Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 691: BONUS DROP - Bear Grease: Confessions of a Former Outlaw

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Ep. 691: BONUS DROP - Bear Grease: Confessions of a Former Outlaw · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: What You're about to hear is an episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Bear Grease podcast called Confessions of a Former Outlaw. I'm
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: including it here on the Meat Eater podcast feed for
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a couple different reasons. Reason number one is because it
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: is so damn good and interesting, and also because the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: man you're going to be hearing from is like no
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: one else on this planet. The second reason I'm including
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: it here is because this episode was given Clay a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: lot of consternation.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: It was giving him fits.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: He was scared of doing this show. He was scared
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of doing the show because he was afraid of people
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: thinking that he was glorifying a poacher or an outlaw,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: when in fact, you're going to hear a story about
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: redemption and to Clay was nervous about putting a spotlight
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: on this individual you're going to be hearing from. He
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: sent me the episod, so I listened to it, and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I told him, Man, there is no way you can
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: can this episode.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Dude.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: You have to run with this show. And I believed
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in it so much I wanted them to put it
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: right here so that as many people as possible.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Could hear it.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So check it out if you like what you're hearing,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: make sure to subscribe to the Bear Grease podcast feed
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and enjoy.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: I had it explained to me one time by a
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: judge in court, not hunting seems like I'd killed a
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: turkey during the wrong dates and times. He said, why
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: did you do this? I said, Well, where I'm from,
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: when your tomatoes get right, you pick them. When your
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: potatoes get right, you dig them. When your turkeys are right,
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: you go get you on. Yeah. But he said, that's
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: not the way we do it. You have laws that
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: govern when you kill them and when you can. He
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: explained that to me.
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: I traveled a couple of hours south and slightly west
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: from my home on Wednesday, March twenty sixth, twenty twenty
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: five to meet with a man who I was told
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: might be the most interesting man in Lafleur County, Oklahoma.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: I hardly knew anything about him, and oddly though I
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: talked to people for a living while I was in
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: my truck, and when I got within about two miles
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: of his cabin, I started to get nervous. He was
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: described to me as a kind man, loved by those
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: who know him, but with a checkered past and an
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: uncanny expertise in wild turkeys. Why he'd agreed to talk
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: with me. I wasn't sure, and I began to doubt
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: why I had agreed to come. This is real rural America,
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: not the curated version that I sometimes like to talk about.
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: This one has addiction, illegal hunting, in broken relationships. But
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: I had no idea I'd be impacted so much. This
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: is an unusual bear Grease, dark at times, funny at others,
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: but I was surprised at the arc of redemption. You'll
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: have to forgive me because I'm still sorting out the details,
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: but I'd like to share with you the confessions of
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: this former outlaw. I really doubt that you're going to
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: want to miss this one. My name is Klay Nukem,
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear,
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear. It's designed
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: to be as rugged as the places we explored.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: I had a friend, and people that hunt know when
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: Ben Rogers Lee being Lee World champion caller, hunter good
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: friend being got killed in a vehicle accident. He was
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: at my turkey camp we hunted the first part of season,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: and he tried to give me to quit and go
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: with him to Alabama. He said, you like this game,
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: You're good at it. I see it in you. I
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: see potential in you. You need to quit what you're
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: doing and go with me. And I, ah, may you
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: famous and me rich. And I said, no, I can't quit. Well,
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: a god, I got a good job, good family, got cattle.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: I can't do that.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: This is the voice of Johnny Johnston. You've probably never
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: heard of him, but I doubt that you'll forget him.
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: On the walk from the truck to the door of
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: his cabin, I estimated there to be no less than
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: twelve well taken care of hunting dogs scattered within sight, beagles,
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: running walkers, and bird dogs. To Johnny, being called a
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: hillbilly is a term of endearment, and he identifies as one,
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: and by his definition, the highest ranking qualification has nothing
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: to do with hounds or overalls.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: But it's not being superficial.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: This story is about Johnny's life and we'll learn some
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: foundational stuff that started on this hunt with ben.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Lee, so he left. I stayed, continued to hunt. Hunt
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: was over, and just saying that I was going to
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: go out west in Turkey hunt. And I had a
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: gun and some stuff at Octavia friend of mine's house,
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: and I was supposed to have been there to go
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: out my stuff, and I never showed up. So we
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: came up for me and found me. I'd flipped my
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: geep over, broke my neck, broke my back, cut my
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: left ear off, crushed the foot bungerie, critical condition. Well.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: They loaded me in the back of a Bronco and
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: took me to the hospital and my wife was there
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: pretty upset. I don't remember any of it. There was
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: some drinking involved. There is something to that drinking and driving.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: Because since I've quit drinking fifteen years straight, hundred and
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: nineteen days ago, I had not a ruck.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: When people know to the day how long they've been sober,
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: the days prior to that were probably tough. Johnny is
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: from the small town of heaven Or, Oklahoma. He was
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: born in nineteen forty nine. He's seventy five years old.
