April 28, 2023 • 18 mins
This week on This Country Life, Brent Reaves shares the stuff in his pockets -- what some of you might call his "every day carry." From a 10 year old buckeye to a gold dollar coin, Brent walks you through each item you can expect him to have on his person, why he carries it, and why he thinks you should, too. So come on in and find out what makes Brent's EDC short list -- after this, you might just add a few items to yours!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my stories and the country skills that will help you
beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
(00:25):
outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
think I got a thing or two, and teach you
the stuff we towed around in our pockets every day.
Carrie is a term I'm only recently familiar with, but
(00:48):
one I've been practicing since my feet hit the ground
in the mid sixties. Now, that's only partially true because
some of that time, at least initially, I was what
was being toted around every day. But from my earliest
memories of having breeches with pockets, I've had my go
to items that I couldn't leave the crib without, especially
(01:08):
after I got out of the actual crib. Now why
is this important? Because a man needs to be prepared. Well,
that's partially true. The correct answer is we all need
to be prepared and carry things we need, so feel
free to interchange pocket with purse, backpack, satchel, briefcase, sock, brazier,
or wherever you decide to cash something that you might
(01:31):
need later. But what are these items? Are they there
out of necessity and utility or are they simply there
for nostalgia or maybe a little bit of both. I
can't speak for yours, but I'm going to tell you
all about mine. We're gonna talk about it in a minute,
because first I'm gonna tell you a story. Mister Bill
(01:56):
Chancellor was attracting mechanic more accurately be described as the
tractor mechanic. And I'm not saying he was the only
one around, because where I grew up, you couldn't swing
a dead cat around more than once without hitting the
tractor man. Regardless of where you were standing. There was
lots of folks that were tractor mechanics. What I am
(02:18):
saying is, if a tractor mechanic needed a tractor mechanic,
he called mister Bill. Now, I can't remember where my
dad got his tractor, but it wasn't in the best
of shape and he got a pretty good deal on
it because of that. It was a thirty five horsepower
massive Ferguson, and the red paint had long faded to
a rust brown, and the gray color of the engine
(02:39):
and the chassis that was all gone. There was a
little paddent left in the seat, and the only thing
left that identified it as a massive Ferguson was a
sliver of one of the decals that was on the hood.
But the plan was to help mister Bill rebuild it
from the floor to the ceiling, and mister Bill shop
so whenever Dad got away from work that summer, we
(03:00):
worked on that tractor under the guidance of mister Bill.
I was probably eleven or twelve and trying to make
a track in every track my Daddy made at that time.
And on this particular day, we were nearing the completion
of the tractor restoration. And let me tell you, that
joker look good. The engine had been completely overhauled. The
(03:22):
paint was original massy Ferguson red and gray paint. Mister
Bill had replaced the decals with originals he'd gotten from
the Massive Ferguson headquarters. I remember exactly where I was standing,
watching mister Bill as he adjusted something under the hood,
and he asked my dad above the racket of the tractor.
He said, Buddy, I can't reach my knife, let me
(03:43):
borrow yours. Well. I started looking around for mister Bill's
knife because I knew my dad was not about to
hand him his. When I see my Dad reach in
his pocket and hand it to him, I couldn't believe
what I was seeing. I wasn't allowed to touch it,
and here mister Bill was scraping and gauging on metal
with all his might. I was shocked. That was a
(04:04):
killing the fence. But my dad just looked on like
nothing was happening, Like the previous eleven years of proper
knife care instruction that he drilled into my head had
never happened. That's a knife, not a screwdriver. That's a knife,
not a hammer. And yet right before my eyes, I
was watching mister Bill slap annihilate the edge off my
(04:26):
father's case knife, which was the knife everyone who knew
reeves was correctly spelled r EA and not re carried
in their pocket. There were no exceptions. Dad got that
pocket knife back and eventually we loaded up and we
headed home. Now we ain't got out of the driveway
(04:46):
when I said, Dad, I saw you had mister Bill
your pocket knife. He kind of laughed, and he said, son,
you saw me hand him a pocket knife. He handed
it to me. It wasn't a case. I was a
little confused. I said, I thought we only told case knives.
He said, we do so, but we don't want them.
