This week Reid and Dan host their dad, the infamous Grandy, out in God’s Country. The episode starts with Reid and Dan diving in with what they’re glad at this week and Grandy sharing what he’s a little “upset” about. They cover the importance of “Hunters for the Hungry” and how the listeners can get involved with this incredible program. Grandy shares incredible stories about running hunting dogs, Reid and Dan’s upbringing, and what it’s been like watching them on their Nashville journey. There is a banter that almost ends in a fight between the brothers and the Gravorite from this episode will have you livin on Tulsa Time!
God's Country on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips
Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube
Shop God's Country Merch
Shop MeatEater Merch
More from MeatEater
What's up.
You're off in God's Country with Reeds and Dan Isbel.
Also known as the Brothers Hunt, when we take a weekly drive to the intersection of country music and the great outdoors, two things that go together, like riding into the deer woods and a good old Don william song, or a.
Couple of beagle puppies name Cash and Credit, Salt and Pepper, Bonnie and Clyde.
Bonnie and Clyde. Brought to you by Meat Eater and iHeart Podcasts.
Bringing y'all a special one today. A lot of people have been asking us about it.
He's always want to know what he's up to.
It's kind of become a figure of the show without you know, you haven't seen his face, you don't really know what he looks like, heard his voice. He just there's tons of stories about him. Obviously a very integral part of our life, as as the Brother's Hunt, and and as Dan and Red Isbel. We've got Grandie with us. Uh, he's actually sitting here right now while we're doing the interview. Just followed me into town this morning and hanging out with us with his deer shirt on.
Granny. Who do you think came up with the name Grandy Courtney to horse.
Thank you, No, it was me, thank you, man. We this is it's a it's a good one. You're gonna you're gonna want to listen to it, and you're probably gonna watch it too, just to put a face with the voice. A lot of good.
Old sage hunting advice, dad and vice. That's right, husband advice. Just a good old sagey advicey episode.
Man.
Yeah, yeah, Moen said.
He cried in laughed through the reign of emotion.
Yeah, that's right. He's like, this is my favorite episode we've ever had.
Hey, I know, we dropped a bomb on y'all last week with the bonus episode about Hunters for the Hungry. He just wanted to reiterate it's the first of the fourteenth. Take some doze tag us hashtag deer drive.
Yeah, post some pictures, posting pictures with your dos Let's show them off. Let's know they've got they've raised ten times. They'll take bucks too. I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, going for twenty pounds. There's only you can go to the website. There's only sixty participating processors, so you can't just take it to any processor. You're going to take it to a participating Hunters for the Hungry Processor online. A quick google will pull that up.
I'll try to give you the the addressed as best I can, but a quick google of Hunters for the Hungry Processor, we'll pull that right up. But in case you are the typing type t nw F sorry TNWF dot org backslash hunters dash for dash, the dash hungry backslash.
We'll get you there. You can find a list of processors where you can take your deer. Turn it in.
They'll uh and and once again, real quick. Nobody's losing on this deal. They get paid, the processes. The people in Easton to see you get dear meet, So let's do it. Hashtag deer drive.
You can also if you're if you're up for it, if you fill it up for it, feel called to do it, Let to do it. You can donate money, Yeah, you can donate financially if you have you don't have to hunt or anything like that to take a dough. You can donate financially. That will also help the calls and domate dough. Donate either donate or donate seriously, what we do? I like it? How y'all gonna love this one. Grandy, thanks for hanging out with us. Time. We got Grandee Grandy, big deer killing, fish, frying dad of foreign gospel preaching, big fish catching the king of Facebook marketplace. The amount of d MS we got asking for this episode is crazy, but here we go. We got Grandee himself out in God's country, clap for your daddy, then clap for your daddy.
And making sure there's not anything I forgot.
They look at it though, too. Came in like get the Camo. But hey, dudes, on no doubt, got the big bucks on his shirt, Bucks on his shirt, and the d vest and the red cedar. Ye got the red.
Yeah, but now there's a story behind the shirt.
Hey, that's where we're staying next week.
Well, you got to notice a shirt. This is public ground, this is private That makes sense. Yeah, that's the new joke he's got with that shirt.
That's right.
I like it.
That's why I got that shirt.
Where did you get that shirt?
You don't want to know?
Yes I do. I want everybody wants to know.
Goodwill, how much you pay for it? It was it was the same. What is it when they run their blue ticket sale?
Or whatever.
I got it for half price I got. I gave three bucks for it, and I was proud of get.
You wouldn't have gave four for it. I guarantee you. If it wouldn't have been on sell, you would have.
Got it exactly comfortable shirt. Hey, thanks for raising us.
Thanks for raising us one. Thanks for also too. I was kind of reluctant to ask you to do this because I know it's like it is the middle of the rut right now, and it was twenty one degrees this month. Yeah, it was so thanks for sacrificing.
There was an eight point chasing a doe in two fons in the middle in the front field. We just watched him out of the window this point. Really, we're there, I mean we're in it.
Me and Dad spent all last week kind of going back and forth down to the farm and I probably I probably should have shot a beg seven point that I passed on the first first afternoon. Dad's awesome, good deer. We'll get into the story if Dad took our nephew and he harvested his first book.
It's great.
Yeah, but we'll start this episode just like we started every other episode.
Wa you mad just tell us what it is.
But you're mad at is it? Your in lost kids, might be your boss man, know your neighbor's cat. Just tell us what.
It's crazy, that's cool. I don't think Dad knew we were this official. No, I really didn't. Like he walked in.
He's like, whoa, Yeah, yeah, it looks different in here than on Do you watch the YouTube?
I watch the YouTube.
Yeah, it probably looks little. Do you watch the YouTube?
Wow? You know everything?
Well?
Yeah, but it's always good to get a little first hand view from some of these guys.
And I like to see them for.
Some of what guys, what are you talking about?
Well, the different guys that you guys have heard of it.
Yeah, I wants to put a face to the voice. Yeah. You know a lot of people watch the YouTube. Well, I mean a lot of like listeners.
Watch I think, I think, and I'm not telling everybody to go watch the YouTube, but it's probably just listening to us Tom like versus watching us is probably a different a little bit of a different experience.
There's no doubt there is.
I mean I can tell you that you listen to it on just the radio, the iHeart and you're hearing the voice. But when you watch it on YouTube, you're seeing the face, You're hearing the you're seeing the expression.
See red drop his phone, the interaction.
See if you were just listening to the radio, you just hear the noise, wouldn't.
Picture of Grande right there? Hey go with griff.
That was good?
What's my back? But I'm just telling you though, Oh what's my background? Yourself?
That's yours. It's all this.
Remember the golf game, I remember that. That was a good I had a good day that I like to froze that day. Look that shirt, I'm worried it's black. Yeah remember that?
Oh yeah, I gave it. Yep, yep.
But anyway, when you put a face to the voice, it just more personalizes it.
I guarantee you more people will go and watch this YouTube then they have like this one might get more just because you on it, just because.
People like you're kind of famous on here, You're a character on here. Everybody wants to know what you're up to all the time.
Well, that's cool. Usually Facebook deals, I appreciate, appreciate that very much.
Hunting Facebook deals or doing something in the backyard, or preaching the gospel.
Let's start off with what you're mad at or what you're glad at, And I will start it by saying, I am glad today. First off, I'm glad it took us twenty five minutes to get down, believe it, which is crazy.
The second, the second thing that I'm second thing, the second.
Thing that I'm extremely happy about is there is a boy in Michigan who saved his sister by hitting the would be kidnapper with slingshot.
A come.
