Neal Wright
Big Thicket and Preservation
Birthdate: July 28, 1938

Audio

“Preserve the Natural Beauty”

You are listed as a chimney builder, and you're a lot of things beside that, but let's start with chimneys. How did you start building chimneys?

Well, way back in the country, people didn't have the money to buy the materials they needed to make the brick chimneys, and there wasn’t any rock there. So we [used] a form of caliche we call mayhawl flat mud. It’s a fruit. They're like little tart apples when they're ripe, and they make some of the best jelly there is, and wine, too.

I've heard it pronounced may haw...h-a-w.

I guess different parts of the state say it different ways. Grandfather taught me how to do it. He was about seventy-two years old then and in good shape. We kids would do all the rough part of mixing the mud, and he would do the finishing.

Was this kind of like making adobe?

Yes, ma'am, it’s the same principle as making adobe, but with adobe they make the blocks and then assemble them with another type of mud to stick them together. With this, you build you a cypress frame first.

Mr. Wright spreading mayhawl flat mud on cypress frame.

Oh, you start with a cypress frame?

Yes, because it will withstand the heat and it doesn't rot. Then you start putting your mud in and build your chimney up. After you get through, you check your fireplace to make sure that you have the proper draw. And, if it's not drawing well enough, you either add some mud or take away some. It's as if you had a flue¹in it, except it’s permanent. You never change it.

Are the chimneys built on the outside of the buildings? Do they go straight up?

Yes, ma'am.

That's where you get the mud. That's the best way for anybody to identify it. Where a mayhawl tree is growing. They're about the only tree that will grow in that type of soil.

It sets up hard, of course?

Yes, ma'am, it sets up as hard as concrete. We analyzed it, and it’s the closest thing that you can find to natural concrete. It's composed of a lot of lime, and the sand in it is so fine it reminds you of a powder.

What color is it?

White.

It's white?

It's a whitish gray.

Does it age to gray or brown?         

No, on the inside it will pick up your smoke and get a grayish black color then.

Yes ma'am. The entire fireplace is made of that.

Do you make marks to make it look like brick?

No. Just smooth it out. It has a grayish look like concrete.

Mr. Wright molding the mud and horsehair mixture.

The best that you can have is horsehair. Whenever you’d shave the horse's mane or tail, you'd save the hair. It was very popular for making ropes, reins, and saddle girts, because if you use any other material for a saddle girt, it will rot, and the horsehair saddle girt is better for the animal; it will not chap or irritate the horse.

That's funny.

Well, it's his own product—horse against hair. And it won't absorb moisture or get wet. Cotton, hemp, or any other type of fiber would absorb perspiration. It's just like you. If you sweat a whole lot in your clothes, they have a tendency to irritate you or chap you. And it’s the same with an animal.

We made the chimney there to show both origins here. They used stone because stone was acceptable here. So we built the bottom out of stone and the top out of clay.

What's it called again?

We call it “mayhawl flat mud.” Another thing besides the horse hair; whenever you'd scald a hog, you'd save that. After that, Spanish moss became popular [for filler]. You'd put it in a smokehouse, where it turned into a hairy fiber. Have you ever seen any dried? It resembles human hair. And it's very strong.

It is! You've sure got a lot of it over there, too, to use.

We did, but due to pollution from all the refineries in Jefferson County, it’s dying out. Do you know that in a 127-mile radius in Los Angeles, there is no lichen on a tree? And there's not a lichen growing on a tree in any part of the Houston city limits. Air lichen are one of the most delicate macroorganisms we have. Your blanket lichen is what you get your beautiful colors in. When the air starts getting so much pollution in it, and you lose that, you know it's time to pack up and move. It's breaking the product down. So that's why we lost a lot of Spanish moss, and now we use mostly straw.

Are you still making those chimneys up there?

Yes, ma'am. We've made three on some modern log cabins. They wanted to make a replica of those from the early days.

Log cabin

You learned this from your grandfather. Did your dad do it, too?

Not as much. My grandfather mostly raised me.

