Agricultural Journalist on Mob Psychology, Insurance Fraud, and Human Nature's Dark Side

Chris Bennett [00:00:00] Remember when you were in your teens Vance, and your mama or your mama, somebody in your family, maybe all of them, your aunts told you, Hey, you're such a fine young boy, you're so handsome, all that kind of thing. Good things that a child generally needs to, needs to hear. And then you get older and you find out that's not true, right? As that's, that's not true.

Vance Crowe [00:00:21] I'm Christina Hudson Kohler, an egg processing manager living in Syracuse, New York, and you are listening to the Vance Crow podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, Chris Bennett returns. This is one of my favorite guests I've ever had. If you don't know who Chris Bennett is, he is an agricultural reporter and he is perhaps the greatest storyteller that I have ever met. He is one of those guys that is seeking out the details of a story, and he's just a hell of a lot of fun. You know, you get on a call with him and you can see the energy that he has and the passion for what he's doing, and you can't help but feel this sense of excitement about the world. So I am really excited that you're here for this. In the beginning of the interview, we talk a little bit about the, as the Crow Flies Book Club, this is something that we do. It's open to the public, and we're reading two books right now. We're reading one book for the month of October, which is The Hobbit, which if you've never read this book, I never had. It's a fun read, and it's one of those that you can share with your family, or it might be something that you've read before, but you want to try it out again. So we're reading The Hobbit for the month of October, but we've started a much longer book called The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which is the story written by Te Lawrence or Lawrence of Arabia. And we've given ourselves a little bit more time to read that book, so that'll be December's book of the month. But we wanted to make sure we had enough time to read this big, thick tome of a book.

Vance Crowe [00:01:55] And they're both fascinating reads. They're the written so well that it's not difficult to open up the pages and just start getting absorbed into the story. But it's one of those things that if you don't have a group of people around you to do, you might not pick 'em up. So if you're interested in doing that, getting a part of the book club, the book club, it happens on the last Sunday of the month at seven 30. And if you'd like to learn more, you can always send me a note at Vance at Articulate Ventures. You can just send me an email and I will get you hooked up. Or you can join the Articulate Ventures Network, which is one of the places where most of the people in the group show up for Book Club, but they also participate in other activities. You don't have to be a member of the network to join it, but it also gives you a link directly. So if you're interested in learning more about the network, go to Network dot Articulate Ventures. I hope to see you there and enjoy this interview with Chris Bennett, one of my favorite guests that they can be. Talk to you later. Chris Bennett, welcome back to the podcast.

Chris Bennett [00:02:59] Hey, Vance. Good morning, man. Hey, it's a blessing to be here. I'm, I'm just excited to talk to you.

Vance Crowe [00:03:05] So you are a journalist. For anybody that didn't catch our first episode and the last time we spoke, it was a wild ride. In fact, of all the interviews I've ever done, I've never gone back and listened to the same episode so many times as I did with yours because I just kept thinking like, man, this guy knows how to highlight the details that matter in a story. So I'm really excited that you're back.

Chris Bennett [00:03:30] Hey, I'm glad to be here. I'm about quarter journalist, but I'm, I'm ready to go 12 rounds with you, Vance. They, they hit the bell, man, come on.

Vance Crowe [00:03:41] So, you know, I've got a book club, this podcast, we, every once a month we do a book club. And we, the concept is doing what we call Lindy Books. And what it means is we wanna do books that have stood some test of time, because the likelihood that a book will be around in the future is directly proportional to how long it's been around in the past. And so we usually read one book a month, and then we have one long term book that we, that takes longer to read. So you're not in such a rush. So as soon as you finish the, finish the monthly book, then you go towards that longer one. And the longer one this month is Te Lawrence's, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. And before we got started today, you had told me you've actually read that book, and I'm like 25 pages in. So I'm super stoked to talk with you about a book that I've yet to read.

Chris Bennett [00:04:31] I vance, that book was far above my intellect. I read it when I was younger, about half as smart as I am now, which is not saying much, but if there's an impressive fella in history, surely it's Lawrence and the movie itself, you know, the movie David Lean Made in the 1960s, which with the incredible cinematography, but anybody's never seen the blues, the skies that he was able to create on films in incredible, but that, that doesn't really tell much about the guy himself. TE Lawrence as you, you know, man, a man full of mystery, a man that for every three things out of his mouth, maybe two of them were true, you never really knew, but interesting character you mentioned in the intro, details, details. And that's what draws us in, man, details pull us in, you gimme some details. I can sink my teeth into Vance. I will remember what you say, and I will hang on your words when you start talking boilerplate, generic, my mind, it tends to drift.

Vance Crowe [00:05:40] Yeah. And that's actually probably the biggest complaint that people have about journalists is that they get the details wrong, right? Like they're telling some story. And then the, the way that they fill in to try and make it interesting is that the details are slightly off. And those are the things where you're like, how could you have done this to me? Me, that's not what I told you.

Chris Bennett [00:05:59] You're exactly right. You know, I, I think I had somewhat of a wake up moment on details, Vance maybe, maybe 10, 12 years ago. I don't know the exact date. There was an article that came out in Texas monthly. You can look this up online, you find it pretty fast, by a guy named Skip Hollinsworth. A Highlands Worth Advance for My Money is, is one of the finest writers in the in in the world. He wrote an article on a fellow named John Lan Rock and truly tragic story, or maybe beyond Tragic, Maclan Rock was a 17-year-old kid, 1973 playing football, and he had everything going for him. I think he was maybe five 11, if I remember, a hundred sixty, a hundred sixty five pounds, kind of built for speed. Very handsome guy had his future before him, and he was injured on the football field. One night in Dallas, he was a advanced, I think what you call a wedge blocker on the kickoff team. And he ran out and the fell's knee caught his neck, neck snapped. He collapsed on the ground. So bottom line was mcclar rock. 17-year-old was paralyzed from the neck down. He got outta the hospital, right? Can't move. And it was so severe, his paralysis was that he could not lift his head up. So in other words, he had to lay flat at all times. And they took him home and he had a couple of brothers, his parents and his mama, I believe, was working at a bank there in Dallas.

Chris Bennett [00:07:37] She quit. She began to look over this young man, 17 years old Vance 17, right there. And the story Vance Will, will, will, will just tear you apart. She, her name was Anne MCC Clam Rock, looked after this young man who was 17 years old until he was in his fifties, and he never moved from that bed. And she would wake up in the morning, get dressed, put her perfume on, get cleaned up. She would go in there to where he was at in this room, and she would shave him. She would sponge bath him, she would clean his urine bag, she would wipe his bottom as you would a baby. She would turn him to keep the bed sore from forming. And they were together trapped in this room. The father died of cancer. One of the brothers died of cancer. One of the other brothers also got cancer. She and the boy, John Clam rock were together. And the thing that stuck in my head, Vance pierced my heart, was that in her bedroom that night on her bed stand, she kept a card, a little tiny prayer card, and it was a card of thanks. It was a card of faith. And she would read, and she would pray on this card every night before she went to bed. And the next morning she would wake up and go tend to her son. And in his room, he was trapped in 1973, shag carpet, his football pictures on the wall on the time rolled on.

