00:00:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, my name is Clay Nukeleman. 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, presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Man, we are at an absolute skeleton crew on the bear Grease podcast. You say, some say skeleton, some say the dream team. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying dream team, dream team. It's hard. Hard to work with a diva, it really is. Yeah, We'll just keep churning through people. I don't know, conversation, maybe coincidence. Man, I you wouldn't believe who I invited today that they wouldn't come through names. No, just peep person after person or after per person. Maybe I should get somebody else to do that inviting. Give me the list next time. Maybe. No. We so typically on the Burglary Stringer we have six people today we have five. But it really is the dream I can stretch my legs out today at least. Yeah, a little bit sketchy to say this is a skeleton crew. Well, I mean, for for for typically where we have six people wedged into one headset. That's kind of nice. Yeah, ears interesting beginning. Dan had to totally fix one of our chairs. He was screwing together a chair. But hey, welcome to the burgery surrender. This is the this is the Thanksgiving addition of the burger surrender. Will happy? Thanks Glad you didn't skip over and go straight to Christmas. That's the way it's going to my house, and I'm not happy about it. Really, Hey man, my some of our the patrons of our town that we live in, like ten days before Thanksgiving, they've got Christmas lights up. Every time a Christmas decoration goes up before Thanksgiving, they throw a pilgrim off the shield every time. I hope you're happy community we live in, Yes, exactly, man. Every time I drive past it, I lecture my kids on why they need to dial it back a notch just to not we got to instill the right values and claim when people are wrong. Listen. I think that I think that we do need to have a community conversation about holiday did core in general, there is a big push and I don't know if this is appropriate to talk about on the Beggars podcast. But there's a big push for morbidity when it comes to it's like they wake up and they see their neighbors. I won't I won't speak of what they put in their yard. It's so gross and gruesome for Halloween. And then the other neighbors seem to think, oh, we should do that too, and there's like a domino effect. It's pretty well, there is a strong correlation and it goes back ancient ancient human social the way that we interact with each other socially. Okay, you go to any any any little town in the world in the United States, and you drove through the world, and if there's one family that does something really well, you'll usually find a cluster of families, and if you have history in that community, you'll you'll be like, hey, they used to be the only one that did that. What we're talking about is Halloween decor. Okay, there are people that are real comfortable like putting like skeletons, burning witches, headless, headless people in their front yard Halloween for a month. I have to drive by that just to go get groceries, Like I can't get milk without seeing something that is supposed to incite in us like, oh man, that's where we'll stop and we take our kids to go knock on the door. Thank you. Maybe maybe it's like that's what they're trying to do, is keep people from coming to their house. Maybe they don't even buy candle. People are so desensitized to it that you just see Halloween decor and you're like, oh god, these people are festive. No, that's like wildly inappropriate. Yeah, it's something else. So anyway, our neighbors put up from Christmas slides down here like way before Thanksgiving, and I appreciate the passion of it. We need a community conversation, But is three a group of people that you guys are Okay, that's what I want to just I feel like the open mindedness of the Newcomb household is off the charts. I don't think it's very open. We have some more community conversations, which I feel like would be rather one way from Clay and Misty to all the conversation is do what I say exactly, You got to have some got to have something. Let me let me let me introduce my our guests today. Dr Daniel Roupe to my left, good to see dr D what all good bear grease render participants are supposed to do. Bring the deer that they killed, the racks in nice skulls clean. Hey, my wife, I gotta give her most of the credits. Are you serious about the dreamal tools all the cavity out. Yeah, you'll never see a cleaner siinus cavity. And let's kaya gets ahold of up. Oh she even Jeremy top of it. Great, So we got anice eight point bucks in here, Josh, spellmakerdge didn't kill a deer, got a decent trout kill a deer. Ye, you're sporting a nice I like that Arkansas flag had like the trout on it. Like that. I do like that. So Josh Brent, Josh went with me to folsome New Mexico when we recorded this George mcjunkin podcast, basically a subject matter expert. Now, yeah, and still didn't didn't wasn't qualified enough to make it to the actual podcast. Yeah, why couldn't you ask me a question? You could have? I mean, he was right there with you, and I was okay, there were more parts. Wasn't even going to bring this up. But now I've been put in the corner during during the middle of the interview with Kyle Bell and Matt Dowdry and Whorty Dougherty Doherty Doherty. Yeah, I was about I was about there is another way. There's lots of words I just can't say. Okay, do you guys know what the other word was from the pronation, because he definitely it's posthumous. I will say, it's gonna be hard to have community conversations if there are a lot of words that you can't say. Okay. Sorry, throwing it out to maybeing backed in a corner about Josh not being on the podcast. His voice actually was on the podcast and I had to yell at him across the museum, Hey, Josh, quiet, back there. He is back there talking to this other guy. So anyway you so you kind of were on the podcast. No, Josh broke with me out there. It was great having to travel, it was we had a great time. It was like whirlwind. We were out there for a very short amount of time. Drove there. I got there late at night, like after eleven or maybe even midnight, I can't remember. And then we were gone the next day by like two o'clock and got all that stuff for the podcast. So it was great. So Josh Billmaker, nice hat mustache is always, thank you very much. Just speaking of people that I tried to get on this podcast, I invited Josh's wife, who was a dear friend of ours as well. Unfortunately she's way more important than me and couldn't make it. She is pretty important to Josh's left. Brent Reeves, Brent great to see you, Greetings, Hey, I want I'd like to call out Brent for Brent