Daddy got married nine times; mother got married seven times, so grandfather had to pretty much raise me. Daddy went to the city, and mama went to the city; I liked the country, so I stayed in the country.

Mr. Wright as a young man

You were better off.

Gosh, yes.

Did your grandfather start this business or did he learn it from his father?

He learned it from his father.

It goes way, way back, doesn't it?

You pass it down. My boys are helping me do this. I like to keep passing these things along.

That's probably one of the reasons you come to the Folklife Festival.

In areas like this, you don't have as much humidity as we do; you don't get as much rainfall. We get anywhere from ninety to a hundred inches of rain each year. So one thing to do is put about two percent salt in it to help it harden.

It doesn't leach out in the rains?

Maybe half an inch per year will leach out.

When you get one of those torrential downpours over there in East Texas, what happens to those chimneys?

In the early days, they used this as a draught, a flue, where it would bring the air, and breeze would come in and up and out. They had very few windows, see—only one on each end of the house. So continuously you had a draught and an air circulation through it to help dry it out, and it would absorb a great deal of moisture before it had any damage done to it.

Once a year you end up doing a little repair, and also you do a little rechinking on your cabin, between your logs.

Are these only done on log cabins? Or were originally?

Yes, ma’am, because you were using your natural elements.

In other words, this was living with what was there. One of the reasons you came to the festival was to educate people. You're sort of a missionary...eh?

Yes, ma'am. You'd be surprised at how many people are interested. People [who get my name and address] will call or write and ask things they won't do on their own. And the main thing that is so great about the festival is that you're getting to meet people one on one. They're getting to see it done, and they're getting to ask questions. In one day's time, you can make a complete chimney. But you stop and show them the product, and how the product is put on, and educate them. I think you get more contact with people and people get to be more interested. That's the great thing. You're expressing something that you know, and they're interested to learn and anytime that anyone is learning, I think it is a great reward.

And especially these simple, early things. If we lose those, like we lost the lichen, it is a catastrophe. Did you bring the clay with you?         

Yes, ma'am. We always have to bring about six to seven tons worth.

Are you having any trouble with it running out over there?

Oh, no. We've got plenty. I get this on my property; we've got about twenty acres of it,and it runs about twelve feet deep.

Twelve feet!

So we've got plenty.

Tell me the story about a still.

My granddaddy was a very likeable person, and he really didn't like to be tied down to one job. He always had a truck garden that he would sell produce out of. He fished, and selling catfish was one of his best pasttimes and the most interesting thing that he liked to do.      

He had a still made and took it back into the Thicket and had a big hollow cypress with a six-by-eight room hollowed out inside. You see, that's where bald cypress gets its name. It becomes hollow; the top breaks out of it. It's nothing but a big chimney, like a tower hollowed out, a smokestack eighty feet tall. He cut a hole out of the cypress, and it went down about three feet in the creek. It's watertight, and it stayed about 52 to 54 degrees all year. So he had plenty of water right there. He'd just tap the hole and put a plug in it, and he had good spring water when we needed it.

He had the still inside, and then he cut the hole and camouflaged it and closed the door. When you were cooking, the smell would go up, and it would be about a half or three quarters of a mile before it would come back down and you could smell it. The closer to the still that you would get, the less that you would smell. So, when the revenuers were hunting it, they would always go away from it. And then it would disappear. They never figured it out. And of course my grandfather would bring me or my cousin, and we'd always sit on the outside and fish and catch enough perch to eat.

As I was saying, the saw mill was owned by the Kountzes, and they had a commissary that would pay you with wooden tokens, referred to as "white horses.” These white horses were only good in the sawmill commissary, the store where you bought your hardware and all your staple goods. Well, the sawmill also furnished you with free medical supplies whenever you worked for the mill. They furnished you with a house, picture show, drugstore, and the medicine was given to you because it was taken up in the wages, see?

Was this in Kountze?

Yes. So grandfather made a deal with the doctor, Dr. Allen. He would give him the makings after he got through, and of course he would use it in all of his prescriptions.

What were the makings?

