00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and the country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two, and teach you the stuff we towed around in our pockets every day. Carrie is a term I'm only recently familiar with, but one I've been practicing since my feet hit the ground in the mid sixties. Now, that's only partially true because some of that time, at least initially, I was what was being toted around every day. But from my earliest memories of having breeches with pockets, I've had my go to items that I couldn't leave the crib without, especially after I got out of the actual crib. Now why is this important? Because a man needs to be prepared. Well, that's partially true. The correct answer is we all need to be prepared and carry things we need, so feel free to interchange pocket with purse, backpack, satchel, briefcase, sock, brazier, or wherever you decide to cash something that you might need later. But what are these items? Are they there out of necessity and utility or are they simply there for nostalgia or maybe a little bit of both. I can't speak for yours, but I'm going to tell you all about mine. We're gonna talk about it in a minute, because first I'm gonna tell you a story. Mister Bill Chancellor was attracting mechanic more accurately be described as the tractor mechanic. And I'm not saying he was the only one around, because where I grew up, you couldn't swing a dead cat around more than once without hitting the tractor man. Regardless of where you were standing. There was lots of folks that were tractor mechanics. What I am saying is, if a tractor mechanic needed a tractor mechanic, he called mister Bill. Now, I can't remember where my dad got his tractor, but it wasn't in the best of shape and he got a pretty good deal on it because of that. It was a thirty five horsepower massive Ferguson, and the red paint had long faded to a rust brown, and the gray color of the engine and the chassis that was all gone. There was a little paddent left in the seat, and the only thing left that identified it as a massive Ferguson was a sliver of one of the decals that was on the hood. But the plan was to help mister Bill rebuild it from the floor to the ceiling, and mister Bill shop so whenever Dad got away from work that summer, we worked on that tractor under the guidance of mister Bill. I was probably eleven or twelve and trying to make a track in every track my Daddy made at that time. And on this particular day, we were nearing the completion of the tractor restoration. And let me tell you, that joker look good. The engine had been completely overhauled. The paint was original massy Ferguson red and gray paint. Mister Bill had replaced the decals with originals he'd gotten from the Massive Ferguson headquarters. I remember exactly where I was standing, watching mister Bill as he adjusted something under the hood, and he asked my dad above the racket of the tractor. He said, Buddy, I can't reach my knife, let me borrow yours. Well. I started looking around for mister Bill's knife because I knew my dad was not about to hand him his. When I see my Dad reach in his pocket and hand it to him, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wasn't allowed to touch it, and here mister Bill was scraping and gauging on metal with all his might. I was shocked. That was a killing the fence. But my dad just looked on like nothing was happening, Like the previous eleven years of proper knife care instruction that he drilled into my head had never happened. That's a knife, not a screwdriver. That's a knife, not a hammer. And yet right before my eyes, I was watching mister Bill slap annihilate the edge off my father's case knife, which was the knife everyone who knew reeves was correctly spelled r EA and not re carried in their pocket. There were no exceptions. Dad got that pocket knife back and eventually we loaded up and we headed home. Now we ain't got out of the driveway when I said, Dad, I saw you had mister Bill your pocket knife. He kind of laughed, and he said, son, you saw me hand him a pocket knife. He handed it to me. It wasn't a case. I was a little confused. I said, I thought we only told case knives. He said, we do so, but we don't want them. All right, every day carry eedc for short, the stuff in your pocket or in my case, pockets, because I got stuff in just about all of them. This is learned behavior from someone in my formative years, like my dad, my grandpa, my older brothers, folks I spent the most time hanging out with, which was exactly how they came about carrying the items in their pockets. Every male member of the Rhees family carries a case pocket knife. Now you ladies, hold on to you hate mail. My sister in law has a collection of them that would rival most museums. I kid you not. My wife doesn't toe one because she has me, but if she wanted to, she would, and I would make sure she had a good one. Now, I don't know what number of great grandpas it was that started this tradition, but I could testify that the Reeves family has been patrolled in Arkansas and removing with a knife all the parts of animals that don't taste good. Since before the Civil War and way before the case brothers got together in eighteen eighty nine and commenced to giving birth to what would become a staple in the reeves. Boys every day carry the case pocket knife. Around nineteen twenty, one of them jokers designed the trapper model, and that's the one. That knife has become a part of our identity. And you can bet one thing for sure, if you see one of us and need a knife, we got at least one. We ain't gonna let you borrow it. Just show us what you need, cut and get out of the way. Anyway, Let's start with the right front pocket of these American made roundhouse overalls. Inside you'll find a case pocket knife and a tuba chapstick. Some might say, why would a man told a pocket knife in twenty twenty three, Same reason he told one in six hundred BC, when the first folding knife was invented. Did I say six hundred BC? I sure did, because that's when some cat in Austria got tired of his wife hollering at him for poking holes in his breeches every time he put his knife back in his pocket. Now, I'm sure she had plenty of soul and to do without fixing his clothes every time he got finished skin in a mess of squirrel. So he invented the folding pocket knife and marital bliss. And for at least twenty six hundred years, a man that was prepared and ready to be a man has toaded a pocket knife. And just think six hundred and one years after he invented it, say around one ad, I bet he was the most popular dad in Austria when the tales of him setting around the tree cutting ribbons off of Christmas presents quicker than a hiccup way to gold Man in Austria. You, sir, are a legend. Now. If you're not prepared to answer the call when your wife hollers for you cut something for I wonder about your priorities and her judgment. At the beginning of our marriage, Alexis would say, Brent, do you have your knife? And my answer would usually reference a question about a bear's wilderness bathroom habits. Now years later, as she celebrates daily her lottery like husband, when it's a simple honey, cut this for me and bam, the deed is done. I'm always ready. A pocket knife can protect your family, skin your supper, help you build a shelter, open the package, perform surgery. The possible uses are endless when you need one and have it, life is golden when you need one and don't. There's not a more helpless feeling. This is normally where I chunk in a story about how I got in a bind one time and needed a knife and didn't have one. I can't do that, you know why, because I ain't never been with that one, except when we go to airports, concerts and different places now where you can't. I can't tell you how many times I'll pat my pocket for the knife that ain't there, and the short lived panic that startles me till I realized I didn't bring it with me on purpose, Which reminds me of a time when me and Clay Nukem were catching a flight out of Northwest Arkansas. We were headed for British Columbia on a bear hunt, and it's not a big airport, but the security folks there are just as observant and dedicated to doing their job and making things safe for all of us. Fortunately, we were in Arkansas and not some big city airport. When the X ray man found the skinning knife and clay Bow's carry on, Apparently our clothes and our gear leaned more toward a couple of hunters than a couple of fellows with nefarious intentions. We called Misty and she came and picked up the knife. The TSA guy was cool about it. Besides, we had several others legally packed and secured in our luggage. We wound up not needing the skin a knife anyway, But that's a different story. All right. Pocket knife covered that one pretty well, at least till we get to the other pocket. But until we do, what else is in the old right front pocket? Chapstick? Now here's a disclaimer down here. We call lip bomb chapstick, regardless of the brand, but we never call it lip bomb. Hey, I don't make the rules. I just live bomb. That's the end of the disclaimer. Chapstick. Not much you can say about that. Sure you can. You can dive it on a cut to help stop bleeding. You can use it to moisturize dry skin. Heck, you can even use it to help with building a fire and keep you from having chapped lips. My dad told me a joke when I was a kid about an old cowboy that rode into town from out on the range. Instead of rushing into the sloan to get him a cold drink, he hitched his horse up and pulled a brush out of his saddle and started brushing itself off. The mayor of the town was watching him as the cowboy cleaned up as best he could, straightened his clothes, washed his hands in the trough, and tucked his shirt in. The mayor was impressed and started walking toward him and welcomed him to the town. When the cowboy walked around to the back of the horse, poked his finger and the horses behind, and rubbed it on his lips. The mayor was shocked, but he welcomed him anyway, and he said, I appreciate you cleaning up when you got here. We got a lovely little town and we want to keep it that way. But man, I only got one question. Why did you poke your horses behind and rub it on your lips. The old cowboy looked at him and said, my lips are chapped. And the mayor said, oh, is that cure? And the cowboy said no, but it keeps me from licking them and making it worse. Told some chapstick with you. It's smaller than a horse, cheaper to feed, and there's no bad aftertaste. The right front pocket is done, So what's an old lefty? The loner pocket nowe life, a buckeye and a sack at your wheel one dollar coin. The loner knife is for your friend that doesn't carry one, but finds himself in the need of one on occasion, which is the very reason you tote one to begin with. And if he doesn't tote one, he ain't got enough sense not to use your good one in a manner that it wasn't designed. All these things I'm about to say now go slap out the window, and in its