A Michigan boy who recently channeled his inner and this is the Guardian. So a Michigan boy who recently channeled his inner David, which is David Yeah appropriate, yep yeah, and warded off his sister's hulking would be kidnapper by shooting him with a slingshot. Has said he grabbed the unconventional weapon because he was freaking out at the unfolding danger and it was the closest thing. It just felt like I was scared and I had to do something, thirteen year old Owens said, because if I didn't, she would have been taken her worse. Let me let me just I wouldn't stand hold on just second, let me get oh, here he goes here he goes. The team reached for his nearby slingshot, grabbed a marble and a rock, and opened the window. With both the marble and the rock, he loaded them into the slingshot's palch double shot, pulled it back in its bands, and fired the projectiles at his sister's attacker. Owens struck the seventeen year old a sailing in the head and chest, and his sister was able to writhe away out of the clutches and run back inside to her family's home. Police said the attacker ran into the woods. The officers arrested him after they found him check this out trying to hide at a nearby gas station with the injuries that matched having been hit with a rock arm fired from a slan Good for him, I was, I was just lucky he's a big target because it's not like one PEPSI can oh instead, referring to an autumn which which slingshot enthusiasts often used for target practice. If I wasn't out there and I didn't hear her scream, then she was gone, Man, pretty cool.
That's great. I saw that.
I was like, yes, yeah, shoot assailants with sling shots.
That I mean, yeah, he just grabbed whatever. Do you remember those sling shots he used to get us. Yes, sir, you put a hurting on somebody with it had the yellow Oh that's the yellow forearm, and you had the forearm stock the wrist that you would sit it down on your forearm and you pull that. You could pull it back because you had that in the son. You could you could see.
I I wanted to kill a turkey with one of those things. I practiced and practiced, but it never got confident. Yeah, I better, thank goodness.
Yeah, and be impressive.
I would loath to smack a turkey upside the head with a slingshot.
What you're happy? What's you glad at? I'm glad I forget. No, I'm glad I forgot. This morning when I got in my truck, it was freezing. My hands were freezing. Dude, something's going on my hands. Like I'm not I'm losing. I'm losing dexterity maybe, but like I cleaned a couple deer this weekend and then my sister in law asked me to cut up a flank steak and dude, I was cutting this thing against the grain because I say, you do it for faetas and over the past, over this weekend, and dude, my hands, I feel like I need like a like one of those taw squeezers tennis baw squeezer or one of those hand squeeze or squeezers to get my anyway. My hands were freezing this morning when I got my truck, and I was like, dag gone, man, I don't have any gloves. Looked over there and saw a little wheel on my steering wheel and I was like, it had some It's had these three like air things going up. And I was like, what is what's that? Hit it boom my steering wheel.
Guy, it's real nice.
Oh man, I drove. I never drive ten or two.
I drove the those in the oath fo Yeah, yeah, I have my I.
Just held on like this the whole way to town this morning because it felt so good and got my hands. But my hands are weak. I got weak hands. What's what were you dead?
I usually am glad every day I wake up, and but a little mor this morning, A little bit on the torque side.
This race, this le this recent.
Rate hike or price up in rate hike on the licenses that we're purchasing every year, it's not for sure yet for a vote, but the fact is it probably will go through when they show me a dollar deficit.
Yeah, the t w A is working at a million dollar deficit. And the only thing that funds the t w r A are hunters licenses and boat registration, So of course they're gonna you know, they're going to try to increase and it's a it's twenty eight percent, so even on lifetime licenses, they're going to try to increase them by like twelve to fifteen percent.
Well, I was trying to find out why the deficit.
I mean, is there a real because they're self funded and there's they're not doing anything to raise money for themself.
But does that mean that there's less hunters buying license or what.
Is that saying? The trend is?
Is this something that is just a one year million dollar deficit or is it something that's been building on until it reached that point.
I think they do that. That's why they do those rifles every year. I'm sure it is. But I didn't win anything.
Do you owe anything and one every yeah?
Never one. I don't know that they're giving anything, but I contribute, say.
I do feel like like I was watching a thing where a bunch of guys they're like, yeah, they're like, I love hunting. I live in Tennessee. I love hunting and fishing Tennessee. They're like, but the prices, I mean, I think I think of like a fishing license is thirty something dollars in Tennessee for an in state fishing license, and with this increase, it'll go like forty five. And he was like, man, I think i'll I think I might move to Mississippi because one, I think the fishing is better there too. The hunting fish combos ten bucks for residents for residents.
We see to me, I would rather see the non resident aspect go up.
Well, yeah, of course you would. You're not a non resident exactly.
You know. Well it is I mean that, and it probably will, I'm sure, but usually that's the case. Right Like anywhere you hunt, they raise a non resident compared to an in state tag versus out of state tag. Yeah, the out of state tags are that you know, you gotta pay for those. You have to see.
I'll have to see how that, how that shakes out.
I don't know that that's a big it's big, it's worth you know, Here's here's another thing. Here's what I'm mad at. Here's a good mad at. I'm mad at dad for not buying our lifetime life. Yere we go thirty and forty years ago.
Well again, if had I known we were staying in Tennesseee the rest.
Of our life, I would have say, really, I don't feel like Grandy strikes out very much that he's struck out on that.
Yeah, I mean, I.
Love you, and on the day that you die, I'll be so sad, but I'll still be mad at you for not getting my I'm mad at me for not getting I'm just holding that forever. I'm never gonna let that go.
It's probably worth us getting our all of us getting our lifetime licenses. Yeah, I'll tell you what.
You got to do it.
Before Boon and Liza, I mean, Griffin and that Buck and you know.
I'm just saying like, yeah, I know, but we might as well get all Yeah, get it for they before they them up.
No doubt.
Okay again, guys, just have a forgiving heart.
What was it back then?
I have no idea, Probably.
Like fifty bucks.
I think it's more like ninety seventy five.
Sorry, sorry now we're about we pay one seventy a year now I know, about to pay two hundred and something a year.
About to pay three thousand for a lifetime.
Yeah, no doubt.
Yeah.
Speaking of back then, give give the listeners just a little a little back ground of where you're from, how you grew up hunting, who taught you how to hunt, all that kind of stuff.
And look, Dad, we're fifteen minutes in.
Yeah, this is about an hour episode, so we're gonna have to keep him kind of snug.
You know.
I don't get loose. Don't get loose over there.
Don't preach.
I mean you can preach, but yeah, well just save the preaching.
Born in Ohio. Dad was in the army.
Mom was living with him, of course, and so I happened to be born just off the military base in Columbus, Ohio. Moved south after Dad finished his two year service there.
Quick little story, quick little story. Sorry, I played in this. I played AAU basketball and Columbus Ohio my junior senior year in senior year high school. And Dad, we took you flew up, didn't you. Yeah?
He did.
Yeah, and me and you and Daddy, Spud and Dan and Dad was like, Hey, we're never in Ohio. I gotta go back and see where I was born. See the high first house I lived in. Yeah, So we over there and we were driving around. We found it. We found his He was saying, he's like, man, this is crazy.
There's a duplexer on the corner.
That's right, and he was like, this is crazy. By the time, there's a guy, like an older man, rode by on a bike and he went, Hi, there's Roddy.
How long are you there? Like a year? Two years?
Two years?
A year now?
So that was my best friend, Roddy there back in the day. Grew up right down the street.
Yeah, and you guys would what where?
I said, right there, right down the road. There's running all right, going to go to Mississippi.
So we moved to Mississippi where the family is. My My dad had, of course, uh six brothers and three sisters, large family, forty something cousins and uh I think about ninety percent of those were hunters. So we rabbit hunted. I kept a pack of beagle dogs. Old Diner was the best dog I've ever seen in my life. Dinner Diner d I n e R just like a Santa feed diner.
It was cafe.
The other one, yep, and restaurant was stood dog, but Diner was the big dog was big beagle. And I mean when Diner opened her mouth, meat was going on the table and rabbit hunted. One funny story My uncle Ernest, my daddy's twin brother likeness was Dad's dad.
Ernest was his twin brother. His twin brother.
My Daddy's name was furnished with an initial B.
Yeah, what do they always make fun of h? He used to say it was birtha well.
Uh and Ernest had the initial V now on their birth certificates. Neither one of those had a name. It was just an initial B and V.
So my uncle David Curry, David Curry, my cousin who loved to just totally antagonize my dad.
He's one of the funniest people I know.
He's a daddy and he was determined.
He'd say, Uncle Ernest, I know that bee stands for something, and Dab would say, no, it doesn't understand for anything, and he said, yes it does.
I'm gonna find out.
So find out that my dad's mother had two sisters named Bertha and and Velma, like Big Bertha, Big Bertha, and she was a big lady. But it was Bertha and Velma. So David then said, Uncle Ernest, your name is vernished Bertha, because he said Ernest was venis Velma.
Yeah, Ernest Velma and Burnished Bertha.
And he said, my middle birtha made a life.
I remember that yell.
So Dad's twin brother, Ernest's got this idea he's gonna really load.
Up a some some rabbit shot. He loaded his own shelves.
And we're out in front of my granddad's place rabbit hunting, and I mean the dogs are yelling. I mean they're a hall it. They're going there running a rabbit and my three or four uncles, everybody's trying to cut it off and keep the other one from kill it, killing it, and U Uncle Ernest comes running across the hill and here comes the rabbit toward him, and he stops and pulls up at dol barrel shotgun and pulls both barrels at the same time. And when it did, that shotgun whooped him all over the hillside. I mean blacked his eyes, blooded his nose, I mean.
His pack shot, his pack shot. Did you kill a rabbit?
He obliterated rabbit, nothing left but just pieces, and everybody yelling and laughing and hipping him up, and I mean it was hilarious. And so I grew up in that kind of an atmosphere of honey. And when it transferred the deer hunting, my uncle Roy, who's Gary's dad, Roy and my uncle Wayne were the dog handlers, and y'all ran.
Y'all ran dogs in Mississippi.
We ran dogs in Mississippi. I don't know that there wasn't a sea. I don't know that they had actually a no gun dog season. I think it was pretty much everybody was doing it. When it opened, it was it was dogging, and down in Mississippi, North Mississippi, the Corinth area there was Sharp's Bottom. We hunted in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and we carried the dogs everywhere we went, and it was wide open, turn them loose, cut them off. And the hard thing was it was fun with the family, but it wasn't really for me a lot of fun hunting that way. That was not my preferred style at all. Every deer that came by me was running no less than probably forty to fifty miles an hour.
Tough shot and made for great ethics.
No, I mean, and it's sad to say, you know, it's one of those situations where a lot of times, if it's brown is down, they call it ground check it. If it checks out right, you put it in the back of the truck, and if it doesn't check out right, you put it on the hood. And you know that's that's not good. But we had great family. I mean when we'd come, when we'd gather for lunch, and everybody start pulling stuff.
Out of their trucks in their cars.
And I had about as many uncles and cousins that went deer hunting in their cars as I did who went in their trucks. Yeah, and I never will forget. Roy had a you know, our dog. Roy handled a lot of the dogs.
And he had a falcon a falcon Ford I think was the name of it, a little short car, and he he'd raise the trunk and they'd be seventeen dogs in there, and the hardest thing, and I mean, it's awful, but funny Roy would we'd get them all in and just as he get ready to slam a trunk, there'd be a tail stick out somewhere, and son get nailed. And it it caused that trunk lid to not it was springing it or sprung it or something. You couldn't get the trunk open. And you see a dog's tail just barely moving, and I mean just barely booth.
And boy, when you created enough opening to get that dog son it went. And then when it cut, when you open the dog, opened the trunk, let them out, you'd see one dog whose tail just barren.
You knew that was the one that got caught. I got I want to ask a couple. I got a couple of while we're on the you're on Paul talking about Paul. There's a million stories he told all the time, but there's two specifics that come to mind that pertained to the outdoors that he swore happened.
Can you tell you tell the SLINKs? The the slinkshot on what we're talking about. No, and then, so which one do you want to tell? Yeah, I'll tell all right, Well, I mean he always yeah, right, he would tell these stories and we'd be like, there's no way. He'd be like, I promise, I promise these things.
Hey, hand on the heart, I promise. But one in the sky one hand was hard as I promised, this is true.
I don't know what age they were when he in this specific story that he would tell about ducks. But him and and his twin brother Ernest, were we're fishing one day, trying to catch dinner. And uh, they weren't having a good down the on the lake and weren't catching anything. And and uh, I think Ernest heard a couple of ducks coming over, just a couple of mallards.
Alright.
He looked up.
And they were walking down a railroad track headed home.
Oh were they?
I thought they were in the boat and they said home.
So anyway they were like they didn't they didn't. They were empty handy, going back home with nothing to eat. And uh, he said, man, he said, I wish I had a shotgun, and I'd reach up there and I'd shoot them ducks. And when he did, he took his fishing pole and he aimed it at him and was following him with his mouth went real loud. And when they did, them ducks looked up and and and like scared them enough to fly into each other. They butted heads and fell right in front of them, and don't skill the train track and took them hom andate them.
Yeah, they hit they they he said, it scared him so badly. They cut. When they cut, they hit.
Each other and knocked him out.
Okay, if a man walked in with a gun and he put it to Reed's head and he said, is that story true or not?
Would you say yesterday? Yes?
Okay, that's why I see you.
I think so too.
I think it was true.
I'll say truth. Yeah, I have no reason to believe is a lie.
The other one that I'm thinking of is when he was in the woods, he shot that spike buck and it was like a bow and air or something. He hit, he missed it, and it ran over to the tree. And he was on the back side.
Of the tree.
That was Van Fleet, Mississippi. And he reached from the tree and grabbed by the horns.
And cut his throat real fast, he did.
And that thing kicked and jumped like and you were there, Yeah, all right, how to go down?
Kick?
Was it?
Bow and arrow? Was it?
It was bow and arrow? Shot?
And he missed him, and the deer spooked and just ran to the tree, and and Dad was on one side and the deer was on the other and looking back because he didn't know what it happened. Sure, and Dad, and I'm gonna tell you you were there. Being a meat cutter, I wasn't with him when that happened. I was in the car. But being the meat cutter that he was.
In the car, he just leave you in the car while he went hunted.
He left us in the car all the time. Well yeah, I mean, there's no big deal about it.
All the time in the car while I go hunt for you.
Yeah, I slid it. We did it all the time.
And but anyway, being being the meat cutter processor that he was, he kept his knives razor sharp. And uh he so this deer, I mean, it runs up to the tree.
It's looking the way it came back.
It was a V. Sorry, it was a V. That's what he said.
It was a V.
Right, he saw it come up to the V. And did he reach through the V? He just reached.
I don't know how if he reached through or reached around, but just the minute, the second, split second, the minute he just.
Caught and cut. I mean it was all amatic.
Chasing born dude had chasing Born in the woods deer.
I mean, I was just interested. He drugged the deer out with it cutthroat.
One one way to skim skin a deer.
I guess all the meat is good when you do it that way, for sure. You can use every every part.
It ain't no doubt. Man. When I think back to to like the first our first hunting experiences, it was it was rabbit hornting with with you and having dogs and and running them like crazy. And I was trying to think of some some great combo rabbit names. We had. We we in our backyard in Savannah, Tennessee, Dad had we had rabbit dog cages and and he would put radios back there and and keep them on all the time to keep those dogs from from barking all the time. But what were some of the great what were some of the great combos? We had Cash and.
Credit, Rambow and Rebel, Roscoe and Reebot what those were?
Those were the storytellers, the rabbits that he told stories about.
That's right, That's right.
