talk to me, and I was glad to hear them.
It's like that. Everywhere I go people tell me stories,
and no two are ever the same, And yet ninety
(17:47):
percent of them are about the one that got away
or the one that they got But that's never the
important part of the story. When sometimes they think that's
the point of their story. But I watch them when
they tell them to me, and I watch how they
tell it. If being a policeman for a third of
(18:09):
a century taught me one thing, it's if you want
to learn how someone feels about something, let them tell
you about an event that affected them strongly. That sounds
simple to do, and it is. But most folks are
just waiting for their turn to talk. In any conversation
they're hearing, they're just not listening. I watched a person
(18:31):
after person who told me a story about a deer,
a fish, a dog or a relative, and I watched
how they told the story, how they emphasize the things
that were important to them, and the time they spent
on specific details of the tale. I heard a grown
man tell me a story about a deer hunt where
he talked about the biggest deer he ever shot. He
(18:55):
shot it when he was twelve, and he described the
deer so poorly that I doubt I could pick it
out of a two deer lineup. But the old truck
his dad took him hunting in was a two tone
white overred sixty nine Ford short wheelbase pickup. His dad
was wearing overalls, a flannel shirt, and an old canvas
(19:17):
hunting coat that he still has. Dear story. He wasn't
telling me a dear story. He was telling me about
a time he shared with his dad, and it just
happened to kill the biggest deer of his life as
an anecdote now in his head. He was telling me
about the deer hunt, but all his emotion, inflection and
(19:39):
wistfulness was any time he mentioned his father. I heard
dozens of stories, mostly just like that, and I loved
every one of them. A few were truly about the game,
being pursued, but the biggest part of them, either knowingly
or unknowingly, were odes to an older time, a time
(20:00):
the world seemed smaller, the times were simpler, and success
was measured by the company you shared and not the
tag you field. Just like last weekend, we sold all
the remaining Brent Reeves signature case knives and enough hatch
to outfit a couple of Major League Baseball teams. Success absolutely,
(20:20):
and I'm so thankful for all the support you faithful
folks afford this show, with your online reviews and sharing
them with others, and all the T shirts that we
all seemed to enjoy. I appreciate it very much. But
outside of that, I got to know my colleague Laura
Muscari a little better. I held some of the prettiest
babies a fella could hold. I got to spend time
(20:43):
with Travis, Miss Becky, Mss Kathy, Mister Rodney, Mister Andy,
and his grandsons, a gaggle of young men I planned
to be sitting beside a tree with next spring. When
I was speaking after the dinner, I looked out and
I saw an auditorium of over five people watching and
listening to what I was talking about and as is
(21:04):
par for the course, I got a little emotional a
couple of times while trying to express my thoughts and
feelings about those those little knives that inn around about
way have afforded me this big life in doing so,
I looked on the front row, and sitting there was
my youngest daughter, Bailey. I saw her wipe a tear
(21:26):
as I talked about her grandfather man she never got
to meet, And beside her sat my wife Alexis, her
her hands pressed together prayerfully, her eyes overflowing, and her
expression want of love and support, and her confidence in
me that I could finish the task that I'd been
(21:47):
asked to do. Suddenly I felt relaxed. After all, I
was there with my people, and I was talking about
our knives. Just like the dear story that man told me.
I wasn't talking about knives. I was talking about what
(22:07):
and who they represent. Man. They represent some really good folks.
Thank y'all so much for listening. Me and o'clay Bow
will be at the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff in Springdale, Arkansas, tomorrow, Saturday,
September thirteenth. Be there for b Square. That's your choices
(22:31):
until next week. This is Brent Reeves, sign it off.
Y'all be careful.
Host
Clay Newcomb
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.