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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Knucomb 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 Tokov’s Boots. I’m a cowboy boot man and I’ve been wearing to Covis for years. There the most comfortable boot I’ve ever put on. Good boots for good times. We’re rollinglling, We’re rolling here we are. We found ourselves on the third episode of bear Grease’s attempt to dip but a single pail of water out of the ocean of the Civil War. And my has it been fascinating? It really has? And my do We have an eclectic group of people here and we’re going to do the classic bear Grease Render, introduce our.
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Speaker 2: Guests varying levels of facial hair right now.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: Yes.
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Speaker 1: If they may not even be able to recognize me just by audience.
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Speaker 2: I want to tell everybody what your name is.
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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukelem and I worked for Farm Bureau. I’m a Farm Bureau insurance agent. I’ve shaved my beard. Misty always says I look like an insurance agent.
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Speaker 5: Well, he just looks trustworthy, you know, he looks like as opposed to how he looked before.
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Speaker 3: Well, he didn’t look trustworthy.
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Speaker 1: Okay, listen, last week I went to the pinnacle of social strata in Arkansas at the Little Rock Country Club. Your very Clay nukemb was at the Little Rock Country Club. Okay, Brooks, you would understand that have not yet to introduce I’m waiting for him. More than one very well respected, esteemed, older, older gentleman looked at me and instantaneously went, you look great, way better than you used to.
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Speaker 2: Compliment.
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Speaker 1: Oh, it was so immediate, like he like these guys just couldn’t help being I mean it was a compliment. They were like saying, hey, you look good. But really it was like, for the last twenty years you have looked really rough.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Oh, have you gotten yourself a home now?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So, I mean so I took it. So anyway, I’m clean shaven. That’s that’s all we’re going to say about it. You know, Jelly Roll the other day, there was there was there was comp there was it came out in the media that Jelly Roll had divorced his wife. Okay, and it was like all over the media and everybody was like, oh, no, Jelly Rolls left his wife. Jelly roll didn’t in fact leave his wife. And he spoke about it, and he said, I’m going to say this one time and then we’re going to be done. I’m still with my wife. Everything’s okay. Fake media, you know, it was promoting this stuff. He said, this is the last time I will speak about it. This is the last time that I will speak about this shaved face.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: Josh, well, is it going to stick around for a while.
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Speaker 1: We’ll see, we’ll see it. We have a great crew, doctor, mister dukem be so lovely to have you, Josh Lambridge, Spilmmakers, Bear John the Bear, John dukem and in the COVID is hot seat of one of my favorite people, doctor Brooks. And yes, I when I was in Little Rock the time before Brooks, I told a very a big crowd of people, I said, if you want to be my friend, like if you if we officially engage in friendship, you know, there’s like some paper work you got to go through and stuff. One of the required reading materials is doctor Brooks Blevin’s book Arkansas Arkansas. So this book is what what’s this book about.
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Speaker 6: It’s about the history of the image of Arkansas, kind of the hillbilly image of Arkansas. Well, probably the funnest book I ever wrote.
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Speaker 1: So you’ve written a ton of books, several Yeah. So Brooks is known as the I mean, he’s a historian and works where where What’s what university do you.
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Speaker 4: Work for at Missouri State University, sury State? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, uh in Springfield.
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Speaker 4: In Springfield.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, but he’s known as the historian of the Ozarks. I mean, undisputable.
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Speaker 3: You might not. I’m sure you don’t know this.
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Speaker 5: But when we first started our school, we had a summer program and then I made all the middle.
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Speaker 3: Schoolers read this.
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Speaker 5: Really Yeah, we did a whole summer program about Arkansas and it was so fun and I mean it was we went all over Arkansas and we you know, saw all the things and we read all the all. It was probably our second summer and we had the best time.
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Speaker 3: And the kids thought this was a real riot.
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Speaker 5: You were a little young, you were not a middle schooler, but your sisters, your sisters were here.
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Speaker 1: So what I think is so great about this book is it it really gives you the backstory of place and not everybody’s from Arkansas, and that’s okay. But the the name Arkansas has spelled the modern correct way, and then the second Arkansas, and the title is spelled with a W because in like early frontier Arkansas, many people spelled it fanatically, I guess, and put a W at the end. And so so brooks point inside of this book is that there’s there’s kind of two Arkansas’s in a way, and and some of it is kind of fictitious, and it’s kind of a stereotype that’s stuck with us through the years. But it’s all rooted and element of truth that was amplified for all these different reasons and and and it’s a fascinating book. But to me, the point is to just do your best to try to understand where you’re from. That’s what it did for me. And I was adult an adult before I read this.
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Speaker 5: And I asked Brooks, would you say that we are our Cansons are Arkansawyers?
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Speaker 4: I would say, everyone gets to decide.
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Speaker 3: And what does it say about you if you describe yourself.
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Speaker 6: As an Arcanson, it’s you’re probably not too far from the little Rock Country Club.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I consider my wonderful people, wonderful people.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I’m an Arkansawer. But but I say, you know, not everyone’s comfortable with that term Arkansawor because it does sound more country. And so what whatever people want to you, can you make a switch from one to the other. Yeah, yeah, And it’s just a little bit of paper. And I ply and I probably do myself, just in different circumstances. You know, my Arkansas yourself might not go over as well teaching a graduate history course at Missouri State. You know, it’s it’s a little bit of code switching. I guess I get it, you know, but but I’m yeah, I I I say Arkansas your but uh anyone who wants to say Arkansas and I don’t have a problem with that, because that’s I think that’s more of the official, kind of the maybe unofficial official way of addressing ourselves.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, no, I think this is a this is a great a great book, and and and anybody if they had an author in their state and their reading that is doing what Brooks has done for us. It’s a it’s a it’s a grand feat. But uh so US has also written a bunch of books of like deep dive history into the kind of the chronology of the Ozarks and and how how things kind of went down.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, and that would the middle schoolers. There’s a There are a couple of instances of course language in that book, which.
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Speaker 1: I wasn’t going to bring it up. Okay, it’s an elephant in the room.
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Speaker 5: Okay, I should say like this, we went through it together. Okay, that’s how I should say it. We went through it together, Genie Wayne. Is that did I say or not that she came and spoke to the crew because it was just right down the street from the University of Arkansas.
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Speaker 3: She came and spoke to him. We we went through it together.
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Speaker 1: Okay, we did.
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Speaker 3: It was like our Arkansas history and it was you.
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Speaker 1: You said the dirty words.
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Speaker 3: I did not.
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Speaker 4: It’s nothing terribly bad.
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Speaker 6: It’s not you know, lower on the on the wrongs of language, and there are always quotes, are almost always quote. I’m in general, I’m not a bad language type feller.
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Speaker 1: But but if.
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Speaker 7: I’m quoting some yeah, let them fly, let them fly more Arkansas phrase that I’ve ever heard.
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Speaker 2: I’m not one of them. Bad.
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Speaker 6: Would you say bad I say bad language, bad language.
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Speaker 7: Fellers, bad language fellers.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, No, we went through it together and it was just fun for the kids to kind of hear how people perceie because you know, they pick up on that stuff. And so we we had a good time to go. We went to the Arkansas Post, which is a little bit We were expecting more.
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Speaker 1: Out of Arkansas Post.
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Speaker 4: See there five hours.
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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
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Speaker 4: Unless you appreciate surveying.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there’s it’s not just a one.
