MeatEater, Inc. is an outdoor lifestyle company founded by renowned writer and TV personality Steven Rinella. Host of the Netflix show MeatEater and The MeatEater Podcast, Rinella has gained wide popularity with hunters and non-hunters alike through his passion for outdoor adventure and wild foods, as well as his strong commitment to conservation. Founded with the belief that a deeper understanding of the natural world enriches all of our lives, MeatEater, Inc. brings together leading influencers in the outdoor space to create premium content experiences and unique apparel and equipment. MeatEater, Inc. is based in Bozeman, MT.

Bear Grease

Ep. 69: Bear Grease [Render] - Possum Tattoos, The Bargain Barn, and Holt Collier

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On this week's episode of the Bear Grease [Render], Clay and the gang circle up to talk about the slave, soldier, and bearhunter, Holt Collier. But first: Brent gets sentimental with a good-luck charm that he carries with him everywhere. Misty clarifies her stance on tattoos. Isaac shows off his new boots. Gary extols the virtues of love above all else. Clay tells us about getting stuck in an apple tree wearing nothing but his Coon Light and a pair of drawers. And you're not going to want to miss special guest Jonathan Wilkins of Black Duck Revival, give us his perspective on the enigmatic Holt Collier.

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00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay and Nucleman. 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. Did Isaac get new boots? And what's happening to Brent's feet? Let's start with Isaac. I'm new boot. Those are those are different than the ones before? Wow, they've got some kind of metallic kind of looks like Allard Metallica. Well, I'll tell you what happened. I was at the Delta Waterfowl Expo and Little Rock and I straight surfed across the bathroom floor. There was a layer of moisture that I hope was from a recent mopping, but I doubt and just stop myself by banging my shins right into the jurnal because I had I had leather leather sole boots on, so I went for the hybrid ub So we'll see. Those are what we'd call rough out boots, you know that, Miss Nukem sir Okay, So there's two sides to leather. There's the smooth finish side and there's the rough out, so those would be rough out. Nice, nice, Isaac. Now let's talk about branch. What's happening. You don't know where your Crocs were. I was trying to figure out why you own them. Somebody gave them to me. Those are very popular, they say, hey, dude, hey, dude, dudes. I believe they are now owned by Crocs, so technically on brand for Brent Reeves. I don't know. They just they have a funny look with your your overall is They're not funny look funny funny to carry about other people a little more diplomatic. Okay, all right, I am wearing muddy rubber boots. Welcome to the bar, Gary surrender. This is uh, this is a fantastic day. Yeah, I'm kind of just looking around at the footwear. Yeah, Brent definitely wins the kind of preppy guy in the overall award. Yeah, with those, we gotta skip over our guests. But he's got a nice solid pair of Brogrand type brown boots. Misty's wearing her extra tough rubber boots, which is great. Isaac with his rough outs and Gary Nucomb with his Sportivas trail running shoes. Great to see everybody. We have a fantastic podcast aligned. I would like to introduce my father, Gary Newcome to my right and how you been great? Great? Great? Great, maybe even better than great. I hope you enjoyed this whole Call your podcasts and have some insight for us. Well, uh, I didn't. It was just a lot. To your right, Isaac Neil, assistant to the regional producer with the Burgers podcast. Glad you got to see me today. Good to see you, man, Isaac's Isaac tells me today that he's got an appointment for a new tattoo. You want to share with us what that tattoo is? Mrs gonna maybe give me a little bit of credit for it. Yeah, by all means, Mry's gonna love this too, because I had this and that there is some level of planning on this one. I had it. I had the idea yesterday morning during church and the tattoo artist, but I thought, I don't know what about church inspired it, but I just popped into my head. You know, I want to get a possum in raccoon, So I think I'm going to get a big possum and a raccoon on the backs of my list. Why but these are like the creatures that that are the worst. That's what raccoon they eat my chickens about it. This is a great example of how perspective informs someone like now, a raccoon to me is one of the greatest beasts in North America. Chickens. But that is why I like chickens, is because raccoons eat them. That's very interesting. I don't know if it's appropriate. Well, Clay's got a good possum story if he if he feels up to sharing it. Part two. I just because Isaac said, Missy's gonna love this. I want to make it clear I don't have a problem with Isaac getting tattoos. The thing that is really Misty's a principal, so she feels like she could well let talk. We stop saying that. But I think what makes me nervous is that Isaac gets tattoos sometimes without a lot of premeditation. And from my perspective, these are your fraid he's gonna run out of space. No, I'm concerned about These are lifelong commitments to your skin. And it's just like how can you make a decision like that that's so consequential. I think he is in Yeah, I think he woul come back to the possum story and I want to hear a little bit more about why the possum. But to your We're gonna skip over our guests as we do. Brent Reeves, great to see you, Hello, And then to your left is my friend Jonathan Wilkins. Jonathan, great to have you on the Burger Surrender. Thank you much. Tattoos. I've always loved some of Jonathan's tattoos. You gotta this, Yeah, let me see. Let me see. He's got a beautiful rooster tail. The fish is pretty. And then a picture of your mom. How cool is that? This dog with the mustache is pretty. Sport got a dog with a big mustache. Let me see the dog with a mustache, the picture of his mom. It looks like, Yeah, I saw that was when that he had that. That was like when the first ones I ever saw him. That's like twenty years old. Yeah, capture your mom and like, like, I mean, I assume she's aged in the last twenty years. Yeah, she was. She was not crazy about it at first, not because she was upset about the tattoo, but because she had last is on and she had gotten Lasik. But you know, now, this is what she looked like twenty years ago, so she's all about it. Just what do you think. I know that Lasik has developed a lot in the last few years. Do you think there's a potential for Lasik on tattoos? Do you think the tattoo can get late? Oh? Yeah, I think that's a ridiculous question. YEA, Well, I was just curious how much forethought Jonathan put into his tattoos, as as opposed to her friend Isaac, who sometimes just are you still in the tattoo market, Jonathan? Uh, yeah, I've got a few that I I plan on getting once my buddy opens up his new shop. Yeah, I think I've I've thought about all of them for a long time, and then I went I went seven years without getting one. I was shooting. I haven't gotten a tattoo and probably three years. Yeah, I'm cool with having weird tattoos. I just you just want to think about it. Yeah, And you know, I had some bad ideas when I was younger that I'm glad I didn't. I didn't go with Yeah, I try. I try to takes like a real win when like ten years later you're like, I'm glad I didn't do that. I mean, it feels like you can look back on your past self and be kind of like proud of how wise you were even in the midst of a bad decision. Maybe there's there's some conversation that we had about the tattoos you didn't get, and now how that's like a credit to pretty much the story of my life. It's just a constant tattoos didn't get. Do you have the tattoos? Be honest, I have one? Do you really sinking ship sunk? I guess we just got Yeah, and it was an undercover tattoo. Let me see it's Batman in the middle. Can you say, did you really get that while you were undercoverage? And it's Batman the symbol? Rent? So wow, Brent, Tattoos as good a friends as we are brand I'm I've never seen your arm up that, huh. I don't. I don't like showing the white parts of me anyway. You know. Anyway, when ride along Tattoosy Gary, you want to go with me on Friday? No, yeah, Matt, you could get a possum in a coon. Yeah, I'll get and you get the he's a black pantherom man. You know, when I was when I was young, we used to joke around about, you know, getting one tattoo, like in a place where no one else would ever see it in a few of my buddies did. But back then took tattoos. You know, people just didn't get them, like the real rebels got tattoos. I didn't know anybody with tattoos, so I guess I didn't