Ep. 285: This Country Life - Superstitions

stories to share. Superstitions crossing your fingers, looking for four leaf clovers and avoiding the number thirteen, or some common superstitions that nearly everyone knows about. I'm going to tell you about some of the ones I grew up around and maybe still practice to some degree. I'm going to tell you all about it, but first I'm going to tell you a story. Somewhere around nineteen eighty eight, we were just driving down the road on the way to

the woods one day. Mister Leon was keeping the fire stoked on a sale of Menthos cigarette and looking at a copy of an ownership map that we were using to locate some Georgia Pacific property lines we were going to move some loggers onto in a few weeks. I was a young man working for GP managing Timber. This was before I was old enough to be a police officer in Arkansas, and mister Leon Garlington was the crew boss. He was a veteran of World War Two, having seen

some brutal fighting in the South Pacific. I respected him and he tolerated me. He hated everybody, and most everything made him mad. It all stemmed from the war, I'm sure. But someone said he was contrary before he ever left Arkansas for the other side of the earth. Regardless, I looked up to him and I put a lot of stock into what he said. And I've told the story before about how mister Leon and I would drive out to work one way and come back to town in a

different one. For those that haven't heard, I'll hit the high points for you. No idea how long we'd been working together managing Timber for GP, me driving and him doing all the navigating, when after a million trips to and from the woods, he adamantly refused to allow me, the guy that was driving, to take the quickest way home one afternoon because that was the way we had driven out that morning. Mister Leon, I'm hot, I'm tired. We can cut this trip back to the office in half.

If we would just go down the highway like we came out this morning, No, we ain't going back that way? Why not? That's when he took a drag off that cigarette and slow blew it out the open window that air conditionless truck and said, son, have you ever been ambushed? No, sir, well I have. We ain't going back the same way we came out. We never did ever in all the years I worked with him. But this was another day,

and mister Leon was feeling pretty good that morning. He hadn't wished anybody to be shot with a wooden bullet so far that day. That was one of his favorite dispersions to cast upon someone he didn't approve of. He order to be shot with a wooden bullet was exactly how he'd phrase it, and it was normally addressed toward our co workers, whose work ethics he called into question

on a regular basis. Even though he hadn't spoken to me yet, I was digging the vibe I was getting from him, and I took a chance on getting a wooden bullet wished in my direction. But anyway, I said, mister Leon, I got a dang hoodol sitting on a limb my window every night. I guess it's a hoodole. It's making some kind of spooky racket. But every time I go out to see it with a light, it ain't there. It sounds like woo ooh. Now, to my surprise, he didn't ignore me. He had done that in the

past a lot. How many nights has it been out there? I said, I don't know, maybe two or three, and it wakes me up in the middle of the night. What does it sound like again? I did it again. That ain't no whodol Son. That's a haint. Do what now? That's a haint. You got something spooking you. How many times have you gone up to an isle at night and did not fly? That's a haint. And there ain't but one way to cure it. You got to turn your shoes upside down under the edge of the bed

when you lay down at night. And I kept waiting for him to start laughing, But all he did was keep the fire burning on the end of that cigarette and never took his eyes off the map. He didn't do a lot of joking. And I readily admit, coon hunter or not, I ain't a big fan of the dark not that I think there's spooks knocking about in it, but something was, and someone I had looked up to and put a lot of stock in what he said had just given me a cure for what was really

starting to worry me. We didn't talk about it none of the rest of the day, and I went to bed that night to silence. No racket at all. My work boots sitting by the door were I took them off every day when I came home. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to that noise again. I didn't get out of bed. I knew I wasn't going to see anything if I went out there. Never had. I just laid there waiting on that haink to get

me wishing. I still thought it was just a hootile and then I'd put my shoes under the bed, just like mister Lehan had told me to do. Now about the middle of the morning. It worked. The next day, he asked me, put them shoes under your bed last night? No, sir, did the spook come back? Yes, sir. He just shook his head disappointedly and fired up another men. Though he didn't mention anything about it. The rest of the day.

Well that night, after suppering, before cutting out the light, the last thing I did was turned my boots and every pair of shoes I owned upside down under the edge of the bed. I never heard that noise again, not once. I have no idea to this very day what it was, and I have never heard that sound again in any recordings of any speed seeds an owl that inhabits North America. I've looked trying to replicate what I heard and identify what it actually was. I don't know.

But the next day at work, I walked into the coffee room. Mister Lenarm was sitting in his usual chair, reading the newspaper, stained white cup of coffee steaming beside the ash tray that was keeping that Mentha all ready for him. He looked up at me when I walked in, and I hopped up on the edge of the counter where I normally sat, waiting on him, just to give the sign it was time for us to head to the truck and go to work. Until that time, he

ignored everything and everyone. He just sat there and read the paper, oblivious to the rest of the world. He picked up a cigarette and glanced up from the paper, looking at me over his top of his glasses, and he said, I just sleep last night. Now, it was such an unusual happening that everyone else stopped talking and turned to see if he'd actually he initiated a conversation with someone. I smiled big at him, happy that he

was even talking to me. He never talked to anybody up there, and only talked to me once we left. But I looked at him, I said, I slept like a baby, mister Leon. He winked at me, and he went back to his paper. And that's just how that happened. Superstitions, the world is full of them. Some of them are very well known. As a Pennsylvania paper mogul Michael Scott once said, I'm not superstitious. I am a little stitious.

The same goes for yours, truly. Then my wife and kids might have a different opinion about that, as they take great joy in poking fun of me about my beliefs and habits. And I can't point to any reason or reference for it other than I was raised that way,

or better yet, exposed to it as a child. No one ever sat me down and said, Brent, do this or don't do that, or you will die well, except from my maternal grandmother, beautlessly, the same one that drug me to the beauty parlor when misfortune befell me and I got caught in her possession while in town. Mom sly told me, as I mentioned on her before, that if I drank milk and ate fish, I would die, simple and quick, to the point it made a lasting

impression on me. I remember it like it was this morning. We sat down to eat a big mess of fish she just fried up, and she has Brent, what do you want to drink? I want some sweet milk. I don't remember how old I was, but I was still in elementary school when she responded, and I quote, you can't have milk and fish. It'll kill you, ma'am, It'll kill you. I can't do that. She's some tea that

wasn't going to end well. And before I go any further, let me say that my grandmother could sit on her behind, blindfolded, with her right arm tied behind her back, and out cooked Julia Chiles and Justin Wilson and out Clean, Mister Clean, and the tidy bowl Man all at the same time. But everyone has a weakness to Superman. It was kryptonite to Achilles. It was his heel to my mama's life. It was her sweet tea. I call it sweet tea only because that's what he's supposed to be. She didn't

put sugar in it, she didn't like it. It wouldn't drink it, so I'm not sure she even knew what it was supposed to taste like. She was born in nineteen twelve and raised on a farm seven and a half miles north of Warren, Arkansas, picking cotton, milk and cows and feeding chickens. You'd think with that resume, she'd have been the queen of sweet tea, but you'd be wrong. My mama liked sweet tea. My dad likes sweet tea.

My grandfather find A Sly. Her husband liked sweet tea, but bless his heart, he didn't get to drink it. Not good sweet tea at least I was. Mama Sly made it. She had a gray stoneware a picture that had two blue stripes on it that she put the tea in when she made it. Could be sitting on the table. When I sat down and saw it there, I knew I was in for some tough swallowing ahead of me if I drank it, so I always opted for milk, except on Friday nights, when we always ate

fish like any self respected Southerner does. If we didn't fix it at home, we loaded up and went out to eat it. But on the occasion to which I'm referring, I was sitting in my appointed chair on the east side of the table, the chair I always set in when I stayed there. My grandfather was at the head on the south end, and directly across from me was my sainted Mama. Slo poured me up a glass of tea that was so stout you could have floated a

steel wedge in it. It was so dark you could stand ankle deep in it and not see your feet. I watched my Papall dump enough lemon juice and sugar in it to make it somewhat palatable. I don't think he really liked it. I think he drank it because he loved my Mama's lye, and I loved her too.

So when I took a drink of it and I said, this tea don't taste like Mama's, Papall cut his eyes at me, and I don't know if he was thinking that this fifth born grandson had been sent here as his own personal Moses to deliver him from the bondage of Mama slies Tea, or if he thought that statement, I just spontaneously uttered after choking down the most bitter solution this side of purified green per simmons had been

more dangerous than mixing milk and fish. We never found out because my mama's slie said rather sternly, will I'll fix you some water? Papaull kept eating and I didn't die. I looked it up, and the myth of milk and fish goes back a long way, and at its origins, it's believed to have caused skin problems somewhere along the way. When it reached that little farm seven and a half miles north of Warren, Arkansas, possible skin problems had turned

into imminent death. Another superstition that I can attribute to my mama's life was whenever we were walking side by side and a pole or a parking meter, or a fence post or any type of object came between us, she'd say bread and butter. Now I never thought much about it, For all I knew she was going over a grocery list and I'm easily distracted. But the origins of the saying go back a long time ago. Like most old sayings like that, it's supposed to ward off any future

happenings that would separate the relationship. Something come between you is that when butter is spread on bread, that you can't take it off. I say it now, and I have said it ever since I noticed her saying it when I was just a kid. It was one of a myriad of sayings, phrases, and observations that Alexis found

herself having to learn. When we got together. She struggled with me saying dinner and meaning what she would call lunch, to the point that I heard her in the kitchen in her apartment one day saying, over and over breakfast dinner, so breakfast dinner, so breakfast dinner. So I said, what are you doing, to which she said, I'm trying to learn a new language. That It came as no surprise when we were walking to a restaurant one evening not long after that, and a parking meter came in between

us and she said, peanut butter and jelly. I said what she said, peanut butter and jelly. No biscuits and gravy. Biscuits and gravy. That's it, I said, No, dear, it's bread and butter. I appreciate you trying. One that really got her one day when we were still dating, was when I was driving us somewhere and a cat ran

across the road in front of us. This was back when she still stayed away long enough to have a conversation, instead of like now, when she builds herself a blanket cocoon to hibernate in until we reach our destination that could be as far away as another state or as

close as the grocery store. Anyway, the cat crossed the road, and in mid conversation, I made an X with my right index finger in the top left hand corner of the windshield, turned my head and made a spitting noise over my left shoulder, and continued on with whatever I was saying, as if nothing had happened. When she didn't respond, I looked over at her, and she was staring at me. Her eyes were big, her mouth was partially open, and her little bump of a nose snarled upwards in utter disgust.

I asked her, what's wrong? She said, are you spitting in the car, because if you are and don't stop immediately, this is a deal breaker. No, I didn't really spill, I just made that racket. A cat crossed the road in front of us. Now, I assume she didn't see it as if that was going to make what I had just done easier for her to understand. I've always taken it for granted that everyone grew up like me and what I did was just a social norm. Other folks,

my wife included, refer to them as social abnormalities. I saw my dad do it a million times, and when I asked you why, he said it was the ward off bad luck. And it wasn't just limited to black cats. It was any and every cat that ever crossed the road in front of us. It was learned behavior from him to me, and I have no idea where he got it from. My son Hunter does it as well as my oldest daughter Amy, but the baby girl Cub

doesn't not yet. Anyway, something I was told I wasn't supposed to to do as well was talk about a dream I'd have before eating breakfast. I can't remember where I heard that one from, but it was always just been a part of my knowledge or lack of however you want to look at it. The real was you didn't talk about a dream before breakfast unless you wanted

it to come true. And most of my dreams over ten years had me duking it out with someone, and during the fight, my arms would only move in slow motion. I could feel myself swinging as hard and fast as I could, only to look like I was swimming in my glasses now. The first time I sprung that one on the lexus was at her parents' house. We'd all gathered for breakfast, and she started, let me tell you about this dream I had last night. WHOA Was it a good dream? No, it was scary. You can't talk

about it until you eat something. What you can't talk about it until you eat something or to come true? She stared at me from across the table. Everyone else, her parents, sister, and her grandmother's eyes are kind of

darting back and forth to each other. As I told her to at least take a bite or something before she talked about it, I could see her reevaluating her life choices up to that moment as she looked at me, contemplating how the rest of her life would play out being married to me, and she slowly deliberately took a bite from that fork as she had hovered in the

air above her plate. There I took a bite. Now we don't have to worry about the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz stealing the riding lawnmower and running over our mailbox. Now we all laughed and laughed, and it was funny. She's funny, But our mailbox has remained undamaged, and that happened before Bathing was born, So who's laughing now? Superstitions are a funny thing for me. They're more out of a habit than a belief. And I don't think

milk and fish will kill you. I also don't think knocking on wood would ward off any evil spirits or spitting over your shoulder. We keep a cat from bringing you harm, just like walking under a ladder ain't going to hurt a thing. But why take a chance a stilly tradition that connects me to the past and the people that I think about when I do them or

talk about them to others. Explaining them to Lexis would be the starting point to many conversations that would begin with me telling her about Mama's lies, saying bread and butter, and end up with us having spent time together, laughing and talking and learning about each other's families. And we still do that. If you're talking and laughing and learning with the folks you love, man, that's about as lucky as you can get. Thank y'all so much for listening

to us here on the Old Bear Grease Channel. I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's celebration, and I look forward to talking to y'all again next week. Until then, this is Brent Reeds signing off. I think