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Speaker 3: Of the worst field trips I’ve ever planned. Your kids were on that trip, well, probably.
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Speaker 4: Here’s the baseline.
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Speaker 1: So I told Brooks. We we cited this book and uh, and I’m making it a point to talk a little bit about my book on occasion just prime in the audience. But we we we talked about Arkansas as the bear state in my book. That’s coming out in February. So get ready, get ready.
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Speaker 4: I can’t wait.
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Speaker 3: It’s gonna be good.
00:10:15
Speaker 1: Yeah bear, Yes, sir. What’s the latest bear grease YouTube video coming out?
00:10:23
Speaker 4: Uh?
00:10:23
Speaker 1: Well, the one that came out last week.
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Speaker 8: I rafted a big flooded river Ozark River did some pretty rough rapids and.
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Speaker 3: Got left behind by your dad.
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Speaker 1: Left behind, But you need to watch the video to figure that part out.
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Speaker 5: I didn’t know that until I watched the video and we were watching it in the same room, and I that part, I said, because you know, I was supposed to. I don’t want to like spoiler alert here, but I was the one that was supposed to come get you. And I arranged it with two different men who were driving together to and I looked at Clay and I said, you forgot Bear.
00:11:03
Speaker 1: Hey, it’s just a minor part of the film. I pulled up and my truck was sure enough not there. Well, so Bear was rafting from one location to another, and I was supposed to go pick him up. At the end, brought my truck off and Brooks. It was unbelievable how nonchalantly this this very important, you know detail was given to me. So I do accept responsibility for not picking up Bear, but I think we should all share the load just a little bit.
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Speaker 3: Well.
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Speaker 5: I got the call as I was on my way out the door, and I think, really the person who he had already floated halfway down the river when he thought, oh.
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Speaker 1: You didn’t even know. You didn’t even arrange the ride till you were already in the current.
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Speaker 3: This is your fault.
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Speaker 1: This is just like every other thing.
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Speaker 8: My friend Malachi was gonna pick me up because he was filming. But then I get like a mile down the river, which is all we’d plan to do, and I was like, I think, I think I need to float some more rivers.
00:12:03
Speaker 1: So Malacha, you don’t need to pick me up anymore.
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Speaker 3: Until he calls me and I’m walking out the door.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: I figured it out one way, see, and I knew you’d figured it out. Yeah, Like when I heard I need to pick up bear, I was like, I’ll probably pick bear up.
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Speaker 4: Man.
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Speaker 1: Listen, listen, don’t pick the bear is being fueled by this kind of energy. Me and Chris Roberts in two nineteen ninety nine, the spring of nineteen ninety nine, One day we drive across Briar Creek swollen from a flash flood. Briar Creek, you know, you could have waited across it and hardly got your feet wet, but in a flash flood, it just stormed up. We see that. I call Chris on the landline no cell phones, and I say, hey, come to the house. We’re floating Briar Creek, and he’s like, I’ll be there in ten minutes. He comes over. In nineteen ninety four cavalier. He drives to my house.
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Speaker 2: Brother had a ninety four cavalier.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so we get the canoe we call Old Glory. That was a Washtaw River guide canoe that had cracks in it and leaked just a little bit. We put it in the bridge at Briar Creek and we told Juju Nukem, we’re gonna call you from somewhere this afternoon. Yeah, we don’t know where, we don’t know who. We didn’t have cell phones. We’re just gonna call you when we decide that we floated far enough. And we set off in the river.
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Speaker 5: And people are crossing the bridges, like trucks are parked at the bridges, not crossing it, and they’re seeing them and they’re begging them, do not.
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Speaker 1: Go excuse me? The the Uh yeah, it’s it’s all big story. I actually told this story on Meat Eater Camp for our stories because we ended up almost dying and uh. But the point is I knew Bear would be.
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Speaker 2: Ok because he has access to a cell phone.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: Well, we got out of the river after we lost the canoe. Oh which.
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Speaker 3: Underwater snake I mean yeah, I.
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Speaker 1: Mean I could go into the details, but there was the nearest death experience I’ve ever had in my life, for no joke, no no meta, no exaggeration. And but we climbed out of the river. It became where we briar meets prairie and then turns into a really big creek. And we walked to one of our old teachers houses like half a mile, knocked on the door. It’s like, hey, can we use your phone?
00:14:37
Speaker 4: Sure?
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Speaker 1: Called Juju Anyway, that’s the way it is. So I knew Bear would be okay.
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Speaker 5: I love this story because you’re saying I knew Bear would be okay because I had a similar near death experience.
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Speaker 3: And that’s the same energy bear question.
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Speaker 8: Whenever you canoe, you got sucked under a log? Wasn’t that what happened? Yes, that we went floating the day after I hit that big river and that happened to one of my buddies, and it just like crumbled the kayak. Yeah, And it was not like the flows were not that high, Like I didn’t feel that dangerous at all. But he went up to just logging and just sucked it under.
00:15:15
Speaker 1: Did it tear the kayak up? Yeah? Well, we were able to like pull the dents out and finish the float? Was that my kayak? No, you don’t have a kayak, that’s.
00:15:23
Speaker 2: My it’s in his junk pile.
00:15:26
Speaker 3: So oh glory, never never, never floated again.
00:15:32
Speaker 1: She’s still Gary Nukomes backyard. Still yep, yep. Well we’re here today because we’re discussing the Civil War. It’s very serious. So drop the energy, guys. Okay, let’s quit having fun. Right for the professor here, Yeah, it’s time for the doctor blevins. Do you are you? What’s your reputation amongst the student body there at Missouri State? Well, I know you’re not supposed to talk about yourself, but you.
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Speaker 6: Have a rate my professor score, I guess I do. I’ve never looked, well, I’ve never looked.
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Speaker 5: No professors should never look at rape my professors, and no one should ever look at comments and news articles that have been written about them like those are just rules that I live by.
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Speaker 4: I’ve never looked.
00:16:29
Speaker 6: And you know the thing is, we’ve got I think around twenty six thousand students and I have probably fewer than one hundred per year. So whatever my reputation is, it’s not very widespread.
00:16:45
Speaker 4: I can assure you of that. Now. I’m the guy.
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Speaker 6: I’m the history professor who insists on using good grammar in your papers. So I probably am not terribly appreciated by, you know, some of the students who get in there and realize they’ve got an English a history professor and an English professor that class.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: So I respect that.
00:17:16
Speaker 1: What classes will you teach next year?
00:17:19
Speaker 4: Let’s see.
00:17:20
Speaker 6: In the I’m teaching my my undergraduate Ozark history class, which I do almost every year, but not quite every year, I’ll teach a class on the history of American religious history, the history of religion in America, and I’ll do a regular US history class. And uh, I think I’m doing my intro to Ozark’s Studies class, which we have a We have a minor in Ozark’s Studies Missouri really and the University of Arkansas is starting their minor in Ozark Studies this fall, so that’ll be too. Schools, Missouri State and the u of A both have that minor, and that’s our sort of.
00:18:07
Speaker 2: Gateway course.
00:18:09
Speaker 6: We just do a little bit of everything in that class, and it’s it’s meant to be kind of a fun of course, and hopefully it is for most of the students, but yeah, most of the stuff I usually do has to do with the Ozarks. But I I’ve never had a class on the Ozarks in my life, so you know, I do know right, well I don’t know that, but I but you know, all my academic background is in other regular US history stuff. So yeah, it’s just kind of a it’s been a it’s been a fun thing to be able to create, help create something a little new kind of sub field, and teach.