know when he was in the service, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, I didn't go around looking at people did Houston tattoos? You know, the World War Two guys had uh anchors and mom and stuff when they came back. But Houston taston heads. My grandfather tattoo. I didn't know about it. Anybody was thinking tattoos. I wonder about their stability. Example three on three here, it's really new comes versus tattoos. Yeah, okay, let me well, okay, Isaac, why the possum and coon? I just like the idea of the miso predators getting some love. So you're okay with a tattoo that has that little meaning to it. What do you mean why do they have to have meaning? I mean, that's what I'm talking about. That's great, It's okay. I like a raccoon. I like, I like grammar could put some meaning on it this period in your life while you were you know. Yeah, for me, the tattoo will always mean that. At this point in my life, I was thinking about getting a possum and a raccoon tattooed on me to remember that. Yeah, I don't know. I like it feels verreos archy in to me. So here's the possum story told. I've told this twice this week, and it wasn't told it originally to be funny. It was literally told as a means to explain the people in my house and the man that was staying in our barn, why something happened that potentially they saw, and just to be just totally disclosing. It's not like we often have been just staying in our barn, Like, that's not a yeah, we didn't find him out. So the other night I hear I hear dogs barking, and I don't tolerate barking dogs, and so they wake me up, and I think they're gonna stop. Shortly, they don't stop. They continue bark, bark, barking. It's Jed and Tim, Tim the squirrel dog, Jed the coon dog. They bark so much that finally I get up and I'm angry. And usually I just lift the window in the bedroom and oh, you ought to hear me my dog scolden voice. It's scare a child. Often the dogs don't wake me up, but always the dog's colding does. Yeah. And so I wasn't I was so fired up. I wasn't even gonna just open the window. I was gonna go downstairs and go on the front porch and scold the dogs, you know, just like h and uh. But about halfway down the stairs, I realized they're not just joy barking. They're treeing something like. I'm like, they're looking at something. Wait, can we pause this real quick? I got a question? Can we do a how to video on how to scold the dog in the middle of the way to do it? That works? And a dog and an animal can read intent. So I've got another story about that too. Um. The so I walk outside and I think those dogs are treat and so I go from anger to a little bit of excitement. I wonder what's in the tree. So I walk out, and sure enough I see Jet and Tim just treeing on one of our apple trees. And I know that they're looking at something, and I'm like, what's in the tree. And I happened to be in my underwear and barefoot, and then we happen to have a guest. Yeah, so there's my buddy is staying over in the barn. So the window of the barn looks right over the apple orchard. Well, I've got my coon light on, and I walk out in the grass barefoot and my underwear and go and start circling this apple tree looking for what's in the tree. Just want a pause, so that everyone's got this coon hat, coon light. Yes, And so I look up in the tree and there's a possum about twelve foot up in the tree and the dogs are just looking at it, just tree in this possum. Well, I decide that the only way I'm gonna get rid of this possum. And you know, we possums were bad news on this farm, so I was gonna shake this possum ount. I'll just be honest with you, that's what I was gonna do. I shook the apple tree and nothing fell but apples. And so I think, man, if I can just crawl up this tree a little ways, I can grab that limb and I'll just I'll just shake that sucker down. And so there's a fork in the tree and I reach up and grabbed the tree and I go to climb in this apple tree. Now remember I'm in my underwear, and I have my Sunspot coon light, which are going to be for sale on the meat eatrew dot com soon. For real. You can get a coon light just like me and have best light in the world. I've got it on, and I go to climbing this apple tree barefoot. And I get like a way up in the top of this apple tree, and the possum just disappears into the stars, like I don't know where he goes. This isn't a big apple tree there. I once heard someone tell his story about how that they that like a slick tree, like when a dog trees and there's nothing in the tree that like the animal escaped into the stars and their dog was still their tree, and that's what happened. I get up to the top of the apple tree. I cannot find the possum. I don't know what happened to him. Well, so I decided that I've got to get down from the tree. And I don't have my contacts in and I'm barefoot. I don't know if you ever climbed apple tree barefoot, But my foot is crammed down and the crotch of this tree so deep that I can't get it out. And so I'm like hanging and I feel like I've got to like jump backwards just to land, and my foot is stuck in the crotch of this tree. And I think I'm gonna come out of back out of this tree backwards, and my foot is gonna stay in this tree and I'm gonna break my ankle in this apple tree. So basically I just have this big kerfuffle coming out of the tree, and uh. And I finally I feel like I'm like eight foot off the ground, and I finally just go I got I'm just gonna have to go up and then back and just like jump out. And when I go up and back and jump out, I was like six inches off the ground and then I kind of shined up towards where the window was where my but he was staying to see if he was watching me, and he wasn't. And then I just walked back in the house and the dogs were happy with that. They never saw the possum, didn't come down, but the dogs were just like, yeah, that's good enough. So you're telling me about this magic animal that can right off into the stars, and You're like, why would you get a tattoo of that creature? And I'm like, why wouldn't you get creatures? Yeah, awesome, Brent. I've got another story for you that I haven't told you. I had to leave my dogs out overnight this week. Well, I went on a coon hunt. Wasn't planning to go, didn't have everything charged up really great because I hadn't been in a while, and I plugged it in for the last hour before before dark, and I went out and I took fern jed and Hoot the pup hoot and um. We went and treat and a treat in a spot where I don't think they had the coon. I couldn't find the coon, but it was thick and bining and and so we made a big loop and came around on the other side of the property and the dogs, Ferns collar went dead. Jed didn't have a collar because I only have two collars right now, and who stayed with me? So Fern and Jed go off and Ferns collar dies, and I'm up at the foot of this mountain and I hear like, I can't hear the dogs. And finally I'd say that for like forty five minutes or an hour, I can't hear the dogs. And I walked back to the truck like half a mile and I can hear firm tread way back in there, but I don't have the collar is dead and U. And then when I walked towards her, when I got to the foot of the mountain, I couldn't hear her. And I can't course the dog because of a bad ear. So three different times I tried to walk to her and never could. Like I would just start walking to her and I would lose her, and then I'd come back like the way the truck set, you know, I could hear. And finally at two am, I just left and I left her tread. I could hear her treating I mean, like my you know, three quarters of a mile away. I could not find her. Came back at daylight and she wasn't there. And long story short, about ten o'clock they showed up at the farmer's house I was hunting on. So that's my story. I mean, if you were using the Leon Boyd technique, you would have never lost him. Stayed with them. Just take off sprint. Ye look like a fallen man. You just gotta make it a habit as soon as you get home. I don't care if it's nine o'clock at night or nine in the morning. As soon as you get the house, you got to put that stuff on the charge because I've been right there, will you. I know it. And the whole deal as you go to that dog to get out there because you she went and did what you wanted to do. Yeah, and you gotta go to her. We're gonna we're gonna talk about whole caller, but before we do, Brent. Brent pulled something out of his pocket today that shocked me. Brent, What do you have in your pocket? What do you carry in your pocket? And tell the story behind my whole all everything, or just this one maybe two? Well, I took two pocket knives and chapstick and a buckeye and this buck I've had since the first meeting you and I had, we went on top of the mountain on a bear hunt. We were we were side seating at that time, and there was a bunch of buck eyes up there, and I asked if you knew about guys being good luck for hunters, and you said no, you hadn't heard that story. Now that's not true, Gary, I blame you for that. Now that is an outright live I rejected, because we carried buck eyes our whole You're the one the top of that was a kid. That part of the story is not true. That that part may not have been true anyway, I said, the only way these can be good luck is if you one gives them to another that I wouldn't know. And you said, well here, so I handed you one, and you handed me one. And this is the one that you gave me. And I've carried it in my pocket every day where everywhere when I get it, if I leave the house with my breeches on, unlike you know the possible, I've got this bucket in my pocket uniform back when I wore a uniform from going to church whatever, I've always got that. So you were that undercover was before that one correct. But I had one day because my dad had given it to me, and I had we exchange my whole life back and forth, and then they would just absolutely turned to the dust. Impressive. And then you have a a quarter that your wife gave you. It's a dollar, Okay, it's one of those. Uh was that second? You will a dollar? And she said, you know, it would help me find my way back home always be if I'm in the woods, it would help me get home. So I care that my pocket too, Jonathan. Would you have the wherewithal to keep up with something for like ten years a buckeye? I wouldn't. I probably not. So if I had given you a buckeye ten years ago, you'd probably lost it through. Yeah, I'm not as romantic as nude. I've got a pretty good buckeye story. So we Clay wanted to plant all native plants out here when we first moved out here, so we planned some buckeyes, and the girls were really fascinated. If you've ever seen how a buckeye girls, it's pretty interesting. Right now, They're all spiky and then they fall down and we would just our girls. Even River came home last fall and she just like instinctively just started collecting them all and put them in a vase in our our living room. They just always would carry them around. River was a real funny girl. We would go places and Willow would always be focused on getting getting the job done, getting from point A to point B. River. You would turn around and she would be about a mile behind us, just picking things up, seeing all sorts of things that we missed along the way, and putting them in her pockets. So every time I did her laundry, I had an empty out, you know, two pounds worth of interesting things. Well, she was real fascinated with those buck eyes and she would keep them in her pockets. And you know, I don't know why people do this, but I get, uh, real testy around people who narrate the potential doom that could come that's really unlikely, but could happen. And someone said, as we were putting River in the car, hey, don't let her swallow that it's poisons. And this is a bucket on the size of like half the size of a golf ball. May not it's not really a swallow, it's not. Yeah, But I was a young mom, and I was like, why would you even put that thought in my head, and the River was real little, and we we put her in the car and we drove off and we were going to meet. Clay was actually behind me. We had two cars and we were meeting meeting somewhere, and I had River in the car. I had my mom in the car. I had Willow in the car. We're driving and Rivers just playing. Every time I look back there, she's just playing with this buck eye. And once I look back there and she doesn't have the buckeye, and I said, hey, where's your buckeye? And she looked and she she got this likely yeah. And River talked real funny. She had some things going on with their adenoids, so she had a real deep voice, and she just got really like scared looking, and she looked at me and she said, I's wallowed it. And I was like, no, it is hollowing, and she said, I swallowed it. Mama did. And all of a sudden she started like pay nicking in the car. And of course my mom and I are looking at each other, and I called Clay. He was behind us. They have just wallowed a buck eye. Are they really poisoned us? I mean, should I go straight to the e R or do we have some time here? I didn't know like all that. So we pull over and Clay walks over there and we sit what river up and everybody's looking in her mouth and looking and we set her up. We set her up and boom in her car seat is a big old buckeye and she had just lost track of it and remembered that we have been so she wasn't lying. She just thought like she was like, I've mapped it out, have swallowed it, and she looked at oh there, it is the same thing. If you swallowed it too fast, you forget it. No, it'll be in your chair when you stand. Uh. Hey, we have just a few more housekeeping things to do here. On the last Bargrease Render, I I put my mule up for sale. And when I did this, I thought this was a great idea to sell stuff on the Beargrease Render podcast. And so we're actually starting an official Beargrease bargain barn section of the Bargrease Surrender. And if and this is for real, if you have something for sale now, we're not guaranteeing that everybody that writes in is gonna is gonna get their item put up for sale. We need premium items. Okay, well that'll be the first one. UM. But so basically we're every every week we're gonna have the Beargrease bargain barn where we're gonna we're gonna sell about three items and you can email your item to bear Grease at the eater dot com. And I will not be monitoring this email address, but someone will. And it's got to be for real because we're gonna put your your you have to have a social media handle because that we don't want to put a phone number or an email. We're not gonna be playing matchmaker. That's right. We're just we're putting it out there. This is what's for sale. We're not involved in the sale. We're not involved with money. Would take zero liability for uh, for anything that could possibly go wrong with this um and but we're looking for for real stuff that needs to be sold that you think would be a big fuit. Listeners, what do you think you think it's gonna work? Uh, you know, I guess it could work. Like what if you had a duck boat that you needed sold and you could get it in front of a bunch of bargeras podcast listeners or some eagle feat pot belly stone. One of those would be illegal. I mean you've got ah, you've got a great listenership, so I'm sure that you could. You can make a few shekels. Well, I mean it's not we're not making money. It's not. It's not about saying taking a Oh you think we're gonna move into like taking a cut. Well, I mean, how hard is it to start an Instagram account? You know someone named Blay Buchum that was selling raccoon vacuums. There you go, there you go. Okay, okay, well this is you're you're saying, this is a way of fencing his ill gotten gain. Well maybe not ill gotten. I don't. I don't think he's poaching coons, but okay, I think there could be an illst of trade. And li we finally get those all bladders, we get stuck about this, No, no I have. So this is for real. It's gonna be called the Burgery's Bargain Barn, and there will be a short segment on the burgery Strender And so you can email what you have for sale to bear grease at the meat eat dot com. And we're not we can't read everybody stuff stuff, but stuff that we feel is appropriate, and you know, tell us what it is, give us, give us the whole sales pitch, and be ready for some people to come knocking on your door. One of the things we'd like to see is in the subject line and the email bear grease, bargain barn b G b B something like that, and then really sell us on it. Yeah. Yeah, it needs it needs to be a good ad. We need some effort. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna facilitate a sale. Make it entertaining. Yeah, like, let me just put it out here. Broken clothes dryer, we're putting that up probably not. No pontoon boat turned into a tiki bar. Interesting, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good example. Would fired cook stove, old gas tiller for the garden? Yeah? How much we send that for? I don't know. We're getting going out. So yeah, we just we just kind of want to facilitate some stuff because because I put my mule up for sale the other day and I had a few, a few bites, a few nimbles, um, but I'm actually slandered the mule a lot. I didn't slander the mule. That's why I can never be a mule trader because I'm I'm I'm too honest, ms nukem. It's it's hard to sell a mule if you tell the truth every time. It's real hard. And so that's the reason I've decided to keep Banjo. And um, I've got a guy, my friend Michael Lanier, uh, my Scurel hunting mentor and uh he was on Meat Eater Season ten. I think with Steve Rinella and me and we Scurore hunted and uh, Michael has found me uh a guy here in Arkansas that well keep him for thirty days and basically ride him. So that's a thing you do if you have a mule, Jonathan, you could pay someone. It's not it's that he's not training the mule because the mule has been trained to some degree. It's not like sending your kid boarding, right and so but what most guys that listen, it's actually a pretty good business model. And if things don't work out for me and outdoor media, I would consider doing this. Um is uh you charge like, I'll just tell you that this guy is going to charge six fifty dollars to ride that mule for thirty days and do the math. If you had even let's say seven or eight mules for a month and your own and you were getting paid six and forty bucks, you know, that's several thousand dollars of income per month and all you would have to do, and you don't write it every day. You write it like five days a week, so they'll guarantee you, you you know, they're gonna ride the mule like four times or something for like thirty minutes segments, not like they're gonna write it all eight They're just gonna saddle the animal, work the animal ride it unsaddled. So if you woke up every day and you had the ride eight mules, I mean an hour a mule would be eight hours is a good, honest mule man's work day of work. You know. So I have backup plans for my career. I think that you could really kick start your backup career by just going and writing people's mules and then invoicing them on the back end. Don't wait for them to send you a mule. Just find a pasture with a mule in itop on it, send him abil at the end of the month. That's a good idea, Yeah, that's the mule story, that's the bear grease bargain barn story. Uh, we've covered We've We've covered a lot. Jonathan Black Duck Revival Jonathan is Black Duck Revival on on Instagram and your business. Tell me about your Jonathan is Black Dunck Revival. Is that not a good way to kind of it's kind of sound like you said, Jonathan's Black Duck Revival. But that's that's funny. I don't know if I started did you just kind of you were slow and getting it out, and so I was like, what's saying remaining honest, Well, tell me about tell me about your waterfowl outfit. Huh oh it's ah and the classes and what you do. Yeah, yeah, I told the story. It feels so many times lately. So some years ago I bought an old church in a town called Brinkley, Arkansas, over and the the opposite side of the state and the Delta and referbed it, turned it into a lodge and then I started doing these. Uh it's kind of curated hunt experiences where folks come out, we go hunting for a couple of days. Do small groups like cat the hunts at five people um. And then we spent a couple of days hunting and just going into depth about like whole bird processing. We look at like wax plucking, dry plucking, mechanically plucking birds. We do cooking classes and demos. You know, I'm real big on like whole bird usage. So that's you know, cooking the innards and using the feet and all that kind of stuff. Uh. And you know it's got a bunch of like Southern heritage stuff wrapped into it. So yeah, I've got I've got a handful of spots left for this season on that. So it's during duck season and goose season. You have people come in and you host them at your lodge. You feed them, and you take them duck hunting and goose hunt, and then and then you teach them how to handle the ducks, handle the geese, cook them. And I mean it's like a it's it's a it's a class, an immersive experience call it. Uh yeah. Would you would you be upset with me if I basically copied your model for coon and squirrel hunting? Go for it, man squirreled what we call it, uh gray squirrel revival. I don't know you'd have to. You'd have to, you know, secure large blocks of private land because you can't guide for that stuff on public land in Arkansas. What about you could can't. You can't guide for squirrel hunting in Arkansas on public land. It's a fish only on public land really, So there's no public land guiding in Arkansas as far as I understand it. Yeah, I've just never thought because no one guides for squirrel. Yeah, I mean, for a long time, you could do it. Uh, you do it for ducks, but they shout. I thought I thought they shut it down just for ducks because of the pressure that waterfowl areas have from outfitters and stuff. Yeah, I mean, I I I'm not saying I know that. I'm just saying I did not know, because I actually had if the if if the outdoor media thing didn't work and then the mule training thing didn't work, that was option three? What about what about flashy mule revival and then you train mule skinners. Man, I'm probably not that good. You don't have to be that good. You just have to get good. God, get him in, get him out. Part of Jonathan's I think part of the draw that's missing with a gray squirrel. It's just how how beautiful it is. When the videos you've gone and bear it's really a beautiful, neat place. And when you see the birds flying above you. I mean that was that was kind of amazing, just a really amazing, amazing experience too. It was I have to comments. One is Gary, just ra give me the six D fifty bucks and just keep your mule out here because it ain't gonna work, okay. Number two, Oh you don't you don't think it's that's a con job. Yeah, your buddies turned on you all right now. And on Jonathan, didn't you do a podcast on him under Bear Hunting Magazine. I'm gonna tell you, Jonathan, You're my hero. Oh. I was so impressed. If you have not heard that podcast, go back and find it. That was my favorite podcast ever. And I told Clay, I said, that guy right there is this thinking real deal and I love him. And I'm telling you, I was so impressed. We were at a family reunion, you remember, and I go, man, you guys gotta find this podcast and and you know, you explained some stuff that I've never heard before that made the world so much clearer for me and I just want to say that you going home brother. Thanks, uh, sorry to disappoint you can find out I'm a tattooed Carny. That's where you looked around at the world today. And if what I said is true, it's we're in big trouble because everybody. Yeah no, yeah, Jonathan and I did a podcast a couple of years ago. Yeah, on the front Porch. Yeah, yeah, no, we just we basically just talked about race issues. I don't know how we describe it. I don't remember what we talked about. The books, Giltner's book, Hunting and Fishing in the New South, that was what it was, but it kind of it it. We talked about how, um, well the book. You turned me onto it and I read it and it was a great book. And we actually interviewed Scott Guiltner, who is most likely going to be on some of the later episodes. Isaac reviewed him. Um, but yeah, that was a great podcast. We've got a lot of good feedback from it. Isn't that we found out about Collier Well in the book, Yeah, yeah, Scott's book, that's right. In Scott's book, he he had just like a little small section about Holt Collier was in Scott's book, Yeah, for sure. I also listened to that episode driving to interview Scott, and I was like, I should do a little bit of research, right because it was kind of a last minute thing. You're like, hey, can you drive up and interview him tomorrow? Yeah. So I'm on the way there four and a half hour, so it's like google whatever, Scott Giltner, interview whatever, and then it just comes up with you two. And I was like, for serendipity number one hit. I listen to that. It was awesome. M hm cool. Well, um, so we've if we thoroughly introduced Jonathan enough talked about his what he does. You're you're also a writer and an ambassador for some brands and the hunting Yeah yeah, you posess named you possess a fan that I'm envious of. Yeah, I got the van. I'm trying to spend as much time as possible in that thing. Nice. I gotta stop making babies if I'm gonna do that. Yeah yeah, yeah, married family man. I got two little girls and I got a boy coming in the middle of a duck season right on timing. Oh that's the way it goes circle. Well, great. Well, okay, let's talk about let's talk about whole car er um this. So this podcast has been the works for a long time. Yeah, I mean I talked to you about this a year and a half ago, did not, didn't We talked sometime ago? Yeah, yeah, And and it's just it's like it's been in the docket, and you know, kind of how this stuff rolls out is sometimes opportunistic, sometimes strategic. Um. And it just like came up in the rolodex, the Bear Grease Rolodex, like Holk Collier. It's time. And so I was. I contacted Jonathan, I contacted minor Ferris Buchanan. I love his name, like I wanted to say it over and over, Um, how do you spell the minor? Am I in music? In my in r I've got questions about his name. But Minor first Buchanan, I like him a lot. Uh and then Hank Burdon, So Jonathan, Hank