00:00:14
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nucomb and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast. Brought to you by to Covi’s Boots. I’m a cowboy boot man and I’ve been wearing to Covis for years for the most comfortable boot I’ve ever put on.
00:00:36
Speaker 2: Good boots for good times. The world wouldn’t know it.
00:00:43
Speaker 1: But we are starting about fifty minutes late, okay, and we have some very distinguished guests today, so I owe them my deepest apologies. This is a complicated story, Michael, and so our guest day sitting in the Covi’s hot seat today is Kyle Carroll here from Missouri.
00:01:05
Speaker 2: Yes, Kyle is uh.
00:01:07
Speaker 1: It’s hard to describe what you are. You’re a former former game warden. Yes, you’re an artist. Yes, you’re a hunter. You’re just a friend of the podcast for a.
00:01:17
Speaker 3: Long time, just a renaissance man.
00:01:20
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I have.
00:01:21
Speaker 4: I have listened to every podcast from the beginning. I went back to the other day and made sure and I had missed one of Lake’s Turkey during the Turkey series, so yeah.
00:01:31
Speaker 1: You listened to him all yes, And and he’s here today because we are going to be talking about the Civil War.
00:01:38
Speaker 2: So this bear grease shrender.
00:01:40
Speaker 1: And if you’re new to the podcast, we make documentary style episodes. We’re doing a Civil War series, documentary style stuff. But the render is when we just sit around and talk about it. And and Kyle has I think he’s got a he’ll have a unique perspective on the Civil War and knows quite a bit about it. And uh, sitting next to him them in the Takova’s roller chair is Michael Roseman.
00:02:06
Speaker 5: Yeah, I’m back from being fired.
00:02:08
Speaker 1: Are our our my friend from the Delta of Arkansas. And how I know Michael is I met Michael through Britt Reeves And Michael is a coon hunting son of a gun.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: If there was a if there was a.
00:02:22
Speaker 1: Bumper sticker that I can make and put on Michael’s truck, That’s what I would say, coon hunting son of a gun. You go and uh, a walker hunting walker dog, coon hunting son of a gun.
00:02:35
Speaker 5: No other way to be that’s.
00:02:38
Speaker 1: Right, You’re you’re not wrong. But Michael is the is the owner of sunspot Lights. He owns his own company and they build Sunspot coon lights and McCrae Arkansas and uh, it’s an incredible company he and his family run and they make the best coon lights in the world. I mean there’s some other good coon like company there are great But anyway, we’re gonna get into the light. Okay, but just hold that for a minute. We also have Barr John Newcomb straight out of Alaska. You bet got got home from Alaska last week, still dripping wet from salt water from killing the bear in the.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Got back last night. Yes.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: And then we have doctor mister newkeom can’t wait to hear what you think about Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln Back to our story, back to our story, and Josh Landbridge spillmaker Josh Lanbridge story least Nope, nope, don’t. I don’t introduce myself and I don’t Josh me and you the same. We’re like, we’re just we’re just here and that that’s okay. So Kyle pulls up to the house to the office and he goes, I saw some mules back in town with lead ropes, and uh, and I proceed to go, oh my, I bet their mind and it’s a convoluted story because and the theme of this story is change often brings great things, but also brings difficulty. Okay, think about that for a minute. Everyone, just stop.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: You can even pause your listening devices now if you need to.
00:04:23
Speaker 6: That’s a pretty profound perspective on some mules getting loose.
00:04:26
Speaker 3: Change.
00:04:27
Speaker 1: Change can be wonderful, but it also brings much difficulty, potentially danger and catastrophe as well. So I sold my easy mule, Kyle, my best mule that I trained, that I’ve had for all these years, that I swore I was going to keep forever. I sold her, and it was a decision that came with much.
00:04:52
Speaker 2: Thought, and I I there’s a lot of reasons why I did it, and I could tell you those reasons if you’re interested, but I won’t for now because I sold the mule last week and I’ve already got a new mule that I bought from Evan Felker of the Turnpike Tributors, named Laurie.
00:05:09
Speaker 1: Okay, you may have seen it. She’s two years old, really nice young mule that we’re training. But because I don’t have a real good riding mule, I borrowed a mule from a friend of mine in Newton County, a sixteen hand beautiful mule named Hawk. And anyway, the change is that there were two new mules on the place and I had them out, and I was grazing them on big lead ropes, and I purposely tied the two new mules loose. I wanted them to get loose because I actually didn’t know how they would respond. You just tie up a horse or a mule to a big, long lead rope, they might get tangled up in it and throw a fit and hurt themselves. So I knew, slow Trap, we’ve got three mules. This is a long story, guys. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Okay, you can just and drama. And slow Trap was was tied up good because I know that when he The good thing about a mule, if they get in a bind, they often don’t struggle like a like a horse will sometimes kill itself if it gets if in a real big bind like with a rope. A mule rarely does that. But I didn’t know what these two new ones. Had them tied loosely. I tell I have to go into town. I tell Bear John, hey, keep an eye on those mules. Next thing I know I come back and Kyle’s telling me there’s mules in town.
00:06:33
Speaker 2: I’m not I’m not trying to put I’m not trying to point any fingers.
00:06:38
Speaker 6: What you left out was that I was also in town doing stuff, and you said, are the mules?
00:06:44
Speaker 7: Okay?
00:06:45
Speaker 6: I checked, mules are all there.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:06:47
Speaker 6: I go into town fired the mules are gone.
00:06:50
Speaker 2: Fair enough, This is.
00:06:52
Speaker 8: A good story. Did he tell you to keep an eye on the mules or did he say are the mules?
00:06:56
Speaker 7: Okay?
00:06:58
Speaker 6: I can’t remember. Let me pull the text.
00:07:00
Speaker 2: I said keep an eye on the mules.
00:07:02
Speaker 8: Let’s see, this is one of my these two y’all.
00:07:08
Speaker 3: I show up and nobody’s here, and the mules are fine.
00:07:12
Speaker 2: You saw the three meals.
00:07:13
Speaker 3: All three meals are here when I got here.
00:07:15
Speaker 6: Oh wow, you check on the mules. They’re all tied.
00:07:20
Speaker 7: Mules.
00:07:20
Speaker 6: Good question, Mark.
00:07:22
Speaker 8: Yes, very different, Clay, very different the way you think you communicated.
00:07:30
Speaker 5: I’m worried that the bear gets blamed for a few things because several years ago Clay was down hunting and got a call that the mules were out. Okay, the first time this happened, and you got the blame. Doesn’t ever close the gate was what I heard.
00:07:53
Speaker 8: Man, the problem with the mules getting out if when when Clay first got mules. You know, we’ve got four kids, and once you don’t close the gate, you usually learn that lesson, Like you don’t close the gate once and you’ve learned that lesson. But we have four kids. They each had to learn the lesson.
00:08:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was.
00:08:10
Speaker 1: And when our mules get out, they go straight to town. They go out my driveway and turn right and go back into the country. But they could turn left, they could go straight to town, and so they always go straight to town. So the mules were in somebody’s backyard in the subdivision. They came and found me and they were like, your mules are in my backyard. They were real nice, wonderful people went there. The whole neighborhood’s there, the whole neighborhood. The whole neighborhood is out with their kids petting the mules. And then I’m in Misty’s car because my truck is somewhere else at this very moment, and Bear comes knows where we’re at. Bear comes riding up through town on the mules and leads one of the mules. He’s on slow trap and then I lead the other mule in the Honda CRV hybrid.
00:09:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s why it took so long. I got a little bit of video.
00:09:05
Speaker 6: I got a little bit.
00:09:06
Speaker 2: I’m sorry we had to tell that story, but I this.
00:09:08
Speaker 1: I literally ran in and now see these guys that have invited here that we have come a long ways and we’re starting late. So my deepest apologies on behalf of bear. I would like to apologize to you guys.
00:09:22
Speaker 3: I almost told them to pack up and go home, just like.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: Call it, call it no, no, no, no, Michael.
00:09:31
Speaker 2: What do you have have?
00:09:32
Speaker 5: Lights?
00:09:33
Speaker 2: Man? This is incredible.
00:09:36
Speaker 5: I have a spotlight that we build that I gave to Josh.
00:09:40
Speaker 2: How nice that is. That’s an incredible light.
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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it is slick man. I’m keeping this in my.
00:09:48
Speaker 2: T tell me like so, it’s rechargeable.
00:09:51
Speaker 5: Rechargeable with the USB C has this rubber grip handle. It’s really bright, throws a tight beam, throws a long way. We built it for hunters to shoot with. You know, they’ll line it up along side of their gun because it’s hard to shoot with, you know, turning the light sideways on your head. But most people have bought them for a truck light and if you get in a fight.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: You can kind of use it as brass knuckles.
00:10:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, we have this one for Clay. It’s a cotton mouth. It’s the light we’re building right now.
00:10:18
Speaker 7: Cool, awesome.
00:10:20
Speaker 1: And now I’m saying this maybe for no good reason. I bought this for Michael. He did, yes, And because I want I mean, I didn’t want him to.
00:10:29
Speaker 5: Give it too mad I gave that.
00:10:30
Speaker 2: That’s right, that’s right.
00:10:31
Speaker 1: And I say that only because I wanted to support Michael and his business. So how what percentage of lights are made not in America? And and and I don’t know. I don’t want to get into your business. Yes, a lot.
00:10:49
Speaker 5: Most of the coon hunting lights are made here. Okay, Uh, stuff you buy on Amazon that they call coon hut lights, those are all built overseas.
00:10:57
Speaker 1: So describe to me your business because some of the components of this are coming from overseas.
00:11:01
Speaker 5: Batteries, reflectors, that kind of thing. I can’t find any here. And when you do find like a battery, you can buy batteries here, but they’re getting them from overseas anyway, they just mark them up, We design them, build them here. Everything we can get from here, and the head housing most of those components from that thing come from local electronics stuff stuff in Texas.
00:11:20
Speaker 2: Really, so you I mean you built this light like, so we.
00:11:24
Speaker 5: Get them the heads machined. You know, all the machine parts are done. We buy different products from different places, like the optics and the switches and the knobs, and it’s completely built in shop.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: Right, So you probably technically couldn’t put like made in America on it because.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: You could, well, I mean, then that’s something to be it is. What do you think I could?
00:11:52
Speaker 5: I could put made America in there, but I kind of I know that that works for some people, but I kind of see it as a marketing gimmick. Really good deal. Yeah, I just don’t do it. I could, it could be put on there. I just don’t, Okay.
00:12:06
Speaker 2: I respect them.
00:12:07
Speaker 5: Maybe weird, and I understand that it’s weird, but I see it all over the place, and when I see it, I’m like, you know, I know that a lot of your stuff doesn’t come from America, and you’re putting it on there, and I just don’t want to get into it.
00:12:18
Speaker 2: I got you, I got you.
00:12:19
Speaker 1: I mean the point of me being interested in that is that I think a lot. I think you could go on to Amazon and probably order some big, high powered lumin light that absolutely they.
00:12:33
Speaker 5: Also are bad about copying our products, not just mine, but other people that build them here. They’ll order them, get them over there, build usually not not quite that but real close to it, and then they’ll sell it on Amazon.
00:12:45
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:12:46
Speaker 2: But I mean you and your family are building these lights in the cry and.
00:12:49
Speaker 5: There’s four of us that work in the shop and two of us that do piece work in everybody’s family.
00:12:53
Speaker 1: And listen, I have I’ve turned Steve Vanella onto these, I’ve turned a lot of the mediator guys onto onto these sunspot lights. And this is what I’ve always said is that coon hunters have the market on lights.
00:13:09
Speaker 2: I mean you can get you can.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: Buy some giant light that recharges and has some big giant beam, but this light has is rechargeable, like hundreds and hundreds of times you can recharge this light.
00:13:26
Speaker 5: And they also have all of our products carry a lifetime warranty.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: Tell me what that means.
00:13:33
Speaker 5: So everything on there except for the hat because it’s a wear item, they wear out quick and the charger are covered for a damage warranty. We don’t any kind of damage on there doesn’t get covered, but.
00:13:45
Speaker 2: Like if you drive over it or something that’s.
00:13:47
Speaker 5: To be honest with you, we cover it most time anyway. Yeah, we’ve gotten a lot of stuff in there. It’s tour to pieces that we just fix. Is less of a hassle for me to just fix it and send it on then a call you and get a credit card number and go through the whole process. Yeah. So we cover everything, including the battery for a lifetime of that light.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: And what this light has if you’re not familiar with the coon light, it has a red light which uh if you it’s got a toggle switch on the on the head a red light which in a for a non coon I think there’s a big market for people having these that aren’t coon hunt. I carry a sun spotlight with me everywhere I go in the world. The reason that I have bought this one for Michael is because I gave mine to one of the guys in Nunavut on the ice.
00:14:35
Speaker 3: Well, you took it with you, Oh, I.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: Sleep with it by my head, not not with a hat on. I’ll take it off so you can. You can take it off.
00:14:44
Speaker 5: Well, i’d have to it’ll come off, but it’s tight. We don’t want them coming off on accident.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I carry that with me, bohunting.
00:14:54
Speaker 8: It literally is almost always at the bottom of our stairs, so you can just grab it.
00:14:57
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:14:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can put it on a hat you don’t have, do you. A lot of times the hard hat throws people off that aren’t coon hunters. They’re like, what do you mean a hard hat? That’s just a stylistic choice.
00:15:07
Speaker 5: Well, and it holds, it’s helped support it. And I’ve been hitting the head with limbs before, right, Yes, to get a coon and falls out on you.
00:15:16
Speaker 1: So don’t You don’t have to have a headline. So this is not I mean, it kind of is a sales pitch for Michael, but I’m not that’s I’m not interested in. I mean, your friend. I just I just believe in these things and carry them all over everywhere I go. Bear Bear does too. Oh yeah, and uh but they have different What I was gonna say was they have the high power, which is an incredibly bright it is light Michael on the lowest walking lights has four different settings.
00:15:50
Speaker 2: How long will that burns?
00:15:54
Speaker 5: The low so there is a main beam double walk on a double red. Each light has two positions on it, all of them on low burn for one hundred hours.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: So if I just left that and if it were darkened here, that lowest power is bright.
00:16:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, it’s bright enough to walk in the woods with. Oh it’ it’s just not at I mean light you can get so used high it would light up this room. It’s a big light.
00:16:17
Speaker 1: If I left that on and came back burn for days, four days later, it would still be on.
00:16:23
Speaker 5: It’ll dim, it’ll dim as it goes, but it’ll still be light.
00:16:26
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it Yeah, they’re just incredible lights.
00:16:30
Speaker 5: So on high you get about five and a half to six on the main beam, and the red and the walk light both get around fourteen hours on high. Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well I’ve kind of gone on and on about this light too light, but I love them.
00:16:48
Speaker 1: So yeah, that’s called the cotton Mouth. Yeah, Kyle, what have you been up to? You’ve been painting any Oh?
00:16:54
Speaker 7: Not as much as I should have. My bit.
00:16:57
Speaker 4: I had a show in April, and once I get past that kind of going Turkey Hinton mode and you kind of kind of get back into paint mode. And so I’ve started a piece, but I’m not really. Yeah, it’s maybe I don’t know, eighteen by a little bit bigger piece. It’s a scene of the South Fork up southwest of Cody, big kind of a mountain scene when it’s it’s a in shadow and then there’s a place in a corner that’s just catching sunlight and there’s gonna be some natives there on horseback just looking out.
00:17:27
Speaker 7: Over the So what inspired you? Just the scene? Just when I was up there.
00:17:32
Speaker 4: I went up specifically a year before last to shoot some reference stuff and so just you can you know, sometimes it’s just your imagination. Sometimes it’s something you read, a history reference or something like that. But on this one, it’s just cool, cool scene you know you’ve seen, you’ve like we were talking about the Alaska stuff. You could imagine Eskimos or whatever right there on that other natives, you know. So that’s that’s all it is on that one. But that’s I did. I did drop a painting off in Carthage at a gallery on the way down today, so I made double.
00:18:05
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:18:05
Speaker 4: So there’s a gallery if you’re ever in Karthi’s a nice gallery. Uh, they have a Civil War museum there.
00:18:12
Speaker 1: So have you ever done a Civil War painting.
00:18:16
Speaker 4: I’ve done some drawings. I’m trying to think if I’ve done a painting. If I if I did it, it was a small piece, like individual type stuff. I have a little bit of reference. I worked on a Civil War piece film one time, and so I’ve got a little bit of reference, you know.