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: He's been married to the same woman for fifty five years.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: He's of average height. He has a wiry build with
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: dark eyes that squint tight when he smiles. We're inside
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: of his small white cabin with interior walls of rough
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: san oak turkey beards hanging wads from deer antlers like
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: clusters of grapes. Every single beard has a tag attached
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: to it. There's no cell service here, but he doesn't
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: on a cell phone or a computer. He never has.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: Let's get back to the hospital. This wreck sounds really bad.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: But I was telling her they would fix me the
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: best they could right then, and they could later come
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: back and fix my ear. And I said, oh, I
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: forgot to tell you. My ear is in the right
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: front pocket of my cameouflage.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: You told him that.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: I told a doctor that on the gardener going into surgery,
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: and he said, go look at his clothes and see
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: of you who find an ear. And a nurse came
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: running down the hall and said, I've got a are
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: and so to my ear. And he said, well, we'll
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: do the best we can. And I ried up again
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: and said, I it's all I own backwards where I
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: heard them turkeys walking behind me.
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: That story tips us off to two things. How Central
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: wild turkeys have been in his life and that he
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: is a character. This whole story is about Johnny's life,
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: some of it very personal, but I'm interested in his
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: relationship with the law as it relates to wild turkeys.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: People's relationship to the law is helpful in understanding our society,
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: not the one we think we have, but the one
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: we actually do have. Johnny is a rare find, willing
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: to be vulnerable. When a stranger showed up me and
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: asked about some of the darkest times of his life,
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: I think we should start off with that credit to
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: his ledger. In the last three years, no less than
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: half a dozen people have emphatically told me that I
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: needed to come here to Johnny's, including a game warden,
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: but nobody could really articulate why. There's a lot I
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: don't know about Johnny. So I'm going to begin with
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: a question about his friendship to a particularly famous turkey hunter.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: You may have heard of him.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: Tell me about your relationship with Ben Lee.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: He is a super nice guy. Beg man walking, this hooting,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: this yapp, and this human I overfow. He went from
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: daylight's dark, charged them turkey. He knew turkeys, he knew
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: how to hunt, He had a call company made call.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: He was just a good, good fellow. I liked him.
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: He just had away with people.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Now, how did you meet him?
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: Through a friend of mine hunting down there and I
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: told him where they could find some turkeys, and they
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: went there and hunted, and he said, I want to
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: meet this guy told us about this spot where the
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: turkey dore and I tell many. He invited me up
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: there to talk, and we just went hunting and killed
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: a turkey and hit it all. He calmed down and
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: camped with me. Ever spurring after that.
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: This story isn't about Ben Rogers Lee, but his connection
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: to Johnny is beyond interesting. Ben was from Jackson, Alabama,
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: and has been referred to as the father of modern
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: turkey hunting.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: He started his.
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: Call company, ben Lee Calls in nineteen seventy and made
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: a flurry of instructional tapes, videos, seminars, and won five
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: turkey calling World Championships. He was a Southern style storyteller
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: and was one of the great communicators of American turkey hunting.
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: Here's a clip of Ben Lee.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Sitting out there and he moved. She's laid aqueedge.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: You know. He gets up there in the morning at
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: four o'clock, you know, and old Ale well Hell waits
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: him up to Hell Boy, he at his walk.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's just ready for everything.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: To have my son instructuring. No tapes were a big
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: then turkey hunting was just getting going. Mouth called, we're
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: just coming out my old turkey hunting friends. One that
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: I hunted with used a gold horn and a piece
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: of slate. Now I excited. Could you get on the
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: gold horn? They clucked a couple of times and three
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: soft yeps and put it down, And that was completely
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: reverse way being legal. Honey. He never shut up. He
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: walked calling turkey gobbled. He didn't die in a brush ball.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: He'd started to at turkey, calling and walking to it,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: and he'd get right on him and put some turkey
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: stuff to him. Well, he told me one time, he said,
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: you like this game, but you got to keep in mind,
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: if you hunt these turkeys like they need to be hunting,
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: you won't have no friends, your family be mad at you,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: you'll probably lose your job. He went on and on
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: about all bad things that can happen to you. I said, well,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: I can't be that bad. He said, I'm talking about
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: if you really hunt turkey. Now there's people that turkey
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: hunt and there's people that really hunt them.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I get the feeding.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: Johnny is one of those turkey hunters that really hunts them,
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: and that these hanging tagged beards aren't the only turkeys.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: This man is killed.
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: His friendship with Ben Lee is going to lead us
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: right into something critical.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Did you know him personally very well? Like was he married?
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Did he have a family?
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: He had been married thirteen times?
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Are you serious?
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: I'm serious, That's what he told me. I didn't know
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: all his wives. I knew shovel, but he said, if
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: you really hunt him, Turkey's right. That's when he said
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: about the family and your job and all that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: He was speaking from experience, from experience, y'all. Was he was?
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: He kind of an outlaw?
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: Sort of would you say? Was I hate the category people?
