00:00:05 Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. 00:00:06 Speaker 2: I'm your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trot lining and just in general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores to share. Gravel roads and treasure. The gravel road was the first step toward anything. It was our connection to everything we did outside of life on the farm. The back door and the front door were symbolic of how you traversed the planet. Out Back always meant one step at a time, either by me or a horse. 00:01:02 Speaker 1: Front door was the same. 00:01:03 Speaker 2: Except you could also add a vehicle or tractor to the short list of conveyances. I'm going to give you my thoughts on what they've meant to me, But first I'm going to tell you a story. 00:01:21 Speaker 1: It was late and my curfew was looting. 00:01:25 Speaker 2: I'd been running around town with a bunch of my friends, circling the Sonic Drive in on the south end of town, turning left on Main Street, negotiating a traffic light and two stop signs that would have me on the north end of Maine, where the Kroger parking lot would serve as either a rally point to stop and visit with my friends, or the turning point where we'd reverse our drive and do it all over again, a mile and a quarter round trip of driving through town, hanking the horn and our friends as they passed in a seemingly endless parade. A teenager mostly in their parents barred cars and trucks. It was the Saturday night ritual of growing up and going to school in war in Arkansas. I have no idea if it's still the same, but one can hope that there's something of a similar innocence taking place now. Occasionally we'd meet uptown, make a plan, and then convoy or rendezvous down a dusty or muddy timber company road to a predetermined destination where firewood brought from someone's home or wooden pallets that had been liberated from behind the farmer's co op would be set a blade guked at till such time we ran out of fuel for the fire, or the attendees had to start making their way towards home to beat the inevitable curfew that to folks like me weren't a mere suggestion. 00:02:53 Speaker 1: There was no be home around. 00:02:56 Speaker 2: An appointed time at my house, a luxury some of my fell sophisticates enjoyed. I blamed my older brother Tim for his laxadaisical approach to life and the curfew clock that filtered down to the rest of us. Had he set an alternate precedent eight years earlier, I may not have had to watch the ticket of the clock so stringently myself. But that's probably an unfair accusation thrown toward my older brother. After all, I was the one who displayed, on more than one occasion my utter contempt for authority outside of my own. 00:03:32 Speaker 1: Starting about the time I skipped school in the. 00:03:35 Speaker 2: Sixth grade and hopped the liberty train to the other side of town for a death thumbing my nose at the man or, more accurately, West Side Elementary School and my mama, both entities who for some reason didn't trust me to be at any appointed places delegated by whomever happened to be in charge of my health and welfare at any. 00:03:58 Speaker 1: Given moment on my own. Now I knew better than any of. 00:04:03 Speaker 2: My sole purpose in life was and is to have fun, regardless of the location or circumstances of my presence at any particular event or place. This is still how I naturally try to operate and the reason my wife has learned the unique ability to roll her eyeballs around her head so fast that it makes me dizzy. It has been my plan every day of my life that as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning, my schedule is which every way the wind blows, not in Not In my professional life, obviously, I had deadlines and appointments, court training, shifts, to cover folks, to supervise all the mandated things we all have to endure. But the rest of it, to be honest, has more or less been by the seat of my breeches. 00:04:55 Speaker 1: Alexis what you want to go on a trip for a few days? 00:05:01 Speaker 2: Sure? When do you want to go? I don't know. We could leave this afternoon. Are you crazy? I can't leave today to go out of town for a few days. Oh okay, how about tomorrow? 00:05:14 Speaker 1: Then, Brent? 00:05:16 Speaker 2: Are you drunk? What about Bailey? Well she can go with us, she has school, you idiot? 00:05:24 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Well, she's smart. She can afford to miss some that's huge. The one that I roll, the thing would hit its peak. 00:05:32 Speaker 2: I swear I've seen them spend so fast that something I've said. 00:05:36 Speaker 1: That you could light a kitchen match off of. 00:05:39 Speaker 2: I say all of that to set the foundation of how that all ties into me telling the story about curfews, a gravel road, my whimsy called out look ONLD life, and a constant issue of living on the razor's edge between freedom and absolute lockdown. I spent a little too much time at the fire with the rest of my associates and was cutting the time close when I finally drug up and bid farewell to my fellow brothers and sisters of the Saturday night fire. Fortunately, the fire was at a dead end timber company rode only a few miles from my house. I knew exactly how long it was going to take me to get there, and if I was one second early, it was as good as being home an hour before curfew. However, if I was one second late, I might as well have been a wall from the service. There would be consequences and repercussions. As I slid into the driver's seat of my truck, the truck I'd bought with money made from haul and hay trapping and working at the sailbarn. I calculated how much time I needed to make up to roll into the driveway, with a modicum of time to spare at my watches, I started my truck. 