I can't remember them all. There were always combos though.
Yeah, we had Susie and uh yeah male dog's name. Yeah, I remember the red ones, but I can't.
I'm and uh Rutherford had some names on dogs. Oh yeah, combo names like that.
Too.
He did used to Yeah, salt and peppery.
Yeah, just born born And I mean the litters were how many? But he he just pare them up, just pull them and did you work them in pairs? Like how did how did they come up? Like that?
It was sometimes just random dogs. Yeah, sometimes just random dogs.
Uh.
And if you did have a litter, uh, and you were going to keep a couple, that's when you usually named them your combo names. Uh, you know cash and credit, Uh, you know the ones like that. Yeah, but the dogs, you know, I grew up with beagles and I didn't when when Eda and I were married and started our family. I had beagles then because we lived in Ripley and I had rabbit hunters in the church and dog guys in the church, and we did.
A lot of running, you know, a lot of rabbit hunting together.
So it really is nothing like a cold January morning, how buddy, when they are run, when the dogs are.
Someone's just walking around.
This even the anticipation of like getting out there, and you can hear the dogs anticipation because they know they're going to hunting.
They're excited, they're eager.
You load them like you you unlatched that gate on there and they take they are gone.
I wonder if ground is available now like it was. I mean, did you think about that, that's twenty years ago. I mean, if ground is still available to.
Twenty years ago, that's that's more than let's long that when we were going twenty eight years ago. Yeah, that's crazy to think about.
We would just open the boxes and they would just take off, and you had permission from the landowners.
I remember that. That's my Those are literally my earliest memories of hunting, Like I remember doing that.
Minor deer hunting.
Honestly, I think minor deer hunting before. I mean I remember rabbit hunting for sure, but I think I remember me and Dad going on deer hunts on three wheelers.
Well, you know, we had four even had four wheeler. I didn't have beagles the whole time.
Big Red Big He flipped the Big Red on us. He's flipped about every four where we got we've ever had.
Yeah, how did mom not kill on top of black in our eyes? She she threatened a lot about half of them. Shane would kill me if I flipped a four wheeler on men.
But it runs on the blood man, the first the first time me and Jordan ever, is that the first time you've ever been to like we hung out?
Yeah, but y'all are the saint.
Y'all are flipped. I flipped a four other on me and Jordan the first time we ever hung out.
That I didn't know that.
Yeah. I was literally trying to back up a hill and I reversed it and cut it and it flipped on. I had to push it just like us and and literally in that split second, I was like, this is what dad did.
Overall are idiots?
We are, man. We talked about it this past week.
Let's don't talk about it.
I mean, look, I get it.
I would say, I'm tendency wise, I'm probably more like mom uh and that y'all are like because the best way for me to ever get anything done that I didn't want to have to do was just to pit you guys against each other because it was just like, because they're the same person, I'm just gonna talk to Jordan about this because they're the same person. It was like, well, but he can do it faster than you can well do it. And then I would just chill eat a Snickers and watch them put together, which.
Is still part of it's still a philosophy life. Let me and you figure out how to work it. You know it works, it still works.
I'm telling them about it. I've told them about it. If we went to do something today, to put a ladder stand up, I.
Think that's I just think that's your way of not knowing how to do anything.
Getting have to. I don't have to. You guys will fight it out and then I'll just come back and clean it up.
Tell us you'll are done, lawnmower won't crank you.
Call me or Dad.
Have you ever dumped a four wheeler out of the back of your truck or or a trailer?
Yes?
Okay, boy mate, what what are you saying?
Have you read?
No?
I don't think I've ever thrown one of a trailer. I flipped plenty of them.
I've seen plenty of y'all's four with us go flipping off of.
Grab maybe when we're on them, but not when we're tired.
I don't recall losing one off of let's do this game. I've been wanting to do this, so all right, it's called dad, and you got the You got the note up?
Did you? Did you see see your text.
Okay, all right, close, I want you close your eyes and I'm this is just going to be a sentence, and at the end of the sentence you say, Dan or read okay, why are my eyes closed? Because I want you to see the person saying it. That is funny, though I don't know why. All right, ready, Hey Dad, it's me. Can I borrow twenty bucks that?
Dan? Read? Read?
Okay? All right, Hey Dad, it's me, am I faster? What what? What? Just say? What is it?
Dad?
You should have looked over it? All right, Hey Dad, it's me. I'm faster.
Read. Hey Dad, it's me. I'm quicker.
Okay, I see what you do. Because quicker and faster are two separate things. You know the answer? Go Dad, hurry up?
Read?
Okay, Hey Dad, it's me. I'm more reliable operating heavy machinery Dan. Hey Dad, I hit a baseball father, Dan. Hey Dad, it's read I hit a golf ball father. We all know that one.
Read Hey Dad, I just killed a giant buck Dan.
Yes, you should have let me just go go keep going, Hey Dad, I just got beat up in a fight.
Read. Hey Dad, I just wrote a hit song.
Said we weren't making these person.
It's not personal. You're just getting short ended the stick.
So you're just picking out the ones that what.
You gotta remember he wrote them.
Hey Dad, I'm in jail.
Dan.
Hey Dad, I'm a better turkey caller.
Read what Dad is?
Bush?
Dude? You know, Hey Dad.
I need help burying this body.
Dan. Hey Dad, I got a flat tire and I need help. Read Dude.
You know that's not true, Dad. You know he called I just I just put seven plugs in my four of the tire this past week.
I know it. But he's you know, Hey Dad.
Hush, hush, focus on the tire.
Thing.
That's bogus.
That was Hey Dad, I'm lost in the woods and I don't know which way is north read No, what.
Are you doing over here? I got competent and all of these things.
You're the one that would be hold on, we're not talking about We're not done.
I could explain.
This is making me mad.
Hey Dad, I just got elected president. Read Hey Dad, I just cut my arm off with a chainsaw.
Dan.
Hey Dad, I just cooked the best steak in the world. What I know?
That's right? All right, You're done. That's good though. I come out on top.
I'll take that. That's mess. That's bogus.
He's gonna be mad the rest of the that's funny.
Though, that's bogus. That's cool.
The only reason you would get lost is you would be exploring more than he would.
Yeah, but I would know where I was.
I would know I always know where I am. You don't get onyx. Come on well without onyx.
All right, let's talk about uh let's talk about Grandy being grandy this past week and getting to getting to take Graham or nephew, your grandson, and him wanting to kill his first bucks, never killed a buck before, and wanting to do it with you awesome, and tell us the abbreviated story of that happening.
As you said, Graham put the word out early before season.
Pis we live out locations, specific locations.
You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, I want you know he wanted to kill a buck.
He wanted to kill a buck. And so he also listens to this, by the way, so it's up on that.
So when, uh, you know, when one of the grandchildren are you know, wants to do something good, something right, we're always going to have them. And uh so we determined early when Graham could hunt. I'm willing to hunt with him. You all were willing to hunt with him. And it just so happened that fell on our Thanksgiving time when we go to the camp and we hunt the two days after Thanksgiving, Friday and Saturday. So Graham came with us and we hunted Friday morning. I had a couple of spikes and a nice six point to come by, but Graham sized him up and he wanted to pass that six and wait on something else. So in the evening we see doze and a spike one decent I could have been an eight, but it moves so fast through and biased that he didn't get a shot at him. So Saturday morning rolls around and about eight fifty eight o'clock Graham gets really tired and exhausted and he says, Grandy, I'm exhausted.
I said, Graham, make you a little bit so and go to sleep.
I'm watching.
So Graham pulls his chair shooting chair around and gets him a bag chair out, props his feet up in the back chair, and leans back in his shooting chair and.
He is sawing locks.