drives three hours one way to come to this podcast. He's basically three hours the other way going back. Now, just Brent's Brent, Brent's thank you. Yeah, yeah, that's a nice pair of overall, as you got on there, they're all nice to Brent's left. How many paw many? Yeah? I think it's a good question. One is six six one for every almost every day of the week, like the Sabbath. He's naked. Are we all edit that out? Kids? Close your ears, neighbors close. I just went to p. Twelve. That's brit on The thank you was wrapped in Christmas lies. I'll wear that bear skiing rug to Prince left, my lovely wife and Mr Newcom so great to be a part of all these conversations were being here. Thanks for so much. Dad would have been here, but he couldn't be here. That's all. Okay, So there's a couple of housekeeping items I have to I have to go through. Number one is meat Eater. The meat eater dot com right now has a massive Black Friday sale. So if you if you ever wanted anything for meat eat, now is the time to do it. They've got um so all their all their T shirts and stuff are like the big percentage off. Let's see, let's just go right through this off logo wearificant hundred dollars off Vortex, diamondback, three by five, ten by fifty rifles, scope hundred dollars off tex A lot of numbers. Yeah, and then, uh, this is what I would be most interested in if you were buying me a gift wink a knife if you're buying him a Halloween gift bundles Okay, Dan lost his bench made, so you get the survival guide and knife for a hundred and sixty five dollars. Uh. Butchering Big Game bundle is the meat Crafter knife which Josh has. Knife is really feels super nice in the hand. I wish you'd put it up. Everybody's out on my blood zone. So they have a lot of bundles, so you can check out you can check out the meat Eator Black Friday sale. I will also say that soon and very soon, there's gonna be a whole suite of Burgarase merchandise. Hats a bunch of stuff. So that's it's not available just yet, but it will be able. I'd like to see a T shirt with a mash up of me and Brent's face. That'd be good. Yeah, yeah, that one. Okay, Um, I got a I had a little bit of We haven't gone through much feedback um from you know, like iTunes reviews recently, and I've kind of made a habit not to do that. But I did have one guy that gave us a five star review but said he said, he said Clay four shadows way too much, and he said it's a great podcast. I love it, Clay four Shadows way too much. And when he said it, I knew exactly what he meant and and and I thought, man, this guy must just really love surprises. He must like he doesn't want me to tell what I'm about to tell in a cryptic statement. He just wants a surprise, Like he wouldn't want his wife to be like, honey, you're not gonna believe what we're gonna have for dinner. He would rather her just go for dinner. It's your favorite and he's like, bam, thank you. So he's talking about the falsome deal, right, Oh, this was this was This was a while back. This part two. When we find out what we're talking about, it's kind of funny. It is kind of because I said the same thing to Clay that I felt. So this is a while back, not not since the forth. Okay, well, no offense, but he might be right. Took a little bit of time. I just talking about the full sime. I'm just talking about like life with Clay. There might be Clay loves he loves suspense, he loves build up, he loves drama. And when you say you'll never guess what happened today, I don't know. My mind always goes to worst case scenarios, like do our kids all have their arms? We all are? We all still intacted? Anyway? Well, I thought it would be funny if I just started um, if every single sentence in the rest of my life, like any time I just dealt with people in like normal life foreshadowed. No, No, Like, we're about to have dinner and it's gonna blow your mind what we're gonna have. You're not gonna want to miss it. That was the best spaghetti of all time. But the dessert is going to take you to places you've never been said that if you could weave this dynamic into your community conversations, you're never gonna guess the standards that we have the community. Actually, Strea, you'll never guess the type of community we want to built here. Time for you to go to the grocery store without having to see that night. Yeah, you're welcome. No, I just thought it was funny. It was a good statement, you know what there there. It's really difficult to build a documentary style podcast, especially with somebody like George mcjunkin, because there's so many different facets of it. The whole premise of the series is not about George mcjunkin. It's about the fulsome sight. But I didn't want to spill all the beans about George right at the beginning. So anyway, I agree with it way too much. Foreshadow people today, they are instant information shadow to the day we all know you are. But people today you like you wonder something, you pick up the phone, you google it. I needs this right and now let me think about this, like no, let me type it out real quick. Get you answer. So you want the information instantly? You don't. You want to you don't want to wait around. And I get it because I was about to chew my arms off trying to think out what is this podcast about? And finally I still don't know what it was about. You've got to start listening to these things. Hey, okay, so moving on. I've just got a few little topics here of things I want to discuss. Did you did you? Did you guys here that they they have postponed quote unquote the bear season in Washington State. Care about that? Yeah? This is a serious This is a serious issue. No foreshadowing here. TC seventy four oh three on iTunes called him out. All his friends are gonna know. He's triggered. That's what we called him. In oh school, Washington State. They have they have a commission and right now the commission I believe has four seats in it and it's supposed to have vibe there's an unfilled seat, and so there can be issues that come up. It's a lot of decision where they just have to basically be at a standstill. Who kind of the question who chooses the people who occupy these seats? Well, that would be different for every state, and I'm not sure exactly how Washington how that works many of them, Like here in Arkansas, it's it's a point ease. This is like the su yeah in the state, exactly what it is. And so what what you have happening just on a if you're just looking at the national scale in the in in some of these different states, especially states that have big urban centers like Washington State would have Seattle. But what's happening is that where there are large urban centers like Seattle, Washington, Dan, that's where most of the state lives, like in terms of population. So these there's big, massive numbers of people that