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: But yeah, he's kind of like myself.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: Interesting, he was kind of like myself, he said, an outlaw.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: I'd heard this about Johnny and Ben, but I didn't
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: know for sure about Johnny. I kind of put him
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: on the spot, and he was hesitant to categorize his
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: old friend in this way. But Johnny kind of tells
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: stuff the way it is But again, this story isn't
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: about Ben Lee, who passed away in a car accident
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety one at the age of forty six.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: The story is about Johnny Johnston. And as you may know,
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: I have a lot of respect for people willing to
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: be honest about their past. I've often found people like
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: Johnny to be more honest than people with less visible
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: issues lurking in their past. And I know that people
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: like Johnny are usually cut from a different cloth. In
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: this next question, I cut right to the chase, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: you'll hear the nervousness in my.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Voice was with you. Did you.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: Did you ever have any did the law ever mean
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: anything to you?
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: No?
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Why wouldn't it because most people it does.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: The law itself? Or you mean a turkey law? Yeah, yeah,
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: when turkey's gobbled on hunting them.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Just you just weren't afraid of getting in trouble.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: No, never crossed my mom. I had it explained to
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: me one time by a judge in court. Not hunting
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: seems like I had killed a turkey during the wrong
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: dates and times. He said, why did you do do?
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: I said, well, where I'm from, when your tomatoes get right,
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: you pickle when your potatoes get right, you dig them.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: When your turkey, we'll get you on. Yeah, but he
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: said that's not the way we do it. You have
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: laws that govern when you and kill them and when
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: you can. He explained that to him.
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: Me, Americans are intrigued by people willing to break the
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: law period.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: If you need.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: Convincing, just look at the top movies, podcasts, and books
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: we read. Heck, look at the top Bear Grease podcast.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: But I'm still trying to understand why. I think examinations
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: of extremes help calibrate society in some tribal primitive way,
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: almost like we get the signal for normal by bouncing
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: off the outliers. But there's no debate about it. What's
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: ironic is that we are a society of rule followers.
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: If our civilization gets smashed by a comment and archaeologists
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: dig it up and start making conclusions about us, they'll
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: find that this country was built on law and order.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: The vast majority of people who come to a stop
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: sign in the middle of the night, even though they
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: know that no one is watching, they're gonna stop, I
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: mean at least a rolling stop, And in many places
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: of the world they wouldn't at all, even when they
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: know people are watching. Americans are rule followers, despite the independent,
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: liberty aholic, brash exterior. But the outliers are worth examination,
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: and Johnny was an outlier when it came to wildlife law.
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: We need to know more about his past. Now, let
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: me this is kind of a personal question. But would
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: your parents have raised you to just obey the law?
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, just like in general. Yeah, you would have known
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: can't steal or you can't.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: Oh. My folks were about the book all the way.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: Well, how did you get from that to being willing
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: to break the law?
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: I don't know, just getting in the world and not
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: really caring, just doing pretty much what I wanted to do. Yeah.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: Now, did you ever really get in trouble? Did you
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: ever get caught, like killing the legal turkey?
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I just didn't ever give it a whole lot
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: of thought when turkeys are goblin, I just went hunt.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: Stories like this can make people feel uncomfortable, especially people
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: that love wildlife and conservation and talk about it a lot.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: But this is.
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: Part of the rural America that I grew up around.
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: Turkey laws were often seen as mere suggestions. This next
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: story is about the man who taught Johnny to turkey
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: hunt and the first time they got caught.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: I can't talk about turkeys with talking about my old friend,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: the man that taught me out of turkey hunt superman. Yeah,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: we've been caught. He lived at Tallahaney, Oklahoma, and I'm
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: calling his name. He's dead and gone now and he's
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: respected by every turkey hunter or that part of the world.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: Wayne caught turkey killing. This man I've ever met, I
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: have ever known, and I knew that he hunted a
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: law back when I started. I didn't even know him.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: I went he was horseman, had a good racehorse, stood
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: a racehorse stallion, and I was kind of a horseman
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: back in the day. And that's how I knew him.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: I looked him up and got acquainted with him, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: I said, here's what I want. I want you to
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: teach me how to turkey hunt. No old board, I
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: want to know it all. Well, he said, next spring,
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: you'll just have to come over here, we'll go. I said,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: when he said, oh, first of March, had a good time.
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: If you're a turkey hunter, you'll know that ninety eight
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: percent of American turkey seasons don't open in the first
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: of March. This was an invite to get an illegal
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: early start.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, so first of March I went to day with
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: it and we hunted, and he was little I know
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: about a turkey, That old gentleman taught me. He was
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: slicking a snot on the door knob. He used a wingbone,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: or a piece of cane, or a briar leaf or
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: a peach leaf later on in the year, or a
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: sleigh called very little, very light. You could be sitting
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: next to him and barely hear him call. But he
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: didn't call to a turkey unless he was seventy yards close.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: He used the terrain, the lamb cover of darkness to
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: get to him. He said, there's no such thing as
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: working a turkey. People talked about working a turkey for
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: two hours. He said, that should never happen. If they're
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: right on that turkey, they're having killed in ten minutes.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: One cluck, two clucks. That's not put your call up.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: And he showed me some moves pretty slick. He's a
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: good guy, but he didn't pay a lot of attention
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: to season. When the turkey gobbled, he went. We were
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: one day in there behind his place, and two turkeys.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: He give me the easy one and he took the
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: hard one further and we met back. We had two turkeys,
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: he said. We was walking back to the jeep and
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: one gobbled off in a little rough candy that in jurors.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: Give me out turkey. I'm going gee. So I went
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: off down there. Nothing, couldn't do nothing with him. Watered
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: him around a couple of hours. Come back, went to
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: the gee. Well. He said, we've been caught. We may
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: we've been called well, he said, I've been caught. Game
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: boarders there when I got here, got a ticket. You've
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: got two tickets. Oh, that's the first time we had
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: ever been in any problem, and we hunted all time. Poor.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: What did he tell the game boarding that you were
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: down there?