and Minor where the where the guests? And uh? Yeah, So like what was your what was your thoughts? Yeah? I I it was such a good podcast. We were I was actually driving with our oldest daughter across across the US, across the east coast trying to get her moved, and we were listening to it and and I mean it was just like every break, I was sad that there was a break we kept. Yeah, it was. It was so intriguing. And I've heard a lot about it, just as you've. But I think what I've heard mostly has been about what the next podcast will be, you know, the next two, because you never talked about the things that we've Oh. Yeah, yeah, this was just the first twenty years of his life. Yeah, this is yeah, so I but I thought it was so it was so interesting. Just his whole life was just fascinating. What was what was most interesting? Well, I mean I just think it was fascinating just thinking about the time that he lived, like the era that he existed on this earth and how how you know, who we became inside of that and uh, and I just I thought it was super interesting. Oddly, I thought it was also super interesting how minor fairs became in the pathway to write in this book. That was super random in my opinion. Um, but that but it was just it was just really fascinating. The whole just his whole life story was just so not you'd expect. Yeah, Dad, what do you think? I thought it was very good. Uh, just a lot of a lot of thoughts. Um, let me ask this question. If he was white with basically the same story tied in with the Hinz fourteen years old went in the Civil War, I mean, would the story be any different? I mean it would be. You don't know that you would have paid attention to it had he been a white boy. Sure. So what's made this interesting to most people is that he was a black guy. So why was he so special? And? Uh, I think he revealed a lot of it. The depth of it was just amazing. It was almost as good as Jonathan's podcast. You know, it just reveals things where I don't know. Um M, it's it's just a subject that I think educated a lot of people. You know that, um on this on this one, this podcast just tells you, uh that there's just great people everywhere, and this guy was one of them. And he was exceptional. I think because of his d n A in the environment he was in just pulled everything together where he was a powerful person and and he couldn't help it. I mean, he was a magnet wherever he was. When he walked in the room, I mean, you go, like, here's this little scrimpy guy. But I mean he just captivated everybody, and so racism almost was not even in the subject. I mean in a way. I mean it was big racism, but it was like, Hey, we like this guy because who he is. We don't care what color he is. We want him to ride into cavalry. We want him to guide and bear hunt, we want you know, we want all this stuff because he's just thinking winner and I want to be a little bit of it. I mean, that's what that's what you feel like you see because everywhere he goes, he's people are singling him out and just just he was and and and that. That's what I said inside of this is that, you know, I didn't. I didn't And I said this to Jonathan, I said it to everybody. I didn't want to turn this into a podcast just about race. I wanted to celebrate this guy's life. But I think we owe it to Holt to look at it because that was the back, that was the that was the hedge of mom, that was the dominating thing of his life, was that he was a black guy in the South doing stuff that at the time, you know, just wasn't normal at all. And and but he he made it it's like almost like he from the story, from the version of the stories we have, like he made it kind of look easy. And that's what Jonathan did so well, was to say, yeah, this stories, you know, pretty easy to tell. But it was whole lived a very complicated life and it was it was wild time. And you know, I thought Jonathan did a good job of bringing in just like, hey, this story is not probably as simple as it sounds. You know, um, let me ask you this is I feel like you said in this podcast that he had killed three thousand bears by what age. Well, just in his life and his life that is wild, right, I mean that's exceptional. I mean I know, it's like a whole different time period combined. Yeah, so that's exceptional. And yeah, that's because I think I think you might have actually heard the whole call your story if even if he wouldn't have been in the in the context that he was in. But I especially thinking about what is about to happen in the next I'm like, foreshead and you can tell we've already told everything that's gonna happen. What are you talking about? Roosevelt. Yeah, yeah, him hunting with with Teddy Roosevelt and then like a global icon and just having killed three thousand bears. I mean that's when you said that, I thought that can't be, that cannot be true. Yeah, but it is true. Yeah. I mean, so, so what you'll learn, well maybe maybe we've already talked a lot about that, but he he basically had a log where he had logged bears, and these market hunters kept records, not like we keep records today kind of as we hunt. They kept records like financial records. It's like taxes, you know. And so he had a he had a log I think when he was at some latter part of his life but not finished bear hunting, where he'd killed twenty one bears, and a house burned down and destroyed that log. But basically, uh, they really believe that he killed three thousand bears in his I mean that wouldn't be It's not unheard of from the market hunting the peak of the market hunting era, but at the at the at the peak, no, I I can't. I mean, I'm just saying it's not There's people that have done that, but very few, and I mean Boone the thing. I think Johnah was the one who said it to me, maybe not on the air, but like Boone did some market bear hunting, But Boone didn't bear hunt for thirty years market He market hunting for periods of his life. And there was a year when he killed the hundred and fifty five bears on the on the Little Sandy River in Kentucky and that was you know, if he had done that for thirty years, he would have had his you know, more than that. But like you know, he had a long Holt had a long and illustrious career as a market bear hunter in a good part of the world to be market bear hunting. Jonathan, what do you think overall podcast? How did how did it come off? Yeah? Man, I thought I told you on the phone man, I thought I thought it was well done. I was happy to be a part of it. Yeah, I mean, I do think that, you know, part of what's so compelling about the guy is that it's I feel like his story is so extraordinarily multifaceted that putting, you know, putting any sort of kind of parameters on him, or trying to quantify our understanding of his motivations or everything he was doing is we're never going to get the full picture of it, right uh. And And like I said, we've talked about on on the phone, because we've talked about this a couple of times on the phone the last few weeks, I think that we would know about I think that his story would be worth telling if he wasn't black, because I think that he did so many extraordinary things, right Uh. I think I mean, like we talked about before, like every ten years of this guy's life, there's some fantastic story, right Uh. And I do think that the relationships he had with the people around him are part of what's extraordinary about him. Uh. But I'm gonna I'm gonna actually disagree a little bit with you here, Gary and say that I don't think that I don't think that it was I don't think it could fully get that because of the time. I don't think that, you know, him being black could ever be inconsequential to the way he interacted with people. Something I really thought about when I was listening back to that podcast was if you think about you know, the two guys are possibly three, but like the two guys that we know he killed, I think that if I think that if he had killed Southern men of standing, I don't think he would have been acquitted. I think that I think it's the people that he took out, right, I mean, like especially if you think about, uh, if you think about the Freedman's Bureau guy, right, like, I mean that was a that was the union guy. He was in the community would have liked. Yeah, I mean absolutely detested. I mean even to the point that if you if you listen to that podcast, uh, Hankberg Dyne used the word carpetbagger, right, which is a pejorative, right, It's a pejoraty of were here here in the South still sometimes, but that's a holdover from you know, a hundred and sixty years ago. Right. So I think that undoubtedly he was an extraordinary and exceptional outline human being. Uh and and we talked about it too. I think that he I'd be It'd be hard for me to think that he didn't have close relationships with some of these