typically out number the the people in the rural areas of the state, or at least equivalent. Another example would be in Michigan where my friends at the Michigan Bear Hunters, they're constantly talking about, you know, the big cities in Michigan, Detroit and where there's these massive urban centers, and these people simply don't have an understanding of rural culture in the way things work in terms of wildlife management. Those urban centers are often easily preyed upon by those who have an agenda too that's not favorable to hunting in a significant way. There are animal rights groups like the Humane Society of the United States that have massive, massive budgets, I mean, like just an unbelievable amount of money. And where do you think they're going to spend their money in in trying to build their campaigns. They're gonna spend their money where they're gonna get banged for their buttons. And so they spend money in a lot of these urban centers in and pick specific things. And it's not always against hunting. Sometimes it's it's with confinement, agriculture or whatever. You know. They're they're involving a whole lot of different stuff, but hunting is definitely something they're involved in. And there's many, many, other even statewide groups that are affiliated with some of these bigger national groups. And basically you have this this thing where these urban centers end up controlling wildlife management in Michigan, Michigan is a referendum state, which means if you can get enough signatures on a cheat paper, you can get anything on the ballot. That's a very simplified version. If they can get a hundred thousand signatures, they can basically put vote on just about anything. In some states, like in Arkansas, all of our wildlife management is run by a commission, a sept a seven seated commission has understanding, so all the decisions of wildlife are made by them, not by just the average voter in the state. And so that's a good thing as long as your commissioners understand hunting, understand why life management are pro hunting, and you know, I have some sense. I'm not sure what's going on in Washington because there's there was a there's a four seat commission, and two of them voted to against having a spring bear season, and to them voted for it. And the way that it came up was the anti group started a lot of propaganda about spring bear seasons, just saying all this negative stuff. They put it up and it's now been postponed. And that's a tragedy because it may not seem like that a big a deal, but it is no secret that that that anti hunting agenda in this country is designed to break down our system incrementally incrementalization. They're not trying to, they can't. They're not just gonna shut down hunting. Was any of it based off of scientific research from the Department of Natural Resources or gaming fish gaming fishes is for it, and and it's a very very regulated season. It's a draw season. I went through and looked at the looked at the results of the hunt from the from the last several seasons, and basically it's not over the counter thing. You can't just go to Washington and buy a spring bear tag and go hunting. They have it looks like about fifteen different zones and each zone has allotted a certain number of permits, and it's very regulated. And one of the things that they sometimes have used against spring bear hunting is that you could shoot a sow with a cub, which just doesn't happen very very often. And when you look at the male to female kills in these different zones, there's a very high skew towards males being killed in that spring season. And they put spring seasons at such a time when it's gonna be much more likely that you're gonna kill a male earlier in the spring. The males are out roaming around a bunch more than the soles with cubs. So you know, it's just there's a bunch of science behind it. And um so I say all that to say, you know, we live in like this heyday seemingly of North American hunting, and we live in this also, this little time block of being humans where it's hard to see beyond that time block. And we may be like hunting is not that threatened, but it absolutely is. And and these guys in Washington or seeing that, but there's a chance that the spring bear hunt will come back. But uh yeah, we're gonna work on some action steps for stuff that people can do. And you know, this is the phrase that we say all the time, guard the gate. And maybe if you new to the Burger's podcast, you've never heard of say that, but garden the gate. Predator hunting is the gate for the anti hunting sentiment wherever that comes from, to enter into our space as North American hunters. So if you looked at all the North American hunting, you looked at elk hunters, white to hunting, duck hunting, pheasant hunting, squirrel hunting, the place the entry point for people to crack into our little system that works so well and has been the absolute pinnacle of of human animal husbandry on planet Earth since humans have been here. The way they crack in is typically through predator hunting, bear hunting specifically. And so that's why we say bear hunting is the gate. And so if we we guard the gate by becoming informed and knowledgeable about why bear hunting makes sense, why it's sustainable, why it's scientifically backed, why it is just such a positive thing, you know. And I could go on all the all the talking and communicate with our legislators and a g FC commissioners and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and and yeah, so we say guard the gate. And so in Washington they're having a tough time, and there's gonna be some places where we can when the when when it comes back around and they have a full commission that can vote on it and actually make a decision, we could flog these guys emails and in different ways we can communicate with legislators and say, hey, this is a good thing. It doesn't make any sense for us not to have the spring bear hunt there guard the gate. Yeah. Man, it's heavy, heavy topic right here before Thanksgiving speaking a heavy topic. If that chair that Dan sitting in the last to the end of this podcast crash, it is Daniel fall into the ground. He's got a handful of given this chair. I don't know what's going on for sure. Well, I just got back from Nebraska. Had a good white till hunt in Nebraska. Uh, it's pretty goot. I don't have that. I don't have That's an amazing white tail hunt in Nebraska. Yeah, that buck is the size of a truck. It the pictures didn't What about the body of the animal was big? Right? It was? They're not as big as you would think that. There was probably a hundred and sixty pounds buck, probably maybe maybe a little bigger than that. It looked big. Yeah, it it Uh, it was a good buck. Had a good hunt with the media crew. You'll be able to see that