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: No, he wasn't ever told that. He said, I hurried
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: up and took the ticket because I know you was
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: going to shoot any minute.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: This is where the story starts to get complicated.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: It was back in the mid seventies.
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: It would be the start of about thirty years of
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: illegal turkey hunting for Johnny.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: My dad used to get on to me a lot
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: or hunting too much.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: Really, So your dad, oh yeah, knew that you were
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: illegally hunting.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, he wouldn't do it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: What would he say to you?
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: I'd call him and asked for a ride somewhere, let
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: me out and picked me up at a certain time.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: He knew what I was doing.
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: What would he say? Do you remember anything specific? Like
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: he was like, Johnny, this is bad. You're gonna get
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: in trouble.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: You no better than now.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: But he still helped you.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he would. He didn't like it, but he would.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Has he ever had guns in the woods?
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: Oh? Man? Yeah, I had a couple of logs up here.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: I'd put him in and I had a new shotgun
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: I'd very proud of, and I put it in there
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: in the wood raft. He'd just stopped shoot it all up.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: So just like in a couple of days.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, they just eat on it
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: and eat on it. So I'd get me a big
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: PVC and pipe put it in camp. And another time
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: or two I got a chuckle control burns. They caused
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: you some pugalty. I had a gun back over here
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: and I stay in here in the camper, And I
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: came in that day and took a nap, and I
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: got up you couldn't see for the smoke. I thought, crap,
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: I've got a browning shotgun and a log right in
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: there far, so I'll get it on my four wheeler
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: and I'll take off up very well. I'll come around
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: and if this people ever were bulldoders and fire lighters,
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: and I'll try to get around, and they're trying to stop.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: Didn't burn your got out now. I got through them
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: and got to it. Boy, it's pretty smoky and it's
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: getting pretty cloth. And then another time, a funny little deal.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: I got a chuckle out of hit a turkey and
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: a gun up here on the dead end road, and
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: I went back up there to get it. Later. Everything good,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: Everything okay, And there was a bulldozer and a lottle
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: boy sitting there not ten foot from my turkey in
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: that gun. Well, but he run over that gun when
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: I unloaded that odure, but he didn't. He minced it
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: about that for yeah, and they were doing something and
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: we snuck around about the gun turkey and got out
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: of there.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: This is some pretty serious outlawn. Illegal turkey hunters often
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: hit guns in the woods where they knew turkeys were close,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: so they could drive to and from the spot without
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: a gun in the truck, making it almost impossible for
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: game wardens to pin them down. It might seem unusual
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: for us to be talking about this so openly, but
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: the reason he's so comfortable is that today Johnny doesn't
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: have anything to hide, because when he hit the bottom
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: fifteen years, three hundred and nineteen days ago, everything was
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: laid bare. That story is coming. I'd rather someone tell
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: it to me like it happened than try to sugarcoat it.
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: I think we need to fill in the gaps in
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: Johnny's history, though, I'm interested in his upbringing.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: I was born in haven Or, Oklahoma, ordinary people. My
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: dad worked for the railroad. All my family worked for
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: the railroad. I grew up just a normal boy, playing sports,
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: and my dad quail hunted. Uh. I just went crazy
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: about it. I love it. That's what I do, that's
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: my law. And I played sports and rodeoed and was
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: raised on a horse, rode a horse to a ball practice,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: and rode a horse everywhere I went swimming and everything.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: And the hunting part of it, I just kind of
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: figured it out on my own. My dad deer hunted
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: a little bit, and he'd take me, and he gave
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: me a thirty thirty and I just started there hunt
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: and just talking to people and learning how to hunt
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: and doing it and learning from my mistakes. That's a
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: big thing. We can learning our lives by our mistakes.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: I justliked life. I was raised in church, and I
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: don't know where I went wrong, but I liked the
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: world better. I did thank the hard way, and I
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: made a lot of bad choices. But I'm not that
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: way anymore.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not that way anymore.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: He said.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: That's actually what all the people that told me about
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: Johnny said.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: That's really why I'm here.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: I want to learn more about Johnny's life.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: One time, my mom made me go to college. When
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: I got out of school, I said, no, I don't go,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: but here you're going. I had a hard time getting along.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: I'd be late for class, drinking with a big part
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: of my lot. And they suggested that I take a
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: samastra off and kind of find myself well. In the
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: process of going to college at Talaquhaw fell in with
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: a band of hippies and I stayed on the Ellinoid's
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: River Bridge and the Freedo and for a samistra and
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: I got quite an education, and when I left there,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: I went to go on a railroad and for the summer.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: Then I was gonna go back to school straighten up,
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: and I never happened. I stayed with a railroad and
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: retired there.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: Johnny started working for the railroad in nineteen seventy and
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: was a train engineer for decades. But the spring of
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: nineteen seventy five was the first time that he ever
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: turkey hunted. This is when it all started.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: It was around seventy five, started having a turkey on
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: and I didn't know anyone that had ever turkey on.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: I didn't even know what a turkey call was. I
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: knew two older men and my dad told me that
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: they had killed turkeys, they had hunted them. So I
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: went and talked to them and they showed me a
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: few moves on a turkey call. And that April we
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: had a caesar and I got a call off mister
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Phillips and I went up on the hill. We had
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: a cabin and I'd seen some turkeys there deer hunt.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: And I went up on the hill and laying my
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: gun up against a tree and whacked a box and
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: the turkey gobbled and shot me, and I looked and
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: it running right at me, and I dropped my call
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: and shot the turkey and he run off. I was
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: the first encounter I had with a wild turkey, and
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: I was hooked right to him.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Did you get the turkey or to get away from him?
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: Oh? He got away, but I was walking around the
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: way he went looking for him, and I heard another
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: one goble and I called to him and he came,
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: and I've shot him and got him. So I'm a
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: turkey killer round and I've hunted them ever since, just
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: like they've done something to my mama. I've had the opportunity.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: I hung with doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. One of my
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: favorite people was the chief of the Cherokee Nation. He's
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: a good god. My mom was part Indian. I'm a
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: quarter but I like Indians. I've got a good spirit,
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: a good fee for the wood, water and the wind.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: They like all that stuff. That may be part of
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: why I'm drawn to it. I don't know. I like them.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: I respect turkeys. I got more respect for a turkey
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: gobbler than a lot of people. I'll promise you.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: A statement like this coming from a confessed lawbreaker could
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: certainly ruffle your feathers. But I think what he's really
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: saying is that turkey hunting meant so much to him
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: that he was willing to risk it all to hunt them.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: But the functionalization of that passion was awry. There are
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: some things in life that seem to be built for temptation,
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: uniquely appealing but forbidden. In a goblin Turkey before season
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: has been the downfall of many a man. I've never
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: known a woman to be a turkey outlaw, and if
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: you've listened to me enough, you know that I pray
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: that this story in no way glorifies breaking the law,
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: and I don't think john he wants it to either.
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: But like in most things that deal with human nature,
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: they are nuanced, interesting, if examined in detail, and insightful.
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: If you're willing to listen to people talk who have
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: a different life experience than you. There are so many
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: tidbits of interest in Johnny's story. It's like being confused
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: on a covey rise by how many targets are in
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: front of you. The thing that stands out most to
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: me is Johnny's honesty about a dishonest past. He's not
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: blaming anyone for his decisions, and he's not seeking attention
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: or any kind of.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Glory at all.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: I pride his arm to get him to talk to me,
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: and I'm the one that came to him. And if
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: something goes awry in the fact that this story was released,
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: it's Clay Nukeomb that's to blame, not Johnny. Johnny remembered
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: a story from the nineteen eighties that he thinks I
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: need to hear.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: I probably need to tell you that story, don them.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: I had a cabin on Poto Mount and leaped the
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: metal roof and I got up there with a hammer,
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: and every time I was beating that ridge cap down,
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: trying to get a nail in it to pull that
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: ridge cap down. Every time i'd hit that maidle of
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: turkey job. This was a couple of weeks before season.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: I was gonna hunt there of that seat. But every
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: time I'd hit that, she dire bowl aloft man. Well
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: rain that night, big rain, bad ruin man. There won't
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: be nobody overwhere, So I just drove around. I know
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: close to where he was from my cabin. But I
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: could get up there with that get wet and walk
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: down that road and I'd be right on it, and
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: I yepped to him and he goble right back. When
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: he come there were three old Oh boy, man, I
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: don't need three. I believe I'm gonna get one. It's
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: a good deal. I done a lot of calling just
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: seeing what I could get by with. I don't close
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: enough kill, I've cut, squawked and castle. Yeah, boy, they
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: was putting the show on. So I shot one, got it,
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: went back to my truck, discharged to set it over
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: in the back of the truck, and my game more
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: than friend. Randy Fennels cut up behind my truck. You
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: was in a brush paw right there behind my truck.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: Got you, boy? You sure do? I saidn't lie? I
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: had and run, so I said, you ain't not a
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: bad day yourself? Did you hear all that? Randy?
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So?
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I heard it all. That's good as a gift.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: It's just too early. I'm gonna have to take it.