I mean, he is sound deep sleep and sure enough, about eight fifteen, I see a very decent, nice buck coming toward us, about two hundred yards out. And the minute I saw him, I saw his rack and I thought, then that'll be a shooter for Graham grabbed him. A Knox confirmed it reached over and I grabbed Graham by the leg and I said, Gram, Gram, shoot a buck coming down. Shoot a buck coming to us. And Old Graham jumps up and he's knocking chairs everywhere and tripping over hunting bags and trying to get his shooting chair around to his gun and gets on him. And the deer fortunately is not in a hurry. He moves, gives us plenty of time. Graham gets on him and.
He says, Grant, Dawn, I want to shoot this one. I said, we're gonna get him body.
That is funny.
He said, will you hold your hand over my ears where it won't be so loud? And I said, Graham, it's not gonna be loud. I said, I can't hold the monoculars and cover your ears at the same time. I might knock you off your shot. Don't want to do that.
Deer turns.
I said, We're gonna wait till it's a broadside he's giving us a good target. And sure enough the deer is you guys know, was going up, starting toward a logging road going from east to west, and he stops and I said, Graham, whenever you're ready, Well, I'm watching with binoculars and nod.
Graham, just bow, and when he does, you end up covering one of his ease.
I coover he his left ear with my left hand, binoculars in my right hand, and he deer jumps. He comes down into the I call it a bulldog run where it's all fours at the same time pulling and Graham he just immediately he's out of our sight, gone in the woods, up that logging road.
Graham looks around at me and he says, I said, what do you think, Graham? He said, Grandy, I feel good about the shot. I think I made a good shot. Said that's what I want to hear.
So we call read call and let him know he shot, and we're looking and going to be looking in thirty minutes.
Give the deer that much time. Get up there. I can't I didn't spot anything. I mean, I looked.
I walked that logging road and came around to the left and hit a ditch coming back at an angle across it, across to the south of the road, and if the deer went that way, he had to cross that ditch or we could find him laying there. But I found no evidence where he crossed that ditch. About that time, Graham yells at.
Me and says, Grandy, I found blood.
I hit him.
I said, go back to where that you found that. I'm coming to you. So I go up there and we start.
Finding little bebe size specks of little blood drippings enough to work him about maybe thirty forty yards up the logging road, and then it just goes away. We go all the way to the logging road.
I do.
Graham turns around, goes back, and I go probably one hundred and fifty yards up the logging road, still looking because I want to see leaves. I got a lot of pine needles. I want leaves to look for the trail. Found nothing, so I make a swing. I make a decision. I've already looked the left side, so I'm going to swing out to the right, thinking the deer may have turned to the north, which is the direction he came from. Maybe he just left the logging road and went started through the woods, and if he did, there's leaves. I should find some blood. And so in the same time, I'm a praying man. So I just said, Lord, I'm asking for help. If he killed this deer, if he hit this deer, good, and there's a trail wee can work. I'm just asking you to help us find it. And if he's not, we'll accept that that he wounded him into deer's good.
So I'm easing my way back through there. And lo and behold, I walk right up on that deer where he fell among some logs, and there lays Grahams deer. Oh my goodness.
So I get my phone out and thinking I'm going to video it, and I yell at Graham that I have found blood.
I want it in Grahams, what what you found blood?
I said, yes, come on, I won't you to help me tracking?
And I said, start good feeling when that happened, started started looking at us, are looking for blood? Graham on your way to me.
I want us to track.
I want you to track him.
Here comes Graham and I mean he's just he's so excited. He's pumped, steps off the logging road and starts him and he says.
Granty, I see it. I see blood trail, and he's coming. He looked at me and he.
Said, there's a spot about that big, you know, showing me a leaf size. And he keeps coming and I think I'm videoing. Unfortunately I didn't punch the button.
Oh video it. I didn't get it.
And which is like I told Dad, I was like, I was like, man that he was beating himself up over that. I was like, dude, that's You're in Graham's moment forever and everybody could take you take that.
From video in here.
Yeah, don't worry about that thing.
So he's coming, getting closer to me, and he gets about ten yards out and he's looking at me and I'm saying, you still trailing.
He said, I'm still trailing. I said, trail him up to me. And he's just coming. And when he gets the ears right there, right to my left, about five yards behind me or in front of me, out to the left, and Graham's about ten yards this way and he gets into clearing enough, he said, what's you find, grand In And I said, I just pointed, and o' Graham saw that deer and when he did, he just grabbed his head and he just stood there and he looked at the deer and he just went over to him and stood there with his hand on a limb, looking at his deer, and he just knelt down by him.
And that was a perfect moment.
And I said, Graham, congratulations, buddy, there's your buck.
And the rest is history. We call.
He wanted to call his mama and his daddy and then Read and then Dan, and he's calling everybody. He's ready to talk to somebody about that deer. And so he gets on the phone with his dad and he shows him the deer and all this stuff, and his mom, Courtney, went nuts, you know. She he facetimed her and when she answered, he he had the deer.
In the photo. You know, that's what it was. And she and Dean were just waking up, you know, and damn, Graham's killed it, dear, And here it went.
So it was a and I'm gonna tell you with Graham and me and us pulling him out and wrestling him up on the four wheeler, and Read call and said, hey, I'm at the top of the hill. Bring her up and bring that deer up here, if you Willness we're on our way. So it just and Graham, I bet he told me ten times, Grandy, I love you, I love.
You, thank you, thank you so much. I love you, thank you. And it was just an awesome moment that.
I wish every granddaddy could have those very special bonding moments and memories with their grandsons and with their sons and sons in law, be granddaughters and granddaughters and daughter in laws and daughters whoever wants to hunt, just the opportunity to spend those kind of bonding moments that are memory makers for a lifetime.
All has hunting changed for you from when you were pursuing the deer, the trophy bucks in the woods, and and and and going all the time by yourself, to having sons that love it as much, and now having grandkids getting into it, Like what's that what's that scope look like? From what it meant to you then to what it means to you what hunt is to you now?
Well, when you guys were smaller, I just I just waited for the time to get.
Put pull up Mike in a little bit closer. Uh.
When you guys were younger, I just waited for the time for you to get old enough, uh and quiet enough to take your deer hunt with me. I mean I was solo hunting, uh, basically now hunting with day. I had two friends when we moved to Tennessee, David and Donnie, members.
Of our church, and some of those stories are.
Yeah.
I love them and had great, great times of hunting with David and Donnie. Donnie was more serious hunter as I was, and David was a born workaholic guy, and he just kind of sponged off me and Donny. Wherever Donnie and I set up to hunt, David used the guy right in the middle between us, just to try to cut us off.
Do you remember that, dear, I think Donnie killed. Donny killed a mask, the big Yeah.
He had it in his living room.
No, he never mounted.
No, it was just super heavy and had this like.
Paul made it. Yeah, I remember, Yeah, I remember Paul made it.
Just a man crazy, yeah. And I mean Donnie never put He just didn't.
He wouldn't.
Donny said he didn't want to waste his money on getting them out for the while. He just hunted him and he put the he got the rack, and he let everybody borrow it. Everybody see it, yeah, and I think it ended up. I don't know that he knows where it is today. It was at our house for a long time. Beautiful, beautiful big rack. So hunted with him, and you asked me about changed when Lisa started. We just kind of split up. They went different ways because I got in and I became a lease manager or whatever. I leased ground myself, and they were still of the set of mine. They weren't really wanting to pay to get in the lease. They wanted just public land hunt, which is fine. So I did a lot of hunting by myself till you guys came along. And then my focus became helping you guys kill deer till you got to where you were pretty quickly functioning on your own. And then lo and behold when the grandchildren comes along and they want to hunt. I told Graham the other day, I said, Grandma, won't you know something? He said, Grandy, thank you for taking your time with me. I said, Graham, I would rather be with you when you kill a deer than for me to be hunting the biggest buck in these woods and kill it myself. I get a greater joy out of seeing your joy. Then I do the thrill of me taking an animal out of these woods.