00:18:51
Speaker 4: A lot of classes about it. Yeah.
00:18:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now you have a you have a podcast inside of the Ozark podcasts. So there’s a podcast with some of our friends Kyle and Kyle that are that’s called the Ozark Podcast and they do a lot of hunting fish and stuff and just Ozark outdoors stuff. You have your own podcast, tell us tell me about that.
00:19:17
Speaker 6: Yeah, it’s called The Old Ozarks and it’s just more or less little vignettes of Ozark’s history. And we did a first season last year in twenty twenty five of a dozen episodes, and we’re going to do a dozen more this year starting next month July of twenty six.
00:19:41
Speaker 4: And they’re just.
00:19:45
Speaker 6: Things that usually what I try to do is, you know, I wrote a trilogy on the History of the Ozarks that came out a few years ago.
00:19:53
Speaker 4: And as as.
00:19:56
Speaker 6: You know, having just recently finished a book, leave a lot more stuff on the cutting room floor than you ever use in a book, do you know, You use just a small percentage of stuff. And so I try to use a lot of stuff that I’ve done research on in the past and make little stories out of that, but I usually end up doing some new research on all this stuff and just trying to do I I’d usually try to do a couple that have to do with hunting and fishing, because I know that’s kind of the built in audience that the Ozark podcast has, but most of them aren’t geared specifically for outdoors stuff. You know, I’ll do the one I just got through writing that I haven’t recorded yet is is a basically the story of Albert Brumley, who is the probably the most famous gospel music composer in history, and he wrote almost all of his songs here in the Ozarks, up in McDonald County, Missouri, little little place just across the state line. And and I’ll Fly Away the most.
00:21:08
Speaker 3: Favorite I think I’ve seen his name on a yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, And and it just just a little. You know, it’d just be things like that, things that are related to the region that people might not know about, or they probably heard about, they may just not have associated them with Arkansas or Missouri or Oklahoma.
00:21:27
Speaker 1: Interesting. So the Old Ozarks by doctor Brooks Lemings. You can look it up on the Ozark. It’s on their feed, like you’d go to the Ozark podcast feed. Yeah, starting in July, they will find those.
00:21:41
Speaker 6: It’s tucked in there. If I think, we did them every Friday last year, and I guess they’ll probably do that again this year, you know, every I should say every other Friday once once we started the season.
00:21:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, good, good, good good.
00:22:01
Speaker 4: Well.
00:22:03
Speaker 1: So if you’re if you’re new to the bear Gase Render podcast, what we do on these is we talk about the actual documentary style Bear Grease podcast from the week before. So we’re three deep, We’re we’re naveled deep in the in the water of the Civil War and uh, this third episode was called The Scalped Soldiers and Why They Fought, which was, uh, it was a good name, but we really weren’t talking exactly about why the Scalped Soldiers fought.
00:22:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be a little confusing.
00:22:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a little hollywooded up by my producer, Uh, you know, to keep the people have been the scalp soldiers, semi colon why people fought in the Civil War. I mean, it wouldn’t have worked as a tie. I’m not saying that I’ve wanted to bring this up with you because I was you know, titles.
00:23:06
Speaker 2: You weren’t mad, you were just disappointed.
00:23:12
Speaker 5: No, but we are meant to convey meaning, not to not to relate precise facts, remember exactly.
00:23:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it’s fine.
00:23:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was good. It was good.
00:23:21
Speaker 4: No, thank you.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: But the whole the whole premise of the episode was kind of exploring why people fought in the Civil War, and and and you know, none of these have been exhaustive in detail or or in research, but they’re they’re they’ve been interesting to me because on this episode JD brings up my family’s history in the Civil War, which was really cool.
00:23:50
Speaker 7: That was a shocker, like we weren’t I was in here when you guys were recording, and we weren’t expecting that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve got a real sly about it too.
00:24:00
Speaker 2: Do you know anything about your history?
00:24:01
Speaker 1: Oh, he’s he just set me up. Well, yeah, yeah, what if I what if I what if I just made something up and it’d have been like, that’s not what I found out. Uh, But so I just opened up the floor to who who would who would like to just give your commentary on the episode? Bear, maybe I’ll pick you.
00:24:37
Speaker 3: Well that’s not really opening.
00:24:39
Speaker 1: But it’s a good entry point. So you’re a great great great great grandfather yep, Thomas James newkem oh Man.
00:24:47
Speaker 3: That’s your history too.
00:24:49
Speaker 5: Now, okay, you just figure that out, just just connected.
00:24:55
Speaker 1: What what’s that mean to you? Pretty much? Nothing? It was interesting. I didn’t know that.
00:25:03
Speaker 8: Yeah, but it didn’t really surprise me that much because it does seem like, I mean, it just seems like as wars are fought, young men fight in the wars, and like you said, it just like kind of your place in space and time really determines your life. In his place in space and time was he was twenty four during the Civil War, so he was in it, and so I wasn’t terribly surprised. And he lived in Arkansas, which I didn’t know that. But yeah, I thought it was a pretty pretty interesting episode. One thing that did really surprise me was the part about Native Americans having slaves, that part I would have never I would have never known. So I thought that that was definitely not something I expected, and kind of I don’t know, that really stuck out to me because it was just I like the way Jad said it. Usually like we try to categorize things into the oppressed and the oppressors, but then when you have the oppressed oppressing the oppressed, you just have a complex human or just a human that is complex like every human. And it just kind of goes back to what we’ve been talking about this whole series, is that things aren’t always understood at a glance.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. Do you think I was fair in my assessment of thinking about the reasons Thomas J. NUKM would have fought in the Civil War. I mean, I’m not looking to like stir up controversy, but you could somebody could say, Clay, You’re you’re casting a lot of shade on your you know, ancestor that fought in the war. I mean, and I wasn’t really trying to do that, but I just I guess I could hear a voice saying that, because I was like, I don’t think he had I don’t think he had slaves. I don’t know that, but I would say with almost certainty he did not.
00:27:07
Speaker 3: Has he lived in the Washington’s right, he did?
00:27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just they just didn’t have a lot of money anyway, any any thoughts on that bear?
00:27:20
Speaker 8: But what was the exact question? Was it unjust the way that you described it?
00:27:25
Speaker 1: Oh, just just like I think a lot of people want to justify maybe the actions of their ancestors, or I.
00:27:35
Speaker 3: Think you have some thoughts about this.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: Well, I was just I just the whole thing was like, why do people fought? And I don’t know why Thomas James Nukom fought. I assumed it was just like civic duty. Do you think that’s fair?
00:27:48
Speaker 3: Yeah? I thought you were fair.
00:27:49
Speaker 5: I mean I thought like I think you were saying, Hey, there’s just because of the place that he was from. I kind of doubt some of this stuff. But there’s a there’s a book called Generations, and it’s also by a lady. I think her first name is Genie as well. Anyway, But the biggest predictor of what people believe is the generation they’re born in. So we like to think that our family and our values and all sorts of things shape what we believe. But like Bear’s generation is likely to believe stuff that his grandparents don’t believe, or you know, perceive things as okay or I’m not saying you should. I’m just saying it is. It is you’re more likely to. And I think that there’s a level of that inside of all of this, Like there is some part of this where you know, whether you were born in Pennsylvania or you were born in Georgia would have made a huge difference in what you thought about the institution of slavery and about in which side you fought on in the Civil War. I mean, there’s just no way around that. And I think that you were, you know, for a gotcha journalist like JD.