00:18:30
Speaker 7: But I’ve just it’s just not really my air and to paint. It’s so.
00:18:36
Speaker 4: It’s kind of like being a doing a podcast on beekeeping or trimming mule hoofs or civil war.
00:18:44
Speaker 7: You’re gonna get.
00:18:45
Speaker 4: Some flak on any of those extly. There’s a lot of experts, That’s what I’m saying. So so I just I haven’t done it.
00:18:52
Speaker 7: More portraits.
00:18:52
Speaker 4: I’ve done some portraits of like Jackson and uh, I don’t know, yah portraits.
00:18:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, so excellent. Bear you just got back from Alaska. Do you want to give us like a one minute, one minute rundown? Yeah, just like what you did.
00:19:13
Speaker 4: Well.
00:19:13
Speaker 6: The plan, the mission for going up there was to do was to kill a bear with a self bow from the water from the ocean in a wet suit, like you did a couple of years ago. To to make it true, we went up there. Jannics Pitelis and I went up there to make it true.
00:19:32
Speaker 2: Wow, who told you that.
00:19:34
Speaker 6: It’s a climbing thing, like you gotta you gotta send it twice else.
00:19:39
Speaker 8: Yeah, phrases that we’ve never heard of.
00:19:42
Speaker 6: Yeah, so if you just do it once, it’s like, well, is it a fluke or not?
00:19:45
Speaker 8: Yeah?
00:19:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, so was.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
00:19:54
Speaker 6: Yeah. So anyway, we were going up there to to try and do that again, and we went Steve’s fish shack up there and I ended up getting a bear in the wet suit from the Pacific Ocean and Joannis also got a bear. Wasn’t quite wasn’t quite a wet suit approach, but it was a really cool hunt.
00:20:18
Speaker 2: He was in the wet suit. He was in the.
00:20:20
Speaker 6: Wet suit, not necessarily in the water. Yeah, but uh yeah, it was a cool hunt. We were up there for ten days, eight hunt days, driving around on a skiff, fishing, jigging and bear hunting.
00:20:35
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:20:36
Speaker 1: We’ll be able to watch that probably next spring, yeah, I think so. Yeah, so the next spring on the media YouTube channel, you’ll be able to watch that. And did you film anything for the bear Grease YouTube channel?
00:20:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, there’ll be we filmed we cooked some sea cucumbers and fish. Oh yeah, that’ll be out soon. And then I also.
00:20:56
Speaker 2: Everybody that will go to Southeast Alaska. It has a YouTube channels to see cucumbers. You’ll watch to.
00:21:02
Speaker 6: Watch the video and see it’s and then I also filmed.
00:21:06
Speaker 3: Uh that’s how you don’t foreshadow folks.
00:21:09
Speaker 1: Also, that’s a bear shadow. If you want to have some fun, talk to me. I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen.
00:21:16
Speaker 6: I filmed behind the scenes of a mediator shoot. Interviewed some of the camera guys, the producers.
00:21:24
Speaker 2: When will that come out?
00:21:26
Speaker 6: Probably next week?
00:21:28
Speaker 2: Oh for real soon.
00:21:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, But that was pretty cool because what I think a lot of people don’t know about the camera guys on these shoots is that they’re always way cooler than the people in front of the camera.
00:21:38
Speaker 8: That’s what I found that’s actually true. Yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker 6: Yeah, And anyway, I interviewed Dirt Myth Bobby Jarg. Yeah, it’ll be a cool, cool behind the scenes video.
00:21:53
Speaker 1: Oh that’s cool, Dirt Myth will be in there. So yeah, So we’ve we’ve we’ve mentioned a lot. But Bear has a YouTube channel called bear Grease and it’s it’s growing.
00:22:03
Speaker 2: He’s making weekly content. It’s kind of YouTube style vlog style content, doing a lot of cool stuff, flint and napping stone points, making bows, fixing old Suzuki motors.
00:22:16
Speaker 3: I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Christy’s been watching your content and she loves it. She was engrossed in the boat motor video. Really yeah, oh there’s you got a new demographic of forty eight year old women.
00:22:30
Speaker 5: Enjoyed it because you were showing your dad’s junk pile.
00:22:33
Speaker 2: Yes, this.
00:22:38
Speaker 1: Almost down to like, like every hundred square feet on this property is like not manicured, but I mean I take care of it except for that one hundred square feet. And Bear sets up his video and films an entire episode with the entire backdrop is just like my junk pile.
00:22:59
Speaker 8: I don’t understand is why you situated the junk pile directly by the front landscape of the house. That’s I think that’s that’s again. I think this might.
00:23:08
Speaker 2: Be some things are just the way they are.
00:23:10
Speaker 8: I’m sorry, it’s kind of a touchy subject in the NU come home, Well that shed, that shed was built before our house was built.
00:23:22
Speaker 6: Oh really a little bit. I would take this up with the Lord all right, Yeah, it’s probably more my junk than yours at this point.
00:23:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I’ve got some nice junk. Steve Vanella when he when he’s come here, when.
00:23:36
Speaker 3: He pulled up, that was the first thing he did. He pulled his phone.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: Out, like we I mean, we just have a modest place here, I mean truly modest, you know. And uh, Steve Vanella pulls up and like like.
00:23:50
Speaker 2: He wasn’t trying to be cute.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: I catch him standing there just like looking at my jump pile, and I walk over and I’m like, what are you doing? And it was almost like he was slightly embarrassed. Oh, I’m sorry, I just yeah, I just I was just kind of looking around. Are you gonna steal? Are you wanting to like steal some of us stuff?
00:24:08
Speaker 5: He said that he had looked all over Arkansas for a junk pile like he was expecting. In the one place he found it, was it Clayton.
00:24:16
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, that was That was a good time, by the way, that was a good.
00:24:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yes, that was really good.
00:24:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:24:26
Speaker 3: So before we get into too much more meat, we want to make sure and mention the uh the survey, the bear Greek survey. Yes, go to yep.
00:24:38
Speaker 2: What were your Was it too long?
00:24:41
Speaker 3: No?
00:24:41
Speaker 2: I don’t.
00:24:42
Speaker 7: I didn’t.
00:24:42
Speaker 4: I wasn’t very critical on anything other than it’s Oh there was one place where they like you could click on personalities there were you were not on there, so I made sure I mentioned you got to mention you got one vote.
00:24:59
Speaker 7: Anyways. Yeah, that’s good.
00:25:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, so go go to the mediator dot com slash too long.
00:25:05
Speaker 4: I thought you meant was the podcast? That was one of the questions he asked, were podcast length? Oh, I thought that’s what you’re talking about.
00:25:11
Speaker 7: So I don’t remember. I thought it was fun.
00:25:13
Speaker 1: No, I just uh, yeah, it’s a it’s a cool survey.
00:25:17
Speaker 2: I it’d be great if you went and checked it out all.
00:25:21
Speaker 3: Together as much information from you guys as we can. So we’re we’re we’re asking for you guys to do this survey. We want to hear from you. Also, you get entered to win a nice fat five hundred dollars gift card from media.
00:25:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it’s actually a pretty good chance. As of today, I can say this. I think there were like two hundred people that had done the survey, So I mean.
00:25:43
Speaker 7: It’s pretty painless that it’s good.
00:25:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don’t have to type in your information or anything like. It’s not it’s not like type in your credit card number and we’ll let you use it.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: It’s just do your survey.
00:25:55
Speaker 1: But you know, one and two hundred chances and hopefully the be more that take it, and there will be but a decent decent chance.
00:26:04
Speaker 3: At web address is it’s the.
00:26:06
Speaker 1: Meteor dot com slash grease. Is that the way you understand it, Josh?
00:26:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so check that out.
00:26:12
Speaker 3: Also, since we have two special guests here, one in the Ta Cove’s hot seed and one in the Tacova’s roller seat, you guys are going to be gifted a pair of boots from Tacovia. Yes, we’re happy to have you here, and it’s just a little thank you. And yes, you guys can send us some pictures of you walking around in your boots.
00:26:34
Speaker 5: And well, yeah boots for waiting for an hour for Clay.
00:26:37
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. This is our way of saying we’re very sorry that.
00:26:44
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, thank you guys. I have a question for the book. What about your book?
00:26:55
Speaker 3: Oh man, I’m really looking.