Okay, would you rather shot a one ninety or been with a Graham when he killed this?
That's not a good question. No, I'm asking I've just been with Grim. Okay two ten, Graham can hunt.
With Reed.
Two o five.
Uh, Graham can hunt with Rich. I'm just wondering where the line's at.
It seems like undred two hundred is the line. That's awesome.
We don't have it.
That's awesome moment now we getting to. We took hero pictures of it and did the.
Yeah pictures of great love. He was fired. I called him yesterday, you know, and I said, look, man, I got sick. I had sick kids. I couldn't be down there with them. And you feel me on that sick kids. Uh, don't get the honeymore.
Uh.
And so I called him and I just said, hey, walked me through the story.
That's good.
And he was telling me the whole thing, you know, and he said, I said, we're gonna do it him. Man, You're gonna Man's gonna go. Man, he goes, I think I'm mount.
Yeah, he said, Dad said, I could, Oh really yeah, shoulder million that's awesome.
Yeah, I mean that's a good deer too, a good deer to shoot.
Yeah, buddy, for him didn't have brow tis big.
I think his sprow times went into his main beams.
He had longer, had one little kicker on his on his right coming off his base. Great deal. Yeah, that's an awesome dear, It's awesome. It's start even fifty minutes.
Probably we got to get into it. That's uh, you got something.
Well, just let's let's let's just do this music thing right quick. Just talk about talk about because like I want you to kind of give some advice to to other parents of children who are are chasing dreams. And and you've always been so supportive, and you and Mom both have been Our whole family has been very supportive of of watching us try to do this national thing, from moving your house boat up here and us living on it, you know, and paying the slip rent, and to obviously you know, to day come and coming to all our our things that we have in national.
Paid the slip run.
No, we did, didn't pay my half of this. I'm just saying, just just move, just get giving us a place to live too. Now literally today sitting in a chair with us on our podcast and hanging out. Yeah, like, what what advice would you give for parents and and and people who kind of their children are wanting to chase a dream that they're not.
Sure at all unorthodox path?
Yeah, personally, has it been tough watching us do this thing? Has it been?
Like?
Well, there's been you know, we didn't we didn't try to tell you what to do. Ever, we always try to support you in what you wanted to do as long as what did you what you wanted to do was honorable, right and worthwhile. And when you guys, uh, you know, starting with Dan kind of setting the pace and direction and he was going.
With his life and with you his punk rock bands.
Yeah, you know all throughout. First of all, we prayed earnestly for you guys. And I had this conversation with with Neda that not long ago. I said, it ought not surprise us that Courtney and Dan and Red and lindsay, have you done well and are doing well? And God's blessing because we've been praying for you for ever, since before you were born. And the answers to prayer coupled with the wisdom that God gives us to know how to encourage and support and have your back, which we've always tried to do, is just to help you to do what you want to do as long again as what you're wanting to do is right and reasonable and honest and good and worthwhile. So the fact that we didn't have to spend a lot of money getting you out of jail and hiring.
Lawyers to keep you out of prison and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you guys have been.
And girls too, has been a pain in the butt at times, but at other times you've been a pleasure. And watching you guys grow and become more professional in what you were doing and using good judgment and making good calls, then we would do whatever we could do to help accommodate you, help support you, and uh, you know, help be there for you. So there were a lot of times that you know, we wanted to be more involved, but we wouldn't. We gave you the rope, gave you the room to sharpen your skills, to choose your direction. And you know, I know, we don't know all you ever did and don't really want to know. With you know, some of the details, you guys had to live through and live with and work out and work through.
But you knew where we were. We knew where you.
Were, and as a result of it, we just wanted to see you do well. And and we're seeing you do well and coming from you know, working three jobs, you know, moving and calling ball games and writing songs and trying.
To make ends meet. You know.
Uh, we saw the effort you were putting, end of what you were doing, and so therefore, if.
You believed it was that worthwhile, so did we.
I feel like there was a time where I was really close to being locked into something in Savannah, right, hot dog dinner. I mean, that's what I always talked about, the hot dog, the infamous hot dog dinner in the basement.
Where what is the copter and the little helicopter?
I thought it was on this building.
I thought it.
Anyway, I remember you on you saying to me, Hey, are you sure this is what you want to do? And I was like, I mean, I guess I have to do it, and you were like, I'm not sure this is what.
You were built for.
What gave you the that I'm not looking for some I know credit here, I'm just saying, what gave you the ability to kind of or or what cleared it up to go like, Okay, maybe my son isn't an insurance salesman. Not that there's anything wrong with selling insurance. I'm just saying, what made you think, what made you give the encouragement to not necessarily pursue take the safe out the safe rout?
Well, I knew more of your ability, and I had seen more of your love for music that I knew anything. A career outside of.
Music was not going to be fulfilling to you. Correct, Something else.
Had to be in line for you other than that particular opportunity that you had. It was a good opportunity, uh, And it would have made you a fair living, and I don't have a doubt that you wouldn't have done well.
At it, But it wasn't your gifting like music was.
You were a natural musician, and you were you were a good songwriter, even at that time and stage of your life. You'd already it already been proven. And once you've had the taste of the satisfaction of doing what you love to do, you're not going to be happy to do anything else. That becomes stiltrue, that becomes the standard for sure. I mean and anything less than that is.
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's very true.
You can get through it, you can draw your breath and draw your salary, but you're not going to be happy and you're not going to be fulfilled as if when you do what you're gifted and enabled of God to be able to do. Good word right there, those of you guys are well, I'm just telling you. That's what to me a parent, it's for that's what you're looking you.
Know that child.
Well that was very instrumental, No, pun intended, because it was like I was to a point, I was probably what mid twenties at the time and just kind of floundering and trying, didn't have a lot going, didn't have nothing going.
Filed that insurance test a few times.
No, I passed three of the four tests on the first try. I just had to go back and past the fourth one.
And I was scheduling it and Dad was like, man, I don't know about this. Yeah, I don't know if you even need to do that. He's like, what are you doing, Man, go chase it for a minute. You're still young. You're still young. And if I hadn't, there's no way we would be sitting here. There's no way that I would have moved and met Shyanne and and you know what I mean.
So this is where Dan was.
Dan was at that critical stage where his age and his maturity was beyond what he was experiencing at the time. Uh, he wasn't able to do what he really wanted to do. Opportunities were just not opening.
It's hard, yeah, real hard, and it's easier.
And I mean, you don't have the money to move up here.
Also, there's this burden that you carry, right like exactly, you put your stuff under a lot of pressure. Dad giving you a hundred bucks for the week you to drive up here and just like try to figure it out.
And your mom, you know, your mom.
Cooking you stuff for you to bring back up here so you have food.
You're ready to be on your own. Yeah, it's tough, you know. And and your buddy's getting married and having kids and moving on with their nothing. And my point to Dan was, you know, while you're at this age, you don't have you know, a lot of financial responsibility possibilities period period. So hey, let's chase You can always come back to this, So let's chase the dream. Let's go for the dream. Let's see if the doors are going to open. Let's see if you're going to find what that is you're looking for before you settle down to just for something else, something less than what you're cut out to really be. I saw that. I saw it in him, sought in you.
Yeah, And so you know, there's there's just what you see in your kids as a parent.
You know, you guys can.
Right now start to see direction that your children are going to be going. I mean, you see what they're sharp at, you see what they love, You see what they're good at, and that's only going to get stronger, clearer, more obvious as they get older. And a wise parent that can see that and then help to kind of build on it and encourage it. I had no idea when we got when he requested a guitar for Christmas, what that would lead to, But that's what he wanted. And I told Anita, I said, I when I gonna spend a whole lot of money on this, you don't know, you know, we get a little bitty amplifier, not a big one, but he gets strung.
