![Ep. 132: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Hillbilly Tarpon and Delta Life - podcast episode cover](https://assets.metacast.app/images/episode/artwork/2kYt9Vp5)
My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by FHF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
So, Tim got in trouble last night.
He did Tim the squirrel dog.
He almost never does anything wrong. He's very smart. We were gone for the weekend. He might have been neglected a little bit by his caretakers.
And by neglected meaning he wasn't like pamper pampered effort and petted and table food like. Perhaps he had to live like a normal dog for that day.
He got in our trash last night, which is he's never ever done before.
And well it wasn't last night because he was up last night, but he got into the trash. I walk outside today and this morning and trash was all over our porch. I had left some trash out. I angrily pick up the trash and we tried to figure out what it was. I mean, we don't really see stray dogs. We did have a stray pig out last night.
Possible it was our straight pig.
Yes, it was definitely our pig. Maybe it was a pig, maybe it wasn't. I let Tim out, and I already picked up the trash, resacked it up, put it on the porch, about to take it down to our trash can, which is a long way from.
Our house, a tenth of a mile from our house.
And I walk out and Tim has shredded the trash and it's everywhere, which is so uncharacteristic. Tim is like the perfect dog, like he he just does everything right and then so you.
Can and so so. Anyway, so he seemed like he got chestised pretty hard. And it's because Tim has this huge shame complex.
He's like a He was chestised very hard.
If Tim were an vineagram, he'd need an enneagram one. And so he perceives. He takes everything he really wants to do right. He's trying to read the room at all times, trying to be morally upright.
Whatever.
Anyway, clearly he did wrong, and he has been hiding behind the table all day long.
Yeah, I guess, so, I guess so, so Clay.
And I are standing like how far distance wise feet wise, would you say and a half feet Oh, I think it was longer than that. It was further than that because we were and I said, what did you? I said, did you did you get Tim in big trouble because he's been hiding all day? And Klay said, Tim, come here, and Clay's like trying to make up with him Tim.
Tim hikes his butt up in the air.
He does this weird the weirdest.
Thing I've ever seen an animal do. He hikes his butt up in the air, and he like SLINKs to Clay.
It's like a sidewalk. He's like walking towards me with his head.
His legs are up really high every step he takes, and he's like coming over to Clay. He gets to me first, and he comes and he like wraps his legs and body around me and like slides over to Clay.
This whole time he's looking at me because I have I have shamed him. And you know, I think you can tell a lot about a man by his dog scolding voice. I know for sure, Spencer, Yeah, I could scold that. I tremble thinking about about yours.
It looks like a mange. When I'm done with.
All I did was give Tim a a full throttle scolding and I threw my hat at him.
Threw my hat and you know, you went junior high coach on him.
Yeah.
But he finally walked over to me and I I just kind of rubbed him behind the ear a little bit and he kind of warmed up to me and he thinks everything's okay now ye. So yeah, that was that was Tim the squirrel Dog. Welcome to the Beargary shrender everybody, it's a man. Do we ever have? We have a very interesting group of people here today. Two new guests on the podcast. There's seven of us here. We only have six headphones. We've got one mystery guest
who will be revealed after I introduced regular guests. To my left, I have my lovely wife, doctor Misty Nukeom Welcome.
Thank you, happreat to see you.
Thank Christy, you're becoming such a regular. I don't even I want to give you a nickname.
Okay, we'll think about that.
Yes, so Christy Spillmaker, why.
She's please don't code.
Yeah.
They so great to have you. Thank you, Josh Landbridge spilmmaker. Yes, hey, I found the book that you inspired me to buy would you would you read this if I if I lent it to you, Yes, Barringia, the last Giant of Beringia. I remember when I read this back in like two thousand and four or whenever I remember. I just remember reading it being like, is this sky real Scott Pictures. No, it's good, it's good. It's a great book.
You've underlined some things in here.
Always always wait till you got to see some of my new books. That was back in the early days. To Josh has left, Tarrell across the Creek Farm thou Wag Spencer. Great to have Terrell. I've never called you Teryl.
Why did?
When I get on this I call you? Spence is our local pastured poultry farmer. Foul wag, longtime dear friend of ours and Spence, why don't you introduce our our real guest.
Of the day.
Yeah, a former Yeah, drum roll, drum roll, former Cross County Arkansas, Rice queen and much better half. And Carla Spencer.
Carla, this is big. I've tried to get you on here before and stuff just happened. She's a talented woman's in demand. Man, Hey, Carla. Every time I see Carla, she's always I can tell I keep a beat on people on how close they're paying attention to Bear Grease, you know, with friends, and a lot of them are just kind of posers. I mean they're like, oh, man, that whole call your series, that was great, and I'm like, dude, that was six months ago, and you know, stuff like that, like I'm filing away.
Sometimes I say it directly, other times I hold it back and just file it away. It's like, okay, kind of behind stuff like that. Carla stops me on the road, like the day of pod cast comes out and she's like, oh excited, Yeah, so you should have been here a long time ago.
Well yea, and not on your game now.
Great to have your Carlo, and you were raising the Delta. We're going to talk about all this. I was the real mister River Delta. Yeah, the real deal, the h our mystery guest though first time appearance, actually not No.
He's been on here for.
You think this young man has been on this podcast before.
Without a shadow of doubt.
He's been on this podcast Montana.
Yeah, shamed me on my own River Yeah.
I mean, like just mystery guest is Bear John Newcom Good to see brother, huge fan huge fan, Big fan tell us about that bullet. First of all, how long did it take you to grow that sucker? What do you feed it? It's been about a three year cycle.
It's down officially below the collar.
I think he's going to have to give it a little snip stick before. What I think is.
Funny in our school about the Bear is going to be a senior in high school and Josh is his principal.
And that's not at all true.
Art, but he just got a little more business up front.
Now there's a pretty strict uniform policy. What I love about about bears bullet is he just described it as a cycle. One of my favorite Bears mullet stories is that when Bear was you know, Bears, Bears had heis and lows in his academic journey. And I'm not trying to throw you out.
Of the platform.
But one time Bears g p a fell below what Clay thought was appropriate. And Clay said, you can have a mullet, but you can't be.
The So you can have a mull it, don't act like a person that has a mullet. I was like, it's okay if you have a mullet, But.