Well, it was moonshine. About 140, 160 proof alcohol. The doctor would write him a slip, and he would go and withdraw corn and sugar from the commissary.

Corn?

Corn mash. It would be chopped up like hen scratch. You'd soak it to get it fermenting. He would make it and give it to Doc, and the revenuers couldn't find it. Doc could write a prescription for anything you wanted, so, if he wanted something done for himself, he would pay you in moonshine or whatever. It was still going on in '47, and then after that, Doc quit and everything was store bought. Then the makings of it became too expensive. And on top of that they were using airplanes—the revenuers got pretty high.

When was Prohibition repealed? Was it in the '30s?

Middle '20s to '30s. There are still a lot of people would rather drink homemade...

It'd run 140 to 160. Of course, they'd always get some newcomer, some salesman coming in, and they'd make a sleeper. They'd take that 140, 160 proof and put a big piece of wild peppermint in it, see, and that peppermint had enough mint to mellow it and disguise the strength. The doctor had the drugstore, too, you see, and they'd take the Doctor Pepper syrup and put a couple of shots of that in there to add color.

I bet they didn't last long.

They sold every bit of it to the company. But, anyway, they'd get this fellow there, some newcomer that didn't know any better, and they'd give him that and, in just a little bit, he couldn't get up. All of a sudden it would get the best of him, and he’d just had it. Oh man! You'd make a wager with him: “I bet you can’t drink a pint.” You see, he was used to drinking about 80, 82 proof, [and we] doubled up on him. Somebody put 140, 160 on him, and he couldn't have drunk two good teacups before it would put him to sleep.

Grandfather loved to do things, and he believed in the quality of anything he had done. He said you should always use your head.

In those days, people had open range, and everybody would mark their hogs. And if you marked somebody else's hog, you'd chart it. You'd put down you had so many shots, so many new pigs, and you'd put their mark on. Then they would pay you or give you some of the pigs for doing it for them.

Well, most of our people had horses and dogs and had to keep all this feeding stuff. After we got through making the moonshine, we'd take the mash, and it still had an alcohol content in it, and Grandfather would put that sour mash out and let the hogs come up there and eat it—let them get so drunk they couldn't move. And he'd just go out there and mark everybody's pig and put everything down and go on about his business.

Men rounding up pigs

He didn't work up a sweat; didn't get his dog hurt and cut up; didn't have to put them in a pen; or get out there and wrestle them, get them down, tie them up. Those hogs couldn't have gotten up more even if they'd wanted to.

They really got drunk!

Oh, gosh, yes. Any animal will get drunk if you give him alcohol.

There was enough left in that mash to...

Oh, yeah.

Isn't that amazing. And he knew exactly when to do it.

Of course, those hogs can smell, you know. He'd put some up in burlap sacks and hang it up in a tree, see, and put the other out.

And they could smell it and come running.

They'd smell it. I'm talking about these wild hogs they have. Of course, these domestic hogs have been bred down so much they're dependent on man.

Man holding pigs in stockyard

They've lost their natural sense of smell. But these hogs could smell it for three or four miles, and here they'd come. If they get addicted to alcohol, they'll travel twenty miles to get another snort of it. Just like people.

That's the type of thing he believed in doing. And he loved to hunt, and he was an awfully good shot. Whenever he wanted ducks, he'd put a trot line out with white popcorn on those perch hooks, and the ducks would see that and swallow the hook. He'd take the males out, get three or four he wanted to eat, and turn the rest of them loose.

The hook didn't hurt them?

No. [It’d] just catch them in the top of the mouth there, just like a fish.

He was a terribly ingenious gentleman, wasn't he?

He believed in common sense. The first things that he did were the first things he wanted you to do: be respectful to people and be honest. If you sit down and study something first, then you can do a better job.

Is Wright an English name?

No, ma'am, it's German. My grandfather was half Indian. He was a Caddo. So I got a little bit of Indian in me, and I guess that's why I like the woods so much.

How could Wright be a German name? It doesn't sound German.

That's what my Daddy said.

German and Caddo!

My grandmother was my mother’s mother—the one that raised me. She was a Downey. They were Indian and Scotch-Irish.

Every once in a while someone comes along, creative like that.

He was a small-framed man, stout, and a good hard worker. He wasn't [even] as large as I am now, but he could outdo bigger men, because they would try to do something [with brute force] without thinking, but he would use his head.

Did he live to a ripe old age?

Yeah, about 83.

I bet you miss him. He means a lot to you.

He did. As I said, he trapped for Sears and Roebuck for thirty-five years in the winter.

Sears and Roebuck! Did they sell furs?

Yes, ma'am. They used to. He didn't take no money. He just traded out what he needed, see? He got a certificate of thanks for thirty-five years of trapping for Sears and Roebuck. At that time, he was one of their top trappers.

Was he a storyteller?

Oh gosh, they'd spin yarns just continuously around the campfire when we were trapping, deer hunting, or out fishing.

Did he have Indian stories?

A little bit of everything. When you see somebody going camping now, they have a large pack. And they've got more stuff than they really need. When we traveled, our cooking utensils were a cast-iron skillet and a cast-iron mulligan pot, a few forks and spoons, and a coffeepot. And [with] the coffeepots we had in those days, you boiled the water in them, dumped in a handful of grounds, and went on about your business while it boiled, and then poured the coffee off of it. What you couldn't fry, you put in the mulligan pot.

What did you fry with?

Animal fat.

Animals that you were trapping? Scraped it off the hides?

You know they're fat in the winter. You don't have to carry all that―just carry a little salt and pepper. Most of the time, you used natural pepper vines from the woods. And you got Indian turnips and sweet potatoes. We'd use palmetto for cabbage. It tasted just as good as regular cabbage. You can drink that water: cut it off about two inches above the surface of the ground and take the new growth out of it. You can eat it raw or cooked. And the liquid that comes into it is just like drinking water out of the cactus.

There's something down in Mexico they do that with.

It will quench your thirst better. It tastes a little bitter, but it's a whole lot better for you than drinking out of something you’re not sure about.

When you did the frying, you’d fry fish, of course, and what else did you fry?

 Well, you'd fry a coon just like you would a chicken.

You didn't fish when you were on one of those trips—you used animals.

We'd use animals mostly. You'd bring a little bit of flour, and that was about it.

And the stuff you couldn't cook in the skillet, you put in a pot with water?

With water and natural herbs and let it boil. They'd say, "What do you eat for breakfast?" I’d say, "The same thing you eat for supper."

Like I said, I'm a guide, and I teach survival. It seems like the more college [education] people have, the less common sense they retain, for some reason. In the winter we'd build a lean-to. Use palmetto and cane and some brush poles to make it, but you would face it directly to the north. They said, "Well, all that cold wind will blow right in on you―you ought to turn it around the other way.” No, you dig your hole right out in front of it and build your fire there, and the cold wind would blow the heat in on you...see? If you had it turned around backwards and you tried to build a fire to the south, the wind would blow the heat away from you. So, that way, you put a heat barrier there. Any time you woke up and were cold, you always had some wood there or pine knots to pitch in. We used pine knots, the heart of the virgin pines, and they have a lot of turpentine in them and burn very hot.

Well, I catch poisonous snakes by hand and show people how to milk them, try to educate them about not killing productive snakes. Any productive snake is one that is not poisonous. I can understand that people don't want to mess with them, especially the poisonous ones, but if you give them the least bit of chance, all of them will get out of your way.         

Here's one example. Your scarlet king snake is almost extinct. It's on the endangered species list.

It looks like the coral.

Yes. You know the old saying, "Red to yellow, kill the fellow”—that's the coral snake; “red to black, venom lack”―it doesn't have any poison. But the coral snake won't run. They'll kill him. But the scarlet king is the natural enemy of the coral—he eats its eggs and kills the mature and the immature reptiles. All of the king snakes, and a lot of the constrictors, such as the rat snake, the chicken snake, and the milk snake, will eat your poisonous snakes.

Did you ever cook snake?

Yes, ma'am. Water moccasin tastes just like catfish.

Really?

And rattlesnake tastes a lot like chicken or rabbit.

Rattlesnake

I haven't had the nerve yet. I’m going to sometime. l've tried almost everything.

I’ve had people say how good it was. I told them it was trotline catfish. They didn't know the difference. And they would eat it, and you wouldn’t [tell them] what it was until afterwards.

If I'd surmounted that, it wouldn't bother me later to find out. I’d be kind of glad I'd done it. You know, here's an obstacle I’ve faced. We lived in Houston for a while in the '50s and ran into a group of people who were trying to save the Big Thicket. We got interested in it, of course, and followed it in the newspaper. Have they finally funded it?

They got all of it except for about 12 percent. The rest of it is under contract to purchase.

The lumber people didn't ruin too much?

Well, they ruined as much as they could, but they didn’t eliminate all of it.

Mr. Wright in the Big Thicket Wilderness Preserve

Is there some wild left?

Oh, yeah.

I'm so glad.

I fought that since '53.

We came to Houston in '50, and even then they were struggling to save it. We heard about the big lumber people cutting the lumber as fast as they could cut it.

I don't mind so much them actually cutting it and using it for something, but [what I don’t like is] when they go in and spray it with herbicides like they did in Vietnam, going in and using these stingers and stinging the tree and cutting it down right there. People can use it for firewood.

What would they do that for?

Mr. Wright in the Big Thicket

They claim they do it for reforestation. And the federal government pays 100 percent of the reforestation. Did you know that?

All taxpayers get under the 408 with the farmers. They don't pay taxes for twenty years until they start production on it, and then they turn in for what value they want.

How much acreage finally got saved?

84,640 acres, I believe.

That isn't what they wanted, is it?

We started off with 200,000; we went down to 150,600. Then we went down to 100,000, and we wanted 85,000, and we came up with that.

And that's it.

Yes, ma'am. That's all we get.

      You said you've been a guide in the Big Thicket for twenty years. You must have started very young because you’re still a young man.

Well, I'm forty-two.

That's young—take my word for it. [laughter] What kind of people want to go in the Big Thicket? Birders? Ornithologists? People like that?

And just everyday people. I've had people from New York and Chicago. Their kids didn't know, thought they were in a wagon train, fixing to start pioneering. They couldn't believe there were miles of territory. Take them out in the heart of the thicket, about fifteen miles from civilization, and they hear an airplane going over. That's the sound of civilization they'd hear—no cars, no motors, no nothing.

Don't you allow any motorized vehicles in there?

No. It's only hiking.

Really? Only hiking. That's good.

As I said, it's the only wilderness preserve in the United States.

I come from the North, and we had trouble with the northern wilderness, the canoe country. Everybody got busy with outboards and planes, and that was a terrible fight because they were destroying it with noise pollution. They finally got that straightened out, but there were some strong wilderness people who had to fight every inch of the way because people wanted to zoom, zoom in their lousy little airplanes to go fishing.

They didn't want to take the time to see anything; they just wanted to do what they had to do and get out.

They wanted to hunt and fish and get there fast and get back. So you have got at least 84,000...a little short of 85,000. But that's sacrosanct—nobody's going to spoil it.

They can't do anything. And they've got a buffer zone all around it.

Did they allow the people who were already living there to still live there?

Two families were allowed to stay. That's all.

Is it a national park?

A federal park.

How does someone go out there? Do people contact you or do they go through the Chamber of Commerce?

No, ma’am. It was through the Big Thicket Association in Saratoga, where the museum is. So [someone who wanted to go would] write them and say "Twelve people coming in on August 20, and we want to be out for so many days." When you go out overnight, do you sleep in tents? Yes, ma'am. If there isn't any danger of rain, we sleep right on the ground.

In sleeping bags?

Yes, ma'am.

What do you do about food?

You can bring in what you want.

We're camping now in the Big Thicket. Do you limit how many people you can take?

Well, we try to keep it to around twenty. It's pretty hard for one person to keep up. You've got to look out for them, see that they don't injure themselves, and see that they don't destroy the preserve.

How many miles do you walk a day?

I would say probably from five to eight miles, because the main thing you are trying to do is show them the different kind of plant life, animal life, and the subspecies, and explain things to them. Ninety-nine percent of the time they're not fit to travel three miles or anything like that. So you keep it down to the very minimum that you can.

Does it stay cool in those forests pretty much?

Yes, ma'am. If you get into a climatic forest where you've got your predominant hard wood and your climatic over-story, it's very cool. But where there’s a lot of pine trees producing heat, it gets pretty bad.

So you don't do too much of that in the summer?

Just two or three where the pine trees are.

Are there enough to keep you pretty busy? Do you do something else?

I do a little farming, you know. When I got out of the service in '57, I went to beauty school and became a hairdresser. Between that and the other, I keep [busy].

 So you're doing exactly what you want to do, aren't you?

Raise my kids and...

How many kids do you have?

Four.

Is your wife interested in the outdoors?

Well, as far as living in the country, but she's a little shy. I love people, and I can tell right away if we're going to get along. And if not, well, I'll try to change my way to where I can be expressive to them without insulting them.

They're coming from one extreme to the other. They can't get over the vast openness. There's so much open land. They don't have a trust in people, and they don't understand how the people here can speak to you and be so friendly. If somebody drives down the road and you're there with a flat or something, they'll stop and say, "Hey, you need any help?" and they think, “My goodness, somebody stopping like that is likely to get in your car and rob you.” They can't understand how people are grateful to you. The kids are just astounded. They can go to parks, but very few of them get very far out.

The thing that hits me the most is the smell—the smell of the pines, the smell of this, the smell of that.

You get there in the spring with all those azaleas and everything, oh, it's marvelous. And after that the magnolias come into bloom—they’re my favorite. Then your grancy graybeards;²then in May, you've got your mayhaws.

There's also, don't forget, the dry smell of the pine when the sun is beating down. That's a wonderful smell. Do you take people who are just after wildflowers or just after birdwatching?       

We try to keep the groups to where it will be beneficial to everybody. Then you just explain to them about what they'd like to know—birds, wildflowers—they want to see the air lichens, or water species or whatever. In that way you can show them and let the other people do what they want to. And you get them back and explain and identify...I haven't found anybody yet that might think that they wouldn’t like it, but then they get there and get to looking, and, first thing you know, they're saying, "What's this? What's that?"

A whole new world is opening up.

Oh, yeah, because they never figured there was that much to it, see?

Do you ever get a request, for instance, for twelve birders who want to come in—just birders?

Oh, yeah. I've worked with numbers of groups. The whole club will come down.

I have friends who do nothing but birding all over the world. Their travels are all about birds. I think they've done the Big Thicket. The thing I am interested in is wildflowers. Up north, I was an expert; down here, I simply gave up.

When Cornell University did a survey down here, they found they could move a matter of just a few feet and the whole ecology would change. They just couldn't understand it.

The only winter-blooming orchid outside Alaska is growing here. And [growing] right next to it you've got a lady slipper. This [lady slipper] grows best in good, hot, humid weather, and here it is just a few feet from one [winter-blooming orchid] that takes the harshest conditions. It's got to have a good hard frost for two days before it will even come up out of the ground and bloom. They can't understand it.

Trees that wouldn’t grow anywhere else are growing side by side right there. Then you get so many subspecies that two trees will somehow get together and the sap center changes, and you’ve got a whole new ballgame. Or they'll repollinate each other, continuously changing. They found about 8,000 mushrooms, and then they come back three years later, and the whole thing's a new ballgame again.

Fascinating. Do you know the Big Bend at all?

I’ve never been there, but I hope to go. They've got some new trails, probably since you were down there. They've got a log cabin—it's one of the ranger's offices on 420. That's about six miles north of Kuntz on the Woodville road. They have half-a-day trails in there that are beautiful, with bridges over the creeks and everything. It's really fabulous.

Do they allow people to go unattended?

Yeah. It's got about four miles; three; and two something; and about one and a half. Of course, you can make all of them. You're unattended; you're on your own.

Right now, since it's gotten hot, I‘ve only been doing about three a month. It's gotten so bad. But in the spring, it's every day. Six days of the week. Not too many in the winter―probably about half as many.

Have you learned a lot of lore with the wild plants?

Well, my grandfather taught me, of course, about the different herbs and what they do, and what you can and can't mix.

Did he do any medical medicine?

Oh, yeah. He gave us all the old remedies. That's what they referred to.

Did you ever write them down? Collect them?

Yeah, I’ve got all [of] my grandmother’s. She was an assistant to the sawmill doctor. And Grandpa would collect the herbs and stuff, and Doc would mix it up. He used herbs until he retired. Of course, he would use some modern thing, but he did his own. Take it and dry that stuff up.

Really?

Oh, yeah. Grandpa would always get it for him out of the woods.

He knew what to get. And your grandma knew how to do it!

Grandmother was his assistant.

She didn't study—she just knew.

The Beaumont Enterprise did an article many years ago that said they delivered something like around 1,200 kids. At least part of the time, he'd go to sleep or go somewhere else and make a call and leave her, if it wasn't a first child.

She delivered the babies.

And in those days, buxom women would have too much milk, and, of course, they didn't have all the things they have now. They would use puppies or pigs―young, new puppies. You get a breast-suckled pig, honey, he's worth four times as much as one that fed on that sow. You take that little baby pig and clean him up, he don't have no teeth or anything...and a hog, he’ll eat his weight. You never heard of that?

No!

They're still doing that at home.

I've heard of women who had too much milk feeding other babies, but I never knew they used animals. Well, was the meat better or sweeter or what?

It was just something coming from a human. Grandpa said it didn't make a difference and they were crazy to pay for it.

And they did?

Of course, but the problem was that that pig would be tame. He got dependent on the smell of humans, and he'd be like a dog.

Girl holding her pet pig

They’d take the male, see? The males are most protective at heart. He would still protect, but he wouldn't attack a human. But then he’d run loose, wild in the woods. He'd always come to you. He was the lead pig who's whipped everything, and they will follow him, and he's real gentle. That's why they would use him. They'd always use a male for that. He would be the lead pig.

Are there still wild pigs roaming around?

Better meat than anything you'd buy, because they eat the herbs, and the meat is a little bit firmer; it's not that stuff that you buy that's fed with all the hormones. It's good.

 I've heard about it.

It's sort of like a cross between beef and pork.

Is it anything like javelina?

I've never eaten javelina, so I couldn't say.

We've got them there, too.

You do. You say you've killed nineteen. Can you use them or do you have to give them to the Park?

No, this is on my land. They roam the park; they roam all over everywhere. You can hunt them any time of the year you want to.

How many acres do you have?

About three hundred and fifty.

You have? What do you grow on them?

Well, most of it is just woods. l've got seventy-five acres. Nothing gets on it. I call it Big Thicket Biological Gardens and Guide Service. I take people and let them camp there because it takes a lot of rigamarole to get permits because the park is not completely set up for all that. I don't like to be a burden to anybody, so I let them camp on mine and you don't have to worry.

I've made trails, and we've transferred a lot of endangered species there and put them back in the park. We had to move a lot of stuff before it became extinct. I've done all kinds of things to those timber cutters. I let the air out of three of their tires and let them walk out of the woods. Or, if they had a radio, they'd call somebody to help. I catch a polecat and put that skunk in there and hold up its tail and let it spray it down good. You know, just little things, to keep their minds active. That's all you want. You wouldn't want to hurt anybody.

Think how long it took to get just 84,000 acres.

There you are. It would take a long time to get [in] that pickup truck after that skunk got done with it.

You get me wound up, I can talk for two hours. You get a fire going, and I could tell you something.

We don't need a fire today!

I know, but there’s just something about that campfire, that smoke…

The darkness, shadows...

You can't believe the things that happen. People are scared. Especially if they're sleeping on the ground, an armadillo begins to sound like a bull elephant. They're not used to the sounds. [On] television all the big creatures come around howling and snarling at you. Any little sound—a little screech owl, they'll just think it's the biggest thing they ever heard in their lives. Especially in the spring—you’ll get an old rooster out there who gets in a big hollow tree and uses that for his amplifier. He's broadcasting a little bit louder, makes it a bit more impressive, you know. They'll say, "Oh, my gosh, what's that?"

They'll bump up against some mushroom, a toadstool, a puff ball, and, of course, it smells really musky, cave-like, and they'll say, "Oh, my gosh.” I say, "That's him. He's tromping out there. If you heard him holler and you can smell him, you all are getting close." I'm telling you, they'll bunch up like a bunch of chickens or quail in a covey. That's the best way to keep them from separating. If you don't keep an eye on them, they can get away from you. And they haven't got enough sense to follow the tracks that you make when you take twelve or fourteen people walking the same path. They haven't been raised the way that I was raised, or the way I'm raising my kids.

It's interesting, isn't it, that those people would even want to come.

I try every way I can to help them, to help them want to protect what we’ve got. And I talk to them with just common down-to-earth sense and get them to want to keep asking questions. And sometimes it takes a long time to get one of them interested, and, once you get them interested, they're good dedicated people.

And it will probably last for a lifetime.

And you show them, really, that it's not a bushed-up area full of ticks and red bugs and everything else because they can live anywhere as long as there's grass and trees. But preserve the natural beauty.

Are your children taking this on?

Oh, yeah. The one that's out here with me now does it all the time. Goes on camping trips whenever he wants. The oldest one is nineteen, and the girl is eighteen. They are out of school this year. Oh, man! It’s really nice.

They all like it? You haven't got some who say, "Oh, I don't want to do that?”        

The daughter now, she doesn't like to get in the swamps and the bayous. She doesn't like those leeches.

I've had leeches on me, but I'd be worried about the snakes.

People are so afraid of snakes. You've got to hang that rascal up or step on him to get him to bite. And then you've got a good eighty-five percent chance that you’re not going to get a toxic bite or get a good penetration. He's either fed on something or is not going to get a good enough bite to wound you fatally.

We've got a copperhead in my patio right now. I don't know where he is, and I've got ivy in part of my patio...that's the poison snake we have where I live. They will turn and fight.

They're mean, to a certain extent, if you press one of them. I've stepped on them before, and they haven't bit me.

I walked out the patio gate one morning, and I felt my foot roll; I looked down, and I was stepping on a copperhead.

He didn't strike, did he?

No, he got away…fortunately for me.

Now, if you get him mad, he's not going to quit until you kill him. But you can step on him, like I say. I've stepped on them in the woods a lot of times, and they haven't bitten me.

I've enjoyed this so much. Thank you.

To learn more about visiting Big Thicket National Preserve, visit this Web site: www.gorp.com/gorp/resource/US_National_Park/tx/index_bigt.HTM This Great Outdoor Recreation Pages site provides general information about the Big Thicket as well as every detail needed to plan a trip there, including contact information, operating hours, popular activities, recommended clothing, transportation, and safety tips. To learn more about the history of the Big Thicket, get a copy of: Gunter, Pete A.Y., and Bob Armstrong. The Big Thicket: An Ecological Reevaluation. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1993. This book focuses on both the historical and biological background for Big Thicket and the half-century struggle to preserve it. To learn more about camping and wilderness survival, read: Tawrell, Paul. Camping and Wilderness Survival: The Ultimate Outdoors Book. Ist ed. Falcon Publishing Company, 1996. This 350-page book with 3,600 illustrations provides information about how to travel, make a camp, understand environment, choose equipment, and handle emergencies like first aid and finding food, water, and shelter. To learn more about Big Thicket flora, see: Ajilvsgi, Gayeta. Wild Flowers of the Big Thicket, East Texas and Western Louisiana. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1979. This 360-page field guide details habitat types and plant communities, complete with the blooming periods of individual plants.