Wren and Ivy

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host, Ramsey Russell. Join me here to listen to those conversations. Oh man, it is a hot day in June in Mississippi, but I’m in the air conditioning with my buddy B. C. Rogers of Wren and Ivy. B.C how are you today?
B.C Rogers: I’m doing good. Thanks for having me.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you got here early, you said this morning, you hadn’t stepped outside, you had no idea its summer time.
B.C Rogers: It’s not. I got here early this morning, it was comfortable
Ramsey Russell: And it’s such an interesting struggle for me because I’m usually in Argentina this time of year, I try to stay in duck season.
B.C Rogers: I know, I’ve been thinking about you during this whole well, I guess we’re not quarantined now but whatever we are.
Ramsey Russell: I don’t know what we are, man, this has gone from this has gone from crazy, to crazy. I don’t know what the hell is going on. But I’m not traveling for the duck hunts this year so I’m stuck at home.
B.C Rogers: How long are you going to stay home?
Ramsey Russell: Until the planes start flying, man, you let them call and tell me tomorrow that planes flying somewhere, there’s duck season, I’m gone. I’m telling you I’m gone. But right now the best I think Labor Day weekend, best I can tell, talking my partner down in South Africa. They’re talking about October, November. They as a society South Africa has health issues that make them real predisposed to this COVID stuff. Argentina, I’m going to say September on the early, March on the late planes to start flying. But I think right now it looks like fingers crossed. Canada is going to open up, we’ll get to hunt in Canada. And then Mexico. While I’m looking forward to going to Mexico hoping about in Azerbaijan to be open. So I don’t know dude, it’s just scary.
B.C Rogers: I did not get to go to Mexico this past year. I went a year before last, and that was one of the funniest hunts. Man, it was awesome.
Ramsey Russell: I love it. Its close, its familiar species, and all that good stuff.
B.C Rogers: We’re so familiar. I mean, I spent a lot of time in Mexico anyway, but we’re so familiar with the culture and the food and it just feels it does, it’s awesome. It’s a great trip.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. The place we hunt, one of our most popular places down there is Obregon. They met eight pork chops and steaks and chicken and fish, and then on Thursday night is Mexican night and it always just blows my mind, have Mexican night in Mexico. Who eats Mexican food?
B.C Rogers: Oh Really?
Ramsey Russell: Yeah.
B.C Rogers: Every day should be Mexico. Where I went, it was Mexican food, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Ramsey Russell: Forrest does landscaping and a lot of his co-workers are Mexican and they took him to a spot about two years ago here. I think it’s in Madison County. That is the real deal. I won’t eat Mexican food in Mississippi.
B.C Rogers: Because you’re so used to the good stuff.
Ramsey Russell: It’s not really Mexican food.
B.C Rogers: Well, I know what you mean. But if you order right they’ll make you the real stuff here too.
Ramsey Russell: I guess. I haven’t found that restaurant yet.
B.C Rogers: Well, I’m from Morton.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I got plenty of them down there.
B.C Rogers: And the restaurants in Morton, I can assure you are making real Mexican food for real Mexican people.
Ramsey Russell: I go check that out. Texas make a like. I get to Arizona time, to get down to Texas or south Texas and I worked for years down in South Texas and I didn’t know what a big bang [**00:04:58] into a lot of woods, I went down to South Texas, that’s the real deal. We were a little late, making tortillas in the morning. And then that was good stuff.
B.C Rogers: Well, Morton got 3500 people in 3 Mexican restaurants. If that tells you anything.
Ramsey Russell: Alright far from house.
B.C Rogers: No, you’re on that side of town.
Ramsey Russell: I’d like to check out more. Tell me, if we were talking before we started recording and wish we recorded a lot of that kind of a good conversation. But you’re born and raised in Morton, Mississippi?
B.C Rogers: That’s right.
Ramsey Russell: But you grew up hunting in the Delta and you were showing me some pictures from way back when?
B.C Rogers: Yeah, my mother is from Greenwood and all my family, the Morton side of my family from Greenwood. And so my dad started duck hunting in 66 or 67 when he was in college, and grew up deer hunting, kind of like, a lot of people from Central, he’s from Morton, a lot of people in central Mississippi, you grow up squirrel hunting, rabbit hunting, then deer hunting, particularly back then because even I’m only 43 but because I’ve hunted my whole life, people, you tell people this now like if you go deer hunting and you might hunt all weekend, not see a deer, but people forget that. So my dad somehow got into duck hunting and just kind of got bit with it. And he was one of those early guys that.