hunt on season eleven of Meat Eater at some point, so that would be good. So, as you know, on the Beargrease Render, what we're doing is we're going to talk about the last Bargeras podcast, which was part one. This is an interesting series because probably three. You won't believe, you won't believe how many podcasts there will be, just when you thought it was safe. The pot the series is about the fulsome archaeological site, but the whole first podcast wasn't about the fulsome site really much at all. It was about the man that found the falsome site. That's that makes it fun though, because it's gonna be it's gonna be really interesting. I have a question for you, Dan, define for me archaeology. It actually had this thought on the way here, like what is archaeology actually mean? Thank you, Josh, So I'm curious Dan. It's the study of material culture. So it's not just stuff that's dug up, but archaeology even present day you can look at material culture would look like our look at our phones or clothes, anything like that, material culture, but material human culture exactly. Yeah, you're a material human. Nailed on the distinction there, because a paleontologist or paleontology would be what study of bones? Because that's I was trying to decipher the difference between paleontology and archaeology because was was George mcjunkin a paleontologist, an amateur paleontologist or archaeologist. Right, well, okay, and that's what queued me in. And I think in context, like if this had been on the A C. T test like we used to bring up because it was okay, if that question had been on a test, I would have got it right, Like what is rateology? Ap this serious? Because I'm really good at understanding context clues. But if you would have just said, write an essay on what archaeology is with no context clues, I might not don't know. Because Dr Meltzer said the the and we're gonna get to know. Dr Meltzer really good. On part two. Meltzer said that the site went from a paleontological site got into an archaeological site, so it transitioned when they found the human the human evidence, so material culture, So very good, Thank you man. Thanks Yeah, what did so? Josh? You went with me to Fulsom, New Mexico. Would you have known anything about the folsome side before that? I've never even heard about it. I never heard of George mcjunkin, never heard of the falsome side. It was fascinating, though, Dan, would you ever heard of the falsome side? You know, don't try to make us feel like you're smart because your doctor tell us the truth. I wondered if it was connected all with the Falsome prison blues. Did anybody else think that? Was just me? A lot of people that I said we went to Falsom, they were like, yeah, Johnny Cash, I was like nope. I was like, no, Justifornia different, different, Falsome altogether. Yeah, totally different. If you went to Folsom, there's nothing there. I mean it is in the middle of nowhere, which made me think, good spot for a prison. Yeah, I can see that. No, No, okay, I didn't know a thing about it. Okay, good, that's good to know. See that's that's a good touch point too. Of the smartest people I know, I didn't know a thing about Folsom, New Mexico and breath a lot and say that, you know he knew about it. Watch this, Hey, Brent, did you know anything about Falsome? Yes? Absolutely? Have you been to Falsome? I would say in this room, if anybody had been to Falsome before, and I have to say that the spillmakers and the Newcombs have traveled a lot out west. Still, if anybody in this room that I would expect to have been at Falsome. I would say, went by. We went where the sun when we were out hunting was straight. Yeah, that's all the place to go out there. Now my familiar that counts as knowing a lot about Folsom. I didn't say, you asked me that I know about it? Yes, that that, Uh, my familiarization with it would be from the projectile points, air heads and artifacts Native American Stuff Club I've been We picked those up on our farm, from when I was picking up to pick up rocks and tell the difference between one and I should keeping one, I should throw up my brother and my brother is he is real? He's self taught about a lot of the different types of points, closed points and all the different different So you he you would have known that terminology like this whole some point. Yeah. Yeah, and just from from being interested and not from no one everything, but yeah, exactly, just from a vein of interest that I have. Yeah. I would have only probably known about it from the Mediator podcast a couple of years ago because Steve Ornella had David Meltzer. Dr David Meltzer, who will get to KNOWE a ton on about later. He had him on there. I'm keeping up with him. That's number twelve. It's kind of like when a friend of yours has a tick or like a little thing they do, and then somebody points it out and then all you can do is hear that, Thanks commenter, we're all stuck with the CEO of seven three four, Misty? Would you have known about the falsome stung? Because I'm married to you, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't say, oh, I know a whole lot about that, but I wouldn't definitely have heard about it. And this is a lot. A lot of Clay's pillow talk is archaeological sites talking about the point. So talking about finding stone points. What's interesting is that the Falsome point. You could find a falsome point in my front yard. Did you know that? You could? Not? How she could? Yeah? Because the fulsome point we'll be talking about later. They found this style of point in Falsome, New Mexico. This style of point predated anything they've ever found in North America in terms of technology of stone points. So they pull this stone point out and they're like, holy cow, I have to I have to say, after seeing them handling them. They are beautiful stone points. They're they're really something to see the way that they're shaped. Like I've seen a lot of stone points, I mean stone points you've found here comparatively, they're so delicate and sharp and just uniform, like they took a lot of skill to really make those. That was a great description. That was super Yeah, that was really that was great. But the reason you can find one here is that they then use the term falsome to describe a time period. It doesn't describe a region, It describes a time period of people that were here. But typically they find falsome points in the midwestern United Eights from well from like New Mexico too. You can find falsome points here in Arkansas, and it just it was it was a technology that a people of a certain time period used, So it just happened they found the first one there, so they named it falsome. That's the way that that's the way archaeologists think. So that's where the first ones were found. That's right, okay, But