00:26:57
Speaker 7: Forward to this. Man, I’m not.
00:27:00
Speaker 4: So excited pre reader, you know, like advantage of the guy I’m the guy.
00:27:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it’s it’s We have submitted the manuscript in February. Penguin Random House has has read the book and has given us feedback, and we’re in the process right now of making the final edits. The book is going to be out in February of twenty twenty seven.
00:27:24
Speaker 7: Looking forward to it.
00:27:25
Speaker 2: Man, there’ll be an audiobook.
00:27:27
Speaker 5: There’ll be a be a hard copy too.
00:27:29
Speaker 2: Yes, oh cool, that’s just not that far away.
00:27:32
Speaker 3: I mean we’re like not ten.
00:27:34
Speaker 2: Months, right, I think that right. The reading, yes, yes, I will. I will be doing the reading on the audiobook.
00:27:43
Speaker 1: And it’s guys, it really is the work of my life in terms of my career inside of like the outdoor space.
00:27:51
Speaker 2: It really is. I mean, I’m very excited about it.
00:27:55
Speaker 1: And my my at in house editor at media is a guy named Alex Tilney, who the world doesn’t really know but is just a I mean I consider him a dear friend. Today he’s been with me in the trenches, just helping me and it’s been incredible. And so anyway, one day we’ll have Alex on this podcast. But yeah, it’s the wildest story you’ve never heard about the American black bear. When you read this story, it’s it’s it’s one part history, like American history, market hunting, Native American ceremonialism. It’s it’s one part history, one part biology. You’re going to learn wild stuff about black bears and about mammals and about the ice age and about extinctions. And then it’s it’s one part and this is probably the lesser part, but it’s one part memoir. For lack of a better term, I mean, it’s not the book’s not you know that. There’s just it’s kind of my over lap with bears inside of my life. And then it’s one part future casting on the American black bear is thriving. There are more American black bears than all other seven bear species on planet Earth combined. There was a time when there were hundreds of bear species on planet Earth pretty wild.
00:29:22
Speaker 2: Today they’re eight. And that is not the result of like anything to do with man. I mean, there were hundreds deep time, and whatever’s happening ecologically has been incredibly good for black black bears and America’s bear stories just beginning.
00:29:41
Speaker 5: Do you have any idea what it is? What’s that I mean, what is increasing their population?
00:29:46
Speaker 1: Well, this is what the book covers to some degree, but generalists are doing very well. Specialists are struggling in general habitat loss for for all kinds of stuff, just.
00:30:04
Speaker 4: The like a monarch butterfly, it’s got to have milkweed. Yes, that’s a specialist, that’s right, where a black bear would probably eat the milkweed and everything else.
00:30:15
Speaker 1: We basically make the case that the American black bear is the greatest generalist survivor of modern times. I mean, they’re they’re just like they can eat anything a plant, an animal, human, trash and live in the wilderness. Thing live in the city, they live above the Arctic Circle, they can live in Mexico City, they can live on the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean.
00:30:41
Speaker 2: They they they they’ve.
00:30:44
Speaker 1: Out competed grizzlies in modern times because of their lack of They’re they’re not as dangerous as a grizz I mean, like when you think about all the factors, even anthropogenic human related factors that cause animal to thrive today. I mean, the reason there’s not grizzlies from Alaska down to Old Mexico is because they were they were more specialists than.
00:31:10
Speaker 2: Black bears, but also were dangerous to.
00:31:14
Speaker 1: But people in New Jersey have figured out how to get along with bears that live in the little ravines behind their houses and come in their yards. Yes, and it and so just really interesting story. We talk about how the black bear, the bear in general is the most anthropomorphized animal in human history.
00:31:34
Speaker 2: We quantify that.
00:31:36
Speaker 1: We quantify how the Catholic Church in Europe spend one thousand years stamping out the pagan animal based worship religions of old Europe. And in those religions, the bear was the king of the woods, the king, the king of the beasts, and they marketed to get the lion as king of be like if you were just just a multiple choice questions, like what’s the king of the beasts, it used to be the bear? Interesting like there, like there were systemic campaigns to to to decrease the social value of the bear in Europe by the Catholic Church because they were doing some crazy stuff with bears back in like deep time Europe. And so it’s it was successful, and so the bear became this slothful, lustful carnal beast and they killed them all essentially in Europe, I mean by like by like one thousand a d There were no bears in in on the island on England, and then all those people come to North America and you don’t, we don’t realize how much we come preloaded with cultural stuff even is it in regards to everything, but it’s specifically wild animals and what what happens market hunting, and I mean like kind of this wanton slaughter of wildlife, including bears, and so we we there’s some trails in this book that no one has ever spoken of that will I mean for real, really interesting stuff. M some foreshadow of the book US A year ago, Yannest do tell Us was like, Clay, you got to start talking about your book. And I told him, no, I don’t want to talk about my book because it’s two years out, and I mean, like I would give away information that’s in the.
00:33:44
Speaker 7: Book not two years now.
00:33:46
Speaker 2: Well it’s not two years now.
00:33:48
Speaker 1: And then he said something that I think is true, as he said, Clay, you could talk about that during book in our long segments for days and not tell everything that’s in that book read in the book. So he was like, don’t hide anything.
00:34:03
Speaker 2: He’s like, just if you if if you want to talk about it, talk about it. But no, Yeah, I’m thanks for asking.
00:34:10
Speaker 7: Yeah, I’m looking forward to that.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it’s gonna be called American Beary excellent. Yep, yep, yep. The Civil War.
00:34:23
Speaker 1: Man second episode the the This was one of my favorite episodes we’ve done in a while. I’m really glad that we’re getting back into some historical series. It’s, uh, they’re hard to do. It’s a big bite to do a civil war episode. It’s it’s, yeah, when so many people know so much about the Civil War. There’s been more books written about the Civil War, I think than any other topic in America. So it’s it’s it’s not like we’re bringing new information to the world.
00:34:56
Speaker 2: But as I said from the beginning.
00:35:00
Speaker 1: I I’m answering questions that I didn’t know about. So you know, my invitation to the listener is just like, hey, I don’t know as much about this as I want to come along with me and let’s let’s learn something.
00:35:16
Speaker 5: Man.
00:35:17
Speaker 1: What’s what’s what do you think of? This second episode called I Wat stood out to you.
00:35:22
Speaker 4: I was, I was looking forward to it. I had no idea. You know, it’s kind of like you’re you’re going to do a civil war series. So it’s like you have a five galland bucket and a tidal wave and this is what this is it what you have. But what you what you selected is good because I think it’s where a lot of people start, but they don’t know everything, I mean, the two sides, the complexity, that kind of stuff.
00:35:47
Speaker 7: So yeah, I thought it was a good a good place to go.
00:35:49
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:35:50
Speaker 1: So this first episode was about focused on Abraham Lincoln, the secession of the States, and then the last fourteen minutes or something we talk about Roberty Lee, what what’s out to you?
00:36:04
Speaker 2: Missy Well.
00:36:06
Speaker 8: I was very surprised to learn that Abe Lincoln was a world class wrestler.
00:36:11
Speaker 2: I’ll just start that. I did you know that, Michael, I just.
00:36:15
Speaker 7: Had picture him in a single. It is hard, is that?
00:36:20
Speaker 2: The little little trunk, a little swimming suit thing?
00:36:24
Speaker 7: But yeah, I knew that. So yeah, yeah, yeah, put the covers on, you know. Yeah.
00:36:30
Speaker 2: So that surprised you, It surprised me.
00:36:32
Speaker 8: No, I thought it was it was really good. I thought the Yeah, I thought you did a good job of I think the thing that’s interesting is what you don’t know in what in the the comparison of the two men, Abe Lincoln and Roberty Lee and and it’s it’s nice to take you this big topic, like you said, a five gallon bucket, you know, and and you’re basically telling this story of how this thing started through these two men’s different lives. And I don’t know if you meant to do that or not, but that I thought that was a really that was a unique way to do it, and A and A in an interesting way because you kind of say, you know, once and really like Abe Lincoln was a good a really good man. And uh and but you you draw out like he’s probably had some things that if he were here today we’d take issue with, had some ideas. But I I think and I do know some things about the Civil War. But I just think the thing that that quote, like I I if I had let all the if I freed all the slaves, I couldn’t keep the union together. If if I kept everyone in slaves, I couldn’t keep the Union together. And realizing just what he was kind of driven by a mission, and uh, always I’m always interested, always interested in learning more about him. I think, Robert E. Lee, that’s someone that definitely, you know, I kind of grew up in an environment similar to to well eleven miles further.
00:38:01
Speaker 2: South than you ways the Deep South, and.
00:38:06
Speaker 8: So so I certainly had heard quite a bit about Roberty Lee, but I hadn’t heard some of the things that you talked about in that and that was a that was a real surprise.
00:38:17
Speaker 1: I’m always fascinated by the nuance in history and also the thing that time does to people’s mind frames. Because Abe Lincoln, this saint who even after I heard what he said essentially about you know, the equality of different races of people, I mean still, it’s like Abe Lincoln was pretty much a saint for that time.
00:38:48
Speaker 5: You’re a product of the time that you grew up in. I mean there, you know, there are things one hundred years from now, morals that you hold that you think are completely moral, that in one hundred years they’ll be like, man, what was claive thing?
00:39:00
Speaker 3: Uh?
00:39:01
Speaker 5: You know, and it’s me.
00:39:02
Speaker 7: To a tree?
00:39:03
Speaker 5: Come on, yeah, I mean.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: Really it will exactly do you think that’ll be, Michael.
00:39:08
Speaker 5: I’m not sure, but I’m sure there’s a list in a plot. Yeah, there’s a list.
00:39:13
Speaker 1: I think they’re gonna look back at y’all hunting walkers, and like Clay was on the right side.
00:39:18
Speaker 5: But I mean, he was a product of his time, and and it’s all he knew. I mean, you know, I don’t think he actually seen much slavery until he went to New Orleans right when markets down there right there wouldn’t have been very many where he was. There wouldn’t have been very many black people where he was.
00:39:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, the context is everything in this because like you say, he would he he.
00:39:43
Speaker 7: Would never have known a time without it.
00:39:45
Speaker 4: So how is it how would you get your mind around trying to you know, back to the first episode they talked about the three fifths rule when they set up the union in the first place. It’s just like like you were saying earlier, you would he would have done it either way to keep the union together, free them all or keep keep everybody’s slave. If it kept the union together, that was their mission back then, get this thing signed and done and let’s get a country. If they hadn’t done that three fifths thing, that would have never happened. And that’s always bugged me that it’s portrayed by some people that don’t maybe don’t know history that well, but like that just proves how racist these guys were or whatever. It’s really the opposite. As soon as they freed them, they became a whole person. They counted one whole. So the incentive was to be to free them, right, you know.
00:40:34
Speaker 2: They had to do the three fists to get there, to.
00:40:36
Speaker 4: Get the compromise, to get them in the first place. So even that is like, while you’re saying, this is a product of the time, you know, yeah, yeah, And they did a good job of setting things in motion to where eventually, I think a lot of people thought it would go away eventually.
00:40:52
Speaker 7: But then cotton came along, this whole crunch.
00:40:55
Speaker 5: With the cotton gin come along. That Eyeweedney came along, invented the cotton gin because it was a big part of slavery was dying out until because the the I don’t forget which type of cotton it was, the cotton that they were using wasn’t popular anymore until the cotton gin, and then it exploded.
00:41:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it’s so.
00:41:15
Speaker 1: It was wild to hear Lincoln say that he thought that slavery would be here for another hundred years. And whether he really believed that or not, I don’t know. It could have been just what he said.
00:41:27
Speaker 5: So it may not have been slavery, but the harsh racism was there for another one hundred years.
00:41:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:41:34
Speaker 1: So the part of the reason a catalyst that I invited Michael was he we talked about this light. I’d called you about this light, and then he listened to the Civil War episode and you said, well, I don’t want to take the words out of your mouth. What did you tell me?
00:41:53
Speaker 5: I told you that I was raised I forget my exact age, eleven twelve on up till I was about eighteen by a black lady, not one hundred percent of the time, but a big part of the time. And her mother, so she was old. Her mother was born a slave. She was born in eighteen sixty two. Wow, so it would have just been a baby, but was born a slave. The point was, it wasn’t that long ago.
00:42:21
Speaker 7: That’s right.
00:42:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that when he said that on the phone, I said, will you come to the render and bring that light to me?
00:42:30
Speaker 5: You know, I didn’t know it. She never mentioned anything. And I was telling her about a pump, you know, one of the old hand pumps that I had found by a pond we were fishing by that was south and east of the house, about a mile and she said, that’s my mother’s old home place. And then she told me about that. So the property that that old home place was on, yeah, it’s still owned by the family that her mother was enslaved too. Oh my goodness, they’re still there.
00:43:04
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:43:05
Speaker 1: Well that so let’s think about the mask, because that is the most interesting thing. I remember one time when I was a kid, my dad and he used to Abraham Lincoln. It’s interesting that he would have used this analogy, but he said, really, the difference in time between Abe Lincoln’s time and our time is really not that much. I didn’t understand it when he said it, but I always remember him saying that.
00:43:28
Speaker 2: So this so you were what you were?
00:43:29
Speaker 1: You born Michael seventy six, So this would have been in the eighties, the nineteen eighties.
00:43:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and older in this lady. This lady would have been in her eighties.
00:43:41
Speaker 5: She was ninety five ninety six, and it was like in I think she was born in like nineteen oh two, okay, and her mother was older when she had her. But her mother had like eighteen kids something like that. Wow, So she had kids own up until she was quite a bit older. Fleecy the one that I’m talking about had twenty one kids raised. Every one of them didn’t lose.
00:44:06
Speaker 2: Twenty one children, one kids fleet. Her day was fleecy. Wow.
00:44:10
Speaker 4: My granddad was born eighteen ninety eight, so people that were forty years old, fifty years old, they were I mean he he would have known all kinds of people and veterans, people lived through it and everything.
00:44:24
Speaker 1: Yes, that’s the way that I when Michael said that, I got to thinking and I thought this through this before, but it rekindled the idea, like my grandfather would have grown up around old men that were Civil War veterans.
00:44:39
Speaker 5: So I didn’t even think about. My wife right now is driving back from Florida with her cousin. Her cousin is early sixties. She was a late child for her father. Her father was born in eighteen ninety five. Wow. Wow, he was in his sixty something pushing seventy when she was born. Wo. So you can get close really quick.
00:45:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s just not that many generations. Time is so deceptive that it feels like that was just so long ago.
00:45:11
Speaker 5: But you know, well, and there’s been so much change, you know, and we look back on that stuff. Like he was talking about Lincoln and you know it come across in a podcast like you really couldn’t believe he’d think like that, And then I want to free the slaves. But like I said, he was a product of his time, and we all want to think we’d be the hero and something like that, and we probably wouldn’t be. You know, you would probably be You may have owned slaves, you know, if that was how you raise you were raised. Setting now you think, oh, there’s no way, there’s no way I could I could think like that, but you probably would have.
00:45:48
Speaker 4: But if you if you just take one of those guys like you’ve done and look and read a biography of their life, like you can do it with Jackson, you can do it with Nathan Bedford Forrest for crying out.
00:45:58
Speaker 7: Loud had had a slave.
00:46:01
Speaker 4: Markets was one of the most fierce cavalry officers. I mean, the Union feared him, you know, and they talked him into heading up to klu klux Klan right after the war when Blacks were getting elected to office and everything sometime in that period in his later life after that he got out of that pretty quick. He ran into a veteran buddy his he said, I thought you were in Mexico or somewhere, and he said, now I’m back here. And I think he was actually preaching or something then. Anyway, he asked Bedford for us if he’d ever made a decision to follow the Lord, and he said, now, there was too much non Christian stuff work to be done. When you asked me that during the war, they said, we need to take care of that, and they go and there’s an account of him, you know, with this guy making that decision, and he actually becomes an advocate for black folks at that time, went to some picnics, had awards given. You don’t ever hear that part of his history. He had a complete turnaround from where he was us. And I think you could say the same for Lee. Thought it was terrible, but he inherited some of his slaves and he couldn’t get rid of him without paying a big I don’t know what they called it, but there’s some kind of fee had to pay the kids if he got rid of the slaves.
00:47:13
Speaker 7: You know. So it’s complicated. History is complicated.