Ramsey Russell: I thought you’d do.
B.C Rogers: You can relate. I resemble that remark, and then when he started dating and married my mom, she fell in love with it. And I’ve never known a time when the two of them weren’t duck hunting together that. My whole life my mom has hunted almost every time my dad hunts. That’s unusual. But I didn’t know any different. I didn’t know that that was unusual. I thought, I just assumed everybody’s mama was hunting.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. But back in the day though, you brought a good point, back in the day, it seems to me in the 60s and 70s, I grew up in the 70s, that duck hunting was kind of a delta thing. If you want a deer hunt, you might be a few camps inside 11, most of you went to the hills of deer hunt.
B.C Rogers: And still they do. My friends, from castles, they live right there outside Morton city and they made a huge deer right there, they go to the hills for their deer camp still to this day. It’s just how they did it. And my uncles, they were in that, what was the name of that place? That was out inside the levy one of those island places and that was just kind of the culture, but you duck hunted you duck hunted in the delta, and there was a lot of and I don’t have this affliction and I make fun of my Morton cousins about it, they are not going unless you’re going to burn them to the ground. Like if you don’t have the limit by 8:15, my cousin Floyd is gone. You got to go to the office. We make so much fun of them, we’ll go hunting and I mean, ducks are coming in twozies, threezies it’s beautiful, with this couple of years ago I went with him and we’re on just a little flooded out, swapped out into a field and we got in there. And of course a pretty good number of ducks came right at daylight, we got some birds and then, they started trickling back, pairs, singles. I thought, man, it’s going to be the greatest hunt of all time. About 8:15, he’s out. All right, I think it’s about over like Floyd.
Ramsey Russell: That’s Paul.
B.C Rogers: We just killed a duck like 5 minutes ago.
Ramsey Russell: Its 8:15 and that’s when they start coming in.
B.C Rogers: Well, I made so much fun of the Delta guys, that’s how they are, man. They either going to burn them to the ground or they ain’t going to go.
Ramsey Russell: That’s a blessing.
B.C Rogers: So, that’s how, Well, it’s a blessing if you accept that. Sometimes they don’t get to go. I’m going to go regardless. But that’s how we started it. We have a family duck camp that we spend, lots of time every weekend during duck season at least. And go about once a month, all year long, I guess. And it’s just been part of our family tradition.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You were showing me some pictures before we start recording, you were four years old in a duck blind and break in the Mississippi delta. What are some of your earliest memories of duck hunt? Because I cannot guarantee you a lot of folks listening myself included. Family, that’s who got us into it. You can post up who, I love these threads on the Internet. If you can hunt with anyone somebody tomorrow who would you hunt with and 99% of time it’s going to be a daddy or granddaddy. You got to go back to our roots. But I’m just curious growing up like you did boy, going through your pictures man and seeing them on the computer, all that old camo, you know what I’m saying? But what are some of the most indelible memories you’ve got growing up in the Delta hunting?
B.C Rogers: For us, I don’t really have memories of not being there. I was going to the hunting camp every weekend during duck season before I could go. And I do this with my, Rim [**00:10:17] is my seven year old daughter and obvious my four year old son, he just turned by my five year old son. Rim and I do this to what my parents would do is they would go hunting and at about 8:30, 9 o’clock they’d come back and get me and my sister, when we were real little, they wouldn’t make us, go out and stay too long, get cold. Back then, man, they weren’t any insulated boots in kids’ sizes, there weren’t any, you know,
Ramsey Russell: You still got cold back in those days too.
B.C Rogers: Well yeah, I don’t know, maybe it certainly felt cold and you saw those pictures, all we had is my dad would buy me a new pair of coveralls at the beginning of every hunting season because I’ve grown the last ones and you put blue jeans and waffle, long johns and everything you owned and you’d still be freezing cold because nothing was any good. Anyway, they come back and get us in. My first memories would be working those late morning groups, my dad blowing duck call.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Was your dad kind of the ringleader of the other policy, was he?
