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Speaker 1: 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 airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I’ve got some stories to share, Cup Scouts and Chicken farmers. This week, I’m telling you a couple of stories from the archives of Buffoonry. I was a witness to the first one and just an eagerly interested listener to the second. They have stories. These two stories have nothing to do with each other, just a couple of yarns that live in my roller decks. Some memories. I’m gonna share them with you, and I’m not going to try to make you cry. This week, just forget about the world for a few minutes, relax and have a good time. Join me at the fire. Well, let’s get started. We had our first cub Scout overnight camping trip in October of two thousand and four. My son Hunter and his two friends were very excited to be there, as was I. Three six year olds camping out in the wilds of Arkansas’s boy Scout camping known as Camp DeSoto. We arrived on Friday evening and found our assigned camping spot. Setting up our camp, we had hours in order and no time at all as we waited for time to go to bed. Parents talked around the campfire and got more acquainted with each other while the three cup scouts got more acquainted with their new found surroundings. Each armed with a flashlight, they set off to explore the edge of our campsite, expecting danger with every turn our fairly six year old scouts where they searched for would be robbers until it was time for lights out. The next morning, we were up at daylight cooking a large breakfast over our campfire to fuel the coming events of the day. Our program included hiking, fishing with three legged rays, a tug of war, kickball, golf, canoeing, rock climbing, and the ever popular archery and BB gun shooting. The last two events excited our young scouts to the point of frenzy. The mere mention of the words archery, bow and era or BB gun and the three little outdoorsmen to be would shake with anticipation, their voices rising a couple of octors with each passing moment as they discussed the prowess that each would display with a bow and gun. After breakfast, we headed up to the main pavilion to meet, where the camp director would brief us all on the day’s activities. He said we should each start in different events so not to crowd up the archery and BB gun range, which would no doubt be the most popular activity amongst two hundred six year old boys we found ourselves grouped with for the weekend. Getting the boys to start out at golf the opposite direction from the bow and gun range was akin to juggling scorpions. Finally, we managed to get them to realize that they would have to wait to shoot the bows and arrows and the BB guns, so they might as well be doing something else while they did. They had to complete, or at least attempt, each designated activity to receive the beads that would adorn their uniforms signifying their completion of the event. They quickly lost track of times. We made our way from station to station, some being a pretty good distance from each other, with the attention span of six year old boys being fractured, to say the least. We had completed every event and it was time for the be begun and archery range, and they didn’t have a clue that it was coming. As we made our way along the mapped out route, our little scouts had no idea that they were going to finish up the day with what they had longed to do since breakfast. Eventually, one of them spotted a kid with a bow and the stampede began. They shot the b beguns first. It was fun and it kept them occupied and entertained as they plinked away at the targets. But when they finished and as a group then made the short, orderly walk entering the archery range, the level of unbridled enthusiasm leaked out of all their faces. Eight scouts at a time would shoot five arrows each after a safety briefing an instruction from the range master. Eight scouts were just finishing their turn when we arrived and got in line. Parents assisted their kids as well. It was one of the safer environments I have ever had the pleasure to be in, especially when more than one adolescent had been purposely issued individual implements of death. But the kids listened well and each was eager to take their time and hit the intended target. The range was approximately fifteen yards long by fifteen yards wide and had a large paper target at each end, with a life sized molded foam standing bear target in the middle. Eight kids all in line, forty arrows, three targets, and only one of which looked like a bear. Our kids anxiously waited for their respective turn to come. They hopped up and down, straining to see the targets, bows, arrows, and everything else that went with it. Man, this is so cool, I heard Hunter say. They were having a great time. Heck so was I. I was reliving some of my first scouting adventures all over again, and living this one vicariously through my new little scout Fathers and mothers with their kids, each with a huge smile on their face. How could you create a more wholesome atmosphere? What could happen that would dampen or bring anything other than a g rating to this event? Enter my son Hunter, fresh from his last outdoor adventure, the fishing trip that causes him to look both ways before attempting number one to this day. For those that are new to this weekly struggle, I’m going to have to give you a little a brief on a story I told way back on on episode one for one Kids and the Outdoors Part