00:47:17
Speaker 4: I think our country we still should be proud that we were able to I don’t I don’t know if there’s another case in history where you have an enslaved people and you free those people, if that’s ever happened.
00:47:31
Speaker 5: Well, where half of the country fought the other half of the.
00:47:33
Speaker 4: Right, right right, So depends on how you look at it. I guess, you know, it’s a perspective thing too. But Lincoln said about changing his mind like stuff, you’re saying what he said earlier, and he said, I don’t claim to have been able to control events. Events control me. In other words, he had to change his mind about things, like he went from not we don’t want to make this about emancipation, we just want to get to keep a union together, to where we’re gonna go for broke, you know, and get her done.
00:48:05
Speaker 7: So he was able to do that, you know.
00:48:07
Speaker 5: It’s an implicated man. Yeah, And he was extremely depressed Lincoln. Yeah, Yeah, there’s a whole there’s books about it. I’ve read one, The Melancholy of Lincoln. And I mean he spent there, his friends thought that he’d kill himself. He spent a long time just later in the war period, during the war before the war, so leading up to the presidency. Yeah, he was extremely depressed.
00:48:33
Speaker 7: And then when he lost his boy that was another period. So but.
00:48:38
Speaker 4: But he was the right guy at the right place at the right time, as it turned out, you know. So, yeah, there were compromises that legislatures tried to make that would have ended things with it being unsettled and it would have just gone on forever. So uh, he did he he did us a great service as president.
00:49:00
Speaker 5: I will say that, you know, so general as he picked early on too, missed a lot of opportunities to end that war early that they just missed. Let him get away. Just that kind of thing.
00:49:10
Speaker 2: Mm hm hm, yeah, Bear, what’s that to you?
00:49:17
Speaker 6: Well, kind of the same as everybody else, but really like the you know, like you always hear about Abraham Lincoln saying, you know that black people were not equal to white people, but he freed the slaves.
00:49:31
Speaker 2: You’ve heard that before.
00:49:33
Speaker 8: Yeah, Okay, he went to a great school.
00:49:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Uh, And yeah, I think it. I agree with everyone, Like from this point in history, it’s really easy to look back and be judgmental of that, but you know, I do. I do agree with what Michael said, Like it does seem like if you if you grew up in that environment, then those are just the thinking systems that are built then that you don’t necessarily choose to have in a lot of ways. And so yeah, like looking back on it, it’s kind of hard to believe, but I do feel like that’s uh, like it’s it’s not terribly surprising to me. Whenever I heard that, it was just kind of like, yeah, it’s probably probably the way that everybody thought then. But for his time, he was pretty far ahead of the pretty far ahead of the rest of the pretty far ahead of the game. But yeah, and I also I think in one hundred years there will be a lot of things that we’re doing now about in the future, people are gonna be like, what are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I feel like a lot of environmental.
00:50:46
Speaker 2: Stuff, Yeah, will definitely be.
00:50:49
Speaker 6: Like y’all, we’re driving gasoline trucks every day to work fifty miles and back stuff like that.
00:50:58
Speaker 3: Yes, look back and say about this, why didn’t you change it?
00:51:01
Speaker 7: You know what I mean?
00:51:02
Speaker 3: Because we have lots of people who are who are you know, declaring warnings, but.
00:51:08
Speaker 7: You didn’t think water was important. That’s a good thing.
00:51:13
Speaker 2: That’s a good example.
00:51:14
Speaker 5: Bear. One of the things we talked about early on was you know, why would why like Benjamin Frank Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson had slaves but condemned it. It was his pocketbook. It’s why he still had slaves. The same reason. We we’re using stuff. That cell phone setting on Misty’s lap right now probably has some stuff in it that we wouldn’t be real proud of who the people are that are, you know, getting there, But we have it because we need it, so we kind of ignore it. And I believe that was the same, yes, same thing.
00:51:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like it would be pretty tough for me to just be like, all right, I’m never driving a gasoline vehicle again and then just like not drive anywhere, you know. I mean, like I guess he use an electric vehicle, but he’d ride slow trap down. Yeah, I just have to ride. I just had to ride slow trap in the town. And it’s like.
00:52:09
Speaker 5: People things like slow trapping cows produce too much methane and they’re bad for the environment too, you know.
00:52:15
Speaker 6: So yeah, so you’re kind of like it’s not really much of an option now, it’s like you kind of then you look back at Yeah, yeah, Abraham.
00:52:25
Speaker 1: I think that is actually a great example because I’ve been trying to think of things. I was half joking when I said, what do you think I’m doing that they’re going to talk about? But I actually have been trying to figure out, you know, what are the things? And there there are probably some uh you know when J. D. Hewitt, who did a fantastic job as my guest’s History Underground YouTube channel, he he’s he said, Clay, how do you feel about children mining cobalt in Africa?
00:52:52
Speaker 2: And I’m like, boy, that sounds bad. And he’s like, okay, well you don’t really do much about it, do you? And I’m like no.
00:52:59
Speaker 1: And you know, his point was people that didn’t own slaves might have just been like, well, it’s not really my problems, just kind of what those people are doing. But this thing about the environment about yeah, like driving the big trucks that we drive, but yeah, it’s like, how do you be a normal person if you don’t have a truck. I’ve joked at times that people are going to look back at pictures of plastic silverware and see me eating a piece of barbecue with a plastic fork and go, wow, what a monster. I mean, like the amount of we could talk about environmental stuff over and over, but like.
00:53:41
Speaker 2: Disposable plastics is just unreal.
00:53:45
Speaker 4: Every day, every restaurant, every just piles of it and microplastics and in all our stuff now, you know, And I’m thinking, like what Bear said later on, people are going to go, you knew this and took you how long to kind of wean off of that?
00:54:00
Speaker 2: Yes?
00:54:00
Speaker 7: You know that. I that’ll be a deal, you know, so wow.
00:54:06
Speaker 1: Yes, it’s crazy. Speaking of crazy, I was very intrigued by Robert E.
00:54:21
Speaker 2: Lee’s letter to his wife.
00:54:24
Speaker 1: I mean it the letter didn’t somebody might have interpreted that as me saying, look, he was actually good and we thought he was bad. It really wasn’t any of that. I was just surprised at his candidness and that he addressed much of what we’re talking about, Like the guy Robert E Lee.
00:54:48
Speaker 2: Yes, And I also thought it was kind of weird.
00:54:51
Speaker 1: That we have access to a private letter he wrote to his wife. I mean, I just think about, like if he was alive, sitting right there in the Tacob’s hot seat and I found that letter laying on the floor. What I picked it up and like read but but here here, you know, one hundred and sixty years later, I’m like reading it, and you know, maybe he wouldn’t have said that publicly. I mean there’s things I would say to my wife I wouldn’t say publicly. I just thought that was interesting.
00:55:17
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah that No. I thought that’s super interesting. And it’s that’s a that’s an incredible point about I think that that’s probably a great place to know what people were thinking, because it wasn’t. It’s not like today where we’re looking in our cell phones and people, you know, influencers are sharing like their deepest reflective thoughts about about things. This is his letter to this is his letter to his wife. This is a private text message, something that you don’t think is gonna yeah that is actually yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
00:55:50
Speaker 7: And her response was not a thumbs up.
00:55:53
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:55:55
Speaker 8: So I think it’s I thought that was that was super interesting. And I think to your point, you’re not really saying this guy was good and this guy was bad or you’re not. You’re just saying, like, hey, this is a little bit more complex than than anyone knows. And it’s easy to put these people in these box. But when you read these letters from both of them, and you read their speeches and you read this intimate communication, you learn a little bit more. And it’s just it’s just the whole thing is a little bit more nuanced.
00:56:20
Speaker 2: I mean, Roberty Lee was essentially saying, I’m rooting for the end of slavery. That’s what I felt like he was saying.
00:56:28
Speaker 7: Oh, he was praying for it.
00:56:30
Speaker 4: It actually sounded like he was the way he said he was praying for that end or something.
00:56:34
Speaker 1: Yes, the language was a little hard to follow at times, but but yeah he was, Yeah, he did. He said he was praying for the end of slavery. And then but this guy he owned slaves. His wife owned a bunch of slaves.
00:56:47
Speaker 8: And you kind of wonder, I actually, when I was listening to that, wonder if he was like telling her, Hey, get rid of yours. You know, you need to dial it back. Yeah, you’re not, do you know what I’m saying? Like, as you listen to it and you think, this is not this is not a historical text that this man is writing. This is not public information. He’s he’s talking to a woman who clearly has a different stance than he does.