00:28:55
Speaker 3: Just I’m just kidding. I thought you.
00:28:59
Speaker 5: I thought it was it fit the way you you’ve approached the whole thing. Would just I’ve just got questions and I’m trying to understand.
00:29:06
Speaker 1: Earlier today, Brooks, we were talking about how the different generations have looked at the Civil War, and I think you said that like today’s generations would be maybe less interested in or less how did we say, excuse me, there would be less like Bear saying maybe this doesn’t mean that much to him that his ancestor fought in the ward. I don’t know, would that be characteristic of this generation maybe?
00:29:41
Speaker 6: I think so. You know, I’ve I’ve been teaching long enough now to have you know, encountered really truly different generations in the classroom. And I think, just from my my own personal experience, again with my limited number of of students that that I encounter, I think there probably is less investment in Civil War history now than there would have been twenty you know, back in the late nineties when I started teaching. I think there’s probably maybe even less knowledge about what happened, less interest in it. Again, I think that the Civil War still occupies a place of real importance for a lot of people in the United States. But I don’t get the sense that that, especially young men are in the South, are growing up, you know, with that same sort of passion for studying the Civil War that you talked about having, and you know, talking about with your friends, and that I had as a kid.
00:30:53
Speaker 4: And I think a lot.
00:30:54
Speaker 6: Of this is, as you know, we’ve talked about, it’s just getting farther and farther away from the event that you know, those memories received, and you know, for good and bad, they they don’t mean as much. They’re not as yeah as reletive. I mean, I I was, I was born long enough ago that I still well remember several people who were born in the nineteenth century. And you know, these were folks who were may have been the children or that most grandchildren of Civil War veterans and people who lived through the Civil War. So so as a kid, you know, fifty years ago I was, I was closer to this, So it would only make sense that that it would mean a little bit more and that it would be part more part of, you know, the environment that I grew up in than it would be for for somebody bears age.
00:31:53
Speaker 8: And also whenever I say it doesn’t mean anything to me, Like I think it’s interesting, but I I think a lot of people would like hear that their great great great grandfather fought for the Confederacy and like feel some sort of guilt about it. That’s what I meant, Like it doesn’t like I feel no real connection to that. Like I feel like a lot of people feel guilt for what their ancestors might have done people before them, But I don’t personally feel connected to that at all.
00:32:23
Speaker 7: Yeah, probably probably both ways, either guilt or identity from that. Do you feel like do you feel like, you know, we were talking about this the other day, my ancestors came to the United States after the Civil War. Do you feel like you’re more inclined to be interested in studying that knowing that you’re a seventh generation ar Kanson.
00:32:49
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it came out that I didn’t really know the details. I did know that they fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. That was just like right general the state the one cent Thans that I knew, but it obviously didn’t mean enough for me to go right look it up. I mean I tried a couple of times, but so I don’t I don’t know but it But I think what what we talked about earlier today was that you know, where you’re from does kind of dictate your interest A lot of times it feels like, I mean.
00:33:24
Speaker 7: You know that it was discussed with JD about do you think there were Northerners that that still talk about their ancestors and the war and that kind of stuff. You know, I’ve got lots of family from from up North, and I’ve never heard anybody talk about about the Civil War when I’ve been up there, you know, even people who had who are from that that area generations back. I feel like that’s much stronger in the South.
00:33:49
Speaker 1: Well, the war was fought here, right, That’s part of it, right, is that we’re reminded of I’m reminded of it basically daily. Driving into Fable, Arkansas, there’s sign that says Prairie Grove Civil National Battlefield or something. I mean, and I mean it’s kind of subconscious. You see the sign, you don’t even think about it. But but it’s like there’s memorials to the war all over.
00:34:12
Speaker 5: The place, which in itself, I mean, if you step back and look at it in the context of the US history, that is odd.
00:34:19
Speaker 3: You know, that is that’s unusual. Why do you say that you’d have Confederate Confederate.
00:34:26
Speaker 5: I think around here, well, around the South, I think you would have.
00:34:29
Speaker 3: You would have a lot of or there.
00:34:31
Speaker 2: Used to be. I feel like a lot of that stuff is fading.
00:34:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but there’s still battle.
00:34:36
Speaker 5: I’m saying about our childhood and things like that, there would be there’s battlefield parks, But then there’s also there’s I think that there’s a lot of symbolism. That’s especially when we were growing up. I don’t think Bear has seen as much of it. Like I kind of grilled them after Clay. It kind of made me question, Like, I wonder because I completely understood what Clay was saying on the first podcast, because I I grew up.
00:35:01
Speaker 3: In the same.
00:35:03
Speaker 5: Area, in the same mindset, And I asked Baron, it was obvious to me we did not bring that into that was not past that I.
00:35:10
Speaker 1: Was quite on purpose. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the influence that I had growing up could have been really negative. I think it was negative for a lot of my friends, just a just a irrelevant identity to something that would ultimately lead to a bunch of stuff. And so to me it just became really interesting. And so when I hear about my ancestor, Thomas J. Newcomb, it’s not interesting because I have some like pride that he fought in the Confederacy or something. I mean, like when you see what this was all about, it’s like, man, this this is not great the way this aw went down, But I still am it’s very interesting to me just in that this guy has my same last name, what he went through what he would have saw, and you know, so that that’s to me why it’s.
00:36:03
Speaker 8: Interesting, you know, yeah, and I do think it’s kind it is interesting to see where your ancestors came from, because you kind of see how that shaped your life. Like a few years ago, my uncle your brother, showed a video of Leu and Newcombe talking about his life story and how he moved to California and then got saved and moved back to Arkansas. And I just thought about how different my life would have been if he didn’t find God in California moved back to Arkansas and he stayed in California, Like, my life would be radically different. And so it is kind of interesting to hear about Thomas Newcomb potentially eating mule meat and rats there at the war. It’s just kind of interesting to think about that stuff and how it shave my life.
00:36:56
Speaker 1: Way down the line. You don’t really know, it’s hard to predict that pack to that, but Lewin nukemb my grandfather, your great grandfather, such a and that’s what I said on the episode, Uh, you know, like how really recently this was like his great grandfather, who you know, I went to. I said it lown Newcomb used to take me to Robert Newcomb’s old home place. Thomas J. Neuwkelem was Robert Newcomb’s dad. His dad fought in the Civil War, so Lewin k Newkelemb was heavily influenced by a man whose father fought in the Civil War. And you don’t know what that no, no, but loun Nukemb also had a bronze star from World War Two from shooting down Japanese planes that he never told us. We never knew until after he died. Yeah, wild, I mean, so like these guys weren’t interested that this wasn’t I guarantee you. Most of those guys had no I guarantee you. Thomas J. Neukelem was like I bet he never breathe the word of the Civil War most the rest of his life. I just have a feeling like they were just like, I mean, my dad’s the same way. My dad was in Vietnam for a couple of years. That’s the last thing he wants to talk about. Yeah, I mean, I have price stuff out of him. But I mean, you know, a couple of generations later, it seems really interesting and cool, and you want people to talk about it. But I mean most of those guys when they got out of the war, they were like, that is not what we’re going to talk about today, but.