00:07:02 Speaker 1: I suddenly had. 00:07:03 Speaker 2: A feeling of impending doom and maybe a little regret for not leaving a couple minutes earlier than what I had had. I really needed to stay those extra few minutes. What would I have lost or missed out on by going wheels up a little sooner. Nothing, not one thing. I wouldn't have missed anything, But how. 00:07:25 Speaker 1: Would I have known if I hadn't stayed. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: I pulled out onto the highway with little fanfare and made tracks toward the Hoss end, working math in my head, still driving safely. I felt confident, bar in any type of calamity, that I'd be crossing the threshold of the kitchen right on time. It was almost like I hadn't paid attention to the sixteen previous years of calamity that had befallowed me right up to that moment in my short existence. 00:07:54 Speaker 1: Had I not been paying attention? 00:07:56 Speaker 2: No, No, I had not like me, who mostly lived for the here and now, can find themselves in situations just like this, and I happened to be a highly decorated veteran of it. Glancing at my watch, I could see that I was ahead of schedule. I'd apparently aired on the side of caution, and I was going to have plenty of time, maybe even a minute or more to spare. Dang, I could have stayed at the fire longer. I turned onto the highway, onto the Gravel County Road that would carry me the last mile and three quarters to my sanctuary before the clock struck. Times up and my coach turned not into a punk and pull by mice, but more like a light blue, short wheel based Chevrolet. I would be watching sitting in the yard as I boarded the school bus with the rest of the unfortunate souls who had to experience that big yellow chicken house on wheels too and from school. But that wouldn't be my eight for fortune favors the bold and I had boldly gone where I had gone many times before, right up to the edge of the cliff, and lived to tell about it. This was shaving up to be one more chapter in my semi charmed life right up to when it wasn't a door. Deer hopped out of the woods and loped along the road right in front of me. It was like she just appeared in the road, and I never had time to touch the brakes. Fortunately I didn't have to. I wasn't going that fast and she was easily maintaining her lead. As we both cruised down that road toward home. I looked down at my spedometer and that guy wasn't even trying, and she was doing twenty miles an hour. I'd always wondered how fast the deer could run, so I took the opportunity i'd surprisingly been afforded and applied pressure to the foot feed and started incrementally speeding up. She matched my speed perfectly and was kicking rocks on the hood of my truck as we both passed thirty. She was like a deer colored missile as she tracked down the left hand road of the gravel road, flinging rocks on the windshield and over the cap of the truck. Woods roping on the left side of the road, and to the right was acres of cut sewer beans. There was no ditch on either side. At any point she could have turned her wheels in easy direction and smoothly transitions from the gravel to the woods or grass. I'd already started slowing down, and it only followed her for about half the time. It took me to describe what was happening when she hung the hard left and sent her punched the roadside dumps to the County had recently placed there to terminate with extreme prejudice any deer speed tests. Apparently it sounded like when Granny gave Jeth throw that old kabong on the knogging with her skillet. You could have heard it on the moon. Oh well, I gotta get home, and I think I'm going to have about a minute to spare. I tooled on toward the house, and my amusement at hearing that cartoon like noise that deer made when it slammed into the dumpster actually registered on me. Well, I didn't intend for that deer to get injured. It was more or less by my hand that she ran into the dumpster. What if she was suffering, That's what I thought about, and that's what made me stop, turn around, go back and check, knowing I was gonna be late. The road was so narrow I couldn't just whoop around in the road. I either had to do a fourteen point turnaround or jet on down to the next driveway and come back. Both would take about the same time. So I drove an extra half mile, turned around, quickly pade my way back. No dear sin, I went to the blacktop. I turned around and headed back toward the house. Maybe she was all right. As I passed the dumpster, I saw a why belly lying behind it. As I got closer, I stopped in the middle of the road, angled my lights towards where she was at, and jumped out to check on her. She was dead as a disco. I looked at my watch. There was no way I was going to make it home in time now, so I feel dressed her and I loaded her up in the bed of the truck so she didn't go to waste when I drove home. Now, if Mama wasn't up waiting on me, I could slip in the door, jump into bed, and clean that deer in the morning. It was plenty cool for her to keep until then. But Mama was waiting up on me. I was late less than ten minutes late, but late just the same. She listened to my story and even looked at the deer in the back of the truck and said she was proud of me for going back and getting her and not letting her go to waste. It's good. It's a good thing. She also said she needed my truck keys. I should have left for home earlier, and the bus runs at seven point fifteen am on Monday. Rules or rules for a reason, and that's just how that happened. 