00:57:08
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we don’t know that.
00:57:09
Speaker 8: Well, it sounds a little bit like it based on what Clay Newcombe sound Berger’s podcast.
00:57:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, well as and I’m not an expert on Robert E. Lee, but what I read was that her his wife’s father was a big time plantation. I mean this Roberty Lee is like a gentleman of Virginia. So he marries into this wealthy, rich family.
00:57:32
Speaker 5: So Grant was the same way. Grant married into a family that had a lot of slaves and his father was an abolitionist.
00:57:39
Speaker 2: So Grant’s father, but so Grant’s wife.
00:57:42
Speaker 5: Grant’s wife, they own slaves. Yeah, it was kind of hard for those two to reconcile that. Yeah, yeah, but you can be more than one thing. You know. We like to take something someone did in their past or whatever and put them in a box. Two things can be true at the same time.
00:57:58
Speaker 2: And time as well.
00:58:00
Speaker 1: Like I think if you took a Clay Nukeombe at twenty years old and just could extract every thought in my mind and beliefs and doctrine of life, and then you extracted that today or maybe when I’m seventy, I would be a different person. And I could be I actually could be a different person that would look back and be like, man, I was so young, young and foolish, and so you know, like.
00:58:30
Speaker 2: Where did where would a guy like Robert E.
00:58:32
Speaker 1: Lee have ended up? And he didn’t live that long. He only lived like just shortly after the Civil War, maybe five years. I think he died before eighteen seventy, but he was in his sixties. Maybe he became the president of this college. He did quite a bit of stuff and.
00:58:50
Speaker 5: Told that all that would have took well.
00:58:53
Speaker 4: And then yeah, and then you had the change in administrations where you know, Grant’s conditions were magnanimous to everybody and there was healing, you know, would have been better if Lincoln was still around. But then you get a change in administrations. They actually indict in for treason at some point, I think. So you had to go through all that, you know. So yeah, it’s just hard to imagine what the turmoil they lived through, you know.
00:59:19
Speaker 2: Josh, what stood that to you?
00:59:21
Speaker 3: Well, you know the old saying hindsight is twenty twenty, and I think that might be accurate personally, But like looking back at history, what I’m kind of gleaning from these episodes is that things are a lot more complex than we want them to be. We want them to be very cut and dried, and we want to be able to pass judgment on these historical figures and events so that we can so that we can decry somebody or we can we can exalt someone. And I just just as these things are, you know, I hadn’t heard that stuff about Abraham Lincoln. It was a surprise to me when I when I heard it, and uh, it kind of it has the ability to change your view of someone, you know, in an instant. And I just feel like the purpose of going back and looking at history like this is so that we can learn things more about ourselves and what to do. And I think I think the thing that that that really stands out, and you know, we’re talking about a subject that’s been so sensitive in American culture since the Civil War, of racism, and that it really comes down to the fact that we have to we have to look at our own conscience. We have to live out of our conscience, and that if you’re not doing that, you are going to be you’re going to be making the wrong decision for you. And I think I think looking at looking at Abraham Lincoln and looking at these guys, you know, I think Abraham Lincoln, to the best of his ability, lived out of his conscience, and I think it guided him the right way. And I think looking at Robert Robert E. Lee, I think eventually it would have guided him the right way because they were men of principle. Looking at their lives, they they believed in principles. I think their principles changed over the course of their lives. And that’s one of the things that I really appreciate about this episode specifically, is I felt like I got a more holistic view into who these guys were. Am I going to say, well, you know, I had these these views of Roberty Lee as being this Confederate, you know, rebel racist, and now I feel like he’s the other way. No, but it does give me a view that he was much more moderate than what I thought he would be. And even looking at Abraham Lincoln Lincoln to say he was he was limited by the by the culture of his time, yet at the same time he was still a groundbreaker inside of that. And we can’t we can’t hold these guys to the same standard that we would expect now because we have more knowledge. And so it does it require aires me to live my day by the cont by my conscience, by what what what I feel inside of me to make the next right choice about the things that I’m doing.
01:02:11
Speaker 5: I really understand too, the the we’re loyalties live at that point. So we’re all Americans, and we all like to think we’re patriots to America. As in the federal America, they were loyal to their state. The whole idea of America hadn’t really grown that much yet. They were lolled down to their county that they were in. So you know, like Robert E. Lee, if that war hadn’t moved into Virginia, he probably would have never done anything right. You know. It was the fact that he was loyal to the people in his area is why he was in that war.
01:02:48
Speaker 7: They’d referred to as their country.
01:02:49
Speaker 4: Like if I said, how’s everything in your country, I’m talking about Arkansas, right, you know, And that’s right.
01:02:54
Speaker 5: It was a whole different outlook on what the United States is versus how we feel about it now.
01:02:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s a good that’s a good point.
01:03:02
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was actually is a good point because it was kind of confusing to me. And don’t get me wrong, I do love Arkansas, but it was a little bit like, well, if Roberty Lee didn’t like, didn’t want slaves or what on earth, just because he couldn’t fight against his home state. You know that that makes a look, that makes that have a little bit more sense.
01:03:18
Speaker 1: Well, in the at some point we’re going to address this, because I talked about it pretty extensively with JD. But the reasons people fought in the South were so interesting because to me, it’s more interesting than the reason people fought in the North. The people fought in the North to preserve the Union and perhaps out of a moral obligation to abolition, but not much probably, But my point about in the South, there would be a general idea that, well, anybody fought for the Confederacy would be you know, like pro slavery, have slaves.
01:03:56
Speaker 2: But that wasn’t true at all.
01:03:59
Speaker 7: There’s a great quote if you go back.
01:04:00
Speaker 4: I don’t know when ken Burn’s Civil War series came out, probably the eighties maybe, but it’s in Shelby’s foot voice. I can still hear him say. One of the Yankees talking to a captures Confederate saying why are you fighting us? And the and the and the Confederate soldier says, because you’re down here.
01:04:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that’s it.
01:04:22
Speaker 7: For them for that guy.
01:04:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, the country.
01:04:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, that’s why we’re fighting because you’re down here.
01:04:29
Speaker 1: It’s like it’s just yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what we’re going to cover, is like why people would fight and uh in the in the they’re varied, varied reasons, but mainly it had to do with what you’re saying.
01:04:45
Speaker 2: It’s just like, well, this is this is our people.
01:04:47
Speaker 1: And even Roberty Leave’s letter to his wife, it’s like he talks about, you know, slavery’s bad. It’s bad for owners, it’s bad for slaves, it’s bad for your soul. God doesn’t like it. We’re praying that the n but those people have no right to come down here and tell us what to do like that.
01:05:08
Speaker 3: That.
01:05:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we think that we’re independent. They were fiercely independent of the government. So you know that that had a lot to do with while they were fighting.
01:05:19
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, very interesting. Anything else stand out to you, Missy? No, that was it.
01:05:32
Speaker 8: Well that’s all I got.
01:05:34
Speaker 2: That’s all you got. Well, I’m looking forward to the next Uh, We’re gonna do a couple more episodes. I’m just going to.
01:05:40
Speaker 1: Keep doing these until I feel satisfied with what I know. So Uh, we’ve got a few more left in us, which which I think is good. I think I enjoy having a series that. I mean, you can’t learn much in an hour, but if you had a three art when I think about like the way we covered Daniel Boone and Takumpsa and Ostiola and some of these historical things, it’s a pretty good resource to deliver to people you can go listen to. I think our Boon series maybe just had three episodes, but it’s like one of them was an hour and a half. There was a time when Berg Greece is were an hour and a half long. Yeah, but I mean three or four hours. It’s pretty cover quite a bit of information. And yes, well I’m looking forward to taking my my light out.
01:06:37
Speaker 2: Yes I do.
01:06:39
Speaker 5: Fifteen coons last night?
01:06:41
Speaker 2: You really?
01:06:41
Speaker 5: Thirteen coons and two in the ground? Wow? Home at two o’clock this morning?
01:06:47
Speaker 2: Oh really?
01:06:48
Speaker 1: Boys, Well, Michael’s down in the in the some of the best coon hunting there is down the Delta, Arkansas, Delta.