Let's let's let's see what he wants to do.
With it, and shoot, the guy's picking out Christmas carols by noon on his on the first time, first day he's ever owned the guitar so badly.
But we're talking about Dan, say something about me was seeing special exactly? Yeah, uh yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I mean I think obviously, you know, we wouldn't have gotten to do any of the things that we have gotten to do without yours and mom support and being there for us, and would have been very easy push up, pushing us along the road. Man, it would have been very easy.
It was.
It was still weighing on us to give up.
He was very close to giving up, more so than at any time.
Well, yeah, I mean there's no there. You're pouring yourself into something and there's no results.
For years and years and years.
I mean it's yeah, it gets, it gets. Yeah, it's hard.
It's hard. Yeah, all right, right, quick before we get into our last the last segments of the of the of the show, Your Baptist Minister have been for what the majority of years as well, No, how many.
Years actually at sixteen, so I've been at it for fifty three years.
Give us, give us, give us your gospel. Just preach for a minute to these people.
Literally one minute.
Well, I was not raised in a church home. I was not raised in a Christian family. At the age of fourteen, I began We moved to a new location in our town, and I had a group of friends that lived in that location that invited me to their youth group at their church. I started going with them. They were picking me up and bringing me home.
I was fourteen, and.
At fifteen I made it. I became aware that I was lost, that I was without God. I knew of him, but I didn't know him, and I had a fear of hell. I had a sense of guilt, and I had an awareness of lostness. And one Wednesday night I talked to our pastor. I stayed after a youth meeting and met with our pastor at that point, and I just said, brother Ron, I need to talk to you about joining the church. And he said, Randy, you don't need to join the church. What you need is to receive Jesus.
As your savior and Lord.
And I said, well, that's what I want to do. And so he shared with me how to be saved, and I prayed a very serious and prayer for the first time in my life. Now, I'd prayed a lot of prayers, you know, helped me get out of this trouble, help me pass this test, that kind of stuff, but a serious time, first time prayer where I repented and asked God to forgive me of all my sin and to save my soul. I believed he loved me, and he died for me, and he would save me, as he was raised from the dead for that purpose, and I trusted him to save me. And I'll just tell you, in that moment, the lights didn't flash on and off. I didn't jump pews or swing from chandeliers, but I knew that fear of hell, that fear of death, and that guilt of sin was lifted off of my life, and my life changed. I mean, I was fifteen, but it's still the peace that came into my life was very real. And at sixteen, my dad was a semipro baseball coach. Baseball was our life on weekends and week days. Grew up playing baseball, football, basketball, everything. Loved to compete with anybody about him anything. But that was the direction that I was going, literally until God began. I began to sense a call to ministry to preach, to be a part of a ministry work, and couldn't get rid of it, and couldn't get it off my mind my heart, And that's all I began to see myself doing. So at sixteen, I answered the call to my heart from God to be a minister. Now started pastoring when I was nineteen and met Juanita at the first pastor pastor at church, first church ever pastored, and met her and led her to the Lord and her several of her family members baptized them and waited order to get old enough married, And so we married when she graduated high school. And then a few years later, Long came court me, and long came down, Long came reading, Long came Lindsey.
That's us.
There was one thing I wanna say, Man, what was it?
I can't remember?
All right? Yeah, which that is the most important thing that's ever we'll ever say on this show. So it's tough to sing the song after that. But thank you for for bringing us in that lifestyle and setting our path along the same path.
That that I remember I remember.
Go ahead, you don't know, go uh?
So after after being married, I'll only been married. What a question like one hundred years. Uh yeah, forty Okay. What's the best way for a person who has children with a significant other to be able to go hunt during the rut? What's the what's the plan of action?
What's the best still an't figure it out.
I'm saying the best plan of action that you've seen work over the years, what's the best way to do it?
Two minutes?
Well, that mc closer just a little bit. Are you talking about that, honey?
In the rut? Are I'm talking about? If you want to go?
You know that this it's November fifteenth. Oh yeah, it's going to be. Let me tell you the front coming through on Friday.
You've got Friday, Saturday basically, yeah.
Maybe Thursday night if you're real lucky. Two minutes, the biggest two minutes.
The thing you got to do is you got to start preparing your wife and family way before the run.
That's what I'm asking. What is the process? What do you start? What's the first thing you do? Literally, you wash the dishes? You what do you do?
What's the plan? I start ahead of time with my honeydew list. The worst thing you can do is have things that your wife wants to get done, and has asked you to do all summer long, and it still is not done. And you are putting your person no pleasure above her personal desire.
Here's the point.
Anything you do for your wife, anything you do for her for the house, if it's painting, if it's hanging a picture on the wall, anything you do to improve the house, you're doing it as unto her because she sees the house as an extension of herself. That's why when you change a light bub she's going to say thank you. Now it's your light bulb too, So why do you have to be thanked for changing a light bulb?
It's because she sees the house.
As an extension of herself, where you see your job thirty seconds and your hunt as an extension of yourself. So if you will reward her wishes early, she will more likely reward your desire more like more likely she'll desire she' will reward your desires later. So do your homework first before you want to go to recess.
Put up the put up the Christmas decorations. Thanksgiving, that's what it is.
Yesterday all afternoon saying my lights are up to they look good though, yeah, I'm sure.
That thing you.
Had say as what it was, but it's star of show for the one.
That got.
The one that got away. I think I already know what we're going to talk about here.
What the giant fish that you knocked off?
We always referenced that this story that we're about to all tell together is the reason that this segment kind of kind of exists, because this is the one we always reference when we say, what's the one that got away from people? And I say, like the time we were in Gunnersville, Alabama, and we remember it well, and we took up We took three days of our lives. Dad took us down there, took the boat, stayed in the hotel, We park the boat next to an outlet so we could charge the battery at night, fished hard for three days, didn't catch nothing, and then on the last on the last morning, we were going over a pea gravel bank. I remember Dad finding this pea gravel bank rock bank.
I remember it was tucked in amongst some boat houses.
That's right, grabbed grabbed a little shallow crank, little square bill and threw it up on the bank and was just running it down that pea gravel back toward the down the depth and Son stuck a fish, nailed a hammer and immediately knew it was a giant, big fish. Immediately knew. Reid grabbed the net. Read grabbing net, and and the fact that you trusted me with the net when I was eight years old says a lot about Dan.
Well, I'm curious as to why.
I think.
I was probably in the back of the boat you were, he was in the middle. Yeah, I was fishing too, Yeah, but the net was closest to you, and in your aggression, you wanted and at that fish Dan was watching. You wanted to be a part.
Dad reels the fish up it it starts to jump out of the water. And I'm talking about when I say, like, if.
The fish has a neck, it make it past the neck out of the water.
It's just the head. And I just remember the mouth on it, like the mouth and that fish would probably be in here. The mouth on it was so big. I just remember how small that crank bait looked in the mouth of that fish. It almost looked like a fly, like a fly bait like it was. That fish was so big.
I remember thinking when that fish's head came out of the water, you know how you see something shocking, you're.
Like, oh my gosh.
When that fish came out of the water, I didn't say anything. I was almost shocked, Like I remind my brain was trying to process like I had never seen I had never seen anything like that.
I remember thinking, this is gonna make this whole weekend worth it. This one fish. Oh, it is gonna make this whole trip coming to Gunnersville. Dad, get the net, Red, get the net. I got the net. I'm sitting there. I'm excited.
Dad. Let's pass it to that and let him fish. All right, So how do you remember the rest of the story going now? I don't rememb remember saying Reid get to Ned. I remember Reid saying I got to it. I got to bed. I got to that. I got him dead. I said, all right, read make it. I just I'm just.