B.C Rogers: I don’t know, he was the ringleader of our hunting group. There were three or four guys in our hunting camp that were sort of the leader of their little group. But my dad, it’s usually just our family and our friends. One of my mentors, I laugh when I say that because he taught me a lot of good things and a lot of bad things I think. But Fred Riley who we both know,
Ramsey Russell: I know, Mr. Fred. I knew him.
B.C Rogers: Yeah. They was usually hunting with dad and my friend and mentor Tom Scott also, but they would watching the two of them work ducks, watching Fred work dogs. When you’re five years old, you see that dog, I mean, that’s like, it may as well be a mythical dragon, watching that dog jump out of a blind and go do all that. And Fred’s dogs were doing stuff that it’s become common now. But man, in 1985, dogs didn’t do hand signals. Dogs didn’t do the stuff that Fred’s dogs were doing back then has people know about now, but that was very unusual.
Ramsey Russell: It’s become a huge industry, but no, you’re right. That’s how I know Fred was getting into labs and boy, I got lucky with the lab of lifetime right out the gate and joined a local retrievement club that Fred was the kingpin. He was the godfather and the man, knew more about lab and they know about themselves.
B.C Rogers: If you didn’t know that, you just ask him, he’ll tell you.
Ramsey Russell: I wondered when you said he hunted with your daddy, if they ever had a difference of opinion or if their opinion never varied.
B.C Rogers: But they did. But my dad is a very gentle diplomatic person. And they had a mutual respect that actually my dad, maybe one of Fred’s only friends that Fred never ran off you. If you spend any time with Fred you’d see people,
Ramsey Russell: I loved him
B.C Rogers: I love him too.
Ramsey Russell: And is a very polarizing figure, but I liked him, he liked me, and we got along just fine.
B.C Rogers: Even the people that hated him liked him, at different times, but he could really get on people’s nerves and I don’t know that’s how you say it, but dad dad’s one of the only friends that Fred never ran off, but dad’s pretty cool with himself and he doesn’t really need for people to affirm who he is. But watching that, being there with my family, those are my earliest duck hunting memories. My earliest hunting memories were more and I still love squirrel hunting, I squirrel hunt all the time. But what’s really matter, my dad used to take me, started taking a squirrel hunting, like where I barely walk.
Ramsey Russell: I like to hunting period. I will say that turkey hunting, I know you eat up with my son and I’m not I just don’t have the bug and I don’t want it. I don’t want another bug. But my son Duncan in high school got into squirrel hunting, maybe middle school, he just for some reason. And I did too when I was a little boy. So he wants me to carry him out there and it was a grown man and all right, we’ll go out here, man. I fell in love with it could it felt like being a little boy again, getting out in those woods, he’d go his way and I hear that 22. And I’ll tell you what? Every time he shot I could listen and hear something hit the ground.
B.C Rogers: I love that sound.
Ramsey Russell: That I’m the guy, I’m the hunter that just wants to go see it. I’ll see it and stand until I see a squirrel, just a lot of, I might try to move in on him, but that’s just a lot of fun.
B.C Rogers: I enjoy it too. And I think that, I mean in high school I was, well all through college, I was very much into bow hunting for white tails, and actually a Mike and when I started reading out, I reached back out to mike and we would have lunch every six weeks to months and he gave me some fabulous advice, as I’ve started the company and I know you all were friends, but when I was in high school, there was a group of us that hung out at Indian archery his company and they had upstairs, did you ever go there? They had archery,
Ramsey Russell: I lived there man, they were the only one open.
B.C Rogers: Well, same here and we were probably there together and a matter of fact like another one of our mutual friends B.T Steven and I were talking about this, the other day, he was a few years older than me, I was like 12 and they were like 16 and then you were a few years older than them but there was a culture there for a little while that we all just hung out there and I was so eat up with that. But if you, several years ago now I kind of had to, when you hunt you can’t do everything once you have kids. So I do look much less deer hunting than I used to.
Ramsey Russell: I do. To me any more deer hunt really, truly is just sitting out playing on the phone and reading a book, and overlooking the green field. Back in those days I was into, I mean, I think these guys make the 70-80 yard shots. I don’t believe in that number one, but it defeats the purpose of deer hunting number two. The thing about bow hunting and I still got that old bow I bought from the boy back in the late eighties and it throws a rainbow at 37 yard. I’m going to tell you what man, you had to be closed, you have to be intimate with those deer. And that’s a lot of the same thing that appealed to me about duck hunting. I mean it’s, oh, I love to shoot, but it’s that relationship, it’s getting them and going and get them in close.
B.C Rogers: Communicating too. Like turkey hunting, I’m actually, you told me that you weren’t really a big turkey hunter. And I’m actually surprised by that because communicating with ducks, communicating with turkeys and really I mean
Ramsey Russell: It is. It’s that relationship.
B.C Rogers: You become part of their environment in a way that other types of hunting, not as aren’t as much
Ramsey Russell: You’re talking to them, you’re interacting with them. You got that relational thing going on because you can’t talk deer, you figure them out. You look at the patterns, you look at his trail as you look at the flow of traffic, you find the bottleneck, you find a pinch point, you wait. And duck hunting so much that turkey hunt tonight either. But basically I don’t have in the world regular. I don’t have time recommendation to go out in the woods when I’m home during Turkey season, I don’t need no more relationship with wildlife. And I got, if I want to stay married, I’m very happily married.
B.C Rogers: I kind of have that with deer hunting right now, at this stage of my life. My son and daughter both are now wanting to go deer hunting so I may get back into it more like I was, if they want to do it. But I had to realize 7 years ago when Rim was born in, particularly 4-5 years ago when [**00:18:23] was born then I can’t hunt 50 something days of duck season and however many days of turkey season I hunt, and run a business and deer hunt. And I was sitting in this office, I’m telling you, and I remember the day I decided, I was sitting in this office, my father in law has a fabulous deer place, just not far 20 minutes from here and I’m welcome there any time, we’re very close. And I would be sitting in this office knowing I needed to work and wanting to deer hunt and then I’d go deer hunt and I’ll be sitting in the stand thinking you’re dumb needs to be at the office. And so I said, I’m just going to give up this struggle and I’m going to say, I ain’t doing it anymore. And that’s when I, that that changed for me. You’re talking about turkey hunting, but you told me you killed several turkeys. My dad has the same similar story because he makes me mad when he says this, he’s been turkey hunting three times and he’s killed three turkeys. And he says there’s no sport in it.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. My real turkey hunting buddies tell me, he said the reason you’re not mad at turkey because you have hunted right one yet.
B.C Rogers: That may be true. Don’t do it.
Ramsey Russell: I don’t want to. I’m bringing my turkey and experienced a lot like your daddy’s. I’ve killed 10 turkeys and been all over the world and I’ve got to get out west and shooting Merriam’s and it’s just like you went away from the world, why not? But if I go to great [**00:19:46]
B.C Rogers: Did you go to South America and kill oscillate?
Ramsey Russell: I’ve shot oscillated down in Mexico. And that was and that really to me was one of my favorite hunts. But it’s not turkey hunting, like calling them in and doing all that. It’s the environment, it’s the jaguars and the jungle is the Mayan ruins, it’s that bird. And the last time I went with a bunch of clients, will you believe there were sick clients of myself in camping in three days, and we tent camp out and it’s like a nice, it can be for tent camp, but his tent camps out in the jungle, monkeys swinging through the vines and, all that mess. You’re just immersed in it. And I brought my camera and could have shot a few, but I just, I was determined to get a picture of one and that didn’t happen. I can show you a picture with all these different kaleidoscopic colors out there in the tree and so you see, he go. Yeah, that’s the turkey. That’s about it. I mean it’s just so dog hair thick.
B.C Rogers: But you didn’t shoot one?
Ramsey Russell: I didn’t shoot one of the last time I went. I have shot them in the past and love it. It’s really, it’s a hunt and I know people, I know I got a bunch of buddy that eat up with turkey hunting that, well, they can’t call them and can’t do this, ain’t asleep when I retrieve. Man, sneaking up in the woods and it’s not a lush Tarzan swinging through the vine jungle, it’s dry. Its Mexico dog hair thick and walking through those woods silently unless you’re a native or a ghost, is impossible. It’s the most challenging thing. To me, its lot more like Capra Caylee hunting and that also just really appealed to me, but I’m just not a turkey hunter. The last time I went, Forrest taught me to go into Texas, and I got Mario, but I was bored out. There was turkeys are out there struggling doing her things and I’m my phone with chirp, I’m like, I wonder who that is. I need to take a look at it. It just didn’t.
B.C Rogers: See I can relate to that, but my dad feels the same way. You’re telling that story made me realize because we’ve become closer and closer friends over the last few years. I realize that I’m not sure that you even are hooked on hunting. I think you’re hooked on adventures.
Ramsey Russell: That there’s a lot of truth to that. I won’t lie. I won’t lie.
B.C Rogers: Because you seem to want to have, the guys that get really into white tail hunting for example, you know those guys, guys like my father in law, he will go sit in the same spot for 70 days. You everything, the stories that like you light up when you tell me about them is, but when you’re doing something you’ve never seen before.
Ramsey Russell: That is what puts wind in my sails, is the newest overall. I’ve got a trip plan of summer, had nothing whatsoever to do related to hunting, with a buddy of mine don’t hunt. The only time he’s ever hunted with me come to Mississippi one time, just hunt when we were college roommates and he’s from Rochester New York and I was, I was describing to him just a little while ago for I drove up here, about what I do and where I go and it’s like I do love to duck hunt and I love those hunts, I hate to say it, but anymore when I’m by myself and it’s not just, ducks coming in everywhere, it’s the hunts where I’ve got to be like Azerbaijan this year, 15-20 a day. But you couldn’t get that if you want hyper focused, looking down wind, not blinking your eyes and sweeping the sky when they came in, you had to play a perfect game that is what gets me on the hunting side anymore. Going out with a bunch of buddy, I do that go out with folks and we just have a good time and but, really what I love, like the places I want to go yet in the United States and abroad is as much about the food and the culture and that whole backdrop that’s really and truly, it just turns me on, man. I love it, especially because I’m wearing waiters and carrying shotgun. That’s what’s so cool about.
B.C Rogers: Well, the connection you make with people and I’m not a golfer, but I hear that golf is this way, I know that fishing can be this way from personal experience, but there’s nothing to me is more, connecting than a duck hunt. When you duck hunt with somebody, you’re almost always had friends with that person and really forever. And if you on a duck hunting trip with somebody, you have a connection with that person, you’ll run into him years later and your buddies,
Ramsey Russell: You’re right about that. I had this conversation with a duck guy down in Texas this year. Forrest and I showed up, we mixed it up with a lot of his clients and had a great time, make a lot of friends had a lot of numbers try rolodex and just had a, just like you described. But he and I were riding back to the car and we were talking about all these, all these impolite people, I want to say another bad word, but all these just people in social media. The negativity and I’m like, social media does something, it’s an antisocial app. Because I don’t need it. I know I don’t meet those people in a duck blind, I’ve never hunted with one of them, I mean they’re all just nice genuine people that got dogs and kids and jobs and passions.
B.C Rogers: There’s an element of judgmental nature that is elevated by some social media platforms. I think it’s really important, and I think we do this in person, and I hope that we can change social media to be more this way. Although I have had very little bad experiences with social media personally. We can’t turn on each other. The two of us live in Mississippi, and all of our buddies are hunters and most of our bodies are duck hunters. And nobody, we don’t know anybody that that probably has a problem with us being duck hunters because we live where we live. But we need to remember of course you get all over the world, so you see this, but we need to remember as a community that, that is very rare. We’re a very small group of people and we start judging each other and turning on each other.
Ramsey Russell: United we stand, united we fall. We’re all in this thing together.
B.C Rogers: And if somebody wants to do something a certain way, and it’s ethical, and it’s inside the rags, I say have at it. It may not be the way I prefer to do it. But when we start judging each other as a tiny little community man, we’re going to be in big trouble.
Ramsey Russell: You’re right. Let’s go back to the break a minute. Let’s go back to the break because I’m sitting here thinking about this four year old little boy, you’ve got all those pictures scanned in, I really enjoyed that because here we are in the year 2020 and there’s a million different camel pattern to choose from, but back then you have one.
B.C Rogers: That’s right. Wood land.
Ramsey Russell: You were all wearing the same one
B.C Rogers: Came in two colors. You can get the green version or the brown version.
Ramsey Russell: That’s right. And then somewhere around your junior high school and your freshman year in high school, B.C Rogers wearing brand new mossy oak.
B.C Rogers: Yeah, I’ll tell you that story real quick. There was a guy named Bill C. Graves who also was my Boy Scout leader. He was our Boy Scout troop leader. And he owned the local military surplus store, which was a military surplus store. But it was really our hunting store, it’s where you bought all of your hunting stuff. Well the year that toxic haze, Mr. Hayes came out with Bottomland. He was riding around. He and a couple of guys who, I don’t know these guys, they’re not friends of mine, so I don’t want to act like I’m familiar. But I’ve heard the story that they were riding around like just selling to any store they could. Well, bills military surplus was one of their accounts in the first year. And I remember walking into Bill’s surplus store and he had a, they didn’t make anything but a shirt and pair of pants, maybe there was a hat or something. It was like, a shot of lightning. All of us like, look at this, you disappear in this. We all had to have it.
Ramsey Russell: You’re talking about Mike Morgan and boys are paired Indian archer a little while ago, and that’s where I met. The first time I ever laid eyes on, I’m like holy cow.
B.C Rogers: That was the first place you ever saw mossy oak?
Ramsey Russell: The first time I ever saw
B.C Rogers: And now somehow I remember, I can’t remember tree bark camo? There’s more of a gray color. I can’t remember if tree bark was out right before mossy oak or mossy oak was right before tree bark.
Ramsey Russell: Tree bark came first. Well I guess it was that old, sitting in a pine tree in a deer stand, you would blend in, it was very good.
B.C Rogers: But I remember there being and I think this still goes on like between mossy oak and real tree now, today. But there was like a debate in Scott County, like, well, I don’t know, you want that mossy oak? You want that tree bark?
Ramsey Russell: That’s right, man, that’s preaching on back in the annals of time.
B.C Rogers: And I don’t know what year would have that would that be?
Ramsey Russell: That would have been to mid to late 80s. Because Indian archery had a archery store though, they were turkey hunters. And they used to have the al hooting contest and the turkey calling contest, no bob Wester field always judged it. And I won, I was so proud, I got, won the door prize and I won a mossy oak turkey blind which at the time they had about a four ft. wide boat the fabric?
B.C Rogers: I still have it.
Ramsey Russell: I won about eight ft. length of it with four poles. That was my turkey blind. I ain’t what I want. I wanted that one piece jumpsuit. Oh, I want to say something. But he’s like, well boy, that man is leaving you better go grab him. I remember, toxy. That’s the only time I guess I ever met him. And I recall he was driving a station wagon of sorts and I called him, he just, he was back pack up and I introduced myself and said, could he swap said absolutely. And I wore that dad gum things like buster things on.
B.C Rogers: Absolutely, Yeah. My first, you saw a picture of my first outfit was just a shirt pants, kind of, that’s just how we did it. My first hunting coat though, we’re solid colors because they didn’t make camouflage for a little bit of kids. But somebody look at this right here, grab that book. Somebody today came by the shop here. It’s called the old Pro Turkey Hunter. This guy’s from Mississippi, Jack Dudley. Somebody dropped this book off today and I don’t even know who it was. I was on a call and then I guess they’re going to call me and tell me who got it and that. And look, it’s, it’s signed by him in 1980. Right there,
Ramsey Russell: Jane Nunry [**00:31:17]. Yeah, I think he’s from Greenville. I would guess he was.
B.C Rogers: I’ve seen that book, the one I’ve been trying to track down that, there was a guy from Greenwood that wrote a book called tall timber Gabriel have you ever seen that book? My mom being from Greenwood, I’ve been trying to track that book down for years and I can’t find it. I’ve got my feelers out for. So if you find a copy, I want it.
Ramsey Russell: I will. I did here yesterday was the day Billy Joe jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Greenwood. You heard that story? About a million time.
B.C Rogers: I saw several of my Greenwood friends posted a picture of the plaque that they have nearby the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Ramsey Russell: He does often. How did you go? I know how you grew up. I know boy, I mean Delta boy. And practically too all the good times you grew up with in the Delta.