people, uh, you know, some of these kind of wartime relationships, like people in a foxhole type thing. But I also think that he was really adept And I know you've got you've got schooled a little bit on mezzanine. Just I'll just make I'll make the U. I'll make the admission that I said adapt in that podcast when I should have said a depth. But I think he was really talking a lot. You're gonna mess something up, absolutely, But I think he was really adept at negotiating his life, you know, and in finding ways to be useful to the people around him that endeared himself to them. Uh. But yeah, I think that if he had I think that if he had just got if he had gotten in a fight with Hines like old Hines and shot him, I think his story would have ended very soon after that, you know. But uh so I think so. I think that it's uh, like I said, man, it's so many different layers to it that it's such a rich story. And that's the thing too, that makes a story worth tell, right, is it's not just an adventure tale. I mean, this is a this is a story that's like full of adventure, full of heroism, incredibly long, like these interactions I'm almost like forced Gump, like running into all these different historical figures and stuff. Right, But then when we start to really try and investigate the nuance of it, and you know, and and put the real human perspective into it. Uh, it almost reaches like a point of being hard to believe. Yeah, for sure, man. Yeah, it's uh well, Hank burd Eye said it in the beginning, he said, he said, it's a story that you almost think couldn't have happened, but it did. And that's why it's such a great story, is is he he had so many things that happened, but this the you know where he was and who he was in this underlying thing was just so intriguing. It's kind of wild that we all don't know Holtz name. Now they know his name down there in in uh, Jefferson County, Mississippi, And we're gonna unveil not that it's a secret, it's not a secret at all. But there's a federal wildlife refuge named after Holt Collier. Yeah, the only one in the country that's named after an African American. H Yeah. And so we're gonna talk about that at a big festival. There's a festival uh in October, I think that towards the end of October that they have every year down there. Yeah, and you know that's that's a uh that's probably something that happens with lots of people, right like the cloistered community around where some activity or some person was, they know about it, but you know, the broader country or world doesn't find out about it. But now we've got the the internets. So yeah, he was. He was heading shoulders above everybody almost. I mean, his d NA, his makeup, His little ten year old guy gets the attention of the owner, you know, hines and he goes, wait a minute, this guy, this little kid something special. I mean he's he can't help it, man, this guy's just thinking genius. I mean he might not have the IQ of a genie, but he's he attracts people, he can do stuff, He makes things happen, even as a little kid. They're going, what look at this little guy? So he is he is one in a big number of people that can do what he did. And because he was black, it makes the story really interesting to me. Uh, I mean he is. I mean, you know I've been around people like that. You know, you walk in a room with a professional athlete and you just wonder. I mean, he must come from a different planet. I mean, he's a different species. You know that they're big, strong, powerful, most of them smart, and you're like, you know, just cow down. I can't wait for him to leave the room. Man, this guy's and that's that's kind of the way this guy was. I mean he he might have been a little guy, might have had a quiet voice, but he was a powerful man, very powerful and um anyway, I love this guy. There was definitely something throughout his entire life that was evocative for other people, right. Uh. I would say though, too, that what I've been struck by is that if I think, if you really look at it and you go back to like when he was a little kid, and he's kind of starting his market hunting, right, because that's really kind of like a form of market hunting, right, he was hunting for the plantation. I think one of the things that allow out him to really explore the extraordinary DNA as you're referring to it, uh, was that I think he was really I think he was really nuanced and really kind of hip to the fact that he made himself useful to the people around, right, and so, and that allowed him to avail himself two opportunities that other people of his station would not have. So uh, you know kind of to me. I guess if there's a sad part about his life is that I don't I don't know that he ever fully got to realize his potential for uh for just himself, right, Like he had to be dexterous enough to always make it make the society around him like need him or want him. But I mean that's you know it like if you ever seen Game of Thrones or something, I mean that's like, uh, that's that's I mean, that's like a political game. Like you know, this guy I think had the had the dexterity of a politician coupled with the fact that he was his consummate outdoorsman. Right. They had to be incredibly tough, Uh, he had to be incredibly nuanced and all these things he did and then still be able to to circumvent the the norms of the time to where I think kind of undoubtedly he had close relationships with people, uh that you might not expect him to write. You know, it was natural though. He didn't have to go in and go, look, I can see this game we're playing, and if I get to be valuable, then I'm gonna win this game. I think it was not he wanted. I mean, he was just like that was part of this thing that made him great is that, you know, he he just that was not trull and it just you can portray it is having the political savvy to do all this stuff. But I think I think the guy was born with this stuff and that environment he was in accelerated it and magnified it, where he was just a powerful person by natural gift is the way I see it, more than a calculated thing. Now, he was smart enough to have calculated it and done a lot of great stuff. But I'm not sure you can a ten year old can be smart enough to go, man if I can kill them a bunch of bear, you know. I mean he wanted, he wanted to be helpful. He wanted and it just ended up being a great asset. That's probably the way. I mean a lot of us are and a lot of different scenarios too, you know, just like find find how to in the context you're in useful valuable. I think part of the endearing nature of the story is the loyalty aspect of it. That his loyalty to the different people inside of his life, even like going he heard that doesn't even remember the guy's name, the the union officer, what was his name, Well, the guy the guy killed allegedly allegedly he went after Captain Well allegedly went after Captain King. I'm not glad I think he did it. Is that sugarcane for me? Just like that anyway, So I think, like, you've got these stories, but then you also have a lot of different people being loyal back to him the Texas night, sitting out there waiting on him for during the court trial, and you see those stories, and so I think that the when I was listening to it, the thing that that struck me was just this theme of of loyalty, irrational, not common for that time, type of of loyalty coming in all different everybody gave back to him, like every relationship you see that loyalty coming back to him, which is unusual. Undoubtedly, Yeah, I think there's an element of what you guys are talking about. I don't think that there mutually exclusive this idea that like he was born with an uncanny gift. But also like when I think of a young kid, like uh, like an abuse survivor or whatever, do you see how that molds their behavior as soon as like, oh, I've connected that X and Y equals Z, so if I do this, I can whatever. I don't think that everyone thrives in that scenario, So I think that there is a natural gift there, but I think that there is probably some also learned and calculated responses. I think what's really interesting about that is, um, going back to an earlier podcast, luck or providence or whatever, he has some really huge strokes of luck. Right. I'm not here to paint Hines as a as a empirically good man or a bad man or whatever. He was a slave owner, but he got pretty lucky to get a guy who could Um, it wasn't altruism that he uh directed towards Holt, but to have an owner that might be open minded enough to say, like I, it's I I struggle for the semantics here, because there's certainly could have been other alternatives for an owner to the way they treated their people. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not trying to say like that he was doing something empirically good by being less bad to hold than another owner. That's the language struggle that I'm having there. But like he was fortunate to have that, he was fortunate to when he ran away to join him, like to have found his master, Like the story of him getting off, like stowing away on a boat and then getting off. Where were they in Memphis? Is that where they were mustering? Uh? I just remember the story of him like and then he showed up, And it's like if I showed up in a big city, like the odds of finding one person in that huge city. Maybe there was more to that story that I missed, but there were like these moments of serendipity that followed him around. I think it gets back at the idea of this like you can't remove any one leg of this table, Like he's an uncommonly gifted guy, He's has uncommon experiences. He you know, the fact that he's black, and that changes that paradigm. Like, I don't know it you're making, man, You're making some really astute points, and I think I think, I think what you said was well said, man, is that none of this stuff is mutually exclusive. Like I guess I feel a certain responsibility to push back against uh kind of a disneyfication of his life. But I think everything that folks are are picking up about this guy's is there, which is why he's so fascinating because he's extraordinary. You're right, he lived through extraordinary times. Extraordinary Uh you know, what do you call luck or providence or whatever? Uh. I think he's super savvy. I think that you know, he made the most of kind of extraordinary situations he found himself in. Uh. Yeah, it's it really is. The more I think about it, the more I look into it, the more I work, you know, on research about this guy, it's and I don't think this is an overstatement. I really feel like it's one of the greatest American stories I've ever heard. He is an absolute Shannon example of perseverance if there ever was one, and taking it I don't even know if taking it you could accuse him of taking advantage of anything because of where he lived and when he lived, but what he built out of that we're talking about him today. How long has that been? A hundred sixty years ago? How many people were in the Civil War, It was like up to ten thousand. I think that black people, African Americans have served on the Confederate side, and we're talking about this one guy. And this guy did a lot of good stuff. You know, it was in some really unique places. Perseverance is what I took from it. I can't wait for the next What was your favorite part? What was your favorite halt story in this one? Yeah, we can't go around favorite halt story. You don't have to retell it necessarily, But was there one that stood out to you? Yeah, shooting that cat if, the alleged shooting of the of Captain King. You know, I mean, that's being in law enforcement and having somebody wait a minute, you're here. Here's the thing. As long as it's not a turkey break, having having your fellas with you and you get in a tight spot and somebody's got your back. There's a lot to be said for that, you know. I mean you multiply that by time's ten the situation he was in. Yeah, but well, and I haven't I just told the third time that he like on the next on podcast too, we're gonna talk about the other guy he's straight up killed. I told about the guy he shot and wounded, and told about Captain King, and we just like ran out of time. So the beginning of podcast three is the dude that he's straight up killed, and you'll see that maybe it was his fault, maybe it wasn't. I'm gonna leave it there so self. So you liked the idea that Holt was kind of I mean, we presume he there was some some something of loyalty regardless where it's favorite story, Jonathan in this podcast. You gotta keep it to this one. I love the idea of him being this little kid, you know, and just the thick palmetto swamps and he goes out there with some gun you know that I imagine is as tall as he is, and coming back with a bear yeah, the long gun. Yeah yeah, I mean I'm sure they didn't. I'm sure they didn't give him, you know, the best gun of the time. Right, So he's got some rough weapon and he just goes out there and he makes it happen. I just and also that's kind of that's like kind of the beginning of the spark of this extraordinary life, right Yeah, I agree. You can see that those formative experiences. Um gosh, I like so many of them. Uh. I like that he wore his hat the same way his whole life. I really I don't know why, but that was like the ninth ninth Texas Calvery No film Cavilry for for mispronouncing words recently real Hard. The Whole Life reminds me of back to the last podcast, Leon Boyd wearing the letterman jacket his whole life. Yeah, I love that kind of stuff, the whole the whole war, a Confederate hat with a bill flipped up, and that there's all those pictures of him as an old man with that. Yeah, I don't know. It just really like that I did. When I heard it. I was like that, I love it, not just that he had this thing from his his youth that it was like, this is this is where I fit from that. It seems like the keV. I can't even say it on you did a great job, Favorite Favorite party. They were gone a little bit out of left field. But I'm gonna try to explain it, the story of him like the kids wanting to hear stories from him and being like it, go get me an orange and the high and a plug of tobacco. First of all, I don't partake in either of those, but I want to start now those on the same moral plane with you. I just don't hot take. I think that soda might be worse for you than tobacco. I'm saying it I'm saying it, Surgeon General, come fight me, um, but check this out. I love it because I think this gets back to something that is maybe a little bit of what you're talking about. But uh, and I'm pointing at Gary Um this idea of his in dwelling like innate understanding of his value, like identity is one of the biggest struggles for people, and if you know your identity and your value, it is going to determine a lot of how your life goes. And for him to be like an old man and be like, I got something you want, You got something I want. Go get your pennies together, get me an Ortsota and a plug of tobacco, and I will give you everything you want. And I don't know, I just love that it's not um, it is not what we would necessarily expect or whatever. Yeah, I don't know. It's just like such an endearing like yeah that squeers in that story. Of all the stories that Minor Ferris Buchanan told, it felt like he was most proud of that one because that wasn't written in an article, that wasn't written down somewhere in some place on the internet, like he he searched that one out when he met this guy from that had moved to Los Angeles, which was interesting of itself too. This guy had moved to Los Angeles, lived his whole life, was an old man out there and was coming back to Greenville, and that's where Minor met the guy. And it's it's kind of whole seems so far back there, like when you think of someone when the Civil War, and to think that Minor Ferris Buchanan, this guy, I don't know, miners probably in his sixties, talk to a guy that new Holt Collier that's set on his porch in Greenville in the nineteen thirties, and the Holt was cracking knee high SODA's. I mean, I guess that glass bottles back then wouldn't have been an a limited bottle, right, um it you know, it just it just it's just like, wow, this really wasn't that long ago. And then when you realize that, you can say, wow, it wasn't that long ago that you know, heck, all this wild stuff was happening in this country. But that's a great story. That was a favorite story of mine too. Do we go further in depth to the Teddy Roosevelt Teddy Bear Story in future episodes. You're the assistant producer of this podcast, shouldn't you know that? Of course we do. Okay, I'll hold my next question. Now we go into a lot of detail in okay, I didn't want to like if if storytelling, we're up to me and just like everyone, Like, if y'all are all in my living room and I was telling the whole Collar story, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have told the punchline at the very beginning. But the bad thing about podcasts and people listening that don't have to listen to you, that's the reason I like Missing so much, is she has to listen to me because you talk over the top. She's listening to you, like, I'm like, Missy, look at me, and yeah, let me tell your story. And I would drop the punch line at the very end. I would tell all this stuff about whole caller and then I'd go and then he got it, Teddy Roosevelt. But the way you have to do it this because Steve Ronnella gave me some great advice early in Bear Grease, as he said, don't bury the hook too deep. He really did. Don't bury the hook too deep. So you kind of have to tell people what you're gonna tell them early. So later we will talk more about the