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: You do well. I don't blame me. You ain't had
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: a bad day. Here's your gun, here's your truck, here's
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: your turkey. Whatelse you need well? He said, I hate
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: to see you taking this hard. I'm job security for you.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Do you hear all that goblin this morning. I ain't
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: going nowhere. You making that, Yes, I said, you can
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: make a name for yourself right there. I ain't going nowhere. Well,
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna take your gun. I said, Well, you can
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: catch me a couple more times before I'll get nervous.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: And I said get in and started rain again. He
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: had sulky wet. He had sat in the rain, probably
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: the biggest part of the morning, in the dark, because
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: he didn't come in there out of Senior's truck. But
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: I so get in. I'll take you to your truck,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: he said, after all this, you will give me a ride.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: I said, well, I'm a good guy. If you knew me,
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: you'd like me. I ain't a bad guy. You make
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: a name for yourself right here. I hope they promote
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: you and move you to Oklahoma City and get you
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: out of these woods. I hauled him right to his truck.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: We still talk now.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: Okay, when you describe how calm you were today forty
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: years later, as you tell that story, you're like super calm,
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: and I think a lot of times we kind of
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: rewrite stuff in our head. Were you that calm for real?
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: With that guy? You didn't care no.
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: He'd tell you the same thing if we were here today.
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: It tell Okay, So there's these rock climbers, these these
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: free climbers that climb these big granite faces out and
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: out west, and they.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Talk about how those guys are.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: Superhuman when it comes to dealing with anxiety, and they
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: they're just able to climb on these rocks where me
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: or you, a normal guy, would be scared to death.
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: Their brain doesn't equate the consequence of falling like a
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: normal person. I still don't understand why you wouldn't be afraid,
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: because it's not like you're rich and could just pay tickets.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: No big deal. They're going to take your truck, they're
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: going to take your gun, just for what you had
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: going on in your life. And at that time too,
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: I guess you were were you an alcoholic at that time,
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: So I mean there was a lot of I guess
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: of rough stuff going on.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: So it's just it's just like turkey eaton was not
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: something you were worried about.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: When I loaded them in the truck, I had a
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: thought that nervous me just a little yeah, right between
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: me and m laying on a seat with a bag
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: of dope, and a deer horn pipe, and I very
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: casually scooted a glove over it. Now, that unnerved me
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: a little bit, But as far as killing a turkey
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: a few days early, now, I didn't bother me at all. Yeah,
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: getting caught didn't bother me. I don't know. Maybe I'll
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: just look at it different.
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: We're starting to see that his problems with the law
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: were bigger than just turkeys. He could have left out
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: that little detail, but he didn't, and I appreciate that.
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: What's ironic is that today marijuana is legal in most places,
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: but at the time Johnny might have gone to jail
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: for it. But I'd like to examine his statement about
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: looking at wildlife laws different. That could sound like the
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: typical excuse, But Johnny brings up an interesting point that,
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: if not addressed, could assault the intellectual integrity of our
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: discuss which I am greatly enjoying. My point is nuanced,
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: and it has to do with how different generations view
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: life laws and ethics. By my observation, some people, emphasis
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: on some raised in rural America that were adults by
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: the nineteen sixties, viewed game laws as mere suggestions, and
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: it was even validated by the legal system of the time,
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: as they simply ticketed people with relatively minimal consequences, making
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: the crime feel not that much different than a speeding ticket.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: I'm not suggesting that it was ever right to break
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: the law. The Bible says that men should obey the
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: laws of men, and by doing so, they're ultimately obeying God.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: And that book was written long before nineteen sixty. But
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: people raise later in the progression of America and conservation,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: we're more likely to respect and obey wildlife laws. By
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: the nineteen nineties, average hunters were becoming indoctrinated with functional
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: ideas about conservation, and it became much more mainstream to
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: obey the law, to the point that outlawing has fallen
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: more and more out of style. At least this is
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: what I have witnessed with my own eyes. But you'll
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: have to listen to this and tell me what you think.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: What about today, though, Johnny, Because what I've heard from people,
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: and I feel like what I've heard from you is
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: that you don't break the law anymore on purpose?
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: No, why not? I'm just a better person than I
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: used to be. I used to just didn't care. I
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: care now I don't go before season that.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: What about now, probably with more knowledge of conservation, if
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: everybody killed twenty turkeys a year, that would.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: For sure be bad, it'd be wrong.
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: What about from that angle, from just a conservation angle.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: Now, the way our turkeys are number numbers are down,
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: they don't need to be over hunted. Luck that.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: But so part of your deal was back in the
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: day we had so many there were so few turkey
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: hunters that you just couldn't figure out why it was wrong.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: Right, I just I didn't see that much wrong, isn't it.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: When I first started hunting over here mid seventies, I'd
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: come over here for two weeks and never see a
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: turkey hunt hunt this whole country, all of it, never
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: even see a hunter, nobody hunting over any.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: There was probably full of turkeys.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: Any anywhere you stop. It make no difference anywhere you stop.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: If you're a turkey go.
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: And so you're sitting here saying the game and Fish
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: tells me I can kill two turkeys. I mean, you're
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: you're gonna kill more than that.
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: Probably it's a different time.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: It was a different time, he said.
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: And I want to point out that he's literally describing
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: a former time, penalties were different, Turkey populations were higher,
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: Turkey hunter numbers were way lower, and it was more
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: common for his generation and their mentors to take wildlife
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: laws less. Seriously, all this stuff makes me grateful for
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: the generations of American game wardens that have been the
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: interface of the law in our society as it gradually
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: has shifted from the market hunting mentalities of the eighteen
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: hundreds to the hyper informed conservation mind frames of the
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: average modern hunter. We've still got problems today, but things
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: are getting better. I'm still, though, trying to figure out
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: Johnny's motivation. I've got a question for him, and I'm
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: going to bring up two familiar names from Bear Greece's
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: past that we did on a series called Genuine Outlaws,
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: which started on episode fifty two. We did this series
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: on the Louisville and Charlie Edwards. It was real clear
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: that they enjoyed getting away from game wardens and that
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: was a part of the fun that they had and
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: it felt like and kind of what the people around them.
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: And I never interviewed Louidelle and Charlie because they were
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: they had passed away by the time I did this.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: It was clear that they that was part of the
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: reason that they wanted to kill stuff illegally. Was just
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: kind of the thrill of getting away with it.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, was that? Do you think that was a part
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: of what you did?
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: Not? Really, I just liked it. I just liked hunting
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: turkeys and the time to.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Hunt thems win their doll But it was just that simple.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's simple. But no, not not just trying to
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: get away with it. It just I don't know, I
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: just did it. Uh. I didn't baite them or hunt
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: them in the summer and shoot them over water, set
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: around the water hole and trying to kill them. I
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: didn't do that. From you hunt a turkey with a
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: turkey call and a shotgun, you know, I'm gonna hurt
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: the population, you shoe gobbler. That's the way I looked
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: at it. I'm not saying that's right, and if everybody
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: did that it would be bad. But as far as
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: being scared.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: Back in those days though, that a ticket might have
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: been just like one hundred and fifty dollars.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Just go pay your ticket, is that right?
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I got called one time, I got caught I
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: think about two hundred and seventy dollars, and after Turkey season,
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: I made a deal with the DA that I could
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: pick up trash with the inmates from our prison here
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: at Hodgy to pay for the rest of it. And
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: that's what I did.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: See you picked up trash.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: I paid him a little cash and picked up trash
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: with them in money. Boy, they made me a lot
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: of deals, but I couldn't take any of them either.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: I said, I'll be in here full time with you,
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: all right. Now, got a couple of months here picking
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: up trash. But that's worth killing the turkey. You can't
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: put a price on killing the turkey.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Really, that's the way you would well look at it.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: But as much as I've done it now, I've been
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: chased around.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: But do you think they were after you? Oh?
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah No.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Do you think they ever worked you undercover?
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: I think you what are you.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: Pointing out there?
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Old bricks? Uh huh. I had a couple of gentlemen
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: show up here, wanted.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: To do that, do this brick work?
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I said, well, yeah, it'd be a good idea
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: of needed one, but don't have it. I said, well,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: well we're gonna build you one. I didn't think nothing
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: about it, and they start calling my house. I didn't
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: have a phone here. They started calling my house looking
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: for me, and they showed back up and find me
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: in town, and I found that strange. They got nearly
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: through and he said, you don't know what to think
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: about us, do you? I said, well, no, not really,
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: but I thank you. Probably working for the Waldlife Department,
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: maybe undercover, trying to catch me. That a that's me.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: All kinds of turkey stuff and deer stuff. How men
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: where they hunters claimed to be? I don't know. I
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: wasn't going to go wanting with them, but they just
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: keep coming back, coming back, coming back, And I finally
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: he said, you don't know what to think about us,
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: do you? I said, well, I think you're undercover, probably
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: trying to catch me in some kind of violations. And
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: they loaded their stuff up and left, and I hadn't
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: seen them since.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: You're pretty certain they were undercover guys.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sometimes if you listen, you can hear stuff. If
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: you've got your ears open and your eyes open, you
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: might get a tip from somebody that And I was
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: kind of on the look.
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: You were just suspicious of these guys. Yeah, yeah, So
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: did you get a tip from somebody else. Yeah, how
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: does that make you feel? I mean, at the time,
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: did that that didn't scare you?
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: No, it made me feel good that that man thought
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: enough of me to save me a problem. Oh well, No,
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: I wasn't a bit afraid of them. Now, game arden
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: or this people, I'm not afraid of them. Yeah, people
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: say I'm coming. A lot of times I've been hunting
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: with people and game warding drive up and they just
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: go all to pieces. They we ain't done nothing wrong,
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: man ain't gonna bother Ruugh.
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: Johnny's transparency today is notable. We're going to learn the
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: nitty gritty of why he changed. But first here's a
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: lighter story about an interaction with a game warden that
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: happened during the legal hunting season, And then after this
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: we're gonna get real serious.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: There was an old gentleman we know was calling to
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: a turkey, so we just laid in the ditch. We
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: didn't then, won't mess them up. We just lay in
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: our lesson. He had whacked the turkey. Of god, it
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: wasn't coming. We'd played with him quite a bit. He
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: was not a player. He had gobbled. Oh he was fun,
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: And I said, look coming up a road there and
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: they're come to game orders eke and up round. Now
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: we're laying there full calalplode right in the ditch. And
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: he got right in with me and I said, get
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: somewhere and sat down. He the wild turkeys were hunting here.