Clay comes single handedly offending every mullet where.
The author of that book, man, yeah, that's God bless him.
He had to trim it up and he got a g p A up.
Then he never heard of that being a reward, like if you get your GPS, you.
Can have a mullet until then a three point mullet.
Every point of g p A is like an extra jus, you get a four point zero sound.
If you take some AP classes, you get some lines.
Oh man, he had stripes for a while.
So Missy, I thought you were going to tell the story about him getting a technical.
Oh yeah, him really good.
So we had what was a technical mullet.
Correlation was strong, Yeah, it was strong, and we had you know, back during COVID, you there were all these like rules governing games, and so it was a very difficult time to keep up a basketball program because schools, you know, a whole team would get it and have to cancel their game. And that December of twenty twenty, I think that kept happening and for people who don't know, our state remained pretty open, but at certain points things would start to kind of slow down. So anyway, Bear
had a mullet during that time. We had a lot of cancelations. Bear John, we decided one night, hey, we're just going to do like a spirit night. Our kids have all been around each other, so we had refs already hired, We had the gym and everything. So we had a game and it was just like a blue and gray game. So our team played each other and.
It was a scrimmage.
It was like a scrimmage basically, and our coach was highly offended at Bear's mullet, like he just hated it. And he came over to the ref and he said, hey, in this next play, could you please, could you please call.
That guy out?
And she was great, she was She totally played a long and she blew the whistle and she looked at Bear and she said technical foul.
And Bear was like, what, he's in the.
Middle of the game of the crowd scrimmage, but there's like a real basketball game.
Yeah, And she called technical found and then she did this hand motion like sweet bag and she said technical foul.
That's an offensive hair, dudelet. And all of.
The moms, because all the moms were also offended that we let Bear get this hair haircut, and all the moms in the stand just lit up. It was the most like they started cheering. They were like, yes, it was kick them out out of the game.
Cut your hair.
Sorry you had to go through that, son. Well okay, so I brought you on for one story. This is like a one shot wonder story. Tell me about the saga of the Hillbilly Tarpin. Hillbilly Tarpin is a gar on fly Okay, yes, well it wasn't quite on a fly. Well, okay, just tell you the whole cality sequence.
It's a worthy technicality.
Yeah, okay, Well for some backstory, I've been trying to catch a gar on a fly rod for like almost a year and a half now, and I've used like the nylon rope that everybody says.
That, like a thousands of people on Instagram have told me thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I did that like a lot last year.
I had a few said it wouldn't work.
I had a few like, hit it, but they immediately spit it out.
They're pretty like pressured gar Like I know a lot of people who try and pressure it's like, yeah, it's like.
I can't get caught by a guy at the bullet a fly fisher with the mullet.
Have you ever been swimming across and one grab your.
Bullet tangled up in that?
That's a trick man. Yeah.
And so I know like a lot of people who try and catch gar at this particular spot, and I think they've just kind of got it figured out, Like Uncle Zach has caught one there before using the nylon.
Oh really yeah, our Zach nukelem yep.
Wow.
And so I've tried it before. I've had him take it.
I've had him go for it and swerve it, but I've never had it really like get tangled up right. And so Uncle Josh actually made me like a really nice one with like a dumbbell head on it, and it was like a yellow nylon rope, nice and feathers and it was like a real fly like it wasn't like just like the rope, but it did have the rope in it, and I had to take that. But they just like took it so soft and spit it
out so quick. It didn't do anything. And so I was out the other day and I had just like what's called like a streamer on which basically is supposed to just.
Look like a little bit fish.
Yeah, So I was there with the streamer, and I was I was trying to catch bass because it's a real where I'm at is like a real deep pocket in this river. And for the most part, it's just shallow. There's a few kind of maybe like three footholes, but then you get here and it's I mean, it's like seven or eight feet.
And it's really hot and I right now and so like the river's really there's only a few habitable spots and that's kind of a honey hole where he's at.
Yeah, and it's it's a real it's probably the widest point of the river for a long time, so there's whitest and deepest. So there's there's like a few bluffs and rocks on the side of this little hole. And basically I was fishing next to these bluffs because there's caves that go back in them where there's bass and just you know, the gar will sometimes you go back.
There, mermaid.
Yeah, And so I was trying to catch them, and I caught like a little of brim.
I think it was like a long eared sunfish.
The real colorful ones long eer ye and uh, and it I kind of fought it and got it in and I see a gar go right out in front of me probably, and I'm standing on like this rock that's about three feet above the water, and I just kind of like put it out there in front of that gar and it goes for it and takes it and basically it pulls it off the hook. And so I was like, huh, I wonder if I could catch
one this way. And so I tied on a midge, zebra midge, which is something that's no bigger than like an apple seed maybe, and I put it out there, caught a little sunfish.
That's an interest measures I like it.
I was about to say, why we got to bring zebras into this, This is North America. I always get upset when I see zebras in North America.
Carry I just got stripes. But and so I caught one that was probably two inches long. And the midges they don't have barbs on them, and I didn't really think about that, and so I was kind of putting it out there as I watched these gar rice, and uh, they would.
I had a few spence use barbs on everything.
I'm there to eat and get groceries.
Well, and I had a few take again, but they just pulled them off the hook. And so finally I caught another one. I took a stick and I pushed that midge like all the way down it like all the way down its throat into probably stomach, and I put that out there and it started swimming and I just kind of guide it towards the middle. And what they would do is they'd go out in the middle and they'd get under like a rock or something to try and hide from the bigger fish.
And so I had bigar, know the brand brim yep.
So I would kind of pull them out from under these rocks and just make them fight because anytime like.
It seemed to like them look wounded or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, because like I'd see, like the guar just swim right next to a perfectly healthy, you know fish and wouldn't even think about it. But as soon as that fish started struggling, they'd go for it. And so one hit it, and I just gave it a bunch of line because I knew, you know, like their mouths are real bony, so you can't really hook them. And I didn't even have a hook that was exposed, and so.
Wet pound test start using.
I'm using line as a five x tippet, so it's probably like five or six pound test and so I just give it all the line at once, and I just kind of let it chew on it because I you know, there was no way to catch it unless it swallowed.
It was kind of what I was thinking.
And then once it swallowed, I could reel it in, and so it I probably sat on this rock for like twenty or thirty minutes, and my cousin was across the river and she was fishing, and uh.
So I started.
I got to a point where I was like, I think it's about to I think it's probably swallowed it. And so I waited for you knew it was still on there, yeah, and I could see the line. It moved the line, and I waited till it swam pretty close to me. I didn't want to start reeling it in when it was way out there, yep. And then I started pulling them in, and I mean it was a pretty nice one. It was probably two and a half feet maybe, and I called my cousin, I was like three inches.
Better, yeah, yeah and a half. I'd say it's probably one hundred and eighty apples, ye.
And so so he didn't cut your line though, No, I was, and I was just happened last night, and and and I hadn't I hadn't got the full stords.
Well well and so.
Yeah, and so she was swimming over with the net and I was, you know, I was, I had the drive. Yeah, you have to swim across, swimming it.
And so you just pulled them right in. Well not yet, well, I get it right on. The story just keeps going. She comes over and she doesn't have the net yet, and that one breaks off. This isn't even the one. Wow, the story hasn't even started.
Started.
Well, but then I realized that I could catch them, and so the next day I went back with kalo. Oh, this isn't even the same day. This reminds me of the first time Bear came home and told a deer story to his grandmother. We have a video of like a fourteen minute story of a six year old Bear telling every second of the story that happened on his first dear in a monotone voice, staring at the camera. The deer he came out. Dad was excited, and then all of a sudden there were two.
Except for Bear has a lot more infection in his way because of the mullet.
Okay, so you might speed us through.
The next day with my friend Caleb, and we're both I'm just gonna like pretty much do the same thing. I swim across the river, get on the rock. I probably go through like six or seven little you know, brim before I finally get.
One brims.
And uh, finally one took it and it brought it like under one of these caves, and it sighed under there for a long time, and I figured by that point it probably swallowed it if it was sitting there, but I let it swim around a little more and then uh, let it get close.
I started reeling it in.
Caleb swims across and he grabs you, buddy, different day.
Yeah, someday they'll learn to stay on the same side of the bank.
Yeah yeah, yeah, stay on the same side of the banks as the fisherman.
And uh, pretty much he swims over to a spot it's real deep, so he can't really touch, and I'm just bringing this gar.
Like right next to him, trying to net it.
And we tried to net it like three or four times, and then it would go on a big run and then we'll bring it back and finally, and there were some people that were up on a big bluff watching us, like because we just now hooked into like a really big bass and they were bass fishing, so we kind of had their attention, so they were all like yelling at us and stuff. And Caleb, he finally gets it in the net and we go get it up on
this rock. And it was a very nice one, about the same size as the other one, one hundred and eighty apple seed probably yeah, probably close to that. Well, I thought it was some good ingenuity and uh, yeah, the world really wants you to use a piece of the inner workings of a piece of para cord and so Josh.
Yes, but I'd like to do it too. But it's they're just sometimes like that.
You got the Texas rig and all these different setups. Why can't you have like the bear rig or the mullet rig or the mullet rig.
The mullet rig, I'm gonna make them fly that looks like a punkin two inch pumpkin seed with a mullet that's made out of paracord.
Wow, with a with a pair of cord tail.
I feel like you guys are pushing your paracord on Bear.
Well so did the world since Bear, thank you very much. All right, Bear, Bear won't be here anymore.
Get lost.
It was really fun to having you Bear. Thanks for letting.
Us Silas almost all the way up. He had to like within two foot of him, and he was so excited. He's squealing in the light because he's talking all kinds of trash and he doesn't even have it in and he gets it and we see it flopping and it cuts the line and swims off crest. So he's like, yeah, I remember the time I caught a gar. It's like, no, no Spencer's ever caught a gar.
But that story does remind me of like the little old lady who swallowed a fly, right, and so then you have to swallow the next thing and then the next thing in order to get it.
So there you go.
I need I need to catch up on my h woman who swallowed a fly. Yeah I can't.
I don't know why she swallowed.
There you go, thank you?
Okay, okay, well.
Wow, that was exhausting, emotional.
We got to the climax of the story and realized, I don't know, I don't know. That was fun So second episode Missippi River Podcast. We're going to talk about that. But first let me say, if you're listening to this podcast on the day it comes out or the day after, which would be excuse me, the second, the second or third of August, the meat Eater has their season opener sale, which is meat Eater, First Light, Phelps and FHF gears biggest sales of the year, twenty to fifty percent off
on just about anything. So if you're listening to this in like twenty twenty five, like, don't worry about it.
It's like the rest of the place. Friends.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, I'll get there. So, but if you're if you're listening to this like Carla does on like the day it comes out.
I'm faithful.
Yes, good job.
I'll have to shout out Will No, my my brother in law, listen faithfully every.
Okay, one of the best farm hands I ever had, Kenyan farm hands.
Okay. So I'm with Will that we got to stop this story the season opener cell So Will. I was with Will for like an hour and he made some obscure reference to the Bear Grease podcast, and I said, do you listen to the podcast? And he looked at me and he said, I've listened to every single episode you've ever made. Pretty pretty sure, that's what he said, yep, And I said really and he said oh yeah, and he started spouting off stuff from like that week. So hat tip to Will.
You know what we went while they were here visiting us for Mallory's wedding. We went out with some buddies and had some dinner and we're waiting for our table outside and this guy comes out and Will's wearing a bear greas hat. Okay, and this guy goes bear grease man. He's like, he's like, you listen to the podcast. He's like yeah. He's like he's like, you know, you know, you need to come to the Bear Banans the Black Bear Banans and meet Clay and he goes he goes, well, yeah,
that's a good idea. He's like, I know him and he's like, that's Langbridge right there. The guy spins around.
Oh my god, Lmbridge like the bear grease Yeah man, yeah man, great, great faithful listener. Faith So if you're like, well and listen to this on those days, you can go to the Mediator store and get all kinds of cool stuff so on this podcast, we're here to talk about Mississippi River Episode two, which is took a wild turn. So part of the render as we tell what happened on the backside. I interviewed Earl Jasper the day before
the podcast came out. Oh wow, I mean, or the day before I had to turn it in to the powers that be that Phil Phil Taylor, and it just came about really quick and I had you know, it happens fairly often on Burgrease where I'll have an idea for something and then all of a sudden, you just have to get it. I messaged him and he was. He was ready to go.
He didn't even need such an awesome.
Explanation for what I was doing. He was just like, Clay, whatever you need, I'll do it. He met with me and we we obviously had a much We had an hour long conversation and you heard like twenty minutes of it. I wish I could play the whole thing just because it was so interesting just to sit and interview him. But that was really cool. We'll talk about mister Earl Hank Burdine. Man Hank Burdine is carrying this Mississippi River
series on his shoulders. Yeah, he is, like Hank is such an entertaining guy to listen to, so knowledgeable about the Delta, the Mississippi River. He's on the Misissippi River levee commission for the section of the river. As I understand it, there's levee commissions for different sections of the river. That's the way I understand it. And so he he is on the Mississippi and they're big sections. It's not like like Town's or something. But he's on the Mississippi
River levee board, which is a big deal. Yeah, and super knowledgeable. But his all the stuff he told me about the way that part of the Delta was settled was so fascinating.
Yeah, so fascinating.
Yeah, man, he can he can describe it so well. Yeah, when he talked about the cane breaks and you know, it just it being a wildlife paradise, you know, you know, I mean he could paint a picture and is that he's got that like Southern Mississippi accident and it's alligator.
He sounds like an alligator.
Yeah. Much. When you were quoting Mike Mark Twain, were you kind of went into a gear where you, oh, I had to you were saying, like, was that was that artistic?
No? No, no it was.
It sounded like foghorn, leghorn and FDR mixed.
It was pretty, but it was, I know, except what you're talking about. No, Mark Twain does that all the time. He would, he would, he would, he would write fanatically. He was trying to write like the what he perceived the people in Vicksburg sounded like when they were talking about the wall. They don't have ours it actually. Yeah, so yeah, you're really perceptive that you picked up that that. I was like trying to do that. Thank you.
I thought maybe you had a two thinkers.
Yeah, yeah, the.
Wall in the wall.
And yeah, all I know is as I listened to that, I noticed that I started speaking more drawn out to my coworkers, and to the point where I even noticed it.
I'm like, yeah, you tap tapes of her when I first fell in love with her, like when she was eighteen or nineteen. The accent is so strong.
She's really stronger than that.
Yeah, oh yeah, she's lost. It's probably ten percent of what it was lost to the work entertaining well.
One thing that there's a bunch of interesting stuff and I'm torn on talking talking with Carla or talking to everybody else first about their interest in coming back to Carla. Car we should start with Carla because the Mississippi River. What we didn't talk about is that we Hank talked about the Mississippi side of the river, so the east side of the river. What we didn't talk about just because there wasn't space, is that Arkansas was actually settled later than Mississippi.
That's so wild.
The forest was cut, the swamps were drained later because Mississippi became a state in eighteen seventeen. Arkansas didn't become a state until eighteen thirty six. Yeah, and so there was a lot more incentive incentive to be a US citizen and being a US state.
And you didn't have to cross the river, right.
Didn't have to cross the river. There were more people there. I mean, Arkansas was like a wild country. And Carl, that's where your family grew up and where you're from. Absolutely, So where are you from?
So I'm from Cross County, Arkansas.
And does that touch the river?
It does not. It's a couple of counties.
In right, So we're right, it's in the delta.
It's in the delta where it's very flat, and you know, if it's not flat enough, they'll.
Precision land level it.
So yeah, but there's a ridge that runs through it that separates you know, Western Cross County.
There's a ridge that goes through.
A LUs ridge less. Yeah, it's a yeah, it's it's a sand. It's sand deposited by like the wind. By wind. Oh, it's like a geographical phenomenon. It is wow out in the middle of the delta.
Yeah.
And so everything is super flat except for this ridge that goes through the middle of it. And I remember when Terrell and I were in school done at Southern Arkansas University.
That's kind of what we do here.
I'm okay, but we were looking through this book and it was funny.
It's okay, Carlic, call your husband whatever you want.
Christy, you're invited back. Christy was laughing, Okay, go ahead.
We were looking through this book for a class. It's called Fishes of Arkansas that our professor had written, and I was like, hey, this picture right here looks just like where I grew up.
And it was.
It actually was. It was the town closest to where my school was. And they were describing the different kinds of you know features there and the fish that were there.
So your failure of farmers. Yeah, tell me about it. Tell me about the history of the land and what your family did and everything. Yeah.
So I grew up on a ris and soybean farm where we were like fourteen miles from town, right, so town meaning where there was a Walmart.
Okay, nice, Yeah, that's the definition of towns.
When everybody had Yeah.
Yeah, definition, you're not buying grass.
It was a Walmart, not a supercenter.
That's right. We drove where did you buy your grass? Almost three hours to go visit.
It's really fascinating how the world is a very different place than it was back then because fourteen miles from town. I mean we do that multiple times a day and our kids to school. Right, but back then, like my parents, my mom would go to town once a week to buy.
This would have been in the eighties.
In the eighties.
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, but yeah, so rice and soybean farms always lots and lots of mosquitoes.
Terrell got to be eaten up by them whenever.
He came home.
Yeah, we went out for like a romantic walk rot out to the Yeah, there was a breeze and We got out to like one of the pumping wells, and I went to make my move, and just as I did, the breeze stopped, and there was like a three or four second pause. And if I'm telling this wrong, feel free to correct me. But I just remember hearing this humming. You do, and Carlos said run, and we were running through clouds of mosquitoes.
Oh my goodness, it's it's so thick out there.
Yeah, your grandpa started the farm.
How many acres?
So I grew up on a four hundred acre farm. Teeny tiny these days, it's teeny tiny. But my grandpa, whenever he bought it in the late fifties, I mean, that was a really big deal. So he had grown up in a cotton farming family and decided that that's not the life that he wanted to live as sharecroppers, right, I don't know, Okay, So I did call my dad because I wanted to back.
I had to get yeah, or fact checking the day. So your dad didn't know for sure if he was a sharecropper.
Yeah, But then he went into timber. And so as you're telling the story about how the land was cleared,
and there was this huge timber industry. It was fascinating because it was all of the stories that I'd heard about my grandpa, and then just from others as well, that you know that there was this whole timber industry, and then people that came in afterwards that were able to pick up land for a relatively cheap price, because I mean it was only good for timber, right, and then these big farms were built.
So the sequence was when your grandpa got it nineteen in the nineteen fifties, the nineteen fifties, late fifties.
He long logged in the twenties and thirties.
Right, he was born in sixteen.
Okay, so but when he got the land, I heard you say, when he got the land, it had pretty much just been logged.
Yeah, and so they had pretty much they had cleared it, but there were still piles of logs. My dad was like, I still had to go pick up stumps and you know, to help you clean it up.
I've heard I've heard one of my farming buddies in the Delta, Lee Walt tell me that when he was a little boy, he remembers them pushing out stumps and picking up stuff, and Josh for the record. Most of America's agricultural fields were cleared well before the nineteen fifties. It's one of this.
Part of the timber industry.
Well, just just so civilized agriculture. I mean they're not clearing. I mean minuscule amounts of land today are being cleared of timber to be commercially farmed. That all most of that happened about the nineteenth century farming right now, that's part of it. But there's but they cleared, They cleared so much land, and they're just they're just not doing that anymore. And so the fact that they were cutting timber to make agricultural land in the nineteen fifties is pretty wild.
And it's a it's a hard way to go.
And as I was talking with my dad, he was saying about how, you know, whenever he got financing for it, that the people were like, oh my gosh, this is the biggest loan that we've ever given for you know, for farmland, and it was eighty thousand dollars.
Wow.
And I interviewed my grandpa for a class whenever I was in college. You were doing family histories and he said, yeah, I said, people were just sitting around waiting on me to fail so they could come and scoop it up to the land at a better price.
Wow.
But man, he you know, was lived through the depression and knew.
How to abject poverty. Yeah, like didn't have shoes, yeah, you know, for other reasons.
It's kind of like.
Mister Earl was talking about, you know, like poverty and you know, farming and if you only get paid once a year, if you don't spend your money wisely, then then there's not money for things like you know, shoes.
Yeah.
So so he was like super hard worker yeah, and super like just the perfect first generation pioneer kind of farmer. Yeah. And used a lot of dynamite to clear out stumps because that back then because they didn't have the machinery that we have.
Yeah.
Yeah, and just a lot of hard work. And you know, back then farms were smaller and it's before the eighties that get bigger, get out and that killed a lot of the family farms. But really really neat stuff. And her mom was her mom passed away recently, but super
tough lady. Like when you think about like just a tough, hard working woman, that was her mom, and as sweet as could be and she I remember here telling me like she used to pick cotton by hand, and like the big cotton sacks and in summer and stuff when they got out of school, Carlisle so picking cott in my hand, and so like it would it would be really interesting. I was thinking about it. Tayo was cutting hay to have mister Earle and Carlo's mom talking the stuff.
Well, you know, I mean that brings up an interesting point. So you know, on this last episode we had mister Earl Jasper African American man that talked about growing up in the Delta, and it was kind of a classic story that surprised me even a little bit, like I would have felt like maybe his parents, I didn't know that he would have. I knew he would have the
stories of the racism and stuff like that. That was not a surprise him being born in the fifties, but like his parents were sharecroppers and he was so involved in agriculture his whole childhood. That kind of surprised me. But it was clear, and Hank Berdine talked about it.
Will Primost talked about it. I read a big excerpt from John Berry's book about all the Italian sharecroppers, and yeah, there were a lot of poverty stricken whites that were in the South too, that were that were sharecropping and that were Yeah, I mean it was they were there.
And so it was fascinating to hear that about like the all of the different groups because my brother married a girl from who grew up in Newport and her family was Italian.
Oh really like Italian? You know. Anyway, I got on that boat even after seeing those.
Side they said, don't do it.
But you know, if you get on a boat, even in Italian, if you're really poor and so desperate, you probably can't read.
Maybe you know, now, where where is your families? Where do you think your family's from?
Do you know?
I mean like deep history?
Oh yes, my dad is roll into genealogy, so he has traced his family back to Scotland and yeah, so lots of Scotch.
Are not not surprising when you see your kids.
There's a I brought a significant portion of Slavic blood into this, those those British isles genetics.
Yeah, yeah, no, fascinating, Josh. What stood out to you about the podcast?
So I thought the podcast was fantastic. I I appreciated all the history in there. But I have to say, after I listened to the podcast, I texted you and said that segment with mister Earle might be the best thing you've ever had on the podcast.
I was.
I was, well, you know, it was more than just I enjoyed it and appreciated it, Like it really hit me, Like just to listen to him and to hear his story, I honestly teared up. And part of it just yeah, because I think I think it's I think it also helps that we know mister Earl and know the quality of a man that he is, and to hear him talk about to hear him talk. I think that the part that that really got me is when you said when he said they integrated the school, and then he said,
what what was it like? And he paused and he was like there was fights every day, you know what I mean.
It was like that's the part that got me too. That's the reason I asked you that.
Yeah, I mean, it was it was like, this is a man who's endured, you know what I mean, And he's an example there. He doesn't carry this sense of I've been wronged or my people have been wronged. He carries this attitude of we must progress, you know what I mean, And there's a sense of I'll do whatever it takes to do my part. And just what what an honorable man? I mean, just an absolutely honorable man. I have great appreciation for him.
And mister Earl is one of those guys one you always just want to call him mister Earl.
You're going to get that guy respect.
But he always talks to you like, I don't know, just like his his faith just bubbles out of him when he talks to you. He's talking to you like because you're a child of God and.
He loves you absolutely.
Like everything that he said in there about like the spiritual the delta in the church, like there are decades of example in life, and just sweetness that exudes from I mean.
He makes this pore feel valuable because they're a child of God, you know. And I really liked the way he mentioned and he's like, you know, there was the what did he say? There was the physical man and the spiritual man and you gotta you gotta grow both. And yeah, I just that part was impacting to me, you know what I mean. It impacted me. I feel like it it brought something into my life.
Yeah, if you actually dissected his words, the words were simple, but them coming from him were so powerful. Like hearing him talk about Martin Luther King Junior getting sassinated. I mean, we've all heard that story. We've grown up with that story. It was before our time, that happened. Most of us in this room are like in the range of forty
years old. You know, we know that happened. But to hear him talk about how it impacted him as a as a as a senior in high school, and how it sent ripples through the black community, and just hearing him say it, I just was like, oh, yeah, that really would have It wouldn't have been like some celebrity getting killed that you really didn't, you know, you just knew their name and liked them. I mean, this guy meant so much to them, and you kind of felt
that sting, you know. And then yeah, that part about integrated. I didn't really know what I was gonna asks. I just knew. I just told him I wanted to talk to him about his life, and it just kind of progressed, you know. And yeah, when he talked about integration, I don't know, I've never really thought that deep about what
it would have actually been like. Now, we have heard stories, especially being from Arkansas about the Little Nine, which was the national story of nine students they integrated into Little Rock High School and some of those people are still alive. It was it made national news, and it was it was the a terrible thing for our state Governor Orville Pabas was the Wooden Fabs. Yeah, yeah, cassal Art jack Wagon of himself. But some of those people are still alive.
Missy's talked, You've interviewed well.
So the first black Little Rock teacher and administrator were a husband and wife couple and their daughter is a friend of mine and she has actually I think you've been with us at some of the some of the interviews with with her mom.
She she passed away.
Recently, her mom did, but she talked a little bit about about that. And then my friend Virginia and all of her siblings. So the Little Rock nine tried to integrate in and they were met with enormous hostility and they actually ended up closing down the schools, like completely closed down the Little Rock public school system for I one or two years. It was an extended time. And then when it reopened. It was integrated, you know, and that it was like, we have no choice but to
do this, and so we're going to reopen. And so those my friend was part of that second group of kids that came in and they didn't have the publicity, and some of them would say, or at least I've heard them say that they didn't have the support either because it was less publicized and a lot more challenging. They weren't on national TV and they didn't have the eyes of the world watching when they reopened, and it
was it was incredibly challenging. And they've talked to our kids about that and really powerful stories people who have endured a whole lot.
So it was impacting me to hear mister Earle, Christy, what's that to you? The whole thing doesn't have to be about misster Eeryl.
I do want to say something about mister Earle, though, I think, to me, what I heard inside of what he was sharing is it honors the struggle. Like you heard him talk about it being hard. You would never want your kids to go through that, and then you would say, but you just got to stay focused because it's not always going to be like that, And so there's a sense of hope I think inside of him and purpose inside of the struggle, and to find that
incredibly honorable. I want to live my life like that. I don't want to have struggle and think why me. I want to think like he did, stay focused, think about the Lord. This is not always the way it's going to be if you do your part. And then that's what I heard inside of him, and I think it. I think that's honorable, but it also it also is
more than that. It makes me not want to make his struggle for nothing, Like I find a connection to it and think I have responsibility inside of carrying myself in a way like he carried himself.
I don't. I don't.
Was hugely impacting to me. We were talking earlier. Another part that is impacting the Captain Hank Berdine. Yeah, I I love his accent and I think I listened to him speak and I think there's a stigma that when you hear that kind of Southern accent it's less educated or not as sophisticated, and that that man is so educated, so sophisticated in his knowledge of his of of what he does. And I found that I was like this is remarkable. Like that stood out to me, and I
thought it was. I thought it was highly remarkable. And I love how I am not a soil person like Spens and carlab degrees and soil science and clay biologist, Carlos a biologist anyway, like I don't have I don't have any of that. But I could hear and picture what he was describing and that that is another level of ability and educated anyway I was that stood out to me.
Connected to that and Hank Verdon, he talked about how this this art and this writing thing came into the Greenville area, which was I mean, I never knew that.
I went to Natchez once, like I was. I did some work with Alcorn State, which is a big it's a it's a college down there that has a real good act program that works with a lot of small farmers. And I went walking around and I just thought, Oh, it's a town in Mississippi, you know whatever stereotypes right, and just walking around the history in that town and like the architecture, crazy stuff, Like I.
Mean, at one time it was one of the richest cities in America.
And like I spent like half a day there and like just I had nothing else to do, so I just went for a walk. And that was the impression when I walked through the town of like this place used to really be something. It's still cool town, but you could tell this place was like a big deal at one time.
Well, and it's so that what you just said is connected to what's coming, and it kind of was revealed in the second episode. Is that what happened to the Delta was that they couldn't figure out this labor thing. I mean, after the Civil War, after the sharecropping regime. I don't know if they would say it failed or it just didn't work very good, and they the Delta lost a whole lot. And the Delta is you go to the Delta today, it's way different than what it
would have been in its prime. I mean a lot of the cities look like ghost towns, you know, and that's no secret. But it's so interesting to think about Greenville being this hub of art and literature and that is still you still feel that. And we went to Hank's house and and not to get to personal with Hank, but his he he had in his house, he had art, he had bookshelves full of books he had, he had personal personal art and I can say that like pictures
of his family. I mean I walked in and I was like, wow, this guy has documented his journey in life more than most people I've been around. And he and it inspired me to uh. I mean, you just want his house was like a museum and uh and and and that's connected. I think back to this, you know whatever that brought just in a awareness of of the world and art and beauty and how to describe that, and this thing inside of humans that wants to wants
to memorialize life, human life, you know. And so it was really neat being around Hanking those guys, and I really was inspired. I mean I was like, wow, I want to I want to celebrate my culture. I want to celebrate the stuff that I'm doing. And not that we do that externally with like a painting on the wall, but it helps, you know. And then all the writers down there. I don't want to give away a future Berger's podcast next spring, but there are more Turkey hunting
writers in Mississippi than anywhere really just everybody. I mean, you meet some guy on the street and he's like, yeah, my name is Bill. Yeah, I got a turkey hunting book. If you're not written a book and published about country music exactly, Yeah, I'm serious. Everybody down there has got a book. And uh. I went to the to the uh uh well, and I just thought, I mean, how many turkey hunting writers do I know in Arkansas? And
I'm like, man, we're just a bunch of hillbillies. These people down there cultured and educated Mississippi, Mississippi, they say, wah wahaw.
Yeah.
Now, but William Faulkner. I loved the William Faulkner quote. Well, he said, he said to understand the world, you have to understand a place like Mississippi. And then that quote where he said, in two generations they do need denuded, de rivered, and d swamped Mississippi. And then he goes into that very complicated paragraph about all the different ethnicities that were there and how they had all mixed together and how that the land would reek it's it was.
So it was like a wildly complex paragraph. But you know, William Faulkner from Mississippi.
And it's like a when you look at it today, when you look at like stuff that's happening in the Amazon, you know, like I mean, like our seeds are kind of boiling right now, as in the golf, like I think it was one hundred and one in the golf, like in near Florida. You're seeing that thing play out and and it's just that's anyways. It just like that thing that was said was just like a truth.
He said they the people will inflict the lands revenge. Yeah, and it was it was like, whatever's happening, it's going to be paid for at some point.
And it's easy to look and think, oh, well that was back then, but it's like we still haven't learned that lesson. If I think if you were to look around and be like, those words still haven't been heated, you know. So it's really good.
Quote and I'm stealing all I'm picking all the low hanging fruit. What I learned on the podcast was that the Mississippi Delta was one of the last places in America to be settled because of the river. When you think about all the land that doesn't have a river and you can just walk in there and build a
house and not have any major problem. The biggest river on this continent where it floods near near where it enters the Ocean, you know, you know, five hundred miles up from it, one thousand miles up from it ere Cape Girardo, which is yeah, it floods, so you can't build a house there until the levees of the late eighteen sept the government levees of the late eighteen seventies.
So you know, the trans Continental Railroad had gone across America, the Sequoias had been cut, but the Mississippi Delta was still relatively unsettled. And when you think too about the Civil War, it took me a while to understand what these people were saying. You know, there literally weren't people in western Mississippi, many people at all before the Civil War. I mean, they were just they had just cleared some land right on the river if you can get out
of the boat and clear land. But the interior of the Yazoo Mississippi Delta and on the Arkansas side of the river, they're just people were not there. It was a virgin wilderness. And that's where our boy Bearger's Hall of Famer Hult Coggier made his living for about twenty years, commercial bear hunting and feeding logging camps. And that's why he killed three thousand bears with his hounds in his lifetime. It was a virgin wilderness. But mister, what stood up to you?
Well, you know, obviously I thought I thought the podcast was really good.
I've we've box thanks man.
Yeah, We've done the Jaspers for a while, and I've heard pieces of his story before.
And I think with someone someone like.
Earl Jasper, who's live the life he's lived, who, like Christy said, has endured a whole lot, has maintained a certain posture, I always feel whenever I hear people who have had those kind of experiences and who are I mean, just who he is, I feel humbled, just just like, don't talk, don't just let's let him tell his story and just listen, don't you know, don't say a word, just listen. And I think I was a little bit I don't know that concerned is the right word. But
just when you when you wanted to interview him. I was in the room when you were interviewing him, and I heard what he said, and I knew, like, this is this is good. I mean it is poetic, like what some of the things he said were poetic, but in a in a certain sense like his the life behind it is what gave it so much power. And when he said there's a physical delta and a spiritual delta, it was his life that gave that statement power. And those words coming from his mouth mean more than those
words coming from from my mouth. And and and I think when I listened, I listened to the rough draft, which I don't always listen to the rough draft of Bear Grease podcast. And at the end, you know, it just ends with him and then it's just over, and it's you know, I don't know if y'all pick that up. And then at the you know, then the music starts in Clay gives like the summary statements, but usually Clay would come on and interpret or whatever, but he just kind of.
Left it, and I was I was really grateful he did that. Like I I walked.
We were outside, both of us, and I was listening to it in the garden and Clay was walking around listening to it. And we both finished it about the same time, and we kind of met up in the yard and he said, what do you think? And and he kind of said to what he you know, he just felt like, let let let him speak and whatever he says, that's I'm not going to add to that or because you can't, like you can't take you can't
add or our takeaway from that. And I was like, no, I knew exactly, I knew exactly what you were doing. But there's a sense when it came out, I wanted to make sure, like I wanted to kind of control everybody in the world that listened to the Bear Grease podcast and just make sure I wanted everybody to appreciate who he was, like, I know, I appreciate him because I know him. I know like he walks, he walks, the talk you know, he is what you're hearing is
and I kind of wanted to protect that. And I just was really grateful as we heard feedback from the Bear Grease, you know, even just comments on Instagram or different places, I felt like people were able to hear that. I felt like, you know, people were and people respected him and were able to give to give that, and I was just appreciative.
I think his story. We're in a time right now where.
There's a lot of people that tell you how you should talk about things, how you should feel about things, how you should say things, and it's it's it can be a little bit risky to even for you you Clay to bring you know, to have that conversation. It could be risky for him to bring his story into it. And I I just kind of wanted to protect everyone.
But I just felt like everybody treated treated the story the life with respect that it that it deserves, and I was grateful for that and because his life deserves respect and it deserves Uh. I like, if I could just tell people how to listen. I've Earl has spoken at our school and UH, and the way I want to tell all the kids is just hush, just hush and listen, and they always.
Do before and go okay, everybody, just hush.
And that's kind of what I wanted to say to everybody.
Just hush, just listen, don't don't say anything. And I felt like when I listened to the podcast, that's what I heard was just it. I felt that in my in my heart, I felt like the whole world just hushed and listened. And I was hoping that when people heard it, they would do that without me saying hush, and they did and that's an appropriate response.
Yeah, I could have scolded them like I did Tim. The people of the world.
You hush up, stay out that trash.
No, it was really special having mister Earl. And you know what, I what I came away thinking about it was how grateful I am that we have a platform. I mean, I think I think it's a testament to the world that we can on a hunting platform if that's what you call bear grease, which we would, I mean,
Meat Eater is a hunting conservation media company. I mean, our core people are going to be hunters, even though we have a big number of people that would listen that aren't hunters, like Carla and like thal Wag that has done some hunting in the past.
Yeah, so you're a hunter prefer to let people hunt my land?
That Yes, Yes, I'm grateful that we've got a platform that we could talk about stuff like this. I mean, I think it's cool. I feel grateful that we have. Yeah, this space is kind of is here, which I think is really cool because you know, the well, the human experience for real. I feel like I kind of captured a tagline for bear Graace that I'm going to continue to talk about is that we are in pursuit of understanding the world. Yeah, We're in pursuit of understanding the world.
I think that's a legitimate statement inside of the topics we're talking about looking back at deep human history and some of the cultural stuff here in the US of rural America, and we're in pursuit of understanding the world, and that means given. But here in mister Earl's perspective and here in Hank Berdine's perspective.
And hearing them both together on that platform, I think was really really valuable.
I mean, it's this is this will be wild to say Percy, you know, the whole the pot. The podcast was talking a lot about the Percys and kind of how they built this little circle in the delta that was different than much of the other side, which is a wild story to tell.
I mean, I've never heard it. Oh it's kept the clan out kept.
Yes, Like if it wasn't so well documented, you would think it was like a whitewash of history, which we we hear people talk about and you know you can't do that, But there was he They really did stuff different inside of a pretty tight little circle.
It's interesting too, like where you mentioned the Percy guys, because like agriculture is my wheelhouse, right and one of the things that you you made a statement earlier in the podcas where you talked about the delta missed out because they couldn't figure out that labor thing, the labor and racial thing in the in the business. And that's still going on in agriculture, I mean rural communities regardless of ethnicity, you know, whatever, there are rural America's collapsing.
But it's not because there isn't an answer. It's just that there's something there to that, like it can be done, Like it can be done in a fair way, It can be done. You know. It was intensely community based, like you know, and I don't know, I just think like in a different format there, it would be really interesting to pull that stuff apart and apply it to what's going on even today, because all those problems, problems like that don't go away. Yeah, they just keep rolling
on and getting more complex. So it was really interesting for me, as more on the agricul cultural side to hear that, And and I'm like, why don't we learn about this these kind of things, you know, Like I got a degree inn ag and I never heard anything about that. Yeah, And I feel a little cheated. Come on, Bumpers.
Well.
So one thing that I felt though, just through everyone that was interviewed was just a real honoring of the people that lived there, Like just the work ethic, the ability to endure. You know, farming is not for the faint of heart, and and neither is logging. Yeah like, and neither like and neither are any of those things or hunting or any of that. Like, I don't want to be cold, so I'm not, so I'm not gonna be out hunting duck hunting like people do where I
grew up. But just the way that everyone spoke about the people there was really touching to me.
Yeah. Yeah, Hank talking about how his grandparents were the ones that cleared land and the Delta and had that pioneering spirit that made the Delta unique. Yeah, that was cool, And I thought about it and I was like, my grandparents did it was yeah in Arkansas, it was later than later than that, And it's easy to think about that and oh yeah they cleared land.
Think about like, it's summer right now, it's it's it's hot, high humidity, So think about doing that when there's no respite from the heat, when there's no respite from Yeah, the elements, you know, like there's some mosquitoes, like if you get hurt, there's no doctor, and even if there were, you can't afford it, you know, like there you're on your own. Like Earl. Mister Earl talked about like they had.
To hunt to live, lots of outside time. He said, they weren't playing.
For existence said he said people used to hire gods to go look for sport. He said, yeah, exactly, that was good.
I the thing about Hank Burdine, I think it's really easy to think that to especially in like a modern worldview where you see the world increasingly polarized and there's lines of us them, you know, all the different groups. I thought, what have an Earl and Hank Berdine both on this podcast, with Earl's words saying, you know they we wanted the same thing. You know, we're at the end of the day, we're just humans and people are people, and you know, we're all made in the image of
God and all kind of want the same things. And I thought this podcast was a very good kind of what you're saying, Carla, You're glad that people spoke respectfully of and I think what you're saying to Christy. When you hear his voice, you wulit necessarily associate that with certain characteristics, and yet you see it on here, you see and I think that that's just it is really valuable, And I agree with you, Clay. I was grateful that this platform exists, and I was grateful that the listeners
gave the proper respect to both of these men. And I think it was a way of just kind of the podcast itself was just you know, people are humans, and at the end of the day, humans are valuable, and all the differences that may exist, humans are humans and humans are valuable.
Humans are people too.
Humans are people to people too.
Human lives and all humans like shooting stuff.
Definitely, that's what Well.
On the next episode of Bear Grease, we're going to learn about a lot of nineteen twenty seven Johnny Cash.
There it is cash maybe so maybe so actually.
Is a good idea.
I have to tell you though.
I was.
So I've been like telling my family like, oh, you need to listen to this, you know this series, and my brother tells me, hey, I read a really good book. It's about the flood of eighteen nineteen twenty seven.
It's called Rising Tide.
I'm like, I've heard about it, and I've only heard about it because I've heard you talk about.
It because you're a faithful listener.
So I can't wait to hear.
What John Barry. I love that guy. He's kind of a voice you wouldn't expect to hear on Bear Grease. He's like, I can't even pretend to have a New Jersey accent. But he's got.
He wrote he read that of that one episode that was powerful, that was really he's got.
He's like, buh, he's got like a real cart that he's got. He's got. He's got a really gruff, gruff voice. I love John Barry. He really is top notch American writer. I mean, he's written some very very successful books. And uh, he's a real straightforward guy. Yeah, he's really straightforwarder. He's one of those guys that would like tell you if he was mad at you, but he would. But you know, if he doesn't tell you he's mad at you, he's not mad at you. Do you see what I'm saying?
Because because he was super generous, Misty and I went to d C to meet with him. That's not where he lives, but he was in d c So we're super generous, super you have to figure that out on here. Actually it's probably all over the internet.
But uh, that's enough.
Great, great guests, and you're gonna be shocked when you hear episode four. I'm not even gonna tell you why, trust me, how many?
How many you can have like twenty five episodes on this stuff?
Yeah, this is a big story, Christy. I know it's like a meanderinge river, haven't you heard? Yeah, this is like you never know where it's gonna go. It's like a road that splits into seven different ways and they all look the same, like you just have to pick one. Thank you guys so much. Carla, thanks for being on. Thank you anything else you want to add.
I'm excited to hear more.
Okay, asked you to do the wave. There was like a Rice queen.
That translates the audio.
Her prize winning Broccolian rice recipe.
Carla give us.
Uh, Josh, Christy. Great to have you guys.
Thank you so much, Fair Grace couples of dishes.
I loved it.