emergency, when it's life and death, nothing else matters. However, when it ain't and you need a wire cut, a screw tightened, or a prie bar, don't look at me and ask to borrow my pocket knife. It's something to be respected, taken care of, maintained, and sharpened regularly, because a dull one is of no service to anyone. Now, I'm not going to tell you what the brand of my loaner pocket knife is because it don't matter. It ain't a case. It's a well made pocket knife, I assure you. But I'm talking about what's in my pockets and what I like the best. You may hate case pocking knives and like something totally different. I don't care. That's fine with me. But you ought to be in jail if you do. Just kidding, not really. What about that sack of jewee a one dollar coin, Well, I can tell you it was minted in two thousand. Monetarily it's worth whatever a DOLLARBI value. But my wife gave it to me. And if you don't know whose sack of jewel is, do yourself a favor and look her up. Or better yet, read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. That book is thicker than a cathead biscuit, but worth the effort and just dis ease to digest. She was an invaluable guide and interpreter that helped Louis and Clark find their way across the wilderness and back when our country was young and we didn't know our behinds from fifteen cents about anything west to Saint Louis. The coin serves as a symbol from my wife to me that when i'm out on a hunt or a long journey, I can always find my way home. She's my sackage will. She's a whole lot more, but she's not much on skin and stuff though, and I have a feeling of sacage weel was. Anyway, That's why I told it the buckeye. If you've listened to any of the Bear Grease Render podcast you may have heard me mention it. I'll tell you about this particular one in a minute. First, I want to talk about why you'd have one. To begin with. Esculus pavia, commonly referred to as the red buckeye, that is the most prominent variety of the two known grown to Arkansas. It produces a nut, which is actually the seed, and it grows in a pod that matures in late summer. Now, folks have been toting them in their pockets for luck for generations. There's an old said that when you'll never find a dead man with a buck eye in his pocket. Now. I don't know if that's because you don't find a lot of dead men laying around, or because it wouldn't be too cool to peel for through their clothes if you did. My family, close friends and I would give them to each other as tokens of good luck for hunting. I'm whare and our family's passed. It was dictated that one hunter had to give it to another for it to work. You couldn't just find one and put it in your pocket and reap the benefits. That ain't how that works now. I'm not superstitious at all. I just firmly believe that if I was to lose the one I got in my pocket, that I wouldn't never have another successful hunt. The one I have I've been caring for close to ten years, and it means a lot to me. First time I met Old Clay Bow, he'd asked me to come film a bear hunt for him in the Washtaw Mountains in Arkansas. He and the majority of his youngest took me around where he grew up hunting, and we wound up on a mountain in the area and I saw a buckeye bush. I told him the story of how my family traded him back and forth and handed him one, and in return, he gave one to me. I'm still toting it to this day, and I have every day since that hunt nearly ten years ago. Clay's always amazed when he asked about it, and I take it out of my pocket and show it to me. He told me he lost the one I gave him before we got off the mountain that day. He didn't kill a bear that year either. Aincidence well, never know for sure, but no, absolutely not a coincident. In the bill of my overalls on the right side, I carried my billfold, all my folded money. Inside that bill fold is a five centennial quarter, a quarter minuted in nineteen seventy six. My dad had jars full of them, so, along with everything else that's part of my uniform, I told one of those in remembrance of him. Until I started thinking about all my everyday carry items to tell you all about. I've never really seen how much connection there was to the members of my family who passed away, but now I do, and talking about each one of them makes me smile. I've always fancied a good pocket watch, and on one Father's Day, my wife and little girl Bailey gave me one. It came all the way from London, England, and it keeps time like a man possessed. It has a decorative silver coon attached to a short chain on the other end that hangs on the outside of the bill by overalls. Now for all those that have a pair of overalls, real overalls, and you never quite figured out what that slit was above the bill of the pockets and the small hidden pockets sewn into the scene on the bib. If you didn't know what that was for, stand by for news. It's for your pocket watch chain and your pocket watch. The watch is obviously for telling time, but the fob tells everyone a little bit about you. It makes a statement without making one. I like to think that when folks see mind It, they see a country boy that's proud of where he came from, proud of the folks he raised him, and even more proud to share these stories. Thank you so much for listening. If you like it, share it with your friends. Maybe they'll like it too. And hey, beat the system, fucking knights. Keep the good one for yourself along the other ones to your friends. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful