I Ain't Even Lyin
I Ain't Even Lyin' is a podcast that values the lost art of southern story telling. Join us as we chew the fat on topics such as the outdoors, faith, family and good ole fashioned yarn tellin'. Be warned, some of the stories you'll hear may be true, and some of them may just be out-right fiction, but that's for your imagination to decide.
I Ain't Even Lyin
Gator Hunters, The Plague and a Snake Handlin Preacher
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On this episode of I Ain’t Even Lyin, join us as we tread through the Florida swamps chasing the infamous swamp puppy known as the Florida Aligator, as we survived the plague that almost cost us and join while we climb through the ole family tree to introduce you to our ole great Grandpappy the snake handlin preacher.
Welcome to the I And Even Line podcast. Hey, listen, we're so glad you're here. Um, this week has been a crazy week coming in. I wasn't even 100% sure we were going to have an episode this week. I'm gonna tell you, my house has had the plague. I don't know if y'all have been like us and been fighting the plague. My wife has had a virus. My kid on Wednesday night. So listen, I show up at the uh to go get my kid because I'm a I'm a youth pastor. We had just finished up with youth on Wednesday night. And uh, so I um I go to pick my kid up from my in-law's house, and he starts to cry as I go, get him. Well, that's not normal. He's normally asleep, so I go to pick him up, and I notice my kid is wet. And I'm like, why? It's not like a diaper. No, it ain't a diaper. Could very well be. I mean, I thought it could be. And so then I go to get him out, and I start, and his hair, he lays his head up against my face, and his hair's wet. And I'm like, okay, this is weird. He's a precious little fella. Precious kid. Yeah. So I I I smell the wet spot on him, and I'm like, oh, that's puke. Oh, wow. He threw up. And so I I grabbed and I kind of jokingly made a joke to my wife as I walk out and said, our weekend is about to look a whole lot different than we thought. And like anybody knows, if you have a kid, your weekends change on a on the and it can change overnight. And so uh for it for us it did. And I I take him in there and he has this little Burp Gurgle situation going on. Oh boy, that's a bad one. And he looks at me and he commences to throw up everything in his stomach, down my shirt, all over me. And I'm gonna tell you right now, as a father who has been spit up on, and then now it has switched from spit up to throw up. That's a lot different. I'd rather be spit up on than throw up on at this point. So, anyway, uh my family has been fighting the plague. Uh, my wife was not at church this week uh because she she's a worship leader, and uh, and she has also she got sick on Friday night. I went bow fishing, which we'll get into that later. I get home at 1 30 in the morning. My wife sits up in the bed before I go get in the shower, and she looks at me, she says, I feel sick. And I said, Oh wow. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01And the bad thing is is you've got a men's fellowship you were preparing for the next day.
SPEAKER_00I got home at 1.30, and I had a men's fellowship I had to get up at 5 a.m. to get to to go help prep for the breakfast. And and um, so we we did all that, and she looks at me and she says, I feel sick. And then I'm I'm getting a shower, and the next thing I hear is her throwing up in the toilet next to me. So I run, I had to sleep in the guest bedroom. I felt like I was I've been on vacation the past two days. Not because I've been away from my wife, it's because I've been sleeping in a different bed for the past couple days anyway.
SPEAKER_01And keep in mind, when Tommy was sick, I'm surprised he hadn't caught this. You must have an immunity now because he was sickliest. I think it's a blessing of the floor. You would throw up more than any kid. Not that he was sickly, but he he just, if somebody was gonna throw up, it was gonna be Tommy.
SPEAKER_00I lived on the bathroom floor in my parents' house for uh I think half my childhood because I would lay on top of that vent, and they're and any kid knows, listen, I grew up in a double wide trailer. Oh, yeah, and at the vents on the floor, and I remember laying on that old laminate flooring that you got in that bathroom, and I remember there ain't no better feeling as a kid as you're throwing throwing up some bad part, but no relief better relief than putting your face right on that vent, and then after you just got through throwing up and and and I mean just everything. Cool air just hitting you in the face, and you get you know blanket, just lay over it or a towel back in them days. You guys uh you lay on the dirty clothes hand to get you a towel and let I mean that was your bed for the next couple days. That's right. But um anyway, so uh, but I'm glad we got a chance to to shoot an episode. Yeah. I didn't want to hey, listen, I love visiting when y'all I love I love hanging out with you and and and you and and uh I just almost didn't happen.