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: We can't kill him. You walking up down the road here,
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: what's better to you? And it haddled him, kind of
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: blowed him up or something. He went for a gun,
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: but it lasts down. Boy, you don't need no gun now.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: We're just have another man called this turkey sat down
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: here with If you're gonna hunt with us, you need
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: to get her early and wear from camiflaude, you ain't
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: got a shotgun all out you want?
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Now? Is this before season?
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: No?
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: This is a darn see this is during legal season.
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, we've had from wardens here.
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: Johnny has painted a clear picture of his days of outlawing.
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: But the one thing that those half a dozen people
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: did tell me one by one before I met Johnny
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: is that he is different today. He's changed, they said.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Even the game wardens suggested this. Throughout this story, you've
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: heard that Johnny used to be an alcoholic. And from
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: one story we learned that he used some drugs. I
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: wanted to know how that started and why he changed,
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: so I asked him.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: Well, I just made some bad choices hanging out with
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: the wrong people, and I'd been around wild cat whiskey
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: and homebrew, and I just didn't handle it very well.
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: And then I got over here. After I got my cabin,
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: there was a preacher that coon hunted a lot. He
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: would stop by the saman. I was usually too drunk
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: to talk to him, but I know he was here.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: Drod raised in church, trained up in church like Ash.
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: But I just let the world get the best of me.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: But when that preacher started coming here, it kind of
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: got me to thinking. And I woke up one morning
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: up the creek here. I'd been on a pretty bad
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: drunk and when I woke up that particular morning, I
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: didn't know where I was. How I got there. I
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: didn't know any of them. People didn't know where my
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: truck was. I finally found someone I know and got
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: them to take me to my truck. In fact, i'd
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: been gone about six months. I come over there hunt
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: and it was after Turkey's evening and I still hadn't
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: been on so I lost about everything, my wife, my family,
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: my friends, my place, cattle tractors, but I didn't care.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: I woke up one morning up here and I thought,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: you're in a bad way. I hope for you of Jesus.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: And by that preacher coming here, I think that kind
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: of rekindled the spirit that had been instilled in me
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: as a kid. And I decided I needed to get
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: right with the Lord and get my life right and
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: try to get my family back. And so I stopped
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: on top of Horseshoe Mountain one morning, just getting daylight,
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: and I asked the Lord to help me. I'm in
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: a bond, save me, take this addiction from me, give
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: me my wife back. And I drove on to the
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: cabin and I went out everybody's fire pit, and the
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: sun was coming up then, and I saw a transformation
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: in the east with that sun shining through the clouds
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: like I had never seen before. Had to be a
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: sign from God, a glimpse of heaven, maybe orange purple,
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: blue cloud raised a light shine and drew them pretty amazing.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: And my life would changed right there to that fire pit.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: Believe it or not, it was easier than you think.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: When you get Jesus involved in it. He took when
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: I gave my life to him, he took that addiction
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: from me. Been fifteen years, three hundred and nineteen days,
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: and I'll serve him, I believe, And he took that
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: from me. I'd been locked up, dried out in jail
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: for public drunk, all kinds of stuff. But when I
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: got Jesus in my life through the Holy Spirit, he
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: took that addiction from I quit smoking, I quit drinking,
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: I quit everything right there to a fire pit. It
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: took a few months, but I had some time. I waited.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: I got my life back, I got my wife's back,
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: my family back. Lord blessed me with a good cabin,
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: a new house, and I went from being an alcoholic
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: with a drug addiction to a deacon and an ordained minister.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: And some people get saved at an early age. I
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: got a preacher. Friend told me he was saved when
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: he was nine years old, never broke any laws. I said,
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: what you get saved from? Yeah, I've done it all.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: What I hadn't done all, this, hadn't never thought over,
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: didn't want to try it. I've done it all, and
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: that ain't no secret. But I'm not that way anymore.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: Jesus has given me a whole new life, a whole
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: new heart, and the whole new mind. Today I've got
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: my wife, but my family bud Yeah about everybody equitment, Yeah,
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Jesus fixed all that. Better than that's over. But that's incredible.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: I still like to hunt. He goes with me. He
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: likes mountain.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: It's clear that Johnny has been through the ringer, but
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: it sounds like he's got things figured out now. There's
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: more to people than the worst days of their past,
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: and there's more for you than the worst days of
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: your past. The confessions of this former outlaw is really
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: a story of redemption. Thank you, Johnny for sharing the
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: nitty gritty of your story. I can't thank you enough
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast.
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: Please share this pot podcast with someone that you know
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: that might be struggling, or somebody that just enjoys a
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: genuine story.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you all so much.
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Lot of train whistled sitting right under there. Whistle. I've
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: lost quite a bit of my hearing. Yeah, I used
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: to get here good and of course good, but now
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: I have to have someone go with me because my
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: son in law said, if you hear a turkey John it,
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: don't go to it. Sat down to Stark calling you
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: already to close.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: If you can hear it, you're already.
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: Hear gobble, you're already to close.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: That's funny at hip