Chris Bennett [00:09:12] She got into her seventies, she got into her eighties. Young man was no longer young. He was 50 years old in this bed. You can imagine his skin. He hasn't seen sunlight in, you know, 30, 35 years. Very white skin, very clear. And she was holding out, mean, she was holding out for him. I'm gonna try and survive longer than my son. And she died at 89, 8 weeks after the young man finally died. He died, I think at 51. But she maintained the prayer vigil alone in this house, in her bedroom, him in the other room, and I, I i i, that that the details of the prayer are the details of her tending to him every day. The details of the room truly, truly, if history is taken in snap snapshots. And that was a frozen moment in time. And I, when I read Highlands War, the article Vance it, it, it, it told me, Hey, you know, don't, don't try and shortchange any reader that you might come across. Treat 'em right. And that is provide them with the details to humanize things. Sorry for my long-winded answer there, but go look it up. If you get a chance, man, it's called Steal Life, Texas monthly. Skip hollandsworth. I guarantee it'll make you choke up a little bit.

Vance Crowe [00:10:44] So, I mean, that actually brings up a an interesting point. Like if people are just listening to this, they may not know, you know, you can tell from your southern draw like you're a country boy, you're wearing a hunter's vest right now. You know, you've got this, you, you're in agriculture, but you are taken by the details at a level of openness or, and I don't wanna call it sentimentality because I don't, I don't think it's wrought with, oh, I want to feel sadness, or, oh, I want to feel these, but, but you really are a person that can be pulled in these different emotional ways. Like is this just your natural state where you as sensitive kid growing up in a, in a rugged place? Like how did you become who you are?

Chris Bennett [00:11:28] I don't think so, Vance. I think it's a matter of knowing, recognizing just the limitations of your own intellect. And if, if I go back into my teens, remember when you were in your teens Vance and your mama or your mama, somebody in your family, maybe all of them, your aunts told you, Hey, you're such a fine young boy, you're so handsome. All that kind of thing. Good things that a child generally needs to, needs to hear. And then you get older and you find out that's not true, right? That's, that's not true. And then you maybe have confidence in your own intellect when you're 18, when you're 25, and then that fails, that's well, and you realize you're about as quarter as smart as you thought you were. So once you peel all that away, man, you peel away the intellect. You're just left with me and you talking. And when you get down to bare bones details, people, whether they want to admit it or not, they want to hear the blood, sweat, and tears. 'cause we're all the same. I don't, it doesn't matter if you're in China, Afghanistan, Japan, south America right here, man. You want to hear the blood, sweat and tears and, and if, if you get off your high horse and feed people those details that they want to hear, they can sink their teeth into. And you can really find some good common, good common ground, man.

Vance Crowe [00:12:56] Yeah, I was struck by yesterday, I watched just a little bit of the Supreme Court hearings, and I don't normally follow this kind of stuff. I, I don't, I think a lot of it's political theater. But one of the things that I'm struck by, from what you're saying is the woman that is getting grilled is able to recall details of cases that are way beyond any level of, of, you know, caring about tiny details that I could ever have. And yet what I really was deeply interested in was the fact that she was raising six kids. And I'm, I'm sitting there being like, one is all I can barely wrap my arms around and this woman who has this incredible intellect, but the, the, to your point of the connection with the blood, sweat, and tears, I'm thinking like, how did this woman, how does this woman not look ragged and, and, and torn up because she's caring for kids and going through this exceptional process of becoming a Supreme court judge,

Chris Bennett [00:13:54] Right? Vance essentially, she had no notes. And the Democrats and Republicans both that are asking her all these questions have reams of material with them. And she's, it appeared at least, I mean, I don't know this, but it appeared that she was shooting from the hip. And you talk about impressive, regardless of which part, which side of the aisle you're on, when someone can do that and just kind of riff like that, I guess legally riff. Woo. You gotta tip your hat, man.

Vance Crowe [00:14:32] Yeah, no doubt. Like no matter which side of the political aisle you're on, that woman had like a level of poise and, and an intellect that you say like, you know, I can't touch that. Like, I don't, I don't have that.

Chris Bennett [00:14:46] It's, look, she's, well, she's potential Supreme Court justice far removed from anything I could identify with. But you're right. When someone has a, a, a pastor of kids and seems to talk like a normal human being, we can kind of identify with them, or at least we think, think we can. I I, I think if you, if you took at politics and, and, and people, one of the guys that stands out to me in history, one of the guys that I was able always to kind of latch onto his coattails was Theodore Roosevelt. And one of the reasons was that in one of the seminal works on Roosevelt, I think it was Edmund Morris that wrote it. Don't, don't quote me on that. But anyway, in one of the seminal works on Roosevelt, if it is Morris, he delves into the tragedy in Roosevelt's life. And that one of the big marker points was when he was, I think serving in the New York, was it New York legislature when he was up there serving his wife, new bride? They had one young child and his mother took ill at the same time. So he had to book it home, you can imagine rail carriage and so on, trying to get, trying to get back to this house.

Chris Bennett [00:16:19] And he got home in the middle of the night, big Roosevelt house, big fancy house. And he doesn't realize yet the severity. He knows it's bad. And if I remember right, his wife was upstairs dying and his mother's downstairs dying that night. They both died. And I think the mama died first, then the wife died later on. I might have that in reverse. But what caught me was that after both of them died, Roosevelt, the man who would become legendary US president, opened his diary. And in the diary for that day, he wrote something to the effect of, the light has gone out of my life. And he took a big X and he xed the page. And that was his entry on the day that they died. And I, I, I thought, okay, that's all, that's, that's all I need to know, man. That's all I need to know. The man xs it out, the light has gone outta my life. So he's now removed himself from the lofty heights of politics. He's just like you and me, vance, just like you and me. Interesting. Very interesting.

Vance Crowe [00:17:34] Do you, do you keep a journal or a diary?

Chris Bennett [00:17:38] I don't, Vance. I keep a, I keep a book that's, I write in, in pencil and it contains quotes that affect me, influence me somehow, some way something I feed off of. And maybe by the, if, if, if the Lord takes me out here at 80, maybe it'll be filled someday. But I do write in there and then I, I reference it a lot, read it and try and try and learn. So if I'm reading the book Vance, if I'm reading the book, or, or if I hear somebody say something that truly, you know, kicks me in the right spot, I'll write it down, man, write it down.

Vance Crowe [00:18:25] When you think about, you know, like you just talked about a guy whose wife and mother died, and then you said, you know, if I kick off, I'm gonna die. Like, do you think about what you're leaving behind for your kids? Because you've written prolifically, you, you write these quotes down. What do you hope your kids find after you're gone?

Chris Bennett [00:18:46] Yeah, I, I, I think so Vance, I think we all think about that. And I'm, I'm basically 50 years old, so I assume the way that way, the way life rolls, that those kind of thoughts become heavier and heavier as time goes by. I have a 16-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son, and I'm consumed by them. I, I mean that in a, in a good way. My thoughts are always to them. And as you said, what, what is it that you leave behind? What legacy do you leave behind? What echoes and I, I I suppose talk is very cheap. I'd like to think that if I kicked off here today, Vance, that I would've left them a moral framework to guide them. I would hope that my actions would carry through with them. Obviously words are cheap. We can say anything, but I, I know they'll model themselves after me for the good or the bad. And those kind of thoughts I, I think are part of any daddy, mama that's hopefully, hopefully the way we think, man. So I, I've got a, I've got a wife, I have two kids. That's it. That's all I need. I, I feel like I'm the richest man in the world. I'm also a, a us citizen and I've got a job writing about farm and agriculture.

Chris Bennett [00:20:21] So if you look at my bank account, I'm just another person. But the reality is, I'm, I'm very blessed man, very blessed.

Vance Crowe [00:20:32] You know, the fact that I now have a daughter gives me a, a whole different plane through which to see the world. And one of the things that I constantly say, and people gimme these weird looks when I say it, but it is, man, I really, really hope that my daughter does not fall in love with the guy I was. You know, I, I became a better person, right? But like, my greatest fear is that my daughter would fall in love with somebody that was 25-year-old Vance who was, who was, you know, like that, who would break her heart, not even blink, just wouldn't even think about it,

Chris Bennett [00:21:07] Right? That's a profound statement, Vance. It's, it's, it's brutal upon yourself, but it's honest. And I feel the exact same way. You know, I, I honestly, I I feel sorry for the fellow that marries my daughter. 'cause initially, right, initially I'll come down with a hammer. I, that's just who I am. And I think most guys are like that if they will admit it. But I, I appreciate what you said because I'm right there with you.

Vance Crowe [00:21:42] Well, and one of my good friends, Travis Liebig, said something that was brutal but true. And it was basically like, well then you have to be the sort of man that you want her to fall in love with and it can't be an act. Because if it's an act, then she'll fall in love with somebody that is an act of somebody that wants to be the, the type of man that you want her to fall in love with. And you're like, oh my God, you're right. Like now you're living in some context, which is, I actually have to be the thing that I wanna say because I think, you know, if you think back, I don't know if this is true for you, but for me, the lessons that I reject the most from my parents, or when they said one thing and did another, but the ones that my parents actually lived it out, those are the ones that are burrowed deep in my mind.

Chris Bennett [00:22:26] You got that right? I, I appreciate all the discipline I got from, from my parents. I think I've said it before, Vance, you know, my, my parents skills are pretty poor. But the thing I've succeeded in doing, the thing I've, I've, I've been diligent about is to learn from every single mistake. When my little girl and little boy were four and five and I did the wrong thing, pick it up, learn, don't make that mistake again. 'cause hey, we're all gonna fall and fail over and over and over. But that's not a reason to make the mistake twice. So once again, hey, get off your high horse man, and, and figure it out.

Vance Crowe [00:23:08] What is, what is the life of a, of a rider? Like, you know, are you waking up in the morning and you already know exactly what stories you're out headed out to go find? Or how does this work for you?

Chris Bennett [00:23:18] Yes, sir. Lance, right now, if you, if you just ask me, Hey Chris, can you write down 10, 15 stories that you're working on? I, I can do that real easy and real fast, but the truth is certainly I can't work on 10, 15 stories at one time. So you have this list and you're adding sources to it. You're, you're trying to get the ducks in a row and Vance, I, I'm gonna try, right? I'm, I'm gonna do my darn this man to, to pump out one solid story a a week. And so if, if you're really trying to produce one content story a week and you're trying to use three, four sources per story, that depends. It might be a couple of sources, it might be, you know, 10 sources. But you've gotta keep moving the ball constantly. Keep moving the ball. So my computer just jumped on me. I I fixed that. But anyhow, Vance, you gotta keep your ear to the ground because you, i i, I don't wanna cast negative light on anybody. It's not, not my intention, but there are myriad stories out there in farming waiting to be told. The, the problem is that on average, most people don't want to sink their teeth into those stories and go after 'em.

Chris Bennett [00:24:49] 'cause it's very, very difficult. And plus certainly everybody has a, a quota to feel a a as well. So if you presented me with a story right now, Vance, and you said, Hey, there's a farm in Illinois, this couple experienced a tragedy or they experienced a bounty, you should do that story. Hey man, I'm all about it Vance, but can I get in the door? So it takes a lot of time. So I, let me go right back to the beginning of my answer. I got 10, 15 stories I'm working on. If I rattled off the list, Vance, I think that you would find them of interest or significance. The problem is getting the ducks in a row. So maybe in a year from now, maybe those 10 15 will be finished, maybe not

Vance Crowe [00:25:43] Do. So your writing is different than just sitting down and doing creative writing because you, you have to actually use facts and, and sources and tell a story. But do you have to face the same problems of a muse, like where you have to have some creative spark hit you or that you hit writer's block in the way that a creative writer does?

Chris Bennett [00:26:05] I, I don't know Vance, but I, I, I definitely, I don't know what chemical it is. I don't know what drug inside the body. If I get keyed up on that story, and I know that it's good, you remember when you were in either in t-ball or baseball and, and you swung the bat and the ball hit the fat part, and you felt it in your core and it felt good, didn't matter where the ball was going, you knew it jumped off the bat. That same feeling happens sometimes when you're writing a story and you get charged up and you can feel some kind of drug. I don't know if it's endorphin, I don't know what's going on, but it's very difficult to sleep. So when you, you don't wanna sleep, you wanna wake up and you wanna finish that story. And, and there's ob obviously if you're doing something, a boring story, then the, the feeling is the opposite. It's the last thing you wanna do is tackle that. But something chemically at least in, in my weak brain is definitely going on. So at that part is, is very exciting. I, you know, the, there, there was a story, I think you, you know, about advance of a guy named Robert Carl Stokes in North Carolina, one of the biggest crop insurance fraud stories really of all time. And that was a hundred million dollars drop in the bucket. In other words, what was stolen was probably 10 times that possibly much more. The details in that got me so charged up trying to put the pieces together that once again, you, you get that level of excitement that's difficult to describe and may maybe Vance is dealing with human nature.

Chris Bennett [00:27:53] You're seeing all these crazy moving parts, like you're watching a Cohen Brothers film and, and you're seeing people's behavior that is absolutely appalling or it's, it's wonderful and everything in between. And you cast yourself in the middle of that and you ask yourself, how would I be behaving? It's kinda like watching or reading Lonesome Dove and you have all this cast of characters thrown at you and you can't help but say, where do I, where do I fit in? And the answer Vance is it's not always, it's not always laudatory, man. It's not always good because you realize, oh lord, I'm glad I didn't get caught up in that because I'd be one of the guys going to the pen or something like that.