SPEAKER_01Your mama, I think, wanted to put plexiglass between us so you keep it off of me. Yeah, I know. Kind of like you do at the store, you know. Remember when plexiglass was everywhere. I know. I would have loved to have been in the plexiglass business back in the old COVID.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she's actually, we have a live audience today. She's in uh yes, she is right out there, and she's she's urging us with her eyes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she refused to be our guest. I don't know why.
SPEAKER_00Yep, yep. So anyway, but uh I'm excited. So we got stories for you. Today's gonna be a little bit shorter of an episode um just due to the circumstances of the of life right now. But yeah, I'm I'm excited to be here. Don't go anywhere, get you a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_01Yes, ring it up. Sure enough.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, listen. Do you want to do it this week or me? What's that? The the Oh, the sip?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, that's good. That means not as good.
SPEAKER_00You can go ahead. Everybody that hates mouth noises right there, they hated that right every second of it, and I want to tell you I'm sorry. But anyway, so without further ado, I'm gonna jump in. So I had picked up a new hobby.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_00A new hobby, yep. And uh it is bow fishing. I picked up some bow fishing and uh I've been I've been giving it a shot. Uh we went the first time the other night, and uh same night my wife got sick. Yeah, and let me tell you, it is fun. Now, I don't like to fish, I'm not a big fisherman. I will fish. I do I do fish, but I like to hunt more than I like to fish. And when I can mix hunting and and fishing, I'm gonna do it. And honestly, I had a great time. Yeah, it was fun. And uh shooting, we were shooting mud fish and and and uh roach fish, you know. I don't know, a lot of people. Just a big old shiner. So yeah, uh some kind of Asian uh uh they call it some kind of Asian is an Asian roach fish of some kind. That's that's the that's anyway, but I don't even know if that's a that's probably not the correct term. Probably not the correct term scientific or nothing. Yeah, but um anyway, so what you got for us today? So uh you have we had we had discussed kind of some things that we were gonna go over today, and I know one thing you'd mentioned something about a snake.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, yeah. And and I'll just say this I'll mention one thing. I came out the back door of the house, and Tommy has got this snake, it's made out of concrete. And I I you know, I and I'm gonna I'll let the cat out of the bag because I'm gonna tell you right now, if he takes this snake and puts it somewhere, and you've already heard about it, it does not matter because I jumped and leaped away from that snake. Uh-huh. You know, yeah, and and the the thing about it is I never forget what my grandpa said when I was a boy. What well one of my cousins, I I believe it was David or something, me and him went to grandma and grandpa's house and he had these rattlesnake boots on, or python boots or something like that. And my grandpa said, Boy, you're gonna mess your eye up. I said, What in the world are you talking about, grandpa? Because I kind of wanted me some snakes. Oh, yeah. They're expensive boots, yeah. And so I I thought, well, let me mess eye up. He said, Boy, God gave you an eye to see them snakes. Yeah. And I you've done it. I've walked through the woods and I've jumped at something that wasn't a snake. Yep. Because there's something in you that you're gonna see it. Uh-huh. And how they blend. But when you got that snake hide on your boot, he's saying that that snake hide will mess that eye of recognition in the light in your eye. Exactly what he meant by that. And and, you know, I then we've talked about it. And I asked grandpa, I said, What did y'all do for snake bites when when you were young? He said, Well, you know, we tried to stay away from them because we had a good eye. But he told me one time, never forget this, there was an old man, old moonshiner.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh he he was bad to drink what he made. So he'd lay up there in the woods and get pretty doggone tipsy off that liquor. And he stumbled around and got bit by a big old rattlesnake. And so he he knew it was bad shape, and he w had his old bottle just sort of staggering around like Otis from Andy Griffith. And he walks up to this big old log and sits down. It's right close to dark. Summertime, you know. And he thought, my goodness, I and so he pulls his britches leg up and looks at the snake bite, it's swelling up. Big old place. I mean, that thing come back, one of them big ones, big enough to knock you, you know, break your leg nearby when he eating. And so he sets his old jug down, takes a big old swig up, sets it down, and passes out with his britch's leg up. Wakes up the next morning and looks down, and there's a pile of mosquitoes that high on the ground where they'd suck the poison and the blood out of his leg and saved his life.