(05:12):
All right, every day carry eedc for short, the stuff
in your pocket or in my case, pockets, because I
got stuff in just about all of them. This is
learned behavior from someone in my formative years, like my dad,
my grandpa, my older brothers, folks I spent the most
time hanging out with, which was exactly how they came
(05:33):
about carrying the items in their pockets. Every male member
of the Rhees family carries a case pocket knife. Now
you ladies, hold on to you hate mail. My sister
in law has a collection of them that would rival
most museums. I kid you not. My wife doesn't toe
one because she has me, but if she wanted to,
(05:54):
she would, and I would make sure she had a
good one. Now, I don't know what number of great
grandpas it was that started this tradition, but I could
testify that the Reeves family has been patrolled in Arkansas
and removing with a knife all the parts of animals
that don't taste good. Since before the Civil War and
way before the case brothers got together in eighteen eighty
(06:17):
nine and commenced to giving birth to what would become
a staple in the reeves. Boys every day carry the
case pocket knife. Around nineteen twenty, one of them jokers
designed the trapper model, and that's the one. That knife
has become a part of our identity. And you can
bet one thing for sure, if you see one of
(06:38):
us and need a knife, we got at least one.
We ain't gonna let you borrow it. Just show us
what you need, cut and get out of the way. Anyway,
Let's start with the right front pocket of these American
made roundhouse overalls. Inside you'll find a case pocket knife
and a tuba chapstick. Some might say, why would a
(07:00):
man told a pocket knife in twenty twenty three, Same
reason he told one in six hundred BC, when the
first folding knife was invented. Did I say six hundred BC?
I sure did, because that's when some cat in Austria
got tired of his wife hollering at him for poking
holes in his breeches every time he put his knife
back in his pocket. Now, I'm sure she had plenty
(07:21):
of soul and to do without fixing his clothes every
time he got finished skin in a mess of squirrel.
So he invented the folding pocket knife and marital bliss.
And for at least twenty six hundred years, a man
that was prepared and ready to be a man has
toaded a pocket knife. And just think six hundred and
one years after he invented it, say around one ad,
(07:44):
I bet he was the most popular dad in Austria
when the tales of him setting around the tree cutting
ribbons off of Christmas presents quicker than a hiccup way
to gold Man in Austria. You, sir, are a legend. Now.
If you're not prepared to answer the call when your
wife hollers for you cut something for I wonder about
your priorities and her judgment. At the beginning of our marriage,
(08:06):
Alexis would say, Brent, do you have your knife? And
my answer would usually reference a question about a bear's
wilderness bathroom habits. Now years later, as she celebrates daily
her lottery like husband, when it's a simple honey, cut
this for me and bam, the deed is done. I'm
always ready. A pocket knife can protect your family, skin
(08:28):
your supper, help you build a shelter, open the package,
perform surgery. The possible uses are endless when you need
one and have it, life is golden when you need
one and don't. There's not a more helpless feeling. This
is normally where I chunk in a story about how
I got in a bind one time and needed a
knife and didn't have one. I can't do that, you
(08:51):
know why, because I ain't never been with that one,
except when we go to airports, concerts and different places
now where you can't. I can't tell you how many
times I'll pat my pocket for the knife that ain't there,
and the short lived panic that startles me till I
realized I didn't bring it with me on purpose, Which
reminds me of a time when me and Clay Nukem
(09:14):
were catching a flight out of Northwest Arkansas. We were
headed for British Columbia on a bear hunt, and it's
not a big airport, but the security folks there are
just as observant and dedicated to doing their job and
making things safe for all of us. Fortunately, we were
in Arkansas and not some big city airport. When the
X ray man found the skinning knife and clay Bow's
(09:35):
carry on, Apparently our clothes and our gear leaned more
toward a couple of hunters than a couple of fellows
with nefarious intentions. We called Misty and she came and
picked up the knife. The TSA guy was cool about it. Besides,
we had several others legally packed and secured in our luggage.