Teddy Bear dad favorite favorite, whole Car story, favorite story. You know, I did not like the knee high chewing the back of story, But because I have so much respect for this guy, I'm thinking he was trying to teach these kids a lesson, or he just wanted he had plenty of money. Why what what didn't he f you in the back up? Well, you're gonna learn a lot about Whole Caller in the next couple of episodes. I was disappointed in that. Okay, all right, Well, you know you can tell from what I said. You know, my appreciation has a lot of depth to it. And the depth is he pulled all that and it might be contrary to what Jonathan thinks, which I respect his view more than mine. But those people loved him. I mean, I'm telling you, the Hynds loved this kid. I mean they went to they went to shootout with him. I mean they got out and said, hey, you won't let the kid ride with this buggy, let's duke it out. And that truth. I mean, he said, I think so much of this kid. Come on, he's riding, I'm gonna whoop you, Fanny. Then when he shoots that guy, I mean he was protecting Hines, wasn't he. So? I mean this love was like father son almost. I mean, he loved this kid, and this kid loved everybody. He loved his Cavalry people, the Calvary people loved him. I mean, I'm telling you this guy was so deep and complicated in it all came natural. I mean, this guy, once you say he's a criminal, it's kind of shooting a hole in my stuff. But I think you know, he was smart enough to plot some of this stuff out. But his six buddies didn't come up there. Oh yeah, you know they come up there for any other reason. They loved this guy. And see and and I'll speak for Jonathan and I have talked a lot. I that's why this story is so complex and interesting because basically, and we don't even have to get into this, but I hear what you're saying. But what Jonathan, I think so skillfully did and there's no solution. It's not like he's right, you're wrong. Jonathan introduced the word to me. Binary. There's not it's not black or white, but like, how can how you know it's really I don't even necessarily we we kind of got to close it down to some degree. But you can say he loved him, but he also enslaved the guy. You know, Jonathan, this this this deal is black and white. To me. You gotta stringly gifted kid that loves people and wants to help people, and people go, look at this kid, man, I love him and I want to help him. And and so, I mean wherever he went, people were on his side. He was on their side. And I mean he is on the wrong side of the war. And you know why, because he loved those people around him. He didn't he didn't go, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna evaluate this now. I'm thinking I need to be on the Union side. He didn't do that. He goes, Man, people, I love you. You've taken care of me. I'm gonna take care of you. Let's go to battle. Give me my m sixteen. We're going. Yeah. You know to me, it's that simple. Yeah, gifted, loving guy. I love the guy. I hear you. Stop it, stop it, don't give Junth and Chiffs go back. Uh, Clay, what was your favorite story his favorite story. I can't have a favorite story. What this is a ridiculous question. A great stories? Now, I I like the Knee High Orange. I like, Uh, it's really hard for me because I know his whole life, but inside of this, inside of this one um him him getting in these gunfights was wild. The ninth Texas Calary. If y'all would have done what I'm doing, I would have been like, Nope, just pick one. I guess it was the ninth Texas Cavalry. There is hard to say you're doing great them being at the court House in Vicksburg. Man, that story, it feels like it has to be apocryphal, but it's so powerful, Like guys like that, that's the end of a movie, man, And that's just the beginning of this movie. Yeah, yeah, I think it was to me that this story. What's intriguing about it? And why you just couldn't You couldn't you don't want to miss anything? Is it is complex? There's no it's he is loyal. People are loyal to him. There's all sorts of subtexts around that, and why are they loyal and what's driving that? And is he is he actually free to be disloyal? I mean there's all sorts of questions around it, but at the end of the day, you've got the Texas ninth Cavalry showing up and a slave master, you know, as and all those things. We have appropriately negative thoughts of of these that these things are still happening to this man. And it does sound like it's a made for movie still. I mean it just sounds it's almost like everything was so complex and you can't understand it. I mean, this was an hour long podcast, and I mean most people that's all they would know about the story. It was an hour in our commentary on it. But like there was just there was so many complexities even when you yeah, so many complexities, but no, I think I think, uh, what Jonathan did good and what he said here today, and what I wanted to do is not to like basically this idea that this wasn't a Disney story and this guy was living in the midst of it. There was time and uh, and so it's easy sometimes to hear the story and just be like, oh, this guy had a great life and you know, and when you see some of the other aspects of holtz life, um, and I mean, we're gonna tell them they're in the book there. Yeah. Yeah, he wasn't a criminal, but I mean he just I'll never believe anything other than what I've said here today. Uh, Brent closing thoughts and then we gotta give Jonathan the closing talk is Lowell to Gary. Oh, I'm ready for them. I'm ready to get into the hunting's part. Yeah. I think it's gonna be really intriguing because I mean he's he started when he was ten, he's twenty at the end of this podcast. He ought to be ripping and rolling in the next one. I'm looking. Yeah, it's cool. Jonathan, thanks for coming up. Man. Yeah, absolutely, Man, thanks, I really appreciate it, really appreciate it. Uh, given the social details real quick, how do they find you? Oh, just black Duck Revival. You can google it, you can instagram it, Black du revival dot com. Yeah, that's the duck hunts. Goose hunts this winter are you're trying to get rid of? Yeah? I think. I mean I've got like three or four spots on a hunt. Uh at the end of the year for speckle belly December. Yeah, so it's I think it's like December thirtieth to January one. Uh yeah, that's what's left. That's the prettiest one. I think those those speckle belly geese. Yeah, they're gorgeous. They taste the best. I mean, it's just so pretty to watch. Yeah, they're super uh they're super communicative to right, So like for anybody who's in the bird hunting, that sounds more like a turkey but you know, I mean like if you're if what you like about turkey hunting is that that talking to a bird, communicating with the bird. Speckle belly geese are great for that because they talk back and forth to you all the way in uh yep uh, i'd say like if you know, closing thought, uh one, Gary, I still love you, but and you know, and I guess you know, part of me is worried that I'll be labeled a contrarian of some sort, but at this point in my life I might have already. I think I'm probably wearing that that fairly proudly. But h yeah, I would just I would just reassert my thought that what makes the story so fascinating to me is that I think that there are aspects of what everybody in here is relating that are true, right, and that we got a squirrel tree down here there, dash hush, right, and I heard that dog. But there's no way start over, Jonathan. Uh So sorry, there are elements to what everybody's saying, but there's there's truth in all of this stuff, right. Uh. I think, Well, I think what we owe to the legacy of Whold Collier is to allow him to be as multifaceted and nuanced as I think he was, allow his life and his story to exhibit those characteristics. Uh, and to continue to talk about him, you know, and and to talk about him and discuss him and think about him and look to his example. Uh, with the nuance that I think he lived his life with. And I mean there's stuff for everybody to take something out of this man's story, right. Uh. And so that would that would be my closing thought. It's this is not a again, this is not a binary story, right, This is not a binary discussion. This is a a super complicated thing. And and for me personally, that's those are the kind of people and those are the kind of stories that I feel drawn to. Mm hmm, perfect, perfect, great conversation. Guys, Send your anything you are looking to sell that has to do with outdoor world. Two bear grease at the meteor dot Com. Include your social tag, include your yeah, your social handle bargain Bonanza, bargain Barn Yeah, bargain Barn Bonanza excellent. Thanks guys, Thanks for everybody that drove drove up here, and everybody everybody Yeah,

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