Vance Crowe [00:28:36] Yeah, man, that actually, when you are able to read the book and say, I'm not just the hero that's on the successful side of the journey. Yeah. Like I could actually have been the villain in this stage. It opens up a whole different aspect of the way you read something. And like, I think I could go back and read books that I read when I was younger and I didn't have that mindset, right? Because you always wanna place yourself in the empathetic position of overcoming beating the dragon, whatever. But if you put yourself on the side of a villain that really took an ideal and just went too far, you could be like that. That could be me.

Chris Bennett [00:29:12] Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, when we were kids Vance, when we were kids, you heard, or you watched about the James gang, for example. It didn't matter how many people they killed or what have you. You, you had this creeping feeling on your shoulder of, well, I, I'd like to roll with Jesse A. Little bit, you know, I, I can handle that. And you see it translated when you get older and you watch a film or read a book about a Jewel thief hits the museum and goes through all these machinations and, and comes away with, I don't know, $20 million in jewels steals. And there is a part of us as humans, we look at that and go, dang, I I like that fell you, I appreciate that. So it's always there, man. It's always there sitting on your shoulder. We, we, we,

Vance Crowe [00:30:03] Well that's like Don Draper in Mad Men or, or Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, right? Like, if you're sitting there telling your wife, Hey, I want to go be Gordon Gecko or Don Draper, they'd be like, no way. But in the back of your mind, you're like all those things that they have this power, this, you know, control this gravitas. Wouldn't you love to have that? Because I would be good enough to use it for good and not evil.

Chris Bennett [00:30:29] That's a great, that's the great point. And I, I think that's why I, the Lord made sure I'm not a rich man, wealthy man manhunt or nothing like that because I, I, I know myself man, so I know myself and I, I I can imagine which way my life would've gone. Lemme lemme tell you something, man. When you think about modern day athletes or rock stars, when you think about the adulation that those fellows get, at least the athletes, a lot of 'em get that adulation from the time they're 13, 14 years old. You just put yourself into that situation and you see how it might have corrupted your soul. And I'm always very impressed and actually astounded by the ones who come out good and end up with a balanced life. Because again, to give me that sort of praise and attention at that young age and have it carry on through i i i, I don't have the core to have, have managed that in my life. I would have been some sort of, of, of failure moral degenerate, if you wanna call it like that.

Vance Crowe [00:31:31] Yeah. I went to school with a guy named Ben Zost, and when we were growing up, he was always the best athlete out of all of us, but he was like a little guy. Nobody expected him to become a pro athlete that would then help the Cubs win the World Series. Wow.

Chris Bennett [00:31:47] But

Vance Crowe [00:31:47] When people find out that I went to school with Ben Zost, they're, they get really excited and he's one of those people that I'm like, there is no one that I want to have seen succeed more than that guy because he was just a good person. And when I've seen the things that go on with him in public, he's exactly the good person in, in public life, that he is in real life. And I think one of the reasons I admire him so much is there is literally no chance I would've been that there, you know, maybe I could have after burning my life to the ground several times, have finally staggered my way to not being, you know, evil. But, but I definitely think if I had been a rock star, if I had been a superstar athlete, the seduction of grabbing all, everything that I could right now would've been far, far too great for me.

Chris Bennett [00:32:38] You know, Vance, it reminds me of that quote, I don't know who said it, but it's something to the effect of if you want to judge the character of a person, right? The, the true measure of character is, is how someone treats people who mean nothing to them. If you told me, Hey, I treat my family good, I treat my coworkers good, I treat my boss good, it doesn't really mean that much to me. Those are all good things and you should, but it doesn't reveal much about that person. If I can find out how you treat the person who greets others at Walmart or who's cleaning the bathroom at Taco Bell, if I can find out how you treat those kind of people, that's when your character is, it's revealed. It's interesting.

Vance Crowe [00:33:31] So speaking of character, you recently came out with a story on that giant insurance fraud that, that happened. What leads a person to believe that they can go and defraud an insurance company to the tunes of, you know, a hundred million dollars

Chris Bennett [00:33:50] Vance? The, the fellow's name was Robert Carl Stokes, he's now passed on, but in the early two thousands it appears it began with him. And I don't know the trigger, I don't know the background in his life, might be for an interesting film, but he was in North Carolina, he was in Wilson, North Carolina and tobacco. How's that Vance? I know my,

Vance Crowe [00:34:15] It just keeps rubbing up against your face and you all your giant whispers. We go, there you go.

Chris Bennett [00:34:21] So he was in tobacco country in North Carolina and, and, and tobacco has a long history of crop insurance fraud. It just does. And what he had done is very, very, very fascinating. There had been many involved, many involved in crop insurance fraud with tobacco. He simply was better than the others. More, he was a bit more crooked than the other guys. He had, he had foresight, extreme foresight. He was known as a good old boy. He worked out of a little insurance house, normal looking place. Everything on the surface looked normal. But what he was doing in advance, let's say you wanted to grow a set amount of tobacco. You had these fields, you were going to grow tobacco and your crop insurance guaranteed you that you'd be paid a certain amount up to maybe 2000 pounds. What you would do Vance, right, with Stokes is you would grow, let's say you produced 2,500 pounds and you would report that you'd grown a thousand pounds. So your crop insurance would guarantee you payment for the missing at least a thousand pounds. Then there's a missing 500 pound. I know those numbers are hard to figure out. So your guaranteed payment on 2000 pounds of tobacco, you report a thousand pounds, you actually grew 2,500 pounds.

Chris Bennett [00:35:55] So you get your normal payment, right? Farming payment on a thousand pounds, you sell it, you get your crop insurance, right? Fake on the other thousand pounds. Meanwhile, you got 1500 pounds of tobacco hidden on the back 40 in a barn somewhere that you had no problems harvested. So in other words, you, you cheat on a thousand pounds of tobacco, then you take the other 500 pounds and you move it into the illegal market, black market. What was interesting about this case, morbidly interesting, was that it involved all levels of the tobacco pie. You often hear that that cotton changes hands 10, 11 times from the field to your pair of blue jeans. I don't know if that's true, but you often hear that, well, with tobacco, there's a lot of layers to that cake as well. And there were outrageous amounts of people involved at each level. And an investigator named Don Doles, a fellow out of Georgia, got involved. He was put onto this Robert Carl Stokes, and he went up there. He didn't just march into town, he set up a six year sting and they got a informant named Danny Deton. Danny Denton, excuse me. And Denton was able to finger this, Robert Carl Stokes, because Stokes was building a house. It was a 6,000 square foot pad, and he was paying Denton out of a safe in his office that was packed with money from this crop insurance fraud.

Chris Bennett [00:37:35] And so Denton and, and, and Doles teamed up, but Doze couldn't get Denton to actually go in and do anything undercover. I think Denton had a personal tragedy in his life, Vance. And when he did, he flipped on this Robert Carl Stokes bottom line, right? Bottom line was that when they went in and busted Robert Carl Stokes and his cohort of followers, they ended up getting like a hundred million in fines and restitution, which according to Don Doles and others, was truly, truly a, a drop in the bucket. So while it makes agriculture and farmers look bad, the truth is that those thieves are stealing from their fellow farmers, and in the end it hurts agriculture. So it's better to open the wound and treat it so that this kind of thing doesn't continue to happen down the road. Crop insurance fraud is, is, is, is, is a human thing. You're always going to have guys doing it. But the level of the Stokes case was outrageous is beyond outrageous. I

Vance Crowe [00:38:49] What do, how do you, what do you, what do you do with black market tobacco? Who do you sell black market tobacco to?

Chris Bennett [00:38:56] Yeah, Vance, exactly. Who in the world, right? Would buy black market tobacco except the companies whose names you and I already know. So that's how, how, that's how deep it went. This was not being sold on the streets of Hong Kong, right? They weren't moving it into Thailand. They were, they were dealing this stuff right on the back. Lots of the companies that you know well, so from your, your farmer in the field all the way up to the big company names, you had to have people in the know, in involved. Outrageous.

Vance Crowe [00:39:32] How do you keep yourself from becoming cynical? Because you, you have to look at the underbelly of the world. Like I could go, as long as I don't pick up a newspaper, I don't see this stuff.

Chris Bennett [00:39:43] I think once again, it goes back to my own nature. I think it goes back to your nature, all of ours. And if we're honest, we're the, we're the same people and we've just got choices, man. You come to forks in the road every day after you and I finish with our conversation, you are gonna have option throughout the day. And if you want to, if you want to go the easy way, then you can. I'm always tempted, you know, you think, right? Or I thought when I was 18 that by the time I was 50 years old, I would have my ducks in a row and I would be the stalwart man that I wanna be. And I would no longer have to deal with those forks in a row. Simply not the case. I'm sure I'll deal with them until the day I die. Because you can always, it's like, what was it, a Tolkien man in his and mortar man, you can always hear mortar calling out, right? I wanna put the ring on, always wanna put the ring on. And I'm sure I'll be like that till the, the day I pass on.

Vance Crowe [00:40:49] Yeah, that's one of the things about childhood that you never really maybe wake up to. It's like all the adults you think have their life worked out and then you get to a certain phase where you're like, Hey, those adults over there that I thought had worked out, they didn't. And then you start realizing like, wait a second, nobody's got it worked out. You can just, you have your things as well together as you can have, and then you're just trying to keep moving it forward. But

Chris Bennett [00:41:14] That's, it's

Vance Crowe [00:41:15] Hard, it's hard to conceptualize, right

Chris Bennett [00:41:18] Brother? It's like the story about the little boy and little girl, they were on the playground, little girl had a box of chocolates, little boy had a box of marbles and she's sitting there on the swing opening those chocolates one at a time, eating them delectable. It's a top, top of the line chocolates. And he looks over there from his box of marbles and he walks over and says, Hey, I'll trade you. I'll trade you straight up. I'll give you my box of marbles if you give me your box of chocolates. Or she looks at those marbles and in the moment she decide, yes, I'll make that trade. He goes, I'll be right back. He runs off with his box of marbles, you know, goes back home with his box of marbles, takes out the best shooters, takes out his best marbles, hides 'em under his bed, and then runs back with the box, hands 'em to her, right? And she hands him the box of chocolates, the deal is made. She gets the marbles, he gets the chocolates, he takes the chocolates, he runs home and he does exactly what you and I would do. Vance. He sits on his bed alone and he begins to eat the box of chocolates one at a time. Unwraps 'em, oh, savory, just enjoying them, finish finishes them all. And that night he's torn man, torn in his spirit. He's rolling back and forth in his bed and he can't sleep. And he's consumed, he's consumed by one thought, one question. When I ran home and took the best shooters outta that box of marbles, did she take any of the chocolates outta that box?

Chris Bennett [00:42:56] Right? That's the human nature of the capsule right there, right? No matter what he has done, no matter the depths of depravity he has sunk to, he still looks at the little girl and thinks you're the bad one. What? She's the one done.

Vance Crowe [00:43:11] The one that cheated. Yeah. Ain't bad, but truth man. Like, and, and you find that like with insurance fraud, like you see people all the time saying, well, I'm gonna report this and see if my insurance company's gonna let me get away with this. And if they let me get away with it, then I probably should. Or like, Hey, we need to, to, to put this on somebody else, and if they'll accept the weight, then we'll get away with it. And they're not sitting there being like, you know, hatching terrible machinations where they can destroy another person. They're just thinking like, I just want to have this burden shifted a little bit to another person. And that's, that's the, that's the path to moreor as you were saying.

Chris Bennett [00:43:52] You got it, man. You got it. The most of the time, if somebody cheats once, right? Insurance company at all levels is really not gonna go after 'em. They're looking for repeat offenders, right? So the, the, the idea that, oh, I'll just cheat once and that's it, it never holds true. So in other words, Vance, if you cheated this year, do I think you would be satisfied with your theft of one? No, no, no. I know you coming back to the trough once again. And so that's what happens. That's what happens over and over. There was a story advance that I, I finished, I haven't even published it yet, but it, it, it revealed more to me about human nature maybe than I wanted to admit. It took place in the 18 hundreds in Georgia. And you talk about a story that, an account that really grips you by the throat. The, there was a fine finally raised woman named Jane Story Perryman. She was in Georgia and she was married to a fellow that was somebody. And the two of them lived in this wonderful house, three 4,000 square square feet. Two stories. They had a plantation of several hundred acres and they had several children.

Chris Bennett [00:45:26] They had all the houses around the house, I can't remember, 10, 15 slaves. I think we would be talking at this point, fans in the 1820s, thirties, forties. And they'd come from one side of Georgia and moved to the other. Again, the lady's name was James story Perryman. So they had given up, she had given up tremendous amounts. She'd lived close to Augusta Fine society, they'd moved to the other side of Georgia to the rough western part. Essentially it was frontier. And he had this farm and he used it as a means to preach. In other words, he started churches. So he farmed and ordered to preach. And by in the, by the 1840s, a lot of people in Georgia and Alabama, Mississippi were moving to Texas. And he got a be in his bonnet and he decided he wanted to move to Texas as well. He was gonna start churches out there. So he went to Jane one day and said, Hey, we're going to move to Texas to get ready. And this was, you know, back in the day, Vance, when, when, when the, when the guy said what was gonna happen with the family, the woman hopped to it, at least in public, that was always the set up. So she bucked him and she refused to go. And he continued on with the plans. And you can imagine the logistics vance of moving a family from Georgia to Texas, right?

Chris Bennett [00:47:01] A lot of the time you went just like you did everywhere else in a convoy, caravan, whatever you wanna call it, cavalcade, whatever word. But anyhow, she told him, I'm not going. And she's in this wonderful house, wonderful house finally made by him for her 20 years prior. She's watched her kids grow up. She has some grandkids now. And the day came to move, it was in November. And he had the wagons outside. They had the wagons packed. The house at this point was essentially empty. And you can imagine Vance a house in the 1840s that's empty, ornately made, you can imagine the echoes. And she's inside and she won't come out of the house. She's in her dress with multiple layers and frills. She's upstairs in her bedroom and she won't come out. And she's sitting in a chair, he sends a servant up to her, the servant says, you know, miss Jane, it's time to go. Your husband says it's time to go. And she looks out the window of her bedroom that looks upon a wonderful garden crafted by her, and then out to the rolling hills of the county, with more than likely would be partially picked cotton fields partially picked because you picked in waves back then by hand. And she says, my Texas is here. My Texas is here.

Chris Bennett [00:48:34] I'm not, I'm not going. So the servant goes back downstairs and tells her husband James, she says, she's not going. And you can imagine Vance, he's looking up at the windows, looking up at the top story. You can imagine the tension. And a a a shot rings out, a shot rings out loud, and you can imagine it booming, right? The report booms out of the house, the house is empty. And of course they all rush in upstairs and they find her in a pool of blood on the ground. And she has somehow managed to secret away a pistol. And she's pulled out this pistol and, and essentially self slaughter. She's committed suicide right there refusing to go. So to add poignancy upon poignancy, he takes her body and buries her 50 feet from the place where she dropped. And he bur her out there in the Gordon. And he also unloads the wagons and never goes to Texas. And the tragedy of the whole affair is something that weighed heavy on me. I I'm, I'm sure it would weigh heavy on anybody who read about it, but the idea that she would endure a frontier, give up everything that she had, and then be asked once again to go to Texas and do all of this again.

Chris Bennett [00:50:06] And Texas, at the time, Vance was extreme frontier, right? I mean, we're literally talking about headlines in the newspapers in the 1840s of, of, of Comanche massacres, of kids being kidnapped. All of that was going on. She would've known this. So she would've known, Hey, if I go to Texas, I'm headed toward frontier hell. And it's been bad enough where I'm at. So rather than go, she went ahead and, and, and, and killed herself. I, according to oral tradition, according to oral tradition, the the blood, the spot where she killed herself, the blood could still be seen on those planks, those hardwood planks. A hundred years later, if I, if I, if I'm right, Vance, back then there was no varnish, right? There was no covering on a, on on hardwood floor. It was bare, truly a bear. So anyway, there's a million more details to that story about Jane's story Perryman packed in there. But those kind of things speak to us. They speak,

Vance Crowe [00:51:15] Yeah, they really do because you're, I'm sitting here thinking like, you know, they both decided that they were going to go in their direction as hard as they could, and eventually something had to break, right? Either he was going to leave her completely, which I, it sounds like she didn't wanna tolerate that either. And I mean, like, then when you hear that she killed herself, you think, well, what was it? Was she afraid? Did he not listen to something that she was afraid of? And, and then you, you're right, you're, if you're listening to this story properly, at least I think is you're like, when have I put my, put me and another person at such a level of tension where something could snap like that because there's no chance that he was sitting outside being like, yeah, maybe she'll kill herself. Like, right, is he, he didn't know that he had gotten that, that tension so tight.

Chris Bennett [00:52:05] Again, you know, we, we get history in snapshots. So you don't know if she was dealing with melancholy. You don't know who was really to blame. And one of the mistakes that we make, or I make is constantly judging people in history, looking back a hundred years ago, adding motives to what they did. Sometimes you just, you gotta let the story tell itself and, and take what you take away what you can. The what's what is indisputable in the story? And, and again, so tragic, she was buried out there in the yard. She was buried by herself. No one had ever been buried out there, and no one would ever be buried out there. In other words, she was alone and she remains alone today. The house fell in. But you can go there today, Vance and her grave, her slab is there. That tells me something, something about the response by her husband and, and children right there.

Vance Crowe [00:53:11] You know, oftentimes I think reporters are the first tellers of history, and you've gotta have a front row seat for the what's going on in the world right now where people are saying, Hey, these people that we used to have, have, and we put up statues of, or we used to celebrate them and give them a day. Now we don't wanna do that anymore. From the eyes of a reporter, how do you see this?

Chris Bennett [00:53:36] I see it. It's a travesty Vance. It's a, it's an outrage. And to think that someone would tear down a statue simply maybe you simply disagree with their stance in history on a variety of topics is truly cowardice at its highest level because you, you know, man so well that the people we would build statues of today, after a hundred years goes by, you just tear them down as well. When you tear down a statue, you're really tearing down yourself and you do so, you do so outta ignorance. When you see people tear down Lincoln or, or Jefferson or Roosevelt or Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, it's, there's simply no excuse for it. And if you'll simply delve into their lives, right? Whether it's Lincoln or Lee or Stonewall Jackson, you find out that there's extreme levels of nuance. They're just like you and me, they were swept along by all sorts of things in society and, and particular this country, right? This country where we have this much opportunity and wonderful history. This is not a matter of tearing down a statue of Lati Berea or Joseph Stalin, you know, or Lenn.

Chris Bennett [00:55:13] We're not in Slovakia, you know, when we're not in Romania, communism just didn't fall in the 1990s, and we're trying to drag down statues of people. Now, these are the statues coming down now, the United States or that have been over the last few months. These are the markers of our lives. And I, I, I feel sorry in a way for the people that do those kind of things because they are taking an ankle or taking a hammer to their own ankles and they don't even realize it.

Vance Crowe [00:55:48] You know, I, I have a buddy named Jeremy Laco, he's been an a guest on this podcast, and he started a YouTube channel called History in Context. And I i, when he first started doing it, I was like, you know, I, I'm, I think it's be nice to have a history channel, but I don't really know what you mean. And he was like, no, I'm gonna take the primary sources of these people that we think we know and these events that we think we've heard before, I'm just gonna read you what they've said. And so he did this with Christopher Columbus, and I was three minutes into that video and I realized I only had a Walt Disney version of, of Christopher Columbus. You know, like, oh, he hopped on, he, somebody gave him some money, he hopped in some boats, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. He came over here, he did some stuff, and then he left. I had no idea. He's turned this into a seven part series, 30 minutes each about, and you find out like how he was engaging with the native people, how they traded with them, how they learned, how they got chased around the islands. It's, it's an amazing story. And so to your point about tearing down these statues, like if you get all the way done with reading several books about this character and then you decide, Hey, I'm gonna get another mob of people that also spent several months or years reading about this person, and then we decide to tear down that statue, fine. But if you have only a Disneyland understanding of who these people are, all you're doing is the whims of somebody else's desires.

Vance Crowe [00:57:22] You're letting emotions sweep you up. Even if you are correct that this person did terrible things, you don't actually know that you're just following what the mob told you to do. You're absolutely

Chris Bennett [00:57:33] Right. You know, who was it? I'm gonna say it was Edmund Burt Vance that said these people, I'm paraphrasing here though, these people can't handle freedom. They fashion their own fitters. Essentially what he said, they create their own chains. And when you succumb to mob rule and you allow the mob to hold sway, right, you are on the road to hell. Now, if you look back just to 1789 in that era with the French Revolution, and you see what happened with the Jack of Beans and the whole rest of those,

Vance Crowe [00:58:13] Man, I don't have any idea

Chris Bennett [00:58:14] You're

Vance Crowe [00:58:14] Talking about Jack of Beans. Whatcha talking about,

Chris Bennett [00:58:16] I'm talking about the French Revolution and the way that the mob ate its own. What you always see, and it's, it's proven again and again, Vance, is that history turns on itself. The mob turns on itself. The mob eats its own, it's just a matter of time. So in other words, if you and I participate as a mob today, we are signing our own death form because it's just a matter of time before the crowd turns on us. You've often seen the, the crazy psychology of canines of dogs. You'll have a pack of 10 dogs and they'll be on another dog, or they'll be on another animal, on a coon, what have you. And suddenly in an instant, right, something happens, something's triggered in there and the pack of dogs turns on one of their own. So the, the, the weaker of the lot, same thing happens in, in, in society and history. And that's why, you know, whether, whether you're on the right or the left or wherever, beware the mob, I guess.

Vance Crowe [00:59:24] Oh man, I, there's, I I actually think like for my own self, the greatest fear I have is literally of a mob. And it, I had a chance a couple of times to see the mob in action when I was living in Africa. And one of the experiences I had is if you see somebody there that's a thief and you point at them and you say wze thief, then if other people start pointing and saying that too, they're gonna grab that person and they're not going to hold the trial. They're going to kick and punch them to death. And when you see that the veneer that you have over how we are civilized and how, you know, safe, we are is now stripped away. And I don't think the Africans are, are bad or, or any less civilized than us, other than the fact that they don't have a police force that can met out justice. And so justice is immediate. And I think that one of the reasons that people in our culture right now are more comfortable with being a part of the mob is because they haven't seen what happens, the animalistic nature that comes, that once it begins, you can't stop it. There's no person on earth that can stand it. The only thing that can stop it is either that it burns out or that you bring so much force to bear on it that it has to dissipate. But either way, just allowing that mob to form is so dangerous as to be a, a thing that we don't, in our modern language, have a way to describe it, I don't think.

Chris Bennett [01:00:54] Right. I, I, I agree. You know, when, when we were kids, fans, maybe in high school or younger, and, and they gave us a copy of William Golding's lower the flies to, to read the adventure part of the story took us in as young kids. And, and you enjoyed the idea that all these boys are, are on this island by themselves, and that by itself propels you into the story. But you get a little bit older and you realize, oh, Lord, he's talking about partially about the mob and, and what happens with human psychology. And that that's a classic example of the, the degeneracy of the mob and, and what goes on. So I I, I think it speaks

Vance Crowe [01:01:44] To this is something that's, that's Im really important. That like we can end up taking for granted that justice is actually a slow process and that, that, that the virtue that comes from it, you know, of course when something bad happens, we wanna see, you know, consequences immediately. But slowing everything down and making sure that a process is followed is what, is what allows you to transcend that, that animal nature and, and apply wisdom to the situation. Which is why anytime you're talking about the justice system, we should all agree, let us do everything we can to ensure that the system is stable. Not that my side wins today, because eventually your side is going to win tomorrow. And if I set it up so the table is stacked as bad news over the long term,

Chris Bennett [01:02:34] Big a man Lance, big a man, you know, it's like the US is a bird, and a bird needs two wings and balance to fly. So you need your Democrats, Republicans, right, left. And like you said, if the Republicans win here in November, or the Democrats win in November, that's going to flip at some point. So if, if, if you don't like what happens and you go out and try and punch a neighbor in the head or steal their sign, you know, steal their, their Trump sign or Biden sign or what have you, you know, don't be surprised when the same thing happens to you down the road. But that to me and you and to the listeners, that's common sense. But we all know there's a segment of society, apparently a large segment of society in the United States, to which that is not common sense. And as to how that's happened, managed to creep into our society over the last 50 years, my Lord, they'll be writing books on that couple of hundred years from now. Tones, no doubt, tones, you know, I guess Vance, it comes down in the end to how you behave, right? We'll go right back to your little girl, how you behave in front of your daughter, what example you lead for her. And there was a guy a few years ago named David Height.

Chris Bennett [01:04:08] He was out in, boy, my memory's rough on this, Vance. He was out in Oregon and he had a little farm, lot of hay, I think some livestock, my computer's messing up. There we go. Lot of hay livestock. He took it upon himself. His, his, his wife had a horse. The horse died and he had to bury this horse. It was a beloved, beloved pet part of the family. Whatever description you want to use, the poem was, it was beloved. So it's quite a task to bury a horse, you know? And if he, he wanted to do it right, maybe 10 feet deep, you know, eight feet long grave, logistically, that's not so easy. So he, he, he began to realize that he had opportunity, and this David Hyatt guy bought himself a duly with the company and equipment, and adds a ministry, right? Not as really a moneymaking venture venture, but as a ministry out there in Oregon, he decided that he would bury horses for people, because most of the time depends on where you're at in the us. But Vance, if, you know, if, if your horse dies, you know, you, you can call a zoo, they'll come get your horse, feed it to the animals, or you might be able to call the, you know, refuse department. They'd drag your horse off, things like that.

Chris Bennett [01:05:41] But if you love that horse, like for example, if a little girl had the horse from the time she was 12, and that horse lived for 25 years, right? There's connections there.

Vance Crowe [01:05:52] You don't wanna really feed it to the lions, right, right, right.

Chris Bennett [01:05:55] You, you wanna bury it, right? So he started doing this, man, and before he knew it, he had calls from all over the place, and he was going several hundred miles a time to get these horses. And he had all these construction straps. He would go into these stalls wherever the horse dropped out in the field, and he would reverently, collect these horses, put them in a box on the back of the truck and take them back to his own personal horse graveyard on his property, which was at the bottom of a canyon. Huge, huge field. And before he knew it, he had a couple of thousand horses buried there. So he'd pre dig, pre dig the graves, bring the horses in gently as he possibly could, deposit them into the holes, put some lime on top of the horses, cover the graves. And I think, if I remember right, if I remember asking him, you know, what else went into the grave? And I, I think he told me that sometimes the bridal will go in, depends on what the people request. And most of the time he kept the shoes. So he had all these shoes from these horses. But you can imagine Vance, this huge, huge pasture filled with these grave sites of these horses. And again, this guy was charging something like 250, $300 for the whole deal, which is phenomenal price because he's done it. So reverently as a ministry, I was always, I was deeply, deeply, deeply impressed by him because I quickly recognized that he was a better man than me.

Chris Bennett [01:07:32] I, I, I simply wouldn't do that. I don't mean that to knock myself. I, I just recognized a man with, with a heart for serving others. And name is David Hyatt. You can look him up on Google. As far as I know, Vance, he's still, he's still burying horses. When you first hear about it, it's just funny. And then when you look at the, the nuances of what's going on with his service, you really tip your hat,

Vance Crowe [01:07:59] Man, that I, so the whole time as you're telling this story, I was waiting for the, the Chris Bennett like flip, like where all of a sudden, you know, something crazy was going on with these horses, but to actually get to the end and say no, that he was doing this and it was a kindness that he's doing. Yeah, I mean, my wife, for example, her connection with pets is so deep that for her to know that it was being taken care of, like that, that would mean so much to her. You're right, it is a, it's a form of ministry or a form of kindness. That's a, that's a profound story. How'd you stumble upon him?

Chris Bennett [01:08:35] Been too many years, Lance, that one. I had to, I had just kind of plead ignorance. Maybe I read about him or heard about him, but I can't, I can't remember it. It's a lot of the time. You know, I always say, Lance, you know, I always say, Hey, there's all these stories out there in farming waiting to be told. Well, there's even a bigger segment of stories involving animals in agriculture waiting to be told. And, and a couple of years ago, there was a guy out in, he was in California, name was Jordan Reed, I think he'd been raised in the south, maybe in Carolina. But anyway, he was out in California and what he did, right, one of the things he did, he works in agriculture at all different layers, but he has this pack of fasts, right? Little hunting dog. If, if it's for anybody who's listening to, doesn't know what a fast is or looks like, it's spelled F-E-I-S-T, go look 'em up on the net. They just look like trouble. They look like little devils and Vance, he used this pack of fires, he still does, to seek out rats on people's farms. And he goes in, they hit these farms, they sometimes hit 'em for, you know, 10 rats, 20 rats, a hundred rats in a day, you know, in several hours. And I was absolutely consumed by what he did. And, and the, the, you can imagine the blood, you can imagine the dirt, you can imagine the smells, you can imagine the absolute frenzy that takes place when these rats are scattered and these dogs move in, crush the bone, crushing, all that kind of stuff.

Chris Bennett [01:10:16] And I, it, it really hit me hard because I was blessed with a little Jack Russell fast mix myself that I had for long time, about 10 years. And she was a phenom snake dog. And this dog would get on a cotton mouth and tear a cotton mouth to pieces like you've never seen. If you've ever seen a dog work a cotton mouth, she would face up to the cotton mouth, right? Which is a highly venomous snake. And then she would've to cut around to the back. So what she's doing, it's facing up on the cotton mouth, trying to get round to the back tail. And if she can get round and she hits that tail, tries to shake one time, let's go and dart back around to the face. So you've got like a mongoose dance going on, because I was always Called by her. She was bitten, you know, oh lord, man, you know, 6, 7, 8 times truly can't even count the amount of time. But once again, when you're there and the blood is going, the smells are going, she, she, this dog Maggie, got hold of the snake. One time my, my wife had come out with me, she wanted to kind of watch Maggie do her thing and my full wife, Leslie, she was standing there and, and Maggie hit on a snake. We, I didn't see the snake on, I didn't see it. I couldn't give my wife any warning. She hit on this snake. And this was, this was a non venomous snake.

Chris Bennett [01:11:49] My wife didn't know that. It was about, I don't know, five and a half feet long, very long snake. And she got hold of this snake and started to shake that thing right beside us, right beside the four wheeler. And she flung blood all over my wife. And you talk about lighting somebody up, lemme put it this way. She didn't come back out there again. Maggie hit those snakes. Anyhow, anyhow, just one of those simple things. A life Vance dog, snake rat. That's getting right down to it, man. Enjoy.

Vance Crowe [01:12:22] So I, we gotta wrap up here in just a second, but I wanna ask you my, my favorite question, and that is the Peter Teal paradox, which is, what is one thing you think is true that almost nobody agrees with you on?

Chris Bennett [01:12:37] Oh man, that's a heck of a question. Gimme about five seconds to spin that around in my head. One thing that I think

Vance Crowe [01:12:46] It true, and nobody and and barely anybody agrees with you, you know, the reason it's such an interesting question is because if you say something that people agree with at the beginning, then you've already failed, right? And so you have to walk your way into a paper bag and then get your way out of it,

Chris Bennett [01:13:02] Right? Right, right. Man, I could, I could plead ignorance here and I could say, Vance, that I, I can't think of anything, or I could be honest and lay it on the line here. Here's what I think, I think that myself, right? Not talking about you, not talking about anybody in the audience, but myself. I know I don't think this, I know I'm gonna deal with a hundred moral choices by the end of the day. I referred to that earlier as forks in the road. And it speaks to the depravity of my nature, my fallen in nature. I'll say this, I think that everybody out there deals with those same demons. And I think those demons are far stronger than what anybody wants to admit. In other words, the call to go down the wrong trail is always, always there. We all like to speak about the greatness of human nature and how people are generally good. I don't believe that. I don't believe it any further than I can throw it. So in other words, if, if somebody tells me something that makes me, makes the hackles go up on the back of my neck, my inclination always vance is to assume that that person is lying.

Chris Bennett [01:14:33] And that's the way I tend, IIII lean toward not necessarily looking for the bad, not necessarily looking for the good, but just looking for the truth. And the truth is more often darker than anybody wants to admit. So I suppose you could fairly say that my view of human nature would be far dimmer than almost, you know, probably 95% of your audience. But to put a silver lining on that, I, I'm honest about it, and I, you know, call balls or strikes as I see 'em. So you tell you what, you asked me that question a week from now, I'll probably give you a different answer, but it won't be an intentional dodge. That's just the way, well,

Vance Crowe [01:15:27] This is good, man. Nobody's ever taken it in that direction. And it seems to fit what we've been talking about all the way through this, which is being who you say you are, having all of these temptations to go down the path. And, and literally every single person that is listening can, can connect with that because like, we're all gonna hit a hundred different choices. But it's good to know that everybody else does too,

Chris Bennett [01:15:53] Man. Amen. You mentioned Africa. Where do you mind if I, where, where were you living? What country were

Vance Crowe [01:15:58] I was in Kenya.

Chris Bennett [01:15:59] Okay, you were in Kenya. The, you, you know, Richard Burton, the famous African Explorer, maybe the greatest of all time, a, a true lunatic. There's a quote from him, I wish I had it in front of me so I could read it properly. But he says in the quote, he says, floating down a river or being in a canoe with an infinitesimal chance of survival, why do I go on, you know, why do I do what I do? And the end of the quote tells it all. And he said, because the devil drives. 'cause the devil drives. And I always remembered that because it fits Richard Burton, but I also believe it fits the rest of us, man. The devil drives Richard Burton and I, I love the quote, there it is, capsule.

Vance Crowe [01:16:46] I love it. The devil drives. Chris Bennett, thank you so much for coming on here. We will have you on again and again. You are a favorite guest of mine.

Chris Bennett [01:16:55] Hey Vance. Thank you brother. Y'all have a great day and thank you very much for the privilege.