We wound up not needing the skin a knife anyway,
(09:55):
But that's a different story. All right. Pocket knife covered
that one pretty well, at least till we get to
the other pocket. But until we do, what else is
in the old right front pocket? Chapstick? Now here's a
(10:16):
disclaimer down here. We call lip bomb chapstick, regardless of
the brand, but we never call it lip bomb. Hey,
I don't make the rules. I just live bomb. That's
the end of the disclaimer. Chapstick. Not much you can
say about that. Sure you can. You can dive it
on a cut to help stop bleeding. You can use
(10:37):
it to moisturize dry skin. Heck, you can even use
it to help with building a fire and keep you
from having chapped lips. My dad told me a joke
when I was a kid about an old cowboy that
rode into town from out on the range. Instead of
rushing into the sloan to get him a cold drink,
he hitched his horse up and pulled a brush out
of his saddle and started brushing itself off. The mayor
(10:58):
of the town was watching him as the cowboy cleaned
up as best he could, straightened his clothes, washed his
hands in the trough, and tucked his shirt in. The
mayor was impressed and started walking toward him and welcomed
him to the town. When the cowboy walked around to
the back of the horse, poked his finger and the
horses behind, and rubbed it on his lips. The mayor
(11:19):
was shocked, but he welcomed him anyway, and he said,
I appreciate you cleaning up when you got here. We
got a lovely little town and we want to keep
it that way. But man, I only got one question.
Why did you poke your horses behind and rub it
on your lips. The old cowboy looked at him and said,
my lips are chapped. And the mayor said, oh, is
(11:40):
that cure? And the cowboy said no, but it keeps
me from licking them and making it worse. Told some
chapstick with you. It's smaller than a horse, cheaper to feed,
and there's no bad aftertaste. The right front pocket is done,
So what's an old lefty? The loner pocket nowe life,
a buckeye and a sack at your wheel one dollar coin.
(12:04):
The loner knife is for your friend that doesn't carry one,
but finds himself in the need of one on occasion,
which is the very reason you tote one to begin with.
And if he doesn't tote one, he ain't got enough
sense not to use your good one in a manner
that it wasn't designed. All these things I'm about to
say now go slap out the window, and in its emergency,
(12:25):
when it's life and death, nothing else matters. However, when
it ain't and you need a wire cut, a screw tightened,
or a prie bar, don't look at me and ask
to borrow my pocket knife. It's something to be respected,
taken care of, maintained, and sharpened regularly, because a dull
one is of no service to anyone. Now, I'm not
(12:48):
going to tell you what the brand of my loaner
pocket knife is because it don't matter. It ain't a case.
It's a well made pocket knife, I assure you. But
I'm talking about what's in my pockets and what I
like the best. You may hate case pocking knives and
like something totally different. I don't care. That's fine with me.
But you ought to be in jail if you do.
Just kidding, not really. What about that sack of jewee
(13:11):
a one dollar coin, Well, I can tell you it
was minted in two thousand. Monetarily it's worth whatever a
DOLLARBI value. But my wife gave it to me. And
if you don't know whose sack of jewel is, do
yourself a favor and look her up. Or better yet,
read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. That book is thicker
than a cathead biscuit, but worth the effort and just
(13:33):
dis ease to digest. She was an invaluable guide and
interpreter that helped Louis and Clark find their way across
the wilderness and back when our country was young and
we didn't know our behinds from fifteen cents about anything
west to Saint Louis. The coin serves as a symbol
from my wife to me that when i'm out on
a hunt or a long journey, I can always find
(13:54):
my way home. She's my sackage will. She's a whole
lot more, but she's not much on skin and stuff though,
and I have a feeling of sacage weel was. Anyway,
That's why I told it the buckeye. If you've listened
to any of the Bear Grease Render podcast you may
have heard me mention it. I'll tell you about this
(14:17):
particular one in a minute. First, I want to talk
about why you'd have one. To begin with. Esculus pavia,
commonly referred to as the red buckeye, that is the
most prominent variety of the two known grown to Arkansas.
It produces a nut, which is actually the seed, and
it grows in a pod that matures in late summer. Now,
(14:38):
folks have been toting them in their pockets for luck
for generations. There's an old said that when you'll never
find a dead man with a buck eye in his pocket. Now.
I don't know if that's because you don't find a
lot of dead men laying around, or because it wouldn't
be too cool to peel for through their clothes if
you did. My family, close friends and I would give
them to each other as tokens of good luck for hunting.
(15:00):
I'm whare and our family's passed. It was dictated that
one hunter had to give it to another for it
to work. You couldn't just find one and put it
in your pocket and reap the benefits. That ain't how
that works now. I'm not superstitious at all. I just
firmly believe that if I was to lose the one
I got in my pocket, that I wouldn't never have
another successful hunt. The one I have I've been caring
(15:21):
for close to ten years, and it means a lot
to me. First time I met Old Clay Bow, he'd
asked me to come film a bear hunt for him
in the Washtaw Mountains in Arkansas. He and the majority
of his youngest took me around where he grew up hunting,
and we wound up on a mountain in the area
and I saw a buckeye bush. I told him the
story of how my family traded him back and forth
(15:42):
and handed him one, and in return, he gave one
to me. I'm still toting it to this day, and
I have every day since that hunt nearly ten years ago.
Clay's always amazed when he asked about it, and I
take it out of my pocket and show it to me.
He told me he lost the one I gave him
before we got off the mountain that day. He didn't
(16:03):
kill a bear that year either. Aincidence well, never know
for sure, but no, absolutely not a coincident. In the
bill of my overalls on the right side, I carried
my billfold, all my folded money. Inside that bill fold
is a five centennial quarter, a quarter minuted in nineteen
(16:27):
seventy six. My dad had jars full of them, so,
along with everything else that's part of my uniform, I
told one of those in remembrance of him. Until I
started thinking about all my everyday carry items to tell
you all about. I've never really seen how much connection
there was to the members of my family who passed away,
(16:47):
but now I do, and talking about each one of
them makes me smile. I've always fancied a good pocket watch,
and on one Father's Day, my wife and little girl
Bailey gave me one. It came all the way from London, England,
and it keeps time like a man possessed. It has
a decorative silver coon attached to a short chain on
the other end that hangs on the outside of the
(17:09):
bill by overalls. Now for all those that have a
pair of overalls, real overalls, and you never quite figured
out what that slit was above the bill of the
pockets and the small hidden pockets sewn into the scene
on the bib. If you didn't know what that was for,
stand by for news. It's for your pocket watch chain
(17:29):
and your pocket watch. The watch is obviously for telling time,
but the fob tells everyone a little bit about you.
It makes a statement without making one. I like to
think that when folks see mind It, they see a
country boy that's proud of where he came from, proud
of the folks he raised him, and even more proud
to share these stories. Thank you so much for listening.
(17:52):
If you like it, share it with your friends. Maybe
they'll like it too. And hey, beat the system, fucking knights.
Keep the good one for yourself along the other ones
to your friends. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all
be careful
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my stories and the country skills that will help you
beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
(00:25):
outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
think I got a thing or two, and teach you
the stuff we towed around in our pockets every day.
Carrie is a term I'm only recently familiar with, but
(00:48):
one I've been practicing since my feet hit the ground
in the mid sixties. Now, that's only partially true because
some of that time, at least initially, I was what
was being toted around every day. But from my earliest
memories of having breeches with pockets, I've had my go
to items that I couldn't leave the crib without, especially
(01:08):
after I got out of the actual crib. Now why
is this important? Because a man needs to be prepared. Well,
that's partially true. The correct answer is we all need
to be prepared and carry things we need, so feel
free to interchange pocket with purse, backpack, satchel, briefcase, sock, brazier,
or wherever you decide to cash something that you might
(01:31):
need later. But what are these items? Are they there
out of necessity and utility or are they simply there
for nostalgia or maybe a little bit of both. I
can't speak for yours, but I'm going to tell you
all about mine. We're gonna talk about it in a minute,
because first I'm gonna tell you a story. Mister Bill
(01:56):
Chancellor was attracting mechanic more accurately be described as the
tractor mechanic. And I'm not saying he was the only
one around, because where I grew up, you couldn't swing
a dead cat around more than once without hitting the
tractor man. Regardless of where you were standing. There was
lots of folks that were tractor mechanics. What I am
(02:18):
saying is, if a tractor mechanic needed a tractor mechanic,
he called mister Bill. Now, I can't remember where my
dad got his tractor, but it wasn't in the best
of shape and he got a pretty good deal on
it because of that. It was a thirty five horsepower
massive Ferguson, and the red paint had long faded to
a rust brown, and the gray color of the engine
(02:39):
and the chassis that was all gone. There was a
little paddent left in the seat, and the only thing
left that identified it as a massive Ferguson was a
sliver of one of the decals that was on the hood.
But the plan was to help mister Bill rebuild it
from the floor to the ceiling, and mister Bill shop
so whenever Dad got away from work that summer, we
(03:00):
worked on that tractor under the guidance of mister Bill.
I was probably eleven or twelve and trying to make
a track in every track my Daddy made at that time.
And on this particular day, we were nearing the completion
of the tractor restoration. And let me tell you, that
joker look good. The engine had been completely overhauled. The
(03:22):
paint was original massy Ferguson red and gray paint. Mister
Bill had replaced the decals with originals he'd gotten from
the Massive Ferguson headquarters. I remember exactly where I was standing,
watching mister Bill as he adjusted something under the hood,
and he asked my dad above the racket of the tractor.
He said, Buddy, I can't reach my knife, let me
(03:43):
borrow yours. Well. I started looking around for mister Bill's
knife because I knew my dad was not about to
hand him his. When I see my Dad reach in
his pocket and hand it to him, I couldn't believe
what I was seeing. I wasn't allowed to touch it,
and here mister Bill was scraping and gauging on metal
with all his might. I was shocked. That was a
(04:04):
killing the fence. But my dad just looked on like
nothing was happening, Like the previous eleven years of proper
knife care instruction that he drilled into my head had
never happened. That's a knife, not a screwdriver. That's a knife,
not a hammer. And yet right before my eyes, I
was watching mister Bill slap annihilate the edge off my
(04:26):
father's case knife, which was the knife everyone who knew
reeves was correctly spelled r EA and not re carried
in their pocket. There were no exceptions. Dad got that
pocket knife back and eventually we loaded up and we
headed home. Now we ain't got out of the driveway
(04:46):
when I said, Dad, I saw you had mister Bill
your pocket knife. He kind of laughed, and he said, son,
you saw me hand him a pocket knife. He handed
it to me. It wasn't a case. I was a
little confused. I said, I thought we only told case knives.
He said, we do so, but we don't want them.
(05:12):
All right, every day carry eedc for short, the stuff
in your pocket or in my case, pockets, because I
got stuff in just about all of them. This is
learned behavior from someone in my formative years, like my dad,
my grandpa, my older brothers, folks I spent the most
time hanging out with, which was exactly how they came
(05:33):
about carrying the items in their pockets. Every male member
of the Rhees family carries a case pocket knife. Now
you ladies, hold on to you hate mail. My sister
in law has a collection of them that would rival
most museums. I kid you not. My wife doesn't toe
one because she has me, but if she wanted to,
(05:54):
she would, and I would make sure she had a
good one. Now, I don't know what number of great
grandpas it was that started this tradition, but I could
testify that the Reeves family has been patrolled in Arkansas
and removing with a knife all the parts of animals
that don't taste good. Since before the Civil War and
way before the case brothers got together in eighteen eighty
(06:17):
nine and commenced to giving birth to what would become
a staple in the reeves. Boys every day carry the
case pocket knife. Around nineteen twenty, one of them jokers
designed the trapper model, and that's the one. That knife
has become a part of our identity. And you can
bet one thing for sure, if you see one of
(06:38):
us and need a knife, we got at least one.
We ain't gonna let you borrow it. Just show us
what you need, cut and get out of the way. Anyway,
Let's start with the right front pocket of these American
made roundhouse overalls. Inside you'll find a case pocket knife
and a tuba chapstick. Some might say, why would a
(07:00):
man told a pocket knife in twenty twenty three, Same
reason he told one in six hundred BC, when the
first folding knife was invented. Did I say six hundred BC?
I sure did, because that's when some cat in Austria
got tired of his wife hollering at him for poking
holes in his breeches every time he put his knife
back in his pocket. Now, I'm sure she had plenty
(07:21):
of soul and to do without fixing his clothes every
time he got finished skin in a mess of squirrel.
So he invented the folding pocket knife and marital bliss.
And for at least twenty six hundred years, a man
that was prepared and ready to be a man has
toaded a pocket knife. And just think six hundred and
one years after he invented it, say around one ad,
(07:44):
I bet he was the most popular dad in Austria
when the tales of him setting around the tree cutting
ribbons off of Christmas presents quicker than a hiccup way
to gold Man in Austria. You, sir, are a legend. Now.
If you're not prepared to answer the call when your
wife hollers for you cut something for I wonder about
your priorities and her judgment. At the beginning of our marriage,
(08:06):
Alexis would say, Brent, do you have your knife? And
my answer would usually reference a question about a bear's
wilderness bathroom habits. Now years later, as she celebrates daily
her lottery like husband, when it's a simple honey, cut
this for me and bam, the deed is done. I'm
always ready. A pocket knife can protect your family, skin
(08:28):
your supper, help you build a shelter, open the package,
perform surgery. The possible uses are endless when you need
one and have it, life is golden when you need
one and don't. There's not a more helpless feeling. This
is normally where I chunk in a story about how
I got in a bind one time and needed a
knife and didn't have one. I can't do that, you
(08:51):
know why, because I ain't never been with that one,
except when we go to airports, concerts and different places
now where you can't. I can't tell you how many
times I'll pat my pocket for the knife that ain't there,
and the short lived panic that startles me till I
realized I didn't bring it with me on purpose, Which
reminds me of a time when me and Clay Nukem
(09:14):
were catching a flight out of Northwest Arkansas. We were
headed for British Columbia on a bear hunt, and it's
not a big airport, but the security folks there are
just as observant and dedicated to doing their job and
making things safe for all of us. Fortunately, we were
in Arkansas and not some big city airport. When the
X ray man found the skinning knife and clay Bow's
(09:35):
carry on, Apparently our clothes and our gear leaned more
toward a couple of hunters than a couple of fellows
with nefarious intentions. We called Misty and she came and
picked up the knife. The TSA guy was cool about it. Besides,
we had several others legally packed and secured in our luggage.
We wound up not needing the skin a knife anyway,
(09:55):
But that's a different story. All right. Pocket knife covered
that one pretty well, at least till we get to
the other pocket. But until we do, what else is
in the old right front pocket? Chapstick? Now here's a
(10:16):
disclaimer down here. We call lip bomb chapstick, regardless of
the brand, but we never call it lip bomb. Hey,
I don't make the rules. I just live bomb. That's
the end of the disclaimer. Chapstick. Not much you can
say about that. Sure you can. You can dive it
on a cut to help stop bleeding. You can use
(10:37):
it to moisturize dry skin. Heck, you can even use
it to help with building a fire and keep you
from having chapped lips. My dad told me a joke
when I was a kid about an old cowboy that
rode into town from out on the range. Instead of
rushing into the sloan to get him a cold drink,
he hitched his horse up and pulled a brush out
of his saddle and started brushing itself off. The mayor
(10:58):
of the town was watching him as the cowboy cleaned
up as best he could, straightened his clothes, washed his
hands in the trough, and tucked his shirt in. The
mayor was impressed and started walking toward him and welcomed
him to the town. When the cowboy walked around to
the back of the horse, poked his finger and the
horses behind, and rubbed it on his lips. The mayor
(11:19):
was shocked, but he welcomed him anyway, and he said,
I appreciate you cleaning up when you got here. We
got a lovely little town and we want to keep
it that way. But man, I only got one question.
Why did you poke your horses behind and rub it
on your lips. The old cowboy looked at him and said,
my lips are chapped. And the mayor said, oh, is
(11:40):
that cure? And the cowboy said no, but it keeps
me from licking them and making it worse. Told some
chapstick with you. It's smaller than a horse, cheaper to feed,
and there's no bad aftertaste. The right front pocket is done,
So what's an old lefty? The loner pocket nowe life,
a buckeye and a sack at your wheel one dollar coin.
(12:04):
The loner knife is for your friend that doesn't carry one,
but finds himself in the need of one on occasion,
which is the very reason you tote one to begin with.
And if he doesn't tote one, he ain't got enough
sense not to use your good one in a manner
that it wasn't designed. All these things I'm about to
say now go slap out the window, and in its emergency,
(12:25):
when it's life and death, nothing else matters. However, when
it ain't and you need a wire cut, a screw tightened,
or a prie bar, don't look at me and ask
to borrow my pocket knife. It's something to be respected,
taken care of, maintained, and sharpened regularly, because a dull
one is of no service to anyone. Now, I'm not
(12:48):
going to tell you what the brand of my loaner
pocket knife is because it don't matter. It ain't a case.
It's a well made pocket knife, I assure you. But
I'm talking about what's in my pockets and what I
like the best. You may hate case pocking knives and
like something totally different. I don't care. That's fine with me.
But you ought to be in jail if you do.
Just kidding, not really. What about that sack of jewee
(13:11):
a one dollar coin, Well, I can tell you it
was minted in two thousand. Monetarily it's worth whatever a
DOLLARBI value. But my wife gave it to me. And
if you don't know whose sack of jewel is, do
yourself a favor and look her up. Or better yet,
read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. That book is thicker
than a cathead biscuit, but worth the effort and just
(13:33):
dis ease to digest. She was an invaluable guide and
interpreter that helped Louis and Clark find their way across
the wilderness and back when our country was young and
we didn't know our behinds from fifteen cents about anything
west to Saint Louis. The coin serves as a symbol
from my wife to me that when i'm out on
a hunt or a long journey, I can always find
(13:54):
my way home. She's my sackage will. She's a whole
lot more, but she's not much on skin and stuff though,
and I have a feeling of sacage weel was. Anyway,
That's why I told it the buckeye. If you've listened
to any of the Bear Grease Render podcast you may
have heard me mention it. I'll tell you about this
(14:17):
particular one in a minute. First, I want to talk
about why you'd have one. To begin with. Esculus pavia,
commonly referred to as the red buckeye, that is the
most prominent variety of the two known grown to Arkansas.
It produces a nut, which is actually the seed, and
it grows in a pod that matures in late summer. Now,
(14:38):
folks have been toting them in their pockets for luck
for generations. There's an old said that when you'll never
find a dead man with a buck eye in his pocket. Now.
I don't know if that's because you don't find a
lot of dead men laying around, or because it wouldn't
be too cool to peel for through their clothes if
you did. My family, close friends and I would give
them to each other as tokens of good luck for hunting.
(15:00):
I'm whare and our family's passed. It was dictated that
one hunter had to give it to another for it
to work. You couldn't just find one and put it
in your pocket and reap the benefits. That ain't how
that works now. I'm not superstitious at all. I just
firmly believe that if I was to lose the one
I got in my pocket, that I wouldn't never have
another successful hunt. The one I have I've been caring
(15:21):
for close to ten years, and it means a lot
to me. First time I met Old Clay Bow, he'd
asked me to come film a bear hunt for him
in the Washtaw Mountains in Arkansas. He and the majority
of his youngest took me around where he grew up hunting,
and we wound up on a mountain in the area
and I saw a buckeye bush. I told him the
story of how my family traded him back and forth
(15:42):
and handed him one, and in return, he gave one
to me. I'm still toting it to this day, and
I have every day since that hunt nearly ten years ago.
Clay's always amazed when he asked about it, and I
take it out of my pocket and show it to me.
He told me he lost the one I gave him
before we got off the mountain that day. He didn't
(16:03):
kill a bear that year either. Aincidence well, never know
for sure, but no, absolutely not a coincident. In the
bill of my overalls on the right side, I carried
my billfold, all my folded money. Inside that bill fold
is a five centennial quarter, a quarter minuted in nineteen
(16:27):
seventy six. My dad had jars full of them, so,
along with everything else that's part of my uniform, I
told one of those in remembrance of him. Until I
started thinking about all my everyday carry items to tell
you all about. I've never really seen how much connection
there was to the members of my family who passed away,
(16:47):
but now I do, and talking about each one of
them makes me smile. I've always fancied a good pocket watch,
and on one Father's Day, my wife and little girl
Bailey gave me one. It came all the way from London, England,
and it keeps time like a man possessed. It has
a decorative silver coon attached to a short chain on
the other end that hangs on the outside of the
(17:09):
bill by overalls. Now for all those that have a
pair of overalls, real overalls, and you never quite figured
out what that slit was above the bill of the
pockets and the small hidden pockets sewn into the scene
on the bib. If you didn't know what that was for,
stand by for news. It's for your pocket watch chain
(17:29):
and your pocket watch. The watch is obviously for telling time,
but the fob tells everyone a little bit about you.
It makes a statement without making one. I like to
think that when folks see mind It, they see a
country boy that's proud of where he came from, proud
of the folks he raised him, and even more proud
to share these stories. Thank you so much for listening.
(17:52):
If you like it, share it with your friends. Maybe
they'll like it too. And hey, beat the system, fucking knights.
Keep the good one for yourself along the other ones
to your friends. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all
be careful
Host
Clay Newcomb
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