00:38:28
Speaker 7: Which I respect, you know what I mean, there are guys that there are guys who spent time in wars who that’s all they want to talk about because that’s where they draw their identity from. And to me, it shows just a level of maturity that that’s not the thing that you pull your identity from, but really it’s the way you live that well.
00:38:49
Speaker 1: And there’s different levels of engagement. Gary Neukom would be the first to tell you that he was in the post office in Vietnam. R. That’s different than being a Navy seal that went in and killed Osama Bin Laden. Not to bring up Ben Lauden, but uh, but you know, I mean, like that guy is probably different than most people in the military. So not to say that you can’t you know anybody that takes right.
00:39:15
Speaker 7: Yeah, I’m not trying to say that if you discuss that you’re immature, but I think just allowing your life to have to find meaning in your life, and sometimes that meaning is what you sacrificed inside of that. But you know, there’s lots of sacrifices that happened off the battlefield that really I really define who people are.
00:39:37
Speaker 1: Brooks, What do you think about people like the way any commentary on just what we’re discussing, like how stuff is maybe not talked about, or how people handle their history with this stuff.
00:39:52
Speaker 4: You know, one of the.
00:39:54
Speaker 6: One of the things that’s happened in Civil War history is that, you know, we we spent so many years writing stories about battles and you know, generals and all that kind of stuff, writing kind of the big obvious stuff, and a lot of the military history is that the way the the academic world works is you know, when you get you get a you’re working on a PhD. You’ve got to write a dissertation and you’ve got it. It’s got to be new research. It’s got to be something new or a reinterpretation of something else. And so I’ve noticed in the last several years that that probably even more popular than writing civil war history is writing about the way we remember Civil War history. Now now scholars write entire books about how the US and how specific populations within the United States remembers the Civil War. I don’t I don’t know that it’s that they’ve run out of stuff, you know, to write about the actual Civil War. But but it is, you know, it’s it’s far enough. We’re more than a century and a half separated from that event now, and so the way we remember it has changed over years, and it’s even changed in the South. You know, you don’t have to go back too many years when groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of the Confederacy and groups like that kind of dominated the rhetoric around how we remember the Civil War and sort of a celebratory kind of thing and the Lost Cause, and you know that that sort of thing, uh, and you know, we don’t we don’t really do that anymore. There are still people who who probably have those ideas about what the Civil War means to them, but it’s it’s one of those things that it’s become less less acceptable, I guess to you know, to talk about that in a public forum and to celebrate.
00:42:03
Speaker 1: When was the climax of that?
00:42:06
Speaker 5: And can you explain a little bit about what that is? Like the Lost Cause? I think that that’s a really that’s something that my brother getting.
00:42:13
Speaker 1: Into that in later episodes gotch no no, it’s okay if we say it, though we’ve already talked about it.
00:42:18
Speaker 5: Because we’re talking about it, people might not be able to articulate what that is.
00:42:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, that’s uh in the South, and it doesn’t pop up immediately, but about a generation or so after the end of the Civil War, you have the rise of sort of the the celebration of this cause that has that has failed, the lost cause of the South. You know, it’s it’s it’s wrapped up around ideas of, you know, our love for the underdog. The South was certainly outnumbered and out supplied and all that kind of stuff. So part of it’s kind of an underdog story. But also it’s this idea that that Southerners rationalize their roles in the war, told themselves as a kind of a balm, you know, to ease the pain of suffering this defeat, that that that theirs was really a righteous cause, that they were, that they were morally superior to the to the North in this in this cause that they were fighting, and that it was only because there were you know, almost three times as many Northerners as there were Southerners, and they had more material and all that more money and all that kind of stuff that the that the South lost and so that uh, and that really takes root in the eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundreds.
00:43:44
Speaker 4: Around the same.
00:43:45
Speaker 6: Time that that you’re you know, starting to see racial violence rack parts of the United States and the lynchings and things like that. I mean, it’s all you know, there is a it’s kind of a yeah, it’s a kind of a combo thing. And and that’s when you start to see groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of the Confederacy and these and that’s when you really start to see these big reunions of Confederate veterans and Union veterans do this too, and and and the Union on the Union side, you had your bloody shirt patriotism as historians call it, and the kind of rate, you know, waving the bloody flag and elections and so all this stuff is going on, and it’s a it’s kind of a first they’re they’re far enough away from the Civil War by the end of the nineteenth century to sort of look back and start remembering things, and you know, it’s not that immediate. And and that’s how these narratives get started. About what the war was about. And so people in the North have have their idea about what the war was about. People in the South, many of them, especially confess and their descendants, have their ideas of what the war was about. And that and that continues. That’s, you know, that’s the beginning of Confederate monuments. Those though, those will you know, there’s another flurry of monument building that happens during the Civil Rights movement, which is more a sort of you know, direct kind of in your face. We’re you know, we’re not we’re not putting up with this and and we’re going to kind of reinforce our our you know, supremacy here by you know, recognizing our Confederate ancestors. But so so that the whole idea of how we remember, how we craft the narrative of the Civil War, and how we’ve been doing that, you know, for one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty years, is it’s pretty fascinating. And we’re, i mean, we’re part of that right now. I mean we’re setting around one hundred and sixty something years after the Civil War talking about the Civil War. So I mean we’re we’re participating in that and you know, maybe maybe we’ll become part of somebody’s research out there, if a sociologist is researching or Civil War memory. And you know, it’s still it’s still going on, and so it still means something, but it almost certainly means something different because of that whole that whole concept you were talking about with the generations that you know, these generations see it in a different way.
00:46:39
Speaker 4: And I think.
00:46:40
Speaker 6: Bears generation has probably and hopefully not inherited as many of the negative things that can come up with you know, celebrating the Civil War and remembering the Civil War as as people from you know, from our age. I realize I’m quite a bit older than you guys, but you know that from my age and from your age. Uh, and a lot of that is just you know, every the farther you get away from that, the more, I should say, probably the the less racist we become as a society. You know, the less the les the less we passed that on down to succeeding. So it gets it gets deluded. You know, you kind of hope it doesn’t necessarily have to work that way, but you hope that the more racist, you know, Confederate celebration part of that gets deluded every generation. And that’s coming from I mean, I’m a guy who most most of my ancestors who fought in the Civil War were Confederates, and I don’t And like I was telling Clay earlier, when I started reading about the Civil War in high school, I was pulling for the South, you know, as a as a as a white kid from Arkansas, I find myself, you know, well this would have happened at Shallow we would have won.
00:48:08
Speaker 4: You know, when the wei was for me was was the South.
00:48:12
Speaker 6: So uh, you know, I I I understand that, you know that motivation? Uh, And I and I and and I also understand why how you can look back like Barrick and look back and you don’t have to be I don’t think you have to be ashamed of your ancestors because they grew up in a completely different time that we can’t understand. I mean, we weren’t from that generation, and they were inculcated with certain ideas and taught certain things that that we weren’t taught. And uh, and we’re you know, we’re so often trapped in whatever whatever our generation is. It’s it’s hard to it’s hard to get beyond that, and and to expect our ancestors to have made decisions that we probably wouldn’t have made either had we been raised the same way they were. That’s that’s a little much. What I what I prefer to focus on is is the ones who who kind of stepped outside of the rare, ones who stepped outside of their worlds and and made decisions that now seem kind of heroic and unusual to us. And most of us living today aren’t going to make those decisions in our own day and time.
00:49:36
Speaker 4: We’re gonna sort.
00:49:37
Speaker 6: Of fall in lockstep and uh and do what do what most other people do? So uh, the whole that whole idea of remembering the Civil Wars, it’s a complex thing, and it’s a it’s a it’s almost as important I think the Civil War historians now as the actual war itself.
00:49:56
Speaker 4: Just how we remember it. The war is only four years.
00:49:59
Speaker 6: We’ve been re rememering that thing for a lot longer than that.
00:50:10
Speaker 1: This connects to something Misty and I’ve been talking about about how human communication are, well, how how would I describe it?
00:50:23
Speaker 5: Are you talking about just how we are so example that the cultural influence that are.
00:50:30
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that. But but basically of how it’s important, it’s as important how we remember something is equally important to actually what happened, and it may even be more important how we remember it. And and I was speaking with a guy the other day, interview a guest, and I told him that the Barry Lopez’s book about the Inuit, he described how the Inuit, when they drew maps, they would make the topographic features that were important to them for hunting much bigger than they actually were. And he described how he said, oh, yeah, everybody does that. All the people that drew maps kind of in the old world did that. And he said, yeah, we now think about a map as a factual piece of information. Does it actually reflect the actual geography of that place? And the facts are really important, But the idea of a map was actually to convey who cares if the map is factually accurate. I’m a human and I want you to know where the hunting’s good. I want my kids to know where the hunting’s good. And like, so I’m what I’m really trying to do by drawing a map is tell you where the hunting’s good so you can survive, you know. And so they had these maps that weren’t accurate but showed the human emphasis in a certain place. And he and he this guy you’ll hear him months from now. On the episode he talked about how that’s are it’s a pretty powerful way to communicate. But you see the connection between like how we think about the Civil War versus what actually happened, you know, because the way we talk about it is.
00:52:19
Speaker 3: Actually like a map of history.
00:52:20
Speaker 5: It’s a it’s a mental map, is what you’re you’re saying, yeah, yeah, and you’re you’re because the Earth is round, so any map is going to have some assumptions and inaccuracies to make it flat, right, And and I mean that that is that’s kind of a long term historical issue, that that that the people who were making maps, I mean that you go down a rabbit trail in that.
00:52:45
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:52:46
Speaker 1: But and the point is the way we remember the any kind of historical event is actually as important as actually what happened, you know, because it means something to us.
00:52:57
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think that it’s.
00:53:01
Speaker 5: It’s to me, you know, hearing you talk about paps and hear Bear talk about it. Just even today, I think about I’ve had conversations with my family. My grandma had Alzheimer’s and it was one of those things that you kind of saw coming like it started, and so we wanted to We kind of got into this thing of oh, it’s really interesting. I learned a lot about our history. It was actually that same summer that we did the Arkansas study and I wanted to find out why did our people end up in Arkansas?
00:53:30
Speaker 3: And I went and it wasn’t great.
00:53:35
Speaker 5: It was I was like, oh, shoot, were those people because they were the destitute, you know, they are the people that and you hear all these stories and it’s like, oh, you know, sometimes you hear stories about your family, and some of those stories are are more recent. You know, not everyone has the paps who changed their lineage and shifted the way that things worked in their family. And I just think it’s what you’re describing, that those rare heroic people who step outside of their culture and who step outside of their experience and do something that heroism. Anybody can do that. I mean, anybody can do that at any time and.
00:54:13
Speaker 2: Change and has a capacity to do that.
00:54:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyone has Anyone can do that.
00:54:16
Speaker 5: Anyone can change the the lineage of their future generations by stepping outside of what is familiar and what is cultural and and I think that’s that’s the power of personal transformation. And there were things that I saw on my mom as an I was an adult when I saw her starting to change things, I was, I mean, a young adult, and it was inspirational to me to say, Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna build some different things inside of our family. I want, I want to I want to do what she’s doing. And it changed things about the way my kids think, and it changed things about there and hopefully they’ll take that even further. You know, that’s the idea that you want your kids to take those things even further.
00:54:55
Speaker 3: But I think that’s kind of part of the power of the story.
00:54:59
Speaker 5: If you let it be, there can be a version of the story where we’re just mad at anyone, uh. And and that’s where the simple storyline of oppressed and oppressors doesn’t just is not ever going to work. When you’re looking at history, it’s always so much more complex than that. But you know, there that is part of the story. And I think sometimes, especially in recent history, there’s been this trend to just kind of look so harshly at the at the past and at people in the past, and and that you know, they did things wrong and we should say that and we should learn from that. But I think it’s it’s really important that right now, while we can change things, that we also look at at the familiar and the things that we that we need to change, the things that we’re not proud of in our own in our own life and our own lineage, and recognize that we can change. We can change things for generations down the down the way, And I think that’s that’s important and valuable, valuable thing. But it almost always requires you to step out of what is familiar to you. And that’s that’s difficult because it’s very different to not think like everyone around you. And so if dysfunction is what’s around you, I’m kind of going into like a personal growth and development here, kind of shifting from the Civil War.
00:56:15
Speaker 3: But just hearing Bearraze talk about that made me think about that.
00:56:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, Josh, what stod out to you? Well, just the whole episode.
00:56:22
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it was. You know, honestly, I don’t. I don’t know a lot about the Civil War and I didn’t until now. I didn’t until now, and I’ve got you know, I’ve gotten kind of the shotgun blast of the Civil War, and it’s like just kind of tying in with what Misty’s saying. You know, we we have this phrase we talk about a lot in our group of friends. We say a backward glance for forward advance. And I think, I think it’s been really good for me to learn about this. I think you can it’s easy to just be oblivious and not care, but I think we have to care because I think if we don’t know the past, we don’t know how to be better in the future. So I you know, just just looking at at this episode, there were some really interesting things in there. I didn’t know that that the Native Americans had slaves. I didn’t know that there were I didn’t know that there were Native American regiments in the Confederacy. I mean, that’s that’s fascinating. I mean, the the cross cultural I actually got online and looked up stand Waddie and just you know, saw his picture and saw you know what I mean, thinking about what was the motivation of this guy.
00:57:37
Speaker 2: To to fight?
00:57:39
Speaker 7: And uh, yeah, it it really just makes you evaluate, you know, people’s intentions and people’s motives, and you know, you try to put yourself in their in their position and uh, and then once you do that, you have to figure out how to use that to become better.
00:57:57
Speaker 4: You know.
00:57:58
Speaker 1: I guess that is a question, and I’ll offer to you Brooks, like, what’s what’s the value inside of talking about this? I mean, there’s there’s part of me sometimes when I tell some stories, I have to ask myself that, you know, like it is some of this stuff just better, like completely forgotten? And obviously I don’t believe that, but sometimes I have a hard time articulating why it’s valuable to look back and drag up some of this, you know, kind of rough history. What do you why is it valuable?
00:58:37
Speaker 6: I think specifically when you’re talking about the Civil War and anything to do with the Civil War, because it is so fundamental to American history, it is so central to our identity still today that somebody’s going to be talking about it, you know, somebody, somebody’s going to bring it.
00:59:00
Speaker 4: Up and and and I think.
00:59:02
Speaker 6: It’s crucial that we try to understand it as clearly and objectively as we can.
00:59:12
Speaker 4: Now that that’s.
00:59:14
Speaker 6: Not always possible, and we all bring our own perspectives to to everything, and even historians, UH University trained historians. Their perspectives on the civil word change over generations, and they look at different things, look at things in different ways. So I think that’s part of it is. I mean, we’re we’re going to be talking about this, so we might as well try to get it right, and we might as well try to let people know what really happened and and and why why it happened. And I think for a for a historian, I know, I guess I can only speak for myself. I mean that that I have this h this compulsion I guess you would call it too, to get things as close to exactly right, exactly factually correct as I possibly can, because I think that’s that’s the only it’s the only responsible way you can you can do history, and and about the only way you can do that is to do bottom up history and to go back in and and do things like you’ve been doing with that Bear book. Is going back and doing this research that takes you right back to these primary sources and primary documents. That’s why history professors are always talking about you. You’ve got to go back to the sources. You’ve got to look at the primary sources and and and recreate history from from what we from what we have, and and that you know, that hopefully keeps us from flying off in all different directions, taking a couple of facts here in a couple of facts there, and making these big sweeping generalizations about things that may not actually have happened. And of course people are going to do that. It’s just a word.
01:01:18
Speaker 4: That’s kind of human nature to make generalizations.
01:01:21
Speaker 6: But but I see it as the role of of historian is to just try to get the story.
01:01:31
Speaker 3: Right.
01:01:32
Speaker 6: And and even the word right is probably not even a usable word right there, because you know, what does that even mean? But but you know, I just and that’s that’s one of the things I, you know, I try to hammer into my students is is right, you know, bottom up history and not not top down history. Uh, knowing what you want to say, and then finding the facts to build this argument. You you, you know, you look at the stuff and then build your argument from that and and hopefully you know, hopefully that’s a that’s a reasonable way to go about this.
01:02:16
Speaker 4: Mm hm, you know this.
01:02:21
Speaker 7: Uh.
01:02:23
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you, did you you listen to these episodes? Did they did anything anything stand out to you just you you told me you listened to all three of them.
01:02:33
Speaker 4: I did. I did.
01:02:36
Speaker 6: One of the things that stood out to me was I wasn’t surprised at all when I got to the end of episode three and we weren’t anywhere close to halfway.
01:02:48
Speaker 1: As he was driving to my office, right, yeah, And.
01:02:51
Speaker 4: I thought, yeah, I mean, and and that was a good thing for me.
01:02:55
Speaker 6: I mean, if you’re gonna even even you know, using your phrase dipping the bucket into the ocean of what or what however you phrased that of Civil war history, even doing that, you know you couldn’t do justice to any of this with a with even a three episode or I mean that just you know that you just couldn’t.
01:03:18
Speaker 4: You couldn’t do that.
01:03:19
Speaker 6: So so I wasn’t surprised at all that this thing just kind of got out of control.
01:03:27
Speaker 2: Idayall.
01:03:29
Speaker 4: I didn’t.
01:03:30
Speaker 6: I didn’t have to know anything that went on behind the scenes to to realize you’ve you’ve grabbed something wild and crazy and you’ve got to deal with it for a while.
01:03:41
Speaker 1: I mean, sorry, everybody, it’s.
01:03:47
Speaker 4: So.
01:03:47
Speaker 6: I was so, I was, really I was really glad about that, because I think you’ve done a good John I think J D.
01:03:55
Speaker 4: Hewett. I I don’t know JD.
01:03:56
Speaker 6: Hewett, but I was really impressed with with his contributions and I’m sure he’s he’s going to keep, you know, contributing to the to this thing. I think he’ve done a good job of of of approaching the subject as objectively as you can, not avoiding, you know, some difficult discussions that you have to have with a with a topic like the Civil War, but not you know, going on tangents that you know, take you way, you know, away from any sort of you know, central.
01:04:32
Speaker 4: Focus that you got.
01:04:32
Speaker 6: So uh yeah, I’ve really I’ve really enjoyed it. And and uh and you know that the thing about the Cherokees was, uh, you know, that’s just one of so many hundreds of really fascinating topics that you could take these little detours like that. I mean, the the Civil Wars just just full of those stories. And I loved that that Cherokee story. And I would guess that that JD got way more detailed with that than comes out in the episode, because you know, there’s that story is so nuanced, and I think you guys did a good job with the nuances because you know, you think about it. I was thinking about that listening to it on the way over. If you’re if you’re a Cherokee in eighteen sixty one, you don’t have a good relationship with the US government. At the same time, if you’ve allied yourself with the Confederate Government, as the Cherokee initially did, many of them reluctantly, so they didn’t they didn’t want it, they didn’t want to be involved, one way or another, most of them didn’t. Then you’ve you’ve allied yourself with someone who’s just a slight offshoot of this crazy oppressive government you’ve been you’ve been dealing with these years, and that ran you, you know, out of your your ancestral homeland in the South. And then you get to the Battle of pe Ridge, and I can only imagine that some of that scalping was just it was just an outgrowth of just sort of pure disillusionment with the whole thing. You know, you’ve been sucked into this war that you don’t want any part of. Whatever happens, the outcome for you is probably not going to be all that great. And here you are fighting on the side of one group of you know, these these Americans against another group of Americans. And it’s not that you know, scalping is is ever a great thing, but you can kind of see where this could be a manifestation of just this sort of madness that these people find themselves in the middle of. And and truly, by by the end of the Civil War, most of those Cherokees have have probably either switched sides to the because many of them later switched to the Union side, or they just sort of dropped out of the whole thing altogether because they were also products of their own civil wars. As JD mentioned, that Cherokee Civil War had been going on for years and and so it’s just such a complex thing and such an unexpected thing. Like Josh said, you know, if you’re if you’re not privy to that little part of Civil War history, it’s not something you would expect to hear it all. But it’s uh, but it’s it’s a fascinating part of it. And I think you guys did a did a good job with that, you know, with with those nuances and that, and that’s what you have to dwell on in telling any of these stories, the various perspectives and complexities of these stories.
01:08:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it would be think about taking today’s modern issues and trying to distill it into like simple narratives just about like you pick pick pick your war of the last twenty years. I mean you it would be hard to be it’d be hard to simplify in a way that would that would actually be accurate for the for the whole country. That’s that’s when I am reading McPherson’s book, which is you know, like we said, just think as an Appalachian Bible and this overview of the Civil War. I mean you just realize, holy cow, there was so much stuff going on, and so many motivations, and so many political factions, and so many economic factors and racial stuff going on with Jewish people in the South. I mean, like, yeah, you could have gone any direction. I mean, we could have had a whole segment, we could do a whole series on you know, the Black Union Armies and then later the Confederate Black you know, towards the end of the war they start recruiting the actual slaves that are still enslaves to fight. I mean, you know, there’s point being there’s just like a thousand different things that you could talk about, and what was interesting Brooks said this earlier to me. He said, modern civil war scholars have just continued to kind of narrow their focuses into like looking in really specific spots. As the academic system makes people when they’re getting their PhD thesis is they have to do something new. And it’s not really a slight to the academic system. It’s just the way it works. But like all low hanging fruit’s kind of been taken. And am I just saying it accurately? And you just kind of and and and what you find is that when you just narrow in on one little spot, there’s a ton of stuff there, and a lot of these modern civil war academics like know all the details of like one war or one one battle or yeah, it’s just it’s interesting. But now I hope we come away with just a general understanding of the Civil War that you know, you’d kind of maybe by highlighting some of these little spots, you kind of get a sense. By the time where we end, you know, you kind of have a sense of the Civil War. Yep, yep, what else?