01:06:59
Speaker 3: Damn down there right now.
01:07:02
Speaker 8: It’s not bad a bad year for for folks.
01:07:06
Speaker 2: In What dog are you hunting?
01:07:08
Speaker 7: Now? Heck?
01:07:09
Speaker 2: Why did you name him?
01:07:10
Speaker 5: Heck? I didn’t I don’t. I don’t know why he’s named Heck. I sold him as a wan puppy and brought him back when he’s eleven months old, and that’s the name he came with. Heck he already knew it. So that’s what we stole.
01:07:20
Speaker 2: Because they were saying, what the heck got a puppy out of him?
01:07:24
Speaker 5: Right now it’s five months old. I named him heck yeah.
01:07:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s funny. Heck yeah, heck yeah Mmmm. What’s what’s the best coon dog names? Run through some of the old year coon dog names over the year.
01:07:43
Speaker 3: One syllable coon dog or two.
01:07:45
Speaker 5: I like to be a one syllable dog name, no matter what the dog is. I think they understand it better when I call him more. I don’t know, man, I haven’t had that great dog name Haller I had. I had two Hallers Haller, Yeah, Haller and little Haller.
01:08:01
Speaker 7: Lum Champ Homer coon dogs.
01:08:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh really what breed worthy?
01:08:07
Speaker 7: Well?
01:08:08
Speaker 2: Hold on, let me let me guess.
01:08:10
Speaker 4: Blue tick one was okay, one was well. I had one blue tick that was afraid of the dark. There were there there were there were a pair out of the same litter, and you’d have your light, and they weren’t disc of lights. We talked about the and you’d hear something walking, there’d be there’d be the dog and stop routes and you’d stop and it’s like, didn’t work out. The dog was afraid of the dark. But yeah, there was a long time ago. But yeah, a couple of blue ticks had a red bone. Uh, no walkers. I never had a walker.
01:08:38
Speaker 2: I could have told you that. I knew it. I knew, I knew this man didn’t have a walker in English? Are you wow? That’s groundbreaking. No.
01:08:45
Speaker 5: I like them coming from Georgia.
01:08:48
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, name in mind.
01:08:51
Speaker 5: I don’t name them until I know I’m going to keep them. I don’t like to waste good names.
01:08:56
Speaker 8: That’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s exactly what we we named it do I named it I just loved and and it was a no good dog and it ended up believing. I don’t want to say its name in case the current.
01:09:07
Speaker 2: Owner, well, in case someone we know has a child named that.
01:09:11
Speaker 8: That’s the one I’m talking about. For nutscoon.
01:09:18
Speaker 2: That was not a good dog or a good name.
01:09:22
Speaker 5: So until they’ve done something that I go, I’m going to keep this dog. I normally don’t know that. Yeah, yeah, but I mean I normally know that by the time they’re six or seven months.
01:09:32
Speaker 1: Oh man, I just, I just I was just going back through some of my the first well, I had bird dogs. I had a bird dog named Lucy at a pointer bird dog named Nick that my grandfather gave me named but oh man, my first registered blue tick coon dog was named Newcomb’s wash It Tall Southern Blue thunder. Try to call him in the woods Newcomb’s Arkansas wash it dog.
01:10:01
Speaker 2: Thunder, thunder thunder.
01:10:04
Speaker 3: We had we had a dog name guess whatcher and we just called him, uh that what?
01:10:13
Speaker 1: And then the pair was Newcomb’s wash Tall Southern blue Lightning, thunder and lightning.
01:10:24
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
01:10:25
Speaker 5: Daddy’s name was wood w o D.
01:10:30
Speaker 2: That was a good dog.
01:10:33
Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:34
Speaker 3: I had two dogs when I was a teenager named.
01:10:36
Speaker 7: Rolex and Sako.
01:10:40
Speaker 8: They would not have made good coon dogs. I’m just telling you right now, they would not have been good.
01:10:45
Speaker 7: Yeah.
01:10:45
Speaker 4: You imagine two dogs out there in the timber. What’s your name? My name is Rolex, What are you doing?
01:10:50
Speaker 7: That was dog?
01:10:52
Speaker 2: So that’s what I named I forgot to.
01:10:56
Speaker 1: All the while josh, Oh my gosh, he is not from around here. I forgot to mention that this light has a laser on it.
01:11:08
Speaker 5: Don’t shine it in your eyes.
01:11:09
Speaker 8: He likes to shine that kind of stuff at me, so you can point out that’s your one, that guys, and uh, none of it really like the laser.
01:11:17
Speaker 5: Really, I bet he shined a long way up there.
01:11:19
Speaker 2: On the ice. Yeah, clearer, he could shine along with on the ice. Excuse me. Yeah, it’s got a laser for pointing. Can you see it?
01:11:28
Speaker 3: You can see it?
01:11:30
Speaker 7: Look?
01:11:31
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, nice, don’t burn up our censor now, yep, yep.
01:11:38
Speaker 2: Is there anything else we need to cover?
01:11:39
Speaker 1: Anybody got any other thoughts anything you want to say?
01:11:44
Speaker 2: Well, uh mind, everybody. Take the survey check out check out the surveybody.
01:11:49
Speaker 3: Check out Mark Kenyon’s new podcast, Future Wild.
01:11:51
Speaker 2: Yes Mark Kenyon Man.
01:11:53
Speaker 5: So.
01:11:53
Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon has for a long time been known as.
01:11:56
Speaker 1: Meat Eater’s white tail guy. And he was, he is, he’s he’s uh just made lots and lots of content on white tails and and he’s still going to do that, but he is. He is now meat Eater’s new conservation coordinator, and he’s got a new podcast called Future Wild. He had Ivonne Ard on the first episode and and uhoun founded Patagonia, and uh yeah, Mark’s got a Mark’s got a neat thing going.
01:12:30
Speaker 8: Just so, he’s so bright. He is, he’s very he’s very good at that.
01:12:36
Speaker 5: Mm hmmmm hmm belonging here.
01:12:40
Speaker 2: As you’ll notice he’s not here. Uh well, uh.
01:12:48
Speaker 1: Uh, I’m gonna We’re gonna watch the NBA finals game tonight.
01:12:54
Speaker 2: We don’t talk about sports on this podcast or fly fishing, but uh we’re big. I don’t watch NBA, but the finals that playoffs we like to watch.
01:13:06
Speaker 1: So we’re gonna we’re gonna go check that out. Kyle, once again, thank you for coming. And if you’re ever, let’s expand the radius to thirty miles from here, and you see mules loose, just yea, let’s go ahead and catch them. If you don’t mind, I’ll and uh, Michael, thanks a ton for coming. Yeah man, no, it’s I’m glad you’re here. And I’m proud of my new light. And I’m a little jealous of that one.
01:13:38
Speaker 8: I’m actually a little jealous of that one too, because when we go on, Yeah, Clay likes to he always has the light. We go we go on a lot of night walks around here, and.
01:13:47
Speaker 1: Okay, life hack, just we’re kind of throwing in some for all of you who’ve hung on this long. Misty and I are incessant walkers.
01:13:57
Speaker 3: Yes, it’s true, it is true.
01:14:00
Speaker 2: And uh, I think you walk quite a bit too. They walked a long ways today.
01:14:05
Speaker 1: Uh, but we walk at night if we like, sometimes before we go to bed. Whar it’s like, hey, let’s go for a walk and we’ll go walk a mile and I’ll wear my coon light.
01:14:14
Speaker 5: Need what is that? Don’t you have one?
01:14:18
Speaker 7: Yeah?
01:14:18
Speaker 3: I need?
01:14:19
Speaker 8: I need to because it’s it’s like an imbalance of power when you when one person has a powerful light and the other person is like using their cell phone, you know, I mean, there’s a help me out.
01:14:32
Speaker 2: My ben Oak light has disappeared.
01:14:36
Speaker 5: I don’t even want to hear it in the lake.
01:14:40
Speaker 3: That probably actually is true. Bear, it’s still shining.
01:14:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s still it’s still rolling. Yeah. So thanks so much. Yeah, thanks for everybody.
01:14:53
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to these episodes and and engaging with them on the platform arms and on social media and stuff.
01:15:02
Speaker 2: It’s great.
01:15:03
Speaker 1: And thanks for listening to Brent’s podcast This Country Life likes Backward University and yup keep the wild Places wild because that’s where the bears live.
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