since then they found them other places all over the place. Interesting, yeah, all over the place. But I don't want to dive into deep on falsome because we'll be talking about it later. But George mcduncan though George mcjunkin is was a cool dude. I'm surprised I had never heard of him before, and I'm still surprised at how little there is known about the guy. But what a what a guy of character. I think that you know, there's a lot of people that are that are idolized in the world these days, some that are good, some that are not so great. But this is a guy that you can look at his life and say, there's a guy of integrity. There's a guy who who stuck with things. I really appreciate the fact that he he was He really went against the grain, you know, and I appreciate that about guys in that part of the world that life revolves around providing for your families and working hard and caring about others. Those are the things that are meaningful to me. And to see a guy like that who really went against the trends of the age and stood up for what was right. Super super cool guy. I mean, I appreciate the fact that I got to go with you just to to learn about him. These guys revere this guy, I mean, these old men just talk about him. With such reverence and and honor make themselves great. I picked up when I talked to Matt Dowd. He wasn't super convincing on the phone that he was the George mcjunkin expert of the world. He just kind of, I don't know, he just he wasn't just like putting all his cred out there. And finally I just asked him, I said, Hey, are you the guy I need to be talking? Just tell me, you know, I mean, because I'm God, I want I need to find anything. And he was like, yeah, pretty much. And I was like, Okay, that's good enough for me. If you pretty much think you're that, that's good. We go there. He lives in the building that George mcjunkin died in. Turns out he's pretty much that guy, his grandfather. So there's a picture of George and you can find it online. It's in the book The Black Cowboy. There's a picture of George mcjunkin in the early nineteen hundreds standing on a porch, just a vertical picture, and there's a little you know, in Georgia's black. There's a little white baby at his feet, which toddler. That's a story right there is it not? And and little baby is Matt's grandfather. They just revered George, and Matt's grandmother is the one who basically collected intel on George's life. I mean, think about think about if a guy died, like just got down the street that you knew, and he died, and then all of a sudden, five years after his death you realized that he had done something that changed our understanding of human history and was going to be in textbooks. You'd kind of be like, holy cow, we should have probably took a few more pictures, wrote down a few more dates, saved a few more letters, you know. And that's what's so interesting about George's is like his life just kind of passed by and they recognized that he was unique as a cowboy and all this. But anyway, Matt's grandmother was was the main source of info because she had saved correspondence. And that's just kind of neat. And so I said all that to say, these guys I really think of you to talk about about George mcjunkin. They would have fought you, would have touched you in the face, Cole Bell would have shot you with Okay, let me ask you this because when I was listening to the podcast, this was a question that I had. It's clear that they revere like you say, and it's clear that that was earned. And I know why I would think highly of him. Why do you think I feel like the intensity with which they respect George mc dunkin and to vote a lot of attention to him is pretty high and way above average for just someone that you respect. Why do you think that is? Two things? Okay, do you have an answer? I want to hear what you have to say. First. Two things. Might have tiny little bit of town folsom New Mexico, has like fifty people in it, and apparently there's some kind of political election going on there and it's pretty heated. Signs yea, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a town of fifty and I think they're having a city council of election. There was a little mudslinging going on. Um, you stepped into that town and they just parted like a red one side to the other. So it's a small town and he is a hero of that town. Yeah, it's like the quarterback from you know, like n State championship and so they're they're like maybe if your quarterback was Uncle Riko have you never seen Okay, So it's a small town and he was a hero number one. Now Matt, it's a small town and he's the hero. But this was a family friend that they were endeared to. Actually they you you you mentioned in They're the flood that revealed the bones. There was another there's a there's a plaque right near near the museum. But she was the switchboard operator and she stood. She stayed at the operator things so she could call people and let them know that the flood was coming until she died in the flood. Yeah, pretty amazing story. So the flood that uncovered the Fulsome site was really a unique flood and we wouldn't have this kind of stuff here. But it wasn't even raining in Fulsome to Mexico, but it had rained on Johnson Mesa, which is twenty miles away. Fourteen inches of rain fell. Just like man that flash flood. This water just comes rushing, it's not even raining. It's like, why would people even be that worried about it? Here it is Sarah Sally J. Rourke, heroine of the Dry Simarron Flood. On the night of August while working as a telephone operator, Sally received a call that a wall of water was rushing down the dry Simarron River towards Fulsome. She perished that storm it it's like blurry, She perished that stormy night at her switchboard, warning of the dangerous sounding, saving countless lives. Telephone operators across the country contributed dimes to honor their colleague with a memorial. Did you know they found her body a year later, like miles downstream with feet sticking out of the ground. No way, I don't think you should do your fingers like that. Telling the story also Andy Griffith, the telephone operator. The operat on there, Sarah was named after their lady. No, I'm lying as the words were coming out of my mouth. Really, I was like, you're really hypnotazing voice, even though you know you wanted to be just It would have been cool though, it would have been really would have been a great story. Dan, what did you think about the podcast? I was with Misty a little bit. It took me. I, first of all, always prefer the podcasts that are about peop so the Panther one previously. I think that was great and it and it was finishing up on Warren. Um. But you know, I thought, okay, agree, we get a person. You know, I like that, like a story, like a