00:13:18 Speaker 1: I know why roads get paved. 00:13:20 Speaker 2: They're paved to increase safety and to increase road longevity by creating a smooth, durable surface that protects the base layer from water and erosion. It also reduces dust and accommodates heavier, more frequent traffic than gravel can handle. While paving is more expensive upfront, it can be more cost effective long term for roads with a high volume and daily traffic. But it significantly improves the user experience and public safety. That's the reason. And I hate everything about it, except for the safety part. The road in front of our house was gravel, so was the State high that wound through the community. I remember when it was paved, and that would have been in the late seventies early eighties. Every place I loved more than any other was only approachable by a gravel road. The lake, the river, our farm, everything it all had a dirt and rock pathway to what I liked most. I talked to my brother Tim on the phone now while he's driving, and I could hear the shutter of his truck as he cruises over washboard sections of gravel, imagining everything he has in his truck, vibrating from place to place as he passes through the areas where he remains. 00:14:38 Speaker 1: And we all grew up, you do have to drive slower on gravel. 00:14:43 Speaker 2: That's not necessarily a bad thing. That's fast enough by itself. We see more when we drive slower, like a few episodes ago when I talked about going home and Tim and I drove down to the river and all the places that we passed that triggered me to room and for events from long ago, seemingly inconsequential memories that are made at the speed of life, not light. It is my fervorent wish that we all slow down and just see what's happening in our peripheral Stay in front. Sight focused is a good thing. When we have a specific mission in a singular goal, but when all things were equal, slowing down and looking around them treat us to a whole. 00:15:29 Speaker 1: New world of fun and adventure. 00:15:34 Speaker 2: My good friend John Howard and I went fishing down in Venice, Louisiana, earlier this year. John is a notoriously slow driver, according to his wife Brittany, and I even poked fun at him to her on our way down. But I've driven down there twice now. The first time was for work in October of last year at a meat eater event. The second was with John. It was a great metaphor from our life. The route was the exact same, but on the first trip we were painting the road red to get there, to get set up, get unpacked, and adhere to the schedule that they laid out for us. On the trip with John, it was more like we'd gone someplace completely different. It was like the highway had turned to gravel and we took the time to look around. And I didn't catch as many fish on the second trip as we did on the first, but it was close and I saw more than ever on that two day trip, as compared to the five days I spent there previously. One thing I hadn't mentioned is bare feet and gravel. As young and I can vividly remember us running up and down that road, racing each other. The grass of the yard and the gravel of the road were the same. You didn't slow down or tiptoe across the rocks. If anything, you grabbed another gear. Even though my transmission wasn't built for speed like others in my family, but our feet were acclimated and conditioned. It with stand what would have me now searching for a morphine drip after only a step or two. But we walked those roads to the old country store, hunting coke bottles to exchange with mister Alma's Marx to get enough money to buy a candy in a cold drink, a treat for a gaggle of dusty children on a hot summer day. The empty bottle valued only at a nickel when returned to the store for a deposit, but to us it was worth its weight in gold. There was treasure along the sides of those gravel roads, and it was hours for the taking. We would leave in the morning as to prospect along their way to the store. Once we'd all gathered up my brothers and sisters out in front of the barn, and my cousins from up on the hill. Their home had initially been my great grandfather's, And you could get there by wading knee high grass through the field and crossing the creek, or hanging right on the gravel and walk down the road aways and wait for them at the mailbox, looking for bottles that have been discarded through the night along the way. Those roads have been paid now for forty years. The sound of the crunching gravel has been replaced with the hum of tires as they roll faster along the asphalt. Plastic bottles have replaced the glass ones, and the Internet keeps. 00:18:26 Speaker 1: Most kids in the house for some reason or another. 00:18:30 Speaker 2: But when life slows down, I can still see us all there, scavenging along the dusty road, laughing and racing and chunking rocks at roadsides, and making our way toward the store, looking for the treasure that would afford us a summer treat, treat we would all share, even if it was just a bite of candy or a sip of coc colon. Pam, Tim Chuck, Lynn, Glenda, Pat Scott, Renee and met a Family, Treasure Hunters and as Field Land. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't heard, we're taking the Meat Eater Live Tour more South this December. Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, failed Well, Dallas, Austin are all slated for Steve Jannis Randall playing yours truly to be there. You can get early access to tickets by signing up at the meat eater dot com forward slash tool. 00:19:29 Speaker 1: All the information's right. 00:19:30 Speaker 2: There until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful