00:00:02 Speaker 1: We still cut trees down by hand. We still handcut. It's still work. 00:00:06 Speaker 2: But I mean what we do now it ain't nothing like what it used to be. 00:00:13 Speaker 3: If you think about the industries that made America, it would be hard to argue that the login industry wasn't among the most influential in making this country. Wood built this place. This episode is a fresh look at some modern loggers friends of mine, as a matter of fact, good friends. This is a story about the inherent danger in the login profession. These guys share their own experiences, but they'll share accounts of others they knew who were killed on the job. This is a biographical piece on one family of loggers in the Ozarks of Newton County, Arkansas, with the last name the Lines and Hey Bear, John Nukom and I are starting a new Bear Grease YouTube channel. As a matter of fact, it's the old Bear Hunting magazine YouTube channel. We just changed the name and we're having some completely new content. We're gonna have a weekly content on there, and the first piece drops on February the eleventh. You can do us a huge favor by going over and checking it out. 00:01:21 Speaker 4: Gonna be a ton of fun. 00:01:29 Speaker 3: My name is Clay Nukeom and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Brought to you by to COVID's Quality boots in Western Wear, point your toes West. 00:02:02 Speaker 4: Have you ever been hurt bad logging? 00:02:06 Speaker 5: I have none. 00:02:07 Speaker 1: I broke my foot. I've been hung up a time or two, got my arm hung and hung up. Yeah, I got one. I got my arm stuck one time. 00:02:18 Speaker 3: This is Cody Velines, and don't be fooled by him saying he's never been hurt bad. 00:02:24 Speaker 4: His definition of hurt is different than most. 00:02:27 Speaker 3: He's got a full salt and pepper beard, and it's kind of wild eyed. When you first meet him, you can't tell if he's a little crazy or just really smart. After getting to know him, I think he's both. We're standing inside the global headquarters of the Vilins Logging Company. 00:02:47 Speaker 4: I want to hear what he meant by getting hung up. 00:02:51 Speaker 1: Me and Dad and Frankiedale were logging. And you don't know Frankidale. But if you even say you ain't had to say Frankie Dale around here. You can just say frank and every I didn't know what who you're talking about. 00:03:02 Speaker 6: But I worked with him. I worked with him for several years. 00:03:05 Speaker 1: And he were skitting logs way up out of there. It's like two inches down, and that was hot. And I'd been skinning. He was cutting, and I'd been skinning, and he said, if you'll buck those logs up, I'll give you a break on skarting them up out of there. 00:03:20 Speaker 6: I said, sounded like a deal to me. 00:03:23 Speaker 1: So Frank with the skinning, and I was cutting up logs by hand, and we had a stick that was like. 00:03:29 Speaker 6: Some people would cut a stick for four and some people. 00:03:32 Speaker 1: Would have a major stick that was a full eight eight, which is what TI logs are supposed to be. 00:03:37 Speaker 6: We had a stick that was for four. 00:03:39 Speaker 1: And I was cutting up logs and I dropped my stick down in the log pile. And at this time, I'm, you know, early twenties, from the middle twenties. You know, I've been doing it for a long time. But then and I wrench you in there to grab my stick, and when I stuck my arm down in there, the log above rolled and faced me. And it was a big log, a big one, big old red oak, and there I was stuck. And it's hot summertime. Now I can't even move it by yourself and by myself. Dad's gone with a load of logs, and Frank's in the botto in this canyon coming back with another dragon logs. Well, I can hear him one old five eighteen caterpillar just pulling, pulling, slowly pulling, coming up out of that canyon. And it's starting to hurt. I mean, it's really hurting. And I can hear Frank coming up to there. And I finally get to where I can see him, and he's coming up through there. And Frank smoked in He smoked the more USA golds. That's where he smoked. I can see Frank on that skin he's smoking that. 00:04:40 Speaker 6: Cigarette he loved. 00:04:41 Speaker 1: Over there where I was at. He just stopped got off here. It come just in a walk. He walked up there. 00:04:48 Speaker 6: He's still smoking that cigarette. 00:04:49 Speaker 7: He says, boy, you're in a trap, ain't you. 00:04:52 Speaker 1: I said, get me out of here. He never got excited, walked back over into the skinny. Then come over there, and I'm thinking he's gonna tear my arm off when he starts pushing on this log file. He's up there, and he he got me out. 00:05:12 Speaker 4: Running around with these guys. 00:05:13 Speaker 3: I've noticed that stories kind of gathered themselves up around them, stories about people. We're gonna hear more about this Frankie Dell later. And these guys are really good at telling these stories. And each one carries a value system that stands out to me as unique in modern times. 00:05:32 Speaker 4: That's mainly why I'm here along with Cody. 00:05:36 Speaker 3: Actually right beside us is his slightly younger cousin, younger by six months, Kaylin Vilines. We've now moved outside of their main building. It's a little windy, but the view is noteworthy. So Kaylan from we're standing right here and we can see like about one hundred and eighty degrees vista. Have you logged with insight of here? I mean we can see like miles. 00:06:06 Speaker 8: Oh, absolutely, any direction you look, pretty much. I've I've logged, maybe not all of it, but any direction you can look from here. 00:06:17 Speaker 5: We've definitely worked. 00:06:19 Speaker 4: What your dad used to tell you. 00:06:21 Speaker 8: Oh, dad used to say when I was a kid, we'd stand right here and he'd say, Son, anywhere you can see I've been he's either working or hunting, and I can pretty much say the same thing. 00:06:30 Speaker 5: Now. 00:06:31 Speaker 3: What I hadn't told you yet is these guys are also really good hunters. They're deer hunters, they're squirrel dog men, they're coon hunters. They've all got mules, they're just woodsmen. You rarely see Kaylin without a cup of coffee in his hand, day or night. And he's always got on his light tan felt cowboy hat. That's warning so good you think he probably sleeps in it. But the lines logging main facility is impressive. It's a fifty foot wide, three sided metal barn with a semi truck, a John Deere dozer, and a skidder and loader parked underneath it. There's no indoor office, no secretaries or printers. As a matter of fact, the parking lot is a pasture. The only employees are Cody Kaylin and Teddy Viliines, Cody's dad. The open side of the barn faces one hundred and eighty degree view of purplish hills that look like a rolling sea where giant waves rise out of deep troughs. To me, it's the location of this fine building that makes it stand out. It's its orientation to the sunrise and how its open design gives one the feeling of freedom even while inside, which leads me to think that this building's designers must have been educated in America's finest halls of architecture. It's inspiring yet functional, but all you can see in any direction is trees. That's what the land has given this family, and that's what they've used to make a living. 00:08:08 Speaker 4: So what kind of saw is that? 00:08:10 Speaker 5: It? 00:08:10 Speaker 1: Is? 00:08:11 Speaker 5: A steal? A five hundred die? 00:08:13 Speaker 4: And how long will this saw? 00:08:15 Speaker 5: Last? 00:08:16 Speaker 6: Year? 00:08:16 Speaker 5: Oh? 00:08:17 Speaker 8: I usually if I can get a year out of one, I've done pretty good. 00:08:27 Speaker 3: Kaylin and Cody have been raised within sight of each other and have worked together their entire lives. As a matter of fact, their dads, who are brothers, Eddie and Teddy, also live within a quarter mile of where we're standing and have also worked together their entire lives in the logwoods. Question of the ages for both of you, there's a lot of things y'all can do to make a living. 00:08:52 Speaker 4: Why are you a logger? 00:08:54 Speaker 6: Like? 00:08:55 Speaker 4: What are the benefits of it? 00:08:56 Speaker 6: For me? 00:08:58 Speaker 7: The biggest benefit, I mean number one. 00:09:00 Speaker 1: If you're gonna do it, you gotta you gotta love it, you gotta want to do it. And for the most part around here, the guys that do it are boring into it. Honestly. I mean, if you really look around, it's a family deal. But the as benefits from me, the freedom. 00:09:18 Speaker 7: That's the number one reason, your own boss. 00:09:20 Speaker 1: That's why I do it. Yep, yep, that's a benefit. I mean, I like it. I enjoy it. Cutting timber it's addictive. It's like a drug. Cutting timber is addictive. Ask anybody, it's addictive. But the biggest benefit to the whole, biggest scheme of it is the freedom. 00:09:39 Speaker 4: What's that freedom look like for you? 00:09:41 Speaker 5: When you wake up? 00:09:42 Speaker 1: If I want to go hunting tomorrow, then I go hunting tomorrow. 00:09:47 Speaker 7: I don't have to call the boss. 00:09:50 Speaker 6: I just say, all right, boys, we're going hunting to morrow. 00:09:51 Speaker 1: And we're going hunting tomorrow. 00:09:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, what about you, Kaylen? 00:09:55 Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going. 00:09:56 Speaker 8: He took the words in my mouth. That's Dad always said, Well I was born into it. Yeah, well we're Yeah, we were born into it. Though Dad tried to talk me out of all my life. 00:10:05 Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, but it was but it was his fault. 00:10:09 Speaker 7: Got to talk you out of it still made you get them go. 00:10:11 Speaker 8: Yeah, they made us get up and go. And people think we're exaggerating line, but we were probably eight nine year old when we started going. Yeah, we didn't have a summer vacation. We went to logwoods. 00:10:23 Speaker 1: I started the seventh grade with my foot in the walking boot. Dad and ed aunt know who had what, but I think Dad had a McCollough. Dad had a seven hundred McCollough. That aady had an Xcel twelve home lot. And they let us use those chain saws. 00:10:38 Speaker 5: Now, they made us use it when. 00:10:40 Speaker 7: We were like, you know, fifth sixth grade. 00:10:42 Speaker 1: In the summer between the sixth and seventh grade, they bought us to brand spanking News, still old twenty sixes, and we started bucking up logged by hand. And I got my foot broke in the bucket ball and I started the seventh grade on my foot in the walking boot. The first day of school, I had a brand spanking new teacher, and she came from eastern Arkansas. Really what it did, and then the whole lot about this way of life around here, and. 00:11:09 Speaker 7: She said what do you do to your foot? 00:11:11 Speaker 1: And I said, I was cutting up logs and I got one on my foot and I broke it, and she said, we mean cutting up logs. 00:11:17 Speaker 7: I said, I was cutting up logs with a chainsaw and she. 00:11:20 Speaker 1: Said, you were running the chainsaw and I said, yeah, yeah, I. 00:11:25 Speaker 7: Was working in the woods. The rest of the teachers around there really wasn't that big of a deal. 00:11:29 Speaker 1: I mean, but they just blew her mind. 00:11:31 Speaker 6: You know. 00:11:33 Speaker 3: Cody points at a bulldozer and starts telling me what they've been doing today. 