I'm fighting him. The fish is strong, he's pulling. We see him come.
Up like that.
You remember what he caught? You caught him on?
Yeah, And it wasn't a crankbait. It's spinner back. It was a white, white and shar true spinner bake. I hung right there on the right side of his mouth and he he you know.
I've got it.
And probably because I was so young.
Yeah, I remember exrectly.
The minute that I saw him, I knew that we're talking better than twelve. I mean I've caught ten pounds, one, ten pounds, several eights and nines. I mean he's big. His head is bigger than ay fish.
It was her.
Yeah, hit the head on that fish was bigger than any fish I've ever seen pull out of the water.
Agreed.
And you know, and I've been with the basqu clubs and tournament fishing, and I've seen some good fish caught big smallies as well, But this was going to be a twelve plus fifteen pounds somewhere, my guess in that bracket.
She was a hoss, Yes she was.
And I remember working it up, working it up, reeling it in, getting it in and get it up to where Reid can get the net under it.
And instead of going down.
Under it, he goes straight for the head and that and he hits that that spinner bait with his the end of the net and when he starts pulling back, he that pulled that hook right out fish right, that spinner bake right out of that fish. The fish cut one way when he was pulling the other way, and it just popped right out.
Okay, now I'll tell you the story. So I go, we go, re just knocked that fish off, and you go, no, he didn't, And I was like.
Yeah he did.
I saw the end of the thing hit the spinner bait and pulled the hook in, and you were like, no, he slung it off.
Yeah. How long did you adopt that line til you foll I think I cried you did in the boat knowing had just happened. Yeah, because I mean I was just as about it then, not as I am now.
It did not matter to me at that point that we had lost that fish. What mattered to me was you just beating yourself up about something that you didn't need to.
I don't know that you've beat yourself up enough about it.
I promise you I have. I don't know. But here's the deal. I don't know if that happens. I don't know that we tell that story as much as we get to we get to think about and talk about that.
No, we'd be talking about some giant fish that was on our wall.
That all right, Well, let me on the record, sorry for knocking that fish off. No problem, All right, let's do your gravorite. We do a gavorite song. It's greatest slash favorite tune that and I think I know what it is because every time, I mean, if you, if you think about, if I think about driving to the Deer Woods back in the day, that like leaving at noon at our house one o'clock, and that twenty minute ride back Don will was playing.
Don Williams was, in my opinion, one of the greatest country artists that's been out.
And I just remember looking across the driver's seat and Dad doing his headlight setting to this right here.
Now we're talking. Now we're talking.
You got singing, singing to or I wish no singing. I left Oklahoma driving in a pony. I just about to lose my mind. I was going to every zone, baby on the California where the people all live some fine. My baby said crazy, My mama call me lazy. I was gonna show him all this time, cause you ain't not nor fooling. I don't need no more schooling.
I was born to just.
Walk the line. Come on, somebody living on to the time, living on tools the time. Well, you know, I've been through it. Will sending my watch back to you. Just living on tolls the time.
Man that said, JA, and what about this when? Lord, I know this day is good. I love it.
I feeling Lord, I.
Hope this day is good. I'm feeling empty and listen newstoo. I know just should be thankful Lord.
I know, Lord, I hope this things.
That's great and it always is. It's a great day. Every day, A great day, great day, Granny, thanks for coming on. Man, today is a great day.
Grin.
Listen. I got some other stories that we just didn't get to. Wait, just real quick rattles, some moth let's look at your notes. Let me tell you. Maybe not stories, but just say the titles. Uh, when you got to go, you better be careful.
That was about Robert Luther when he had to go while he was deer hunting, and every time he started to get down to go, here come a doe and he'd stay a little longer until he finally had to hurry down and he didn't get his coveralls all the way down. And bad news was some of the stuff that he had to go with ended up in his hood of his coveralls, and when he pulled that hood back up, then down now that tree he came and his friend saw him washing his head in the creek, and he made the mistake of telling them what happened. If they'd promised not to tell anybody what happened, what's next and everybody knows it.
Uh, that's a great story.
Fairley's Turkey Sandwiches with Donny Keel out at the old grocery store. If you talk to fairly while he's making you a turkey sandwich, you sandwich would be thicker. So one day my turn to talk to fairly, and I'm talking fairly and he's making me a big old turkey sandwich. And then then when he's making Donny one, I go get our drinks and I forget to talk to fairly. So Donny's got a little slim one. I got a big thick Donnie's mad. So I reached down in the bag. We were driving down the road in my jeep, and I said, Donny, I got my hand on a sandwich. You tell me whether you want it or you want me to have it. He said, it's mine. I handed it to him. Is that little thin one? So I reached laughing, getting that big one. And while I'm holding the steering wheel with my left hand sandwich in my right A bee flies up my short sleeve shirt and stings me on the arm. When it does, I sling at Turkey all over that jeep. Donnie says, Yep, that's God's way of punishing you for stealing that big sandwich. It was the other one was game Wharten confiscated my rattlesnake at church on Wednesday night. I carried that rattlesnake, that the one we ate or different one, No, a different one I carried. I thought I killed this one on Wednesday evening Turkey and put him in a garbage bag, plastic bag, set him in a five gallon bucket, and carried him to church with me, because I drove straight from the woods to.
You know, to church.
And a game warden friend who two game wardens, went to our church and I carried him out there to show him Matt Ratler and it was alive in the back in that five gallon bucket. And that game warden confiscated my rattlesnake at night.
You're a live rattlesnake.
Yeah, And he took his he uh prayer meeting hadn't started yet. It is just a few minutes before it did. And I heard a bam bam out of a three fifty seven magnum pistol.
And game warden came back in and he said, Rattlesnake is no more. And I said, if you're supposed.
To kill, I said, two shots, and he's killing them.
He said, I had to make sure, he said, he said, preacher, don't ever bring an endangered species. Oh Jesus, the.
Church with you and me have to deal with it.
And I said, I will never do it again. Yeah, don't say the name of it. No, that was a long time ago, and I don't even know then if they were that endangered. But was that it? You anything else? Oh? I got others, But that's good enough. We'll stop there.
Thanks for coming on my pleasure, guys, it's fun.
Let me say this. I'm proud of you. What you've accomplished and what you're doing is awesome. The opportunities that.
God is showing you, guys, for you and your family and for the impact and influence that you too are having across the world is awesome. You're touching the world with your songs. You're touching the world with your personalities. You're touching the world with your gifts, and I'm just thrilled to see the way that God is using you to be an impact in your circle that He's created for you. And as a father and as a friend, can be more proud appreciate that.
And I love you both, Love you both, Love you. Thanks for hanging out with us.
Thanks for introducing us to the woods as kids.
No doubt early on. Yeah, well that's hard to do, honestly.
Yeah, I mean you have, You've instilled I mean, you know, I don't. I don't know of anything else that that brings me joy besides my family and things like that, and makes me feel closer to God than being out there. And yeah, I don't think there's anything else. Honestly, I don't either, And that's because you. I'm thankful for it all the time, you instilling in us the love of outdoors when we were young and giving us the opportunity to love it in our own way.
And yeah, but we'll also like, we'll take that with us and our kids will take that with us with them, and it's that important to us. I think it's a thread in the fabric of our DNA. Yeah.
Yeah, well, well we'll do our best to pass it down as well.
I'm I'm thrilled and I appreciate it so very much.
I've I've loved investing that in you and then seeing the dividend of it coming back in the friendship and the trips sometimes we've had, and what you're preparing ahead for your family to enjoy, for you guys to enjoy together. It's worth the investment with the long term benefit of dividends that it breaks.
Yeah, I agree.
We love y'all. Thank you for having Granny, thanks for coming on, appreciate your Ammy, Thanks for hanging out with in God's Country. See you next time.