person. But I was trying to kind of get my mind around what we were talking about. What we're talking about, you know, as I get it, there's there's some bones and there's points in there. And but what I what One of the things that kind of struck out to me. Stuck out to me was you're living in a day and age where everything is I guess. And of course, now like the worst thing you could ever say here, I am a white man. The worst thing I could ever say is I don't see color, you know, warm, color blind or whatever. That's like the last thing we should like, I not. We need to be able to be aware of that and see it and interact with it. And um. But I think hearing them them so when they were first saying that, I was like, wait a minute, what's going on. We're not supposed to say that anymore. But then the more they talked about it back you know, three or four generation sings ago, when everything you're doing is practical skills, it really would have been a realm for a man of color to kind of move up the ranks and then here and how it was actually the Mexican cowboys that really welcomed him in and taught him. And I don't know, I just thought it would a it's kind of interesting to hear this story at a time when race is such a big deal in our country, and so part of me was like, man, that's so great, because here's this man who, on the basis of merit, was able to display his character and was welcomed in. But then at the end of his life, you know, it was kind of sad to hear that he never married because even though we don't see color, there's not a white woman around it's going to marry this guy, you know, it was It's just just complex, and it's just entering into history and a and a guy's story. I think it's really when you hear stories like that, when you got to the end and they started talking about him not being able to to find a wife. You know, you watch the Disney or the Hollywood versions of these these heroes and people who went through civil rights movements or things like that, and sometimes they they attempt to show the difficulty of it. That would be a tough thing to show the difficulty of in a movie like that. You know, there's a lot of stuff that we really uh don't appreciate and and couldn't appreciate that they had to sacrifice too to pursue the lifestyle that they pursued. And I don't even know if they would have had an opportunity to count those costs, you know that, I don't know that that would have been a logical thing that you would think through. Let's see what you're saying. So you're saying, like in a Hollywood version of racism, like triumphant, like someone like chanting racial slurs in the street, would be something that would be very You could look at that, yeah you could. But the other side of it that is a harder story to tell is a is a man that never marries because of and I think it cause people to not appreciate the difficulties, the interpersonal difficulties that people go through to rise above the you know, to the ceilings that are are put there for them at whatever time that they find themselves in the reason we like George mcjuncan is because he exceeded expectations and he exceeded the boundaries that were placed on him. And he did it, like Dan said on Merit, and he was he was able to he like you said in the podcast, he clearly had social tex like he had a whole skill set of things that allowed him to reach what what he reached and chie what he achieved. That same skill set would be a skill set that would really want to be married. I mean that that that social ability and all that that tells you this guy wants to have a family. He wants to to be married, and he did. In the book, it says that like his whole life, he wanted to have a family. Yeah, and that's a cost that he It's hard to it's hard to capture. It's it's just hard to take into account the loss. To me, it's hard to it's hard to really feel that. And when when you went into that part of the podcast, asked, it was just really sad to me that that part of it, it made me. It made me sad for him. You know, here's another interesting aspect of George mcjuncan is we would have never known who he was had he not found once in a how many gazillion lifetime archaeological site. The only reason that he's in the Cowboy Hall of Fame honestly is because we know it knew his name because and I'm not saying he didn't deserve to be in He's not in the Cowboy Hall of Fame because of that in Cowboy Hall of Fame because of the way rons his life, his ability to be a cowboy. But I think if you're really looking at it, the only reason we knew him and people told the story a hundred years later, it was because he he found something that how many humans have been in America for the last ten thousand years and one of them found an archaeological site that rewrote human well a couple now, there's been a couple of but like point being, how many George mcjenkins are out there that just weren't the one that found something that made him super famous, you know. And it's it's interesting that, uh that George mcjunkin for until nineteen seventy two wasn't even credited with that find. It was the archaeologist that came from Denver that that went and went and viewed the site shortly shortly after, within a couple of years after George mc mcjunkin's death, and then um they he he and a colleague were credited with that find, and it wasn't until nineteen seventy two that George mcjunkin was actually credited with it. I'll tell you what impressed me most about it. I think somebody would eventually found that site. He didn't have to be George mcjunkin. I was most impressed with the story of him deciding to do something in a time that was hard. He decided he wanted to read and write, so he put himself in a position to learn that. He set a goal, and he was gold oriented and solely focused on making himself a better human being. And he did that, and he did that in the time when it was hard, and today you know it's so different. Were people gripe about the spoon that they're being fed with, about the size of spoon back when that cat didn't have a spoon, And people, regardless of their situation, they can if you work hard enough, things shouldn't be easy. Things should be hard, and you should have to work for it. You probably shouldn't have to work for it as hard as George did, but he did it, and he didn't. Nowhere in that podcast did I hear one person say anything or tell a story that that George sat around and said, man, I had it tough coming up. It was it was always what was gonna be happening down the road, he said is And once he reached that, just from my summation of it, once he reached that goal of educating himself, it didn't stop. He wanted to do more, and he wanted to do more. He saw he'd but he did find those bones that side, and he thought he didn't think it was just bones. He knew he knew enough to say, hey, somebody ought to check this out. They never did in his lifetime, but it was just I think he is a great inspiration for what a thirst of knowledge can do for somebody, regardless of the situation there in that impressed me the most. Yeah, I thought David Meltzer did a good he had a good angle. It's interesting talking to so many people about one person and you get this kind of little snippets. But David Meltzer said that George mcjunkin was one of a hundred of of cowboys that would have even got off their horse to look at a bone. And again, George didn't see thirty two bison and tick with bones. He saw just a handful of bones sticking out of the dirt down in this arroyo, and uh, just you know, did the cure curiosity to get off of it, get off his horse and go down there? And look was the curiosity is a thirst for knowing, for knowing, finding out what something is, you know, And that that never that fire never went out because here he was he had probably surpassed anything that he could have possibly dreamed of doing growing up as a slave. Here, I am the boss, I am the boss of this ranch. Why do I need to do more? But yet his curiosity never stopped. It was it was really cool. I can't wait. I kind of I'm I'm very interested in the in the Native American part and the folsome stuff, but I kind of hate to see this chapter close on him. Yeah. You know, that's the thing about George. There's not a lot of intel on him. You know. This one book, uh, The Black Cowboy is, as far as I know, the only book that's written about him. And uh, there's some other snippets of intel in a few different places, but most of it is is most of us in that book. I assume he's buried. Did a cemetery. That's where he was buried. That he's buried, He's buried and fulsome and I wish we could have gone to the his grave. Yeah, we didn't in his house yeah, or where his house was his house was Yeah. That was also so sad. Yet a man you just got a handful of possessions and burns down. Yeah, because he took that skull. You think that's what it was. Did anybody catch my joke when I said, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I want to talk about this part of George's life. And then when I ended, I said, thanks, Yeah, we we caught. I think it's spend money. Who are you hoping that we would bring that on? Our favorite part all this up. Now, that one part where you referred back to the seamlessly, that one really got me. One of the funniest things I've ever been a part of my entire life. I was a part of a business networking organization back when I had a landscape company, and one day it's so it's this super awkward deal where we had breakfast every couple of once a week with all these business owners in the community. And I was a young guy trying to start this business. So I was going, there's like twenty people in the room, and somebody gives some like terrible news about something like like every week you had to stand up and talk about your business. And I really don't remember what I said, but a guy stood up and said, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but you know I want bankrupt. And mother law's house burned down to kill somebody by and the place just goes silent, Like twenty people that don't know each other just goes silent, and uh my c p A who was there who invited me to break the silence. After like seconds of just awkward silence, he goes, thanks a lot. Damn. I never forgot so anytime someone says I don't want to be a Debbie down there, I go thanks. So I watched people's faces, a couple of people that I was with when I listened to the podcast, and they never even got it. They've never even registered in our minds. So there's a lot of hidden clues insot the Burgeries podcast. There's a lot of I'll just say it's possibly one of the people he was watching. There's a lot of pressure to listen to the bearers in front of Clay. Does he sit there like, just watch every red you get? Did you get? Absolutely? Dude, I'm sorry to know why you guys don't see many movies. A whole lot of Missy listen to this. It's more like, Missy, you'll never guess what he's about to say. You'll never Yes, Well, the podcast was adequate. I think it's pretty thank you Gary. The yeah two bad Dad's not here. He could really could really put me into place. I'm sure you caught it. He caught it. He was not amused. It was an okay podcast, that's what it said. Okay. I thought it was a good podcast, and I'm glad you did it. And I'm glad. I think that you understand foreshadowing here, um that once you hear the second one, you kind of understand the significance of this contribution he made in a way that you don't understand after the first one, which is the great part about the two parter. And and so you'll you'll we'll all come to appreciate him. I think that we all appreciate him as it stands just for me, the cowboy, I mean, like just for what he just for his life, and I think that that's also super valuable for someone to live their life in such a way that gracious, there's people devoted to it and to preserving the honor of what he did. And so that speaks volumes in particularly of a man who was born into the world at a time that he was born into it where it was harder for him to reach those those that that level of respect than it would have been other people. And so I think in and of itself, his life without the discovery of this other thing, really without understanding the significance of it, was a life that was worthy to be covered on The Barriers podcast. People deserve to be remembered, regardless of they make an impact. Good people make an impact period. His his would be a global impact from what he found, but he obviously had a impact on that community because all those people loved, so they deserve to be remembered. It really is remarkable the loyalty that that whole family feels to him and that the people in that community feel to him. And that's that is that is notable, that's significant. Are we going to get to hear more from the Streus Kyle Bell, Nope, We're done. We're done with that, remember him. That's how he said that, Nope, we're done with him. That that guy is a character. Yeah he was. And that photo of him, I thinking of the right guy braids with the leather straps when you described him on the podcast. And then I saw I can't remember where I saw a little video of I was like, okay, that guy. We followed him all over all over that ranch looking for the Falesome site. It's kind of in a weird place. Yeah, and we kind of got turned around. So the Falsome site, you actually you can't go to it. It's not like a national park or something. It's there's a public, publicly owned ten acres that the Falsome site is on. So it is the Falsome site is on public land, but it's landlocked by private so there's no