SPEAKER_00My goodness.
SPEAKER_01Sure enough.
SPEAKER_00What about that? Well, there you go. There you go. I'd almost would say uh uh that that sounds like a true story to me.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, I don't know. I can't do that in line. I it's just one of the stories Grandpa said now. He did tell another story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He said that there was another fella who was a good, you know, good Christian man that wasn't drinking no liquor. And he got bit by a rattlesnake, and he went down to the spring head down in the swamp and dug a hole in the ground and stuck his leg down in it. He told his family, I'll be back in a couple of days. And he stuck his leg down in that mud and covered it up, and it drew the poison out of his leg.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_01I don't know how true that is.
SPEAKER_00I mean I heard of a story one time, so there was this guy. He, I think, so from from what they say, somewhere in like South Alabama, I don't know, close to the Coosa River kind of area. Yeah. And he was down there, it wasn't a rattlesnake though, it was a moxin, had bit him. So he was down there fishing along the Coosa. Uh you they you got that big lake down there. What's that big lake? Weiss Lake. Weiss. Yeah, Weiss Lake. And they're down at Coosa. Coosa goes into Weiss, right? Where Weiss flows into Coosa, it turns into the Coosa. Yeah. And so he's up around there, and that's a pretty well-known area to fish in. Well, he's down there. So uh a lot of copper heads up there. Right. And so this older guy, he was he was down there fishing, had fished this area for years. And um he he he was from this the center area, and he was down there, and as he's walking, this moccasin bites him. He's like miles from his truck because you know, some of them areas you gotta get way off down to find certain areas of the fish you're at. Right. And this is a long time ago. And he walks, he's miles from his truck. And so what he does is he goes down there and he's like, What am I gonna do? I just got bit by this this this moccasin. And he goes and he gets him a uh he gets takes his belt off and he runs and he and he kind of gets some mud. They say something that mud is so it's got so many minerals in it, and it actually's got a significant sodium amount, like a salt amount in the mud. Yeah. And so what they do is when they put it on the leg, it's supposed to kind of help, you know, it to seal it from from any kind of bacteria getting in, because he's got a good walk back, and he gets and he starts walking and walking and walking, gets that belt, and he kind of puts that belt around there to kind of keep the flow from from getting into his bloodstream. And he sits down for a minute, kind of similar to the guy you were talking about. He sits down, he falls asleep, and then he died.
SPEAKER_01He didn't wake back up. Well, he should have been uh should have pulled his bridge leg up and let them mosquitoes get him. Yeah, he wasn't down here in Florida. This guy was in Florida. Yeah, yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_00You know, anyway. So yeah. Um and and jokes aside to that, um, the actually, I I don't actually know of a guy from Center Alabama who died a lot. I just want to add to the story. I don't know, I don't ever get to tell fun things on rattlesnakes. That is good. I love it. It made me laugh. Uh yeah. I just figured I'd just build the anticipation, all the details. Anyway, so but I do know for a fact, so I go in and I've killed a lot of rattlesnakes in my pine.
SPEAKER_01You have, even when you're young, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, uh, I've killed one that sticks, and and one of my favorite weapons to use on a big old rattlesnake ain't more nothing more satisfying than taking a big old pine top. You taught me this in Georgia when I was a kid. And and taking a big old pine top, and that joker. Oh, yeah, something ain't gonna break. Green. Yeah. And I and so one of my favorite things to do is get a pine top about eight foot long where a nut joker can't hit me. And I reach back, I bring that joker across the top of your head, and while that joker's cooled up, you hit him on it on every part of his body. As he's cooled up, then you can break his entire body. Yeah. And and watch that joker just he'd be dead, right? That's my favorite weapon. Because there's just a satisfaction to it. All right. So um it just goes to show I'm, you know, I'm the man.
SPEAKER_01I'm I'm gonna say this to you, you know, um you you you being a preacher, you know, your great-great-grandfather.
SPEAKER_00Tell this story, yes.
SPEAKER_01My great grandfather, which is Tommy's great-great grandfather, uh, Ariana, I'd heard this, but uh he was a snake handling preacher.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh so but the truth is they were up in Georgia and uh the family uh they went to this church and uh a little girl, the preacher's daughter got bit. Well, miraculously she lived. But I think there was other allegations where another woman had died, and uh and so they had charges against them, him and that preacher and everything, and uh had to actually leave that area in Georgia, move down to Lakeland. And uh so the family wasn't really fond of handling snakes. This is the only cat, it was just your great-great-grandfather.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh I remember my grandfather had his family with him, and they pulled up to church, and he seen his daddy's truck was right beside him. And uh he gets out, and his daddy's sitting in the truck, and his daddy gets out. He said, Told his family, he said, All my mama and sisters and brothers and all the said, Did y'all stay in the car? He gets out and said, Daddy, you got snakes in that truck? His daddy said, Yep. He said, I got my pistol in my pocket, so if you carry them in that church, I'm shooting every one of them during the service. He said his daddy cranked up and drove off. So we're not snake handlers. No, no, hold on. I will handle them in four or five pieces. Yeah. I like handling, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'll handle a headless one. Yeah, I'll do that. I won't pick, I won't really pick up a snake if he even if he's dead, yeah, I gotta take the head off. Hey, I'll tell you this.
SPEAKER_01We was camping on E Confiner one time, a bunch of us, you know, and and we we kid you know how people kill a rattlesnake, and they think, well, I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll cook him. Well, we're just gonna cook this joker. And so he's probably three and a half, near, you know, nearly four foot long. And so, you know, I'm I'm rednecking it, you know, like hey, I can handle this, I can skin it out. I got a little a little experience at skinning them out. And I done cut the head off, skin him out. I was gonna save the hide and everything. And I got down in the creek. Never forget it. I mean, this is just so vivid in my mind right now. And I took that joker and walked down to that cold water and I slung the guts out of him, and I was gonna wash him off in that water. When I put him down in that water, the nub swung over and struck my arm. I mean, it was it it I mean, like like he was biting me. No guts, no head. No guts, no head, just meat. And that joker struck my arm. We did not eat that snake. You out in the water. And the funny thing, this is the weirdest thing about it, he swam to the heel with no skin, no head, or anything. Come on. My goodness alive. Well, that part ain't true, but it sounded good though, didn't it? I mean, I like it. But he did strike you. He struck me on my swim. We didn't eat him. Yeah. No, he's he did. He swam down to the bottom.
SPEAKER_00He went diving. He was ill. Oh, yeah, I joker dove.
SPEAKER_01I don't think nothing fooled with him.
SPEAKER_00But we didn't eat him. We now we have eaten rattlesnake. All we've got, it's rubbery. It's about eating like a rubber band.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but the thing is, you probably could cook it a little more rare.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But there's a lot of stuff you'll cook a little more well done than you like fro now. I'm gonna tell you this. Uh, and I don't know if we talked about this before, but you remember when we was gator hunting that night he killed that great big old frog. Now we're talking about what, 16 inches long from tip of his toes, tip of his nose. I don't remember. Yeah, he was big. Yeah, big old frog. I do remember that. And Tommy said, Daddy, what in the world is this in his belly? Because his belly was moving. Yeah. And we got back home, and I probably told this, but you st you we what we've noticed though, is that inside of them, you you said, What do they eat? And I thought, flies, whatever. But the predominant food for a uh bullfrog in this area is crawfish. Yep. They eat crawfish. I mean, the last time me and Trevor, there's some that we've got up here that we uh we got like frog rugs up here. Yeah, we got most people don't have frog rugs. But when when we we went and killed about 15 one night, me and Trevor and Cooper, and the next morning we got out got up from the house boat, went out there, and it was pinchers, and Cooper was playing with them because when you you pop their head on the front of the boat, yeah, and a lot of times them the little pinchers or pieces of the uh crawfish are coming from what they've been eating. Well, them jokers ain't waiting on the bank for flies. They can get them anywhere.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But now that's the reason why them big old legged frog legs, it's just as good an eating as could be. They're eating baby lobsters, folks. So don't ever frown on frog legs. I'm telling you, that's some good eating right there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I uh I like a good old frog leg now though, too. It is, it's real good.