two for the newbies, get a load of this one earlier that same year, the hunter and I went fishing. The result of being hot and drinking water by the bucket full ultimately called for him to get some relief, and doing so, my fishing buddy exposed himself to an expanse of wilderness with the only witness being me and an ill tempered red wash that buzzed by at that exact moment. Now, what happened next was beyond my comprehension of how it played out and why it happened, and it still causes me to cover up and turn away while wincing with an expression of overwhelming sympathy. It’s bad to get stung by a huge red wash. It’s beyond brutal that gets stung while in the act of Numero uno, especially where he got stung. Yeah, I was. Anyway, that story, if you haven’t listened already, is well worth going back and hearing it for yourself. Spoiler alert, to the surprise of every male listener that hasn’t heard it yet and has put together the subtle clues I’m giving y’all of where it happened and what happened. He lived, Ah, I’m not sure how, but he did anyway, fast forward a month or so, and that calamity is well in his past, but maybe not so far out of his mind. Hunter and his group step up to receive their instruction and safety breathing at the archery range. After the short devotional from the instructor, whose voice nervously trembled somewhat when he spoke, and understandably so. For six hours, he just stood there and handed first grader’s weapons. He turned and he sought shelter in a small closet as the children began assaulting the targets with their metal tipped missiles. Now I was so proud of Hunter. He had listened so intently and was trying to reproduce every aspect of the instructor’s directions as he launched arrows toward his target. The first two were short, both falling harmless and silent to the ground like fall leaves in a cool breeze, but he was determined to take advantage of this opportunity to shoot a bow for the first time, and he gritted his jaw and he narrowed his gaze. The artificial brewin was posed, standing on his back legs in a threatening snarl on his face, showing his teeth in an aggressive manner. Pull it back farther and stick that bear before he gets us, I told him. And with what my turkey hunting mentor mister Billy Brant described as starvation aim, hunter knocked his third arrow. He drew back string and let the arrow and bowt settle. As he aimed, his breathing was controlled, and he released the arrow with the focus of a starving archer hunting for his supper. The arrow raced for its target, the yellow fletch and spinning the arrow in flight resembled a tracer around as it flew from Hunter’s fingers. With a solid thud, the arrow found its mark. The shot placement was true to his aim, dead solid perfect, right in the center of where the bear’s peeing parts would be had it been a real bear. As other attempts at hitting the bear sailed all over creation. A small snicker went through the crowd when Hunter’s arrow landed. Hunter knocked another arrow. Aim a little higher, I whispered, I got it, Dad, was his determined reply. The era hissed as an arch along its flight path, coming to rest less than an inch from the one before. Now, small pockets of laughter emanated from the archery range as all eyes fell upon my son. All seven of the other scouts had flung, in rapid succession, all five of their arrows. The area between the boys and targets was littered with them, Some protruded from the paper targets. A few were stuck in the bear, but only two of which that would require a veterinarian urologist to remove. Now there was only one archer left, and he stood at the center of the five, directly in front of me. Those two arrows poking from the nether regions of that bear, directly at the culprit, who was seemilarly shooting them there on purpose. Hunter never took his eyes off his target. It was as if the bear were staring at hunting, like they were old enemies who were meeting for one final showdown where only one would walk away. If a bear could walk away after that, aim a little higher, Son, I said again, this time pleading for this to end so I could get those airs removed and get him in tow and get gone. He didn’t answer. I don’t think he heard me. I don’t think he was aware of anything other than the bear that stood aggressively in front of him, with two ARBs poking out of the last place you’d want to poke a bear or be poked yourself. The snicker lapsed in the shared silent anticipation as Hunter pulled the air from his quiver with slow, deliberate and determination, all the while keeping a steely gaze at that bear. With all eyes and attention from parents, scouts, and volunteers directed toward my middle born child, he knocked and pulled the full draw with one fluid motion, his last remaining arrow that would be the final shot of the day, With all the strength and determination of six year old can muster, he paused and released the arrow wha that era drove home less than her hands width from the previous two. Immediately, Hunter turned to me with a huge smile on his face. He was proud of the shots he had made, and as I hugged him and told him that he had gotten the bear, he started giggling. Did you mean to shoot him in the privates, I asked, And to me, with the crowd listening intently, Hunter said, you said, get him before he gets us, right, I said, yeah, that’s what I said. He said, Well, I figured that if a Waltz could sting me there and get me to holler and forget about fishing, then the air and the privates can make that bear forget about heating us. The crowd word with laughter. We had a good time. We made a memory, and that’s just how that happened. My dad worked as a serviceman in the chicken farming industry for nearly thirty years. He worked for several companies, each eventually being bought out by large ones, until the granddaddy of them all Ties and Foods, ending up his employer back in the late eighties. Serviceman is someone who has assigned different farms to looked after, and the local farmers grow chickens on contract with the company who furnishes the feed and the chickens. The farmer is responsible for building the chicken houses to meet with company specifications, and once they are built, it is the serviceman’s responsibility to see that the chickens are grown according to the company’s regulations and procedures. Irvistmen are responsible for ordering the tons of feed needed to keep the future chicken nuggets fat and healthy. They must ensure the houses are kept in order, regulate any medication if it’s needed to deter sickness, and basically work with the farmer on the company’s behalf to provide a profit for both the company and the farmer. Now, my dad was more concerned with the farmer getting them the most for his efforts than the company, But to keep his job, he sometimes had to counsel or encourage certain farmers to try a little harder to maintain their proficiency, and once the chickens were grown for a period of time, the company would send crews under contract to catch the chickens and coops to be loaded onto trucks and transported to processing plants and eventually to your menu. For those of you unfamiliar with the chicken business, you’ve probably wondered, what’s that got to do with this story? Well, absolutely nothing, but it never hurts to learn something new. But one of these farmers, an older man in his sixties at the time, had to pinch it and a reputation as being particularly hateful and not very easy to get along with. He treated his servicemen bad. He screamed and cussed at the feed truck drivers, and generally gave everyone associated with the company fits if they had to deal with him face to face or on the phone. But that’s the only reason they tolerated this old man was because he was one of the top producers in the area that could grow a chicken in the back pocket of his overalls. And then one day a new feed truck driver was hired and sent to this gentleman’s farm to deliver feed on his very first day of work. To give you a better picture of this situation, you got to realize that feed trucks are eighteen wheeled semi trucks. They are not the most ad conveyances and require practice and skilled the maneuver in the best of circumstances, much less in tight places and their roads normally found on local farms. The new guy pulls into the cranky old farmer’s place, and in the process of backing and positioning his trailer to unload the feed, he gets his rig stuck and ruts up the farmer’s new gravel drive something awful. The old farmer throws a terrible fit and cusses the man unmercifully. After several hours and a couple of big records, the truck is free from the mud and the feed is unloaded. The driver heads back to the mill, parks his truck, reports to his supervisor about what happened, and quits his job he’d only just started. The company sends out a serviceman to talk to the old farmer. And this guy is a good friend of mine, good friend of my father’s, and my day actually trained him. We’re gonna call him Jack, because Jack was his name. But he arrived and as gentle as possible, he tried to calm the old man down. He tells him that the company had just hired this fella, and because of his actions that day, that man had quit his job. They talked for several minutes, with Jack saying in the calmest and most respectful tone ever, that he just can’t keep treating these people the way he has been. The old man starts to calm down, Jack can see that he’s thinking about what he’s done, realizing the consequences of his overreaction. Eventually calmly says, I didn’t mean for that fellaw to quit his job. I was just mad because now I got to fix this gravel road again. That worked so hard on to get it just right. I’ll help you and we’ll fix it together. Jack told him that’s all right, son, I’d rather do it myself. You know, I really ain’t a bad fellow. But back in nineteen forty one, I was working for John Deere Tractor and making forty dollars a week. Now, I know that don’t sound like much, but back in them days, that was a heck of a wage. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and I got drafted, and for the next five years I wound up toting a fifty pound pack from the Belgium border to the Baltic Seas for forty dollars a month. And I’m still mad about it. It’s kind of funny when you think about it now, but there’s a lot of truth in what he said. It’s because of the sacrifices of this greatest generation, just like this grumpy old chicken farmer and every ration since, who have answered the call and stood up to defend our way of life that we all owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude and at the very least a modicum amount of patience. Cooler heads usually prevail, and respectful conversation will always win in the end. In two days we will celebrate our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of freedom and independence. Do it safely, with reverence for the past, and faith in our future. Until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y’all be careful
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