legal access to get in there. We had to get from and from the ranch owner to get back. And there's nothing to see there either. Yeah, you would never know you were at the fulsome side. It just looks like a patch of grass and a ditch fence. Well there's there. Yeah, there's a big fence around it to keep the cattle off of this ranch off of it just so it's digs out there. No, well, yes they will one day. What's what I learned from Dr Meltzer is that archaeological sites there is like etiquette, their rules in the way archaeological sites are now developed or excavated, and they purposefully leave some stuff for technology that maybe we can't even foresee that in a hundred years from now somebody will be able to go back in and learn more, which is just bizarre to me. So the way it's the way it worked was that the site was excavated in nine and that was the first time he was excavated, and there was a bunch of people involved in that, and then that was it, and it was a multi year process. And then David Meltzer, Dr David Meltzer from s m U in Dallas, he basically built a case for why they needed to go back and do a second excavation of the fulsome site. And I don't know what people and processes you have to go through, but he got permission and they went in and did like a multi year second excavation of the site and learned a whole bunch of new stuff and now they had radio curbon dating. They did not find any points though, and then when Steve Ronnella was there, Yeah, yeah, when Ronnella was there, after Meltzer did his did his excavation, Steve said they were standing there at the fulsome site and he looked down and there was a bone sticking out the dirt for real, and he he said, he's so bad, wanted to go over there and pull it out, and the archaeologists that he was with was like, don't touch it. So there's something connected to that phone, and archaeology is a little honory man, Poor Steve. What if that's like the finding of the of the century and he was robbed of he'll get credited with it in fifty years. Okay, no one will remember Steve Ronnella for his media or for all his accolades. They'll go he's he's the guy that found that one media guy that horse got out of his subaru and walked down to look at that bone. They're also going to remember that he's two and a half feet taller than you are. From that Instagram video that photo he was on a stool. He was, he was so Okay, if you're not up to date on what it's being spoken up here. There was a video that leaked out um of Stephen Ellan debating a painting and he was standing on he had the higher ground. He was on the milk, and it looked like so in this in this living room, there was you know, how wood stove will be setting up off the ground. To have like a like a rock platform that it's sitting up on, it had to be a pretty high platform. Is six inches. Maybe he was three ft taller than he was standing on that rock platform, Dan, And were you kneeling before? I don't know. It was he's taller than me for sure, not like a foot taller than me. Way, he's he's more than a foot taller than that photo. Oh man. But the good news is is that I was right. Oh gosh, it was even. And then but then Steve comes up with this whole thing about death of the author. Have you all heard about death of the author. It's like an artist does a painting or a writer write something, and even their intent doesn't matter. What matters is how it's perceived by the reader. So they call it death of the author. So you could read, you could look at a painting and go that's morning. And then the author chimes in on Instagram and says, no, it's actually evening. Even though you thought it was more than Steve and trying to tell you that it's what happened. That's exactly what happened. And then but then death of the author means that, and Steve brought this up. It doesn't matter what author thinks, it's what your perception is as Yeah, Brent was with me the whole time. Thanks Brent. How many times does this exact phenomenon happen as you are looking at your neighbor's Halloween decora, death of the authors? I'm just trying to feed my family. That's how those community conversations are going to go. Listen if you could have seen it, Brent, literally literally there was skeletons in lawn chairs, a fire, a fake fire across with a burning witch. People in the lawn chairs had a dog leash that was connected to the skeleton of a dog. That's one. Until you described the dead dog, I was with, why are we celebrating this? Okay? George mcdonkin, I love what's so great about all this is I'm learning inside of all this as well. You know, it's it's pretty fascinating to explore these unique people and really dive in deep and understand who they are. He's laughing. Why are we laughing? MS are you're thinking he's not learned a dang day. I think that Clay probably wanted to edit out my initial comments about the Halloween and we just keep bringing it back up. By the way he was looking, it is like the episode Halloween. Happy to say, Happy Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving. No. I enjoyed, enjoyed learning about George mun Junkan. These guys I'll never forget. I feel like when I look into anybody, whether it's James, Lawrence Warner, Glenn Roy Clark, Britt Davis, all these guys. I mean, part of being human is that we don't live in isolation and we can look at people's lives and glean stuff from it. I mean, how stupid would you be to think that you're just this independent guy that's just gonna build your life based upon no influence from somebody else. I want to be influenced by guy like George. I mean when he I mean he he dealt with stuff that I'll never deal with. But he was he he just was dead said on what he wanted to do I appreciate guys that are just gritty and tough. I do. I'm a sucker for gritty and tough, and man, if you're a good BRONC writer, you're gritty and tough. If you're a black guy back in the eighteen hundreds that is way up inside of the ranching community in this area, you gotta be pretty gritty. And then his his grittiness to learn how to read and write when a lot of people probably weren't. Just I respect the guy. He was funny too, he had he had a good sense of humor and just like him, I'm gonna incorporate that into my life. Yeah, and if you're ever and fulsome go to the museum. It's pretty cool, it is. I was surprised he walked around while I was making a bunch of noise while you were trying to record a podcast, and there was a piece of art in there that was donated by somebody from Fayetteville, Arkansas. Yeah. I was like, look at that. But yeah, fascinating stuff from historic stuff too, fossils to everything, World War two stuff. Yeah, pretty cool. Cool, Thanks to everybody. You are welcome, wild places, wild it's pretty crazy.

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