01:10:52
Speaker 4: Nothing?
01:10:54
Speaker 3: This is a her.
01:10:59
Speaker 1: It’s because oh, yes, I meant to say this earlier. You you you are in the TA Covia’s hot seat. Did you see these boots on the chair? Yeah, yeah, okay, those are toa Covia’s boots. TA Cova’s. To Covia’s is they of all the boot companies in the world. They’re the ones that are the partners of the Bear Grease podcast. And yeah, you you are going to be given a gift certificate of a substantial amount that you’ll be able to get a pair of Takova’s boots or anything in their store. They have a full They’ve got everything. Ye shirts have misty, your wife might want.
01:11:45
Speaker 2: To blouse, long sleeves.
01:11:48
Speaker 1: These are These are Toakvia’s boots. But they also have some kind of boots, not kind of like that. Yeah, they have a they have a lace up. So because of your sacrifice of dry over here in the rain, all the way across the Ozarks, we’re going to get you a Ta Covi’s gift certificate.
01:12:05
Speaker 6: Well, I appreciate that, you know what, I’ll I’ll make an admission on film here and and I’m fifty six years old and I have never owned a pair of cowboy boots. What in my life? Yeah, I don’t believe. I don’t know that I’ve ever had had one had one own.
01:12:27
Speaker 3: I’ve you know, the nineties and you didn’t have a pair of ropers.
01:12:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, you lived through the.
01:12:34
Speaker 3: Nineties and Arkansas didn’t.
01:12:35
Speaker 7: Have the the fringe on it.
01:12:38
Speaker 1: Not say they’ve come back more in the style in the last fifteen years. There’s just cowboys, non cowboys wearing cowboy.
01:12:47
Speaker 2: Yes, I’m not a cowboy, but I sure like wearing the boots.
01:12:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.
01:12:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, closer to a cowboy than most people in the in the I mean, you grew up on a farm.
01:12:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, I on a farm, but you know, I didn’t regularly ride horses or anything.
01:13:04
Speaker 4: We had a horse that I rode a couple of times when I when I was a kid.
01:13:09
Speaker 6: But uh, but yeah, I just I’ve been in boots all my life. Work boots they’ve got they’ve got some nice bots to you. I mean this this may be this may be break into the cowboy boot world. And I’ve never had a cowboy hat either, So that.
01:13:25
Speaker 5: To make a change, it’s right, trying to step out of your comfort zone, out of your culture.
01:13:29
Speaker 1: And well up with you could you would if you had a pair of like Josh is wearing a nice pair of square toed boots. Those are made of bison lee and those are you know, I could see you wearing those too a lecture. Yeah, you kind of getting just a about that much more respect than if you didn’t.
01:13:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, getting getting me up.
01:13:56
Speaker 1: I mean you be a little taller, a little bit, you’d be a little He’s a.
01:14:00
Speaker 7: Tall, lean guy anyway, and putting boots on him make him imposing.
01:14:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would be imposing, especially with the hair gets a hair cut every six months.
01:14:11
Speaker 4: The hair is coming on.
01:14:15
Speaker 1: The first time that I introduced Brooks on the Bear Grease podcast. Do you remember how I introduced you? Misty said she feared I embarrassed you, and I was like, I don’t think, I don’t think I’m Brooks.
01:14:31
Speaker 6: Did you mention my car? Yeah, I’m okay with that. I’m okay as a serial duct taper.
01:14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was I wouldn’t. I’ve never said a single thing on this podcast that was meant to be derogatory to a guest. I may have said something derogatory to like some villain or something or no, it’s all in love, all in love, but no. When I introduced Brooks, I said, I described his car, which I thought was awesome because we were at Missouri State and he had he would commute like hours from where you live in the Arkansas over to Missouri State. And I mean he had a cheap car that had uh you know, got good gas mileage and the and the and the In the review, the mirror was duct taped onto it, and I was like, and this this guy is like a genius, written books, just this academic and I just was like, I like this. I like this guy.
01:15:41
Speaker 4: You know.
01:15:42
Speaker 1: So now now I come in as your fashion consultant, you know, and some some boots.
01:15:53
Speaker 7: Not a fashion guy, but I appreciation guy or a bad language fella. Yeah, bad word, bad word fella.
01:16:03
Speaker 3: I respected, I respected.
01:16:05
Speaker 6: Yeah, I’m I’m excited about this and I yeah, I appreciate the covies, thank you cos the gift certificate, and yeah, I will be a I’ll have here in about a week. I’ll have short hair, cowboy boots and.
01:16:22
Speaker 3: You could take on the world.
01:16:24
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely absolutely run for Congress, look like Tim McGraw. Also, uh tune in stay tuned this week this week for a special special episode of Bear Grease, starring a one Bear John Newcomb and a Josh Landbridge.
01:16:50
Speaker 4: Spilmaker.
01:16:52
Speaker 1: Is that coming? Is that coming after this render?
01:16:54
Speaker 4: Yep, yep. Yeah.
01:16:56
Speaker 1: So I look forward to take to take to the water.
01:16:58
Speaker 2: That’s all I’m gonna tell you.
01:16:59
Speaker 4: We take to the water.
01:17:00
Speaker 1: Really looking forward to that. An extra drop on the Bear Grease channel, coming straight from these guys having no idea what they did. I just know that it probably broke all the rules.
01:17:12
Speaker 7: You are correct, you are correct. Yes, hostile takeover of bear Grease.
01:17:20
Speaker 1: Wow, wow, wow wow.
01:17:22
Speaker 2: Tune in for that.
01:17:23
Speaker 1: That’s gonna be great. Well, thank you for driving over. It’s been great, and you’re gonna hear more from Brooks on the next episode of Bear Grease. Fantastic, So foreshadow the shadow has been cast, and man, we’re gonna just keep We’re gonna we’re gonna keep on this subject. We may we may do a break from the Civil War for one episode to give a little reprieve. Not not. I mean there’s gonna be four right at least, but yeah, we’re just we’re just gonna stomp through it until we figured it all out.
01:18:01
Speaker 4: That’s right.
01:18:02
Speaker 3: See what I like.
01:18:03
Speaker 5: To do in the summertime when the kids were little, and then when we started the school is just take a subject and just kind of immerse yourself in it.
01:18:09
Speaker 3: And it was so fun at the school.
01:18:11
Speaker 5: We would we would take on topics and we would just go crazy with it and we do the art from that that time period. And that was our summer programs. And you know what, a whole bunch of those kids really liked history so that you could just Bear’s looking at me.
01:18:29
Speaker 1: I’ll be darn.
01:18:32
Speaker 3: Bear was not one of those kids. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.
01:18:37
Speaker 5: But all right, that’s what we should that’s what you should do. You should just advertise we’re gonna just spend a summer in the Civil War.
01:18:43
Speaker 1: Summer in the Civil War.
01:18:44
Speaker 4: I like it.
01:18:45
Speaker 2: Civil War summer, Civil Wars twenty.
01:18:47
Speaker 1: Six, Civil War summer. That’s right, that’s right, all right, thanks everybody for listening. Excuse me for my weird little cough. It’s almost gone for three weeks. I’ve had it. Keep the wild places wild. That’s where the bears live.
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