SPEAKER_01They're pretty good. What about gator? Gator meat, you like it?
SPEAKER_00I'm a big gator meat fan.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I do like. But now we you you know now what to eat. I mean, the best is that back strap, that loin in the middle that don't have all that fat on it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I like the tail pretty good too. But I think I I'm I mean I'm not super I'm not super picky on I mean, and and honestly, gator is kind of like a rare commodity when we get to eat it. I mean, it's been years since we've we've cooked and we killed them we kill them legally, so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We've we've had some tags where we've we've done really good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it ain't like swamp people either. Where I mean, I'll be honest with you, I kind of wish we could and and this may be un unpopular. If if a swamp person, uh swamp person, someone from swamp people hears this, they might get a little offended. You're doing it the easy way. Oh yeah, yeah. Because in the state of Florida, we can't we can we're not allowed to use uh we can't bait with hooks, we gotta bait with pegs, uh wooden pegs. And you've got to really man the rod too. And it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And and you can't you can't have a rifle, you cannot have a gun in the boat. You can't even have one in the boat, yeah. Nope, not a pistol, nothing. You can't have a gun in the boat. The only we have bang sticks, uh, which is a basically a stick with some kind of it's a mechan a pressure mechanism on the front that whenever it makes contact with the gator head, it then engages the bullet and then shoots the shoots the gator. But it's not like we're shooting and you can make a shot and then go pick it up. And then you we have hooks and and uh hooks as far as um treble hooks, weighted treble hooks that you can snatch hook one, but you can't um you can't use hooks to bait them with. You can't um there's a whole these different things.
SPEAKER_01And a lot of things we use, we we'll try to snatch hook them and also shoot them with a fish and arrow. You've done pretty good with that.
SPEAKER_00We shoot them fishing arrow. I've I've I'm we but you gotta get close because in fishing arrows, they don't fly very much. There's a lot of drag. Yeah, well, not not a lot of home momentum. But uh, but yeah, it's been it's been fun. I I really enjoyed here's a good story I'll tell.
SPEAKER_01So y'all, yeah, a lot of y'all seen jaws, right? I mean, and you always go like, man, that's a cool harpoon on the front of that boat. Yeah. So me and old Kerry Newell was was gator hunting. He was gator hunting with us, and I stayed, me and me and him and Ben Dezaglio went down to the river one time, or down to Wee Wall and stayed, and I had 12 gator tags. I thought I could kind of like share them with people. I was gonna invite people from church. Here, here's you some tags. But you gotta be on the boat with every tag. Yeah, so it was it kind of messed my plan up uh once I started reading the rules. So uh so anyway, we had a gator up here. We called him Chubbs, it's a place on called Chubbs Lake up there. Big old lake. He was a big old gator, and the river was low, so we took an aluminum boat and hid it in the woods, and so we'd pull to the hill, and that's a backwater pond, that Chubbs Lake. But this big gator was in there. And so we had looked at what how that harpoon was. I thought, man, I'd love to have a harpoon like Jaws. Well, we looked it up, and what it was is that harpoon on that movie was used with the percussion off of a shell that pushed the harpoon out. So we looked it up, and there's a there's a site, I think, called Hutt The Son of a Gun or something like that, yeah, and we got a 410. They used a 410 shell, and you can do this with a 410. Take everything out, except for the wadding and the powder of the 410 shell, and stick an arrow down in that 410 and shoot it like a it shoots just like an arrow. So we got one in fishing areas, stuck it in a 410 and practiced with it, and we made ourselves that we were legal. And we went to that lake, and what we'd done was we we zip tied a coffee can, a plastic coffee can, to the front of it and put a bunch of line in it, kind of like you would your anchor line. If you put an anchor line in a boat in the front, if you put it in there, it kind of stacks in there and it comes out unwrapped. So that's kind of essentially the idea of a boat fishing and a rig that's well. This here, when we got there, we had it stuck down in there, hooked it up to the to the line. It was all set up. I called that gator up three times within ten feet of the boat. And Carrie took that 410. Shot and it would wad the lineup and would not come out right now.