00:11:37 Speaker 6: See that odd right there? Yeah right here, yep, that's new. Now that's new. 00:11:44 Speaker 3: So this is your dozer that you carry all over the place for cutting roads. 00:11:47 Speaker 6: Now it is. Yeah, he bought this. He bought this though last year. 00:11:51 Speaker 3: So the reason tell me why a logger has a dozer. 00:11:56 Speaker 8: Well, we didn't for years, and we've done all of the road pushing with them skidter, and we've got a little nicer equipment. Now this dozer makes it a whole lot better getting a good road in and making good bed in there your landing spot for your logs. 00:12:13 Speaker 3: So you may you may have to cut logs in a spot way back in somewhere. 00:12:18 Speaker 5: Oh absolutely, and you just got to get. 00:12:20 Speaker 4: A road in there to get your trucks in there, right, so you need a dozen. 00:12:23 Speaker 3: So how much of logging is taking care of your equipment? Because it's like you didn't work today, but you did work. You didn't work, you didn't cut any trees today. 00:12:32 Speaker 8: We didn't make any money today. We had to work today. Yeah, you have to maintain your equipment. 00:12:38 Speaker 4: I'll tell you about this truck over. 00:12:40 Speaker 5: Well, let the boss tell you by the truck he drives. A truck. 00:12:43 Speaker 4: Cody can tell you about your truck. 00:12:46 Speaker 1: That twenty one twenty twenty one International HX five twenty is what that is on. 00:12:54 Speaker 3: The logs that you're hauling shorter, So it's a How would you describe that? I mean, it's not like a like a semis truck you'd see drive down the road car. 00:13:03 Speaker 4: It's not a trailer truck. Like how big is that that bed there? 00:13:07 Speaker 1: I can't tell you the exact mamage much, but I can haul two monks of ten of ten and a half footers, you know. 00:13:15 Speaker 4: You know ya, you're in the business of the shorter. 00:13:18 Speaker 6: Ten and a half. 00:13:19 Speaker 1: Ten and a half is a is a Well I say that, look got some of their twenty one foot and you can carry on that truck twenty one foot will go on that and then my trailer, my pump trailer that hook behind it. It's also a double bump. I'm just not a I'm not a traditional tractor with a trailer behind it. You can get around butter, you can get in and out, but it rigged up like this, then you can with a trailer truck. But this is just the way we've always done it. 00:13:49 Speaker 3: What what what's the necessary equipment for what you do? You need a dozer, you need a truck, you need a skitter, and you need kaalin to cut trees. 00:13:58 Speaker 1: That's what we have in all honesty around here. You can you can make a living with a skitter period, just a skiitter. 00:14:08 Speaker 4: How there's enough Okalon, you mean you're gonna get rid of kalin? 00:14:11 Speaker 1: I mean equipment wise, equipment wise, just equipment wise, you can get by. 00:14:16 Speaker 4: It'd be really cool if you fired him on as you can. 00:14:19 Speaker 1: Get by with just a skinner, because there's enough guys around here that have what we call picker trucks. 00:14:24 Speaker 3: Would you say that you guys are doing with newer technology but kind of doing the same style of logging that your dad and grandpa did. 00:14:34 Speaker 8: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, same thing, just more modernized. 00:14:39 Speaker 4: You're cutting the same kind of trees and. 00:14:41 Speaker 8: Cutting the same yes, cut the same kind of trees, everything, the same kind of ground, same places. We we have been same tracks of timber that our ancestors cut on. 00:14:52 Speaker 3: So you've you've you guys are have cut tracks of timber that your dad and grandpa cut and the trees have regrown. 00:14:58 Speaker 1: I can take you to one track the timber that I've been on twice in my life, and I'm forty two. 00:15:04 Speaker 3: You might be surprised to learn that the vlines that practiced select cut logging since the beginning, they don't like clearcutting. 00:15:12 Speaker 4: And these guys have a land ethic and an. 00:15:15 Speaker 3: Appreciation for trees that the average person will never understand. They've witnessed the resilience of natural systems when well managed, and they've seen how families use timber for generational financial input like cashing out of four one k. I once heard an Ozark farmer say he's seen the same stand of timber put multiple generations of kids through college. And as we know as wildlife managers, select cutting timber can be incredible for wildlife To put this login into a wider context. The early nineteen hundreds mark the peak of America's wooden age, when the demand for lumber exploded alongside rapid population growth. By nineteen ten, annual consumption of wood peaked at roughly thirty eight billion board feet, and wood was, as historian Kennis Smith wrote, second only to food as a basic life supporting commodity. 00:16:16 Speaker 4: It was used for nearly everything. 00:16:18 Speaker 3: Wood made all the buildings, railroads, tools, wagons, the frames of cars, even and even iron ore production, which relied on charcoal to fuel smelters. Around this peak, deforestation spread, and that's what we hear about the negative things about logging. But this is when Americans began to reckon with the cost of unchecked extraction, and the counter movement rooted in conservation slowly took hold. In nineteen oh five, Gifford Pinchot became the head of the newly formed Forest Service, and he brought these European ideas of sustainable forestry to the United States and he helped usher in a new philosophy of managed forests with the idea. 00:17:04 Speaker 4: Of sustainable yield. 00:17:06 Speaker 3: And since that time, the American forestry industry has revolved around regrowth and sustainability. Cody and Kaylin have seen it with their own eyes, and wood hasn't gone out of style and it never will. 00:17:24 Speaker 4: You guys are. 00:17:25 Speaker 3: Primarily cutting hardwood, regrowth timber. 00:17:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, and where is that? What's that hardwood being used for? 00:17:32 Speaker 8: It's got all kinds of purposes. I mean your good, you're good lumber logs. Of course they're they're making that the lumber for furniture and flooring. But then there's always the time market, and that's for railroad ties, the seven be nine railroad tie. And then you have your wallet, which you know it's a higher end and white oak, I mean, you're good white oak, that's whiskey barrows. That's that's where the money that is in the white opening wallet. And I mean you've got cherry. Some people even separate it because you can get a little more old cherry hickory. You can separate it if you want to. We have before because they use it for smokers. I mean though they just chip it and make smoking chips. But for the most part, it's lumber ties, palettes. Everybody benefits from the palace because that's what everything's shipped on. I'd say there's not anything in the country that don't get put on a pallette and chip somewhere. 00:18:31 Speaker 3: This is just what's done with hardwoods and the ozarks. But pine timber is primarily what's used in making paper and cardboard, at least down here. Just try to go through a single day without using paper or cardboard. 00:18:44 Speaker 4: You almost can't. And the good thing. 00:18:46 Speaker 3: About it is that it's biodegradable and you can recycle it, and it's generally cleaner than making plastics. Still today, almost all residential structures are framed in wood. And this stat is a few years old, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics saved the average American uses wood and paper products equivalent to what can be produced from one hundred foot eighteen inch tree every year. 00:19:15 Speaker 4: That's a big old tree. 00:19:17 Speaker 3: But talking about the history of logging, something that stood out to me from the first time I heard Kaylen say it was that his dad Eddie and uncle Teddy and their other brother Hillard. There were actually ten brothers and sisters. All of these guys logged with mules and horses all the way up until the nineteen nineties. 00:19:38 Speaker 8: Dad and ted they were to my knowledge, I know there's still people around that use a horse or mule around here. My dad and Ted was the last two that I know of that was still using a horse and a mule. Because I'll be forty two in just a month or so, and I can remember I'm skidding with horse and mule. I wasn't big enough to actually hel but I went to the woods with them. 00:20:01 Speaker 3: And sort of been in the nineties, nineteen nineties, the early nineties. And they weren't They weren't good at to try to be folksy or no traditional. No, they did it because it's just the way they skid logs. 00:20:14 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just the way it was. 00:20:16 Speaker 8: And I mean they didn't have the money, you know, at the time to improve what they were doing, you know, so they were still just with the old way, you know, that's the only. 00:20:26 Speaker 5: Way they knew. 00:20:27 Speaker 4: And they could make a living doing it. They could, and that's all that mattered. 00:20:30 Speaker 5: That's all that mattered. 00:20:31 Speaker 8: Yeah, they could still make a living, but I mean, yeah, they wouldn't getting the production that the people was a skinner was getting. But they didn't have all the expense either, you know, cheaper defeat a mule or horse and it was put fuel in a skinner, you know, but they they finally had to, you know, if they were going to keep up with everybody else, they they got a. 00:20:51 Speaker 3: Got to wear them if they were gonna make a living, they had to do this right. Teddy, Eddie and Hillard eventually upgraded to a skitter, but they were thirty years behind much of the industry. And I think that we'll see that this was very much on purpose. These guys march to a different drum than the throb of much of modern society. 00:21:16 Speaker 4: What about you. Have you ever been hurt bad? 00:21:18 Speaker 5: No, bad enough. 00:21:20 Speaker 8: I've not been late in the hospital like I should have been several times. Oh yeah, I've broke bones and stitches and cut myself stitches in my head. 00:21:31 Speaker 4: What's like a you have a story like that? I mean, it's like a scary story. 00:21:36 Speaker 8: Oh well, I mean I've had lots of scary encounters. Usually the ones that don't get you is the scariest ones. When you've had tree tops fall out and bury up in the ground beside you that you know would have killed you, graveyard dead if you you know, we would have stepped over twice. I've been hit hard in the head, like knocked out, like. 00:21:57 Speaker 4: Knocked out cold. 00:21:57 Speaker 8: Oh yeah, hey, hate to even bring it up, but him talking about Frankidale, which Frankdale is my cousin, and we lost him a couple of year ago. 00:22:07 Speaker 5: He got killed in the woods. 00:22:08 Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I've been been probably three year ago. Frank got killed. Be in the woods all his life. Yeah, he just like most people around here who logs. You can ask him. They got the same story as man Cody. You know, they grew up working in the woods. Probably had anybody cut any more timber than Frankidale. And yeah, that's all they ever did. 00:22:28 Speaker 4: I mean, is that is that something that I mean? 00:22:31 Speaker 3: How many people do you know within kind of arms reach of you that have been killed in the woods? 00:22:37 Speaker 1: Oh? 00:22:37 Speaker 8: I mean I could name four or five some that I didn't know. I mean I knew who they were, but didn't know them personally. And you know, some before men Coty's time, you know that we're killing the woods. Frank Frank is definitely the closest one that we you know, somebody we both had worked with and around been running all over live. 00:22:58 Speaker 3: But it's clear that this is a way of life in these families, especially when Cody and Kaylen were growing up. Their dads were making a living off the land, and that term is thrown around loosely in modern times. 00:23:14 Speaker 4: But I think you're going to. 00:23:15 Speaker 3: See these men, who are both still alive, had a unique version of living off the land. 00:23:23 Speaker 8: Well, Dad's always he's always got his own sayings. I guess some people around here call them it isms. But Dad always said, the poor man's got poor ways. And you know, in the wintertime, same for me and Cody today. I mean, it's what we're not working today. You know, it's wet in the woods, so we can't work. And Dad, you know me growing up, they always had had cows. You know, that's extra income. But Dad he'd have to get by any way he could, and of course he dug Jensan. He coon hunted mostly for the purpose because hides. I mean Dad always enjoyed hounds, don't get me wrong, but I mean when the hide market went away, he didn't coon hunting there like he did, you know. 00:24:06 Speaker 5: And then he trained. 00:24:08 Speaker 8: Horses and mules, you know, just to make enough money get by and cut firewood. All my life we were cutting firewood for other people. My mom would complain because we'd run out of firewood and have to go get in snow, but Dad was supplying four or five other people with firewood at time. The hard work is yeah, all he knew. Dad always said a honest man would never get rich, you know, And Dad believed that that if you're being honest with everyone, you know, everyone you're dealing with, that you'll just make a living. You're not gonna get rich, you're not even gonna get ahead, and you're just gonna pay the bills. I know that's not one hundred percent accord, because I know honest people that's done well for the self, But there's a lot of truth in it too. 00:24:54 Speaker 3: I recently heard a political analyst, presumably a fairly wealthy one, say that they were begin to believe it's impossible to be a billionaire without being corrupt. With the outrageous corruption that we see in today's America, it's hard not to think that thought. It's gonna be easy for me and you to keep guessing about that. But Eddie's words are worth thinking about. And as a matter of fact, Oh Jesus weighed in on the topic too when he said it's easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to fulfill his requirements. I think that would be a gutsy thing to say in modern America because it points to a flaw in the dominant ethos of this country. I don't think that's a license to not work and try to better your family, but it'll make you think. I asked Caitlin what he thought about this billionaire corruption thesis. 00:25:54 Speaker 5: I would probably have to agree with that. 00:25:57 Speaker 8: They obviously need more to satisfy themselves than Eddy via Lines ever had. Dad was content with a good cup of coffee and sitting on his back porch. That's what he wanted to come home to was peace and quiet, have a good dog and a good mule, and he was satisfied. Money didn't drive Dad to work. 00:26:17 Speaker 4: Is that the way you are? 00:26:19 Speaker 5: Pretty much? 00:26:20 Speaker 6: Yeah? 00:26:21 Speaker 4: Do you Are you as content as your dad was? 00:26:24 Speaker 8: Uh? 00:26:26 Speaker 5: Probably not? 00:26:27 Speaker 8: I mean that's just honest. I worry about probably more than he ever did. I mean, Dad wasn't a warrior. I would like to think I had that same peace of mind as Dad's. God, Probably not to that extent. 00:26:41 Speaker 4: No, life's more complex, it is it really it is. 00:26:45 Speaker 8: Yeah, And the more the more you have, the more you have to worry. About I mean not saying I have that much more than Dad ever had, but I do. And it's from wants not needs. Dad never had much, but Dad didn't want much either. That just had needs, you know, and that was it. And that's what he would tell us kids growing up. He said, well, you want it or you need it. You know, if it's a want, probably not going to happen. 00:27:12 Speaker 5: But if you need it, we'll make it happen. 00:27:15 Speaker 3: The issue here is contentment, not about how much money you've got. I think this is interesting as it's compared to the context of information that surrounds it. Good luck finding a podcast about being content, but you want to have any trouble finding one giving you strategies for getting rich quick. The fixation that money is the solution to all human problems is ancient. However, I think we can understand this without taking a vow of poverty. And I think it's a biblical mandate to be wise with our finances, invest and save. I appreciate the clarity in what Eddie said, and I like people that just know who they are. 00:27:56 Speaker 4: Here's more from Kaylin on his upbringing. 00:28:00 Speaker 5: Growing up. 00:28:00 Speaker 8: You know, me and my brother and Cody, we thought everybody was like us, you know, just because it was his way of life. You know, we didn't know any different. We thought we thought every kid, you know, grew up going to the woods with their dad, you know, working. We didn't know what vacation was. I said, before, you know, Dad, he tried to talk us out of it, or for for sure me, I mean, well then he he eventually did get out of it. But dad say, boys, there's no future in it. And he'd say, well, my dad said that, you know, so there's not a future in it. Find find something else to do. And it's dangerous, you know, we always knew that, you know. I grew up watching watching you know dad he got hurt. I seen him, you know, break a leg and arm and get hitting the head, and you know, I knew the danger. But it was just the way of life we were. We were born into it. 00:28:54 Speaker 3: Caylen's brought us to the topic of danger in the woods. In the nineteen nineties, law logging deaths peaked, and it was by far the most dangerous industry in America, with one hundred and twenty eight deaths per one hundred thousand workers per the Bureau of Labor statistics. It's gotten slightly safer, with modern numbers between fifty and one hundred deaths per one hundred thousand, but has dropped closer to some of the other industries. The top five most dangerous jobs in America that I could find were loggers, commercial fishermen, roofers, small aircraft pilots, and iron workers. Logging has gotten safer partly because there are fewer people cutting logs by hand. Many large operations have mechanical cutters, but I'll remind you that the Lines, along with many others, are basically still doing it the same as the nineteen nineties, you know, excluding Teddy and Eddy with their mules, they're still cutting trees by hand. I want to ask Caylen about getting hurt, and you're gonna need to remember the first story that Cody told us about when he mentioned a man named Frankie Dale. You're gonna want to remember his name. 00:30:18 Speaker 4: Just tell me what you're gonna tell me. 00:30:19 Speaker 1: I mean, Frankidale was just, he was just He's basically a legend around here. Nobody there's nobody that don't have a frank story, whether it was in the woods, seeing him at that gas station there is nobody that doesn't have a Frank story. 00:30:36 Speaker 7: And I just got to work with him. 00:30:37 Speaker 6: For several years. 00:30:39 Speaker 5: But he was several years. 00:30:41 Speaker 1: But I had spent the biggest part of my life in the woods and I went up for a stretch there where I dove truck for a couple of different guys. And when I went back to logging, Frankidale was helping Dad and I had been there was my whole life. I hadn't never seen anybody. I mean, Dad got after it cutting timber, got after it went to run, but I hadn't never seen nobody as wild as Frankydale. 00:31:07 Speaker 4: What does that mean? 00:31:08 Speaker 6: What did he do? 00:31:08 Speaker 1: I came around to there on the skid one day, like I said, It's probably my first week back in the woods after I've been trucking, and they were both cutting timber and I skidding. And then Dad would haulogs and leave me in Frank in the woods and he keep cutting. I skidding whatever he's walking out my hand. Then I came around the skid trail and I could see Frankidale and he was cutting a tree. It wasn't a big tree, but I mean it was a decent sized little tree. 00:31:34 Speaker 7: And it was in a kind. 00:31:35 Speaker 1: Of a little post dope flat and there wasn't no really big timber there, and there's lots of brush. He cut that tree and it lodged. He didn't go all the way to the ground, you know, it was like halfway down on an angle like this. You know, the top of it was probably twelve or fifteen feet off the ground. 00:31:53 Speaker 6: Frankie Delle cut that tree. 00:31:55 Speaker 1: The tree lodged, and without even thinking about it, without even stepping back and looking at it, he just took off up that tree limited as he went. And when he got up there to where you would top it, like normally top it when it was laying on the ground, he just ran back and sowed it off. And the tree takes off to the ground and frank. 00:32:21 Speaker 9: Just rides it, and right before it hits the ground, he steps off and walks over to the next one and starts cutting it, just like this is how he does it every day. 00:32:34 Speaker 7: And I thought, I mean I knew, you know, you hear all. 00:32:38 Speaker 6: The stories about Fredgie Dale got hurt again. 00:32:40 Speaker 7: Fredgiedale's wild, And I was like, oh my god, he is wild. 00:32:46 Speaker 6: Uh. 00:32:47 Speaker 1: He slowed down a bunch, you know, that he was in his prime. I guess you would say then, you know, I was twenty whatever, Like I just said, well, go he was. We had the same birthday, he was twenty one. 00:32:59 Speaker 3: Years Where did he live from right here, right straight across the canyon. 00:33:03 Speaker 4: It was just like a mile from here. 00:33:05 Speaker 6: I mean, he's not. 00:33:05 Speaker 1: As a co fly, he just right over there. He was in his forties, so yeah, he was in his prime then. 00:33:13 Speaker 5: I don't know all that prime. 00:33:16 Speaker 1: In his forties like me and you, probably he was still in Frank was still in good shake, but he was yeah, he was wild. 00:33:24 Speaker 6: Yeah, I know. 00:33:24 Speaker 1: He died on January twenty first. I'll never forget it. And I can tell you right where as that when they called me and told me that he had passed January twenty first, I think it was three years ago. It's twenty three when Frank died. 00:33:36 Speaker 3: This kind of reminds me of these extreme sports guys, these rock climbers and free divers that have all had friends that have tragically died. But the difference is huge. These loggers aren't recreating, but rather they're trying to make a living and maybe only the way they know how. 00:33:54 Speaker 5: And Frank was just a guy. 00:33:56 Speaker 1: He had that personality, you know. He was just we were cutting one day. Daddy told me, he said, when you get down there skitting off Frankidale, he said, watch for there. There's an old fence down there. They said, don't get across that property line. 00:34:12 Speaker 6: He said, you'll see it. It's an old, old fence. He said, it's mark. 00:34:16 Speaker 1: So I come round through there on a skitter and the hall gas and all for him on my skittery with me and Frank came up through there. 00:34:24 Speaker 6: He was out of gas. I pulled up there and shut the skitter off. 00:34:27 Speaker 1: And I don't know, he said something, you know, and he said, boy, it's hot or whatever he said. And I said, hey, did you find that line down there? And without missing the beat, he said, no, But I seen a tiger. 00:34:41 Speaker 6: You know. 00:34:41 Speaker 7: He was just that guy. 00:34:42 Speaker 1: He was quick witted and he was he always had some little one liner like. 00:34:47 Speaker 6: That, and a lot of it. 00:34:49 Speaker 1: I mean a lot of your a lot of your old time loggers, they all kind of had that personality. 00:34:56 Speaker 6: You know. 00:34:57 Speaker 4: Would you see that consistent? 00:34:59 Speaker 3: I mean you you would you would see uh, you bet guys that were just characters and storytellers. 00:35:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you if you left them right here and went in any direction, you can. You can interview old loggers for days on end, guys that you know did it for their lifetime and did it the hard way, the hard way. I mean, it's still work. We still cut trees down by hand. We still handcut. It's still work. 00:35:30 Speaker 2: But I mean what we do now it ain't nothing like what it used to be. 00:35:36 Speaker 3: It's clear that these guys had a lot of respect for Frankie Dale, a man that used to live about a mile from where we're standing. But it just goes to show you how dangerous log and can beat. Here's more from kaylin. 00:35:51 Speaker 5: Man down there Kingston. We both known over live. He actually he watched his father get killed when he that's for our time. 00:36:01 Speaker 8: Yeah, he was he was young and was in the woods with his dad and watched him get killed. And he went ahead and pretty well all his life logged after that. And I thought about that. I don't know if I could have done that or not. 00:36:17 Speaker 3: Is there a in some things? When you're in it long enough, you know the risks. And if you heard that somebody died, you could have probably almost guessed what happened with the kind of logging you guys do. If you heard that someone died, would you pretty much would you be like eighty percent chance a tree top fell on him or eighty percent chance a log t boned? 00:36:44 Speaker 4: Like what would you say? 00:36:46 Speaker 5: Yeah? 00:36:47 Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely depend on who it was, you know, if I knew, if I knew it was the timber cutter. 00:36:51 Speaker 5: Yeah I could. 00:36:53 Speaker 4: What would it be? What would happen? 00:36:55 Speaker 8: It would be it'd be a limb falling out or a tree. 00:36:57 Speaker 3: Top limb that you can't that you aren't watching right, Yeah, so you're cutting trees and like it breaks the limb, like I described for them, what would happen? 00:37:08 Speaker 8: No, it could be it could be in the tree, the tree even cutting and you not see it. I mean a lot of that depends on the time of year. Yeah, I always I would a whole lot rather cut in the wintertime when the leaves are off and you can you can see for sure, big timber, big timber. In the summertime, so many leaves, you can't. You can't see what I was up there. And if you don't, you know, if you don't take your time and pay attention, just even grape vines, you know, from one tree to another. Well, jerk a limb out from a tree behind you, you know, or a dead snag. That's what's you know. I've been hit once or twice. Once when I got stitches in my head and got knocked out. It was actually a snag that was behind me, and I already had the tree on the ground and was back. Then we marked them as we went, We marked the logs, and I was on my second log just marking it and it was like somebody walked up behind me with a baseball bat and hitting right up over the head and it was it had come from a tree behind me, A top broke out up, a dead snag. But there's I mean, there's there's dangering all of it. 00:38:18 Speaker 3: I mean, but it's rarely like when you're cutting a tree that falls on you, because I mean the tree you're cutting, you're paying attention to. 00:38:25 Speaker 8: It's it's it's rare, but but I've seen it. 00:38:32 Speaker 3: I want to queue you up for this next story. Honestly, it's the reason I'm here. Last fall, when Caitlin and I were driving down the road going bear hunting, he told me a story that I'll never forget. All of this has really led us to hear. 00:38:49 Speaker 8: Oh, it's been seven six seven year ago now, and me and Cody weren't working together. We were actually I had my own crew or working with another guy, and all our buddy was working with us. 00:39:02 Speaker 5: He got he got mashed and well he got killed. 00:39:07 Speaker 8: But good Lord wasn't done with him, because I know, I've told you four the difference between praying and begging, and I was begging and I've seen life be brought back into him. 00:39:21 Speaker 5: But he was. 00:39:21 Speaker 8: He was mashed by a tree that he was cutting. It had actually jumped off the stump which he had cut up about chest tie. It's a forgard sycamore. I mean, it wasn't no monster sycamore, but it was. It was probably twenty four inches or better. 00:39:38 Speaker 5: And the time. 00:39:40 Speaker 8: I got there, I actually I was supposed to be cutting that morning and was Ethan's his name. 00:39:46 Speaker 5: He he was wanting. 00:39:48 Speaker 8: To cut that morning, and I gave in let him cut, and I ran the skinner him Paul. Both were cutting, and I had made I know for sure two trips to Paul. Normally, if you're skiped behind two cutters, you'll just rotate, You'll you'll go to one and then go back to the other mostly I mean to stay up with them, but to check on I mean, that's always in your mind, you. 00:40:12 Speaker 6: Know, check on them. 00:40:14 Speaker 5: Well I didn't. 00:40:15 Speaker 8: I didn't go back to Ethan. I went back to Paul Claisse and I was headed back and I seen Paul come run around the hill, and I knew immediately something was bad wrong, so I hurried more than normal. And when I got to that sycamore, I mean, like it's been seven years ago, it feels like yesterday because I can still see it. All I could see was Ethan's boots barely sticking out, and the whole the whole tree was on him and wasn't at the butt. 00:40:43 Speaker 5: It had actually went over him. 00:40:47 Speaker 8: He was probably fifteen feet back up back up that tree, but just his boots is sticking out. And I backed up there with the skittering which we use a grapple skitter, and I unched down and pinched that tree the best I could, but out do any more damage, and picked it up off of him and drove forward. Of course, Paul, he went straight to him, and I can I can still hear Paul scream. And he threw that chainsaw as far as he could throw it, and I shut skitter off, and he said he's dead, and of course you're just sick. And I had no doubt. I mean I could see from off the skitter. I thought there's no way. 00:41:28 Speaker 5: He could be alive. 00:41:30 Speaker 8: Well, we were down in underneath the hill and Paul he just took off, running to get out, to go get service to call, and I got off and went to Ethan and I got down and checked him, and sure enough, I mean, there's no life in him. He was even cold. We don't know how long he's been there. 00:41:46 Speaker 5: It is a thing. Paul had just shut his saw off. 00:41:50 Speaker 8: He got just kind of he had that feeling and shut his saw off, and he could hear Ethan sauw idland, but you know he would and running it. But he can hear that chainsaw around there, just idling. So he went to check on. 00:42:04 Speaker 5: Him, and I checked him. He's already he's cold. 00:42:08 Speaker 8: I mean, of course wasn't breathing, but I checked for a pulse and there's no life in him. And you know, poor old dumb lagger, I don't know CPR nothing. That's to afraid to touch him anyway. I don't know what kind of damage it was I've done the one thing I know how to do, and that's that's pray. And I turned my back to him. I don't know why I've done that, but I turned my back to him. 00:42:38 Speaker 5: Sorry, And I begged. 00:42:45 Speaker 8: I got done on my knees and put my face to the ground and I begged and bleeded because I knew that's all all I could do for him. And we say, that's all I can do for him. That should be the first thing we go to But and I don't know how long. It seemed like forever, but probably wasn't. Just a man or two, and I heard him take a breath, deep breath, sucked their back in, and I turned around went to him, and it was just shadow breathing, but he was breathing. And right then I said, well, I know the one who can take breath, but he can also give breath back. Of course, it seemed like forever before the analyst got there, and I noticed he had blood under his head and they wouldn't let me move him forever. I told him, I said, he's bleeding outside of his head. I want to stick my hand then there, and they said, well, we'll we'll let you help us put him on this backboard and I run my hand underneath his head, and when I rolled him over, his ear wasn't completely off, but it was off enough it it stuck to my hand when I rolled him over kind of peeled off. But that was a rough day. But I'll never forget. 00:44:08 Speaker 3: After being in the hospital for an extended period of time, Ethan would live and would later even go back into logging. 00:44:17 Speaker 4: I appreciate Caylin telling that story. 00:44:21 Speaker 3: A man makes himself vulnerable when he says he's seen a man come back to life. Calin doesn't just believe that God answered the prayer and spared this man's life. 00:44:33 Speaker 4: He knows that he did. 00:44:34 Speaker 5: I believe God lets you live through things. 00:44:37 Speaker 8: Not to keep to yourself. I mean something like that. You have to you have to tell it, you have to share it, because if it wasn't for him, none of us would be here. And I've always said I don't know, I don't know how a man in our business could live without God. You know, a nonbeliever the day these days that even I still get scared, you know, been all my life. But I mean, if I didn't have God to depend on, I couldn't do it. It's just it's too dangerous. 00:45:31 Speaker 3: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. On the next episode, we'll meet Teddy Valais, one of the men who started all of this for Cody and Kaylin and I can tell you he's one of a kind. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share Bear Grease with a friend this week. We really appreciate you listening. Brent Lake and I thank you keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.