SPEAKER_00What a wasted opportunity.
SPEAKER_01The fourth time we had to chase him, he'd run from us. He got tired of hearing it go off. So we chased him, tried to snatch hook him and all that kind of stuff, couldn't get him. So it's two in the morning. We got Evan Newell with us, his son, Carrie and Evan Newell. Evan ain't about seven, eight years old. Yeah. So we pull up to the landing. Mr. Green Jeans is sitting there. Yeah. And I told Carrie when we'd come up there, I said, I was we seen him up there and we was pulling up. I said, hey, we probably know better uh act like we use that 410 for our food. And uh we we thought we was gonna be in trouble. And we really would have probably got a fine. If you'd have hit him. Yeah, if we'd have hit him, we'd have been in big trouble.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But we'd have it was a blessing in disguise we didn't because we had that 410. We never done this again. But the guy looked in the boat and said, uh, what's this 410 for? I said, we can't have nothing for uh self-defense in the boat. He said, Boy, you can't have a gun nowhere in the boat. He said, You got a boat paddle, don't you? That's the only self-defense we could have.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll say this. Uh that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No, I this is a true story. I mean, we we we got away if and he said, uh, y'all need to carry that boy home. It's a little late. And I thought, I told Carrie, I said, you know, if we wouldn't have Evan with us, we probably would have got arrested or something. And two, you know, you just got to be careful.
SPEAKER_00One thing about gator hunting, you know. For the record, we don't condone earlier. You had said you had can, you know, you kind of had had convinced yourselves y'all were in the gate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we did, but then I even called my dad. I said, Do you think this is uh he said, Well, it sounds good, but you know, when it comes down to it, you have got a weapon in the boat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we don't condone on this show, we talk a lot about different things and and things that that people have done. And and and a lot of times it it makes for a really good story, but at the end of the day, you're never gonna hear even the guys that we talk to that even have had crazy stories. We got crazy stories that that probably um like honestly, there are things that I've had to ask for forgiveness for because I uh to the Lord because I I knew I wasn't in the right when I did it. Um, but now I I definitely try my best to stay um 100%. And the only time at this point in my life, it because nothing's worth getting in trouble with. Oh no, not at all. Nothing's worth losing worth losing your hunting license and your fishing license over. So for us, yes, and and I'm gonna try to put in for tags this year. Because I mean it's easy to get them here. It's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01And we're gonna we're gonna just gotta go where there's water at.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I man, we got into some backwater the other day, full of gators. Nothing, nothing worth shooting, but full of them.
SPEAKER_01I mean, well, uh to me, it it's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's a lot of fun to get out there and go. Um, but you're you're we gotta have some water somewhere. Um so we're we're from an area here in Florida in the panhandle that we've got a lot of beautiful crystal clear lakes, what we call the sand hills area. That's where actually where we live. And uh, you know, a lot of y'all come, you're you no no telling you could be from the mountainous area or more inland on in the States. We don't go to the beach that much.
SPEAKER_00No, you know I was telling someone that today, actually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean we go to crystal clear lakes, uh springs, and we don't get that nasty salt water to swim unless we're going after scallops or uh spear fishing or doing something that's uh of after food.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01So uh but these lakes are so low, and you get people that don't understand, and the old timers have said it this way, that they go down seven years and they come up seven years. So I I don't know, and every time they get as low as they are right now, because it's sad to see fish dying in in lakes. Yeah, it it you see them and you're going, wow, this you know. And I don't know, there's myths here, and somebody can share on this. This is not but they'll go dry and two years later we'll able to have a hurricane or something and bring those water levels back up, and two years level later you got grown fish. Yeah, how does this happen? Yeah. So people think that, well, you know what they do? They go down in them, and it's I mean, it ain't like you got a spring that's a big old rock spring, it's bowling out of the sand. But people claim they'll get they'll find their way down in that sand somehow to get down in there.
SPEAKER_00They go down the aquifers and stuff and live in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Now I don't know how that is, uh, because I've never saw it, and I don't know of anybody else that have.
SPEAKER_00So rumor has it actually that um I've heard this before. I even looked it up one time, and I don't know if you told me this, but I looked this up. This is a true story. So uh Rattlesnake Pond in Greenhead. Okay. Rattlesnake Pond, I heard I and I've heard this, I looked it up. So years and years and years ago in the 1900s, at some point, somebody had planted, put, placed rainbow trout in rattlesnake pond.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_00That's what I I probab I'm not I I read this one time. Yeah, they put rainbow trout in rattlesnake pond, and they say where where they live is because they need a certain degree of water. They say down there by the spring that comes that's feeding that pond, them uh this is what they say, that the rainbow trout live around the spring because it is the right temperature to keep them alive, and they live and dwell down there by the spring. Rainbow of trout are apparently in rattlesnake pond in Greenhead, Florida.
SPEAKER_01Hey, that's pretty interesting. I I I would not doubt anything. Uh, you know, there's a lot that you run into that's that's uh I I have no clue. That's what I was told. Blows my mind. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Blows my mind. So, but um, so like we said today, today's gonna be a little bit shorter episode, but I do want to bring some attention, and I know you wanna you want to honor the um the pastor and and and the men that that invited you, so you got a chance. Um one thing that we've loved about this podcast is giving us opportunity to spread the gospel, to to show the love of Jesus, to, to, to show men that that it's so it that that you can be both a man, a manly man, uh an outdoorsy man, and a family man, yeah, all at the same time while being a godly man. Yes. And that that you don't have to give up your entire life to to to be a to be a man of God, to be a Christian. Yes. You can still have a good time. It just at times it it looks different than what you may be familiar with a good time, but you'll find that the moments are more wholesome and and they're honestly more enjoyable whenever you're doing it in the in in the in with being a godly man in mind. Yeah. But one thing is that I've really enjoyed is the opportunities that we've had to to share the love of Jesus. And and for we've we've got feedback that that people are being touched by just the the words and the and the things that we set the end. And uh, but you've had an opportunity to to speak to a quite a significant uh uh uh amount of men the other night at a men's uh at a men's dinner, while game dinner, um at what Sand Hills Assembly of God. Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was a uh men's fellowship there at Sand Hills. Uh William Kelly uh had called me and invited me to come speak, uh him and Don L. Finley, which is uh some great guys, you know, and uh uh their pastor is Nixon Miller up there. And and uh my brother Michael, your uncle, uh that's the first time me and Michael had been able to ever minister together. He came and sang and uh and I was able to speak and um told a few stories and then got into uh a little more um seriousness of of life, you know. Uh but it was a wonderful time to speak to these guys and and just people I've known over the years, some elderly men, old Lynn Ellis, a guy, and old H. E. Ellis was there, just good guys, and uh just several other people that that we had uh had been friends with for a long time. Old Bub Eason was there and and Alan Brandon and several others, you know, Willard Kelly. Yeah, just guys that uh that that you that came and supported me, man. That was really great. I it was just fine being there and it was just a wonderful time. And I appreciate the food was great too.
SPEAKER_00Good deal. So it was it was a wild game.
SPEAKER_01No, it was just uh this in here was gonna was was barbecue, man. Oh man. Uh they had ribs, they had boss and butt, they had man. You lucked them.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes you go to wild game dinners, and and I've been to quite a few in my time, and and you gotta be careful sometimes. Not everybody knows how to. I told someone yesterday, I said be careful going to wild game dinners. Do not, if you're not an outdoorsy man, do not judge the meat that you are eating at uh like if it's rabbit or deer or turkey or whatever, or or gate or whatever frog. If if if you're eating it and it's not good, there's a good chance it might not be cooked rat. I've I went to someone be like, man, this this is not represent this animal well. So anyway, if you ever go to Wild Game Dinner and you eat something you don't like, give it another try by some in some other uh some other situation or uh give you anyway. Find someone who knows how to cook it, because yeah most of the time, anyway, that's off topic. But uh I'm glad that went well, and I'm I'm glad you had the opportunity to to be able to minister, especially with Uncle Michael. That was that's awesome. Um so to close out today, I I just want you to know I don't have a uh uh some some profound word to give you other than the fact of it that the Lord loves you. God loves you today. If you're listening to this, yeah, God loves you. Yes, the yeah, yeah, yeah, you, the person listening to this podcast. Right now, God loves you and he cares about you. And if you don't know him, guess what? He wants to get to know you. He knows you, but he wants to have a relationship with you. He wants you to get to actually know him and know how good he is, know how much he loves you and cares about you. And and uh I want you, regardless of any experience you've ever had with church or church people in your past, not all church people are bad, not all, not all churches are are are uh um are bad or whatever. I don't even want to use that term because sometimes some sometimes people make mistakes and and people get hurt, but I want you to know that God loves you and don't let one situation or one experience get to dictate your relationship with God. Because one thing I tell people, or I at least tell myself, there is nobody in this world that has enough influence or enough effect on my life to be able to say something to interfere with my relationship and my experience with God Almighty. I see it. Okay, because he loves me and I love him, and and I'm not gonna let someone stand in the way of that. I'm not gonna let their words stand in the way of that. And uh, so I will tell you today, if you're running from God or if you if you don't know the Lord, I challenge you, find him. He's not hard to find. The Bible says when you seek him, you'll find him. He don't want to hide from you, he's not hiding from you. So, what I'm gonna say is go look for him because he loves you, he cares about you, and your life will change forever. I promise and challenge you. I would love for you to accept my challenge, because I promise you, you will not comment on this post in a year if you pursue him. You will not comment on and say, God failed me, because I promise you, he shows up and he loves you, he cares about you, and your life will change for the better forever. Okay, so listen, we're so glad you came out today. We're so glad that you joined us and visited with us. Yes. Y'all come on back, y'all make sure to uh to have a great week. I hope you have a great Tuesday, and uh, that's all I got. Uh, you want to close us out in prayer?
SPEAKER_01That'd be that'd be the the I'm I'm not jumping this time, you know, like like I'm in a hurry to look at it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, well, it's it's actually after you get off the prayer, after you finish the prayer and conclude the prayer. That's it. That's when I start getting it. That's when you get antsy. So go ahead and pray. I've still got a little bit of coffee there. There you go. All right, close that.
SPEAKER_01So uh yes. Lord Jesus, we thank you for this day. I thank you for each and every one of our viewers, God, our listeners, God. I thank you, Lord, for just giving us an opportunity to have this platform here to be able to speak to these people, share some funny stories and life with them, God. I ask you just to go with them, keep them, watch over them, protect them. And here in Florida, Lord, uh, and eat really across the Southeast, Lord, we need some, we need some rain, and we pray for rain. God, I ask you to just uh take care of each one, bring us back again safely at the appointed times where we can share more with these guys. I I thank you for everything you've done, God. You've blessed us, and I thank you. I love my family, I love my son here, and I thank you, God, for everything. In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00Hey, listen, so before you go anywhere, I I gotta make one thing. So don't take your headphones off. Just I gotta make one statement before we conclude. All right, so we do have family history that um that that we're known to be snake handling preachers and snake handlers and all that stuff. But like my uh like my great-grandfather, because that was a great-great-grandfather that was a snake handler, like my great-grandfather, is if anyone brings rattlesnakes in the church, I myself will either find a way to dispatch them or or or find myself out the door. So listen, we are full gospel. We love be we love the Holy Spirit, we we love the Lord, we love God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all three of them all equally. I love my my Savior, but I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm full gospel, but I don't handle snakes, I kill snakes. Alright, listen. So in the garden, it was a snake, and I find every opportunity to repay that serpent in the garden for what he done every time I kill a snake. So I take all my energy out, anger on a snake.
SPEAKER_01Don't think he won't stick at little concrete snake like he did for me and spook you with it. Well, that's right, but that one's that one's lifeless, ain't got no life in him, so I'll finna kill that joker again.
SPEAKER_00There you go. There you go. Listen, y'all have a great week. Y'all have a great Tuesday. Yes. We'll see you next time. See you in two weeks. Thank you.