B.C Rogers: But they would not claim it though, just be careful saying that. What’s really funny is that. I’m from a tiny little town Morton, Mississippi, but my cousins from Greenwood still say he’s from Jackson. Wait a minute, you all live in a throbbing metropolis compared to my hometown. You’re telling me I’m from Jackson.
Ramsey Russell: How did you go from, how did Wren and Ivy begin? How did you go from there to here?
B.C Rogers: Well, first of all, when you tell these stories after they’ve happened, it sounds like you had a plan. That has not been how my life has happened. My life has been a sequence of God slimming closed every door. He did not want me to walk through and leave him one open, that’s a good description. And I stupidly walk through that door because it’s the only one open and that’s how my path has been. It’s not. There’s never been a plan. I don’t have a plan today. I wake up every day and try to do the next thing he wants me to do. But what happened in hindsight, I’ll tell you what, it sounds like a story with a plan. We have a gift shop here in Madison called Persnickety and I was working in the gift shop and we sold a luggage company and I got to be buddies with the guy who make that luggage. And I asked him to build me a ditty bag stood up with, I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for and he wouldn’t do it. And I asked him to build me a shotgun case that had a pocket on the side that would hold all my choke tubes and a little cleaning kit. Because I couldn’t find one just like what I wanted and he wouldn’t do it.
Ramsey Russell: Did you want a specific material?
B.C Rogers: Yeah. Well, they’re now called the heirloom ditty bag, heritage blind bag, the fowling piece case. Those are the products that I asked him to build me, but he wouldn’t do it, I asked. And the third one was my shell belt. We called the shooting a shell belt. I never understood why shell belt wasn’t split in two. So the shells will be in the front, nothing would be in the back. And so I asked him to build me that and he wouldn’t do it. And after the third thing said, but these are pretty good ideas. You should just go build them yourself. Well, I now know I’m still very close friends with this person and I now know he was blowing me off. He was trying, he’s like, because he knew what, I didn’t know that, you can’t just go do that. But I didn’t know that at the time, and it’s crazy what you can do if you don’t know, you can’t. And so that was the sort of the genesis of it. And I made, the first prototypes and then we built, the first run was 50 and I found a manufacturer and, locally we built the prototypes and then found a manufacturer who was hand making every piece. But I could do it on a larger scale. And we built the 1st 50 and of the three products and I sold those 50 before they started making them. And I called the guy back and I said, Look, I need to order 50 more. And I sold that 50 before the 100 was made. And I called him back and said, I need to order 50 more. Now, our ditty bag is $385. So, these are not inexpensive bags are expensive to build the materials are expensive. And, it ends up being a high dollar item. And he called me back and he said, you sold 150 of these things? And I said, yeah, he said you got any other ideas? I said yeah a lot of ideas.
Ramsey Russell: Were you selling them persecutive [**00:35:51]?
B.C Rogers: At that time I was. I’ve always, just been a big duck hunter and so I have a lot of big duck hunting friends. I take a lot of people duck hunting. And I was just calling people I knew and saying, hey, I designed a duck hunting bag and a gun case, you want one? And that’s how, they call that, picking low hanging fruit I think. But and so that’s how the first product line came out in. Well that was in 2015, but we didn’t actually get product until May of 2016. And so I mean recent. I didn’t know. All this started out because I couldn’t find what I wanted. And that’s still what I try to, everything I designed, we’re working on the stuff to come out in the fall right now. Everything I designed, I try to say, okay, what would I want I different about what’s available? And I try to design from that standpoint.
Ramsey Russell: Do you think your ideal of product? Like you’re just trying to describe what you want, where does your path fit into that the land you grew up with out there on a break?
B.C Rogers: Yeah, I was always connected to this sort of vintage materials, sort of heirloom quality work, leather and canvas and solid brass. I was always connected. I’ve had to sort of identify why that was because I’m in that business now, but I never really knew why I was connected to it. But so much of those experiences are tied to the people who taught you and the people that you looked up to. My uncles were a big influence on me. Some of my dad’s friends, Ray Riley and others Tom Brown like you know these guys, they would take me hunting as much as my dad did. And so I would think back on, as you get older you start to, remember that bag that Tom Brown had or that kind of stuff and that’s how the product line when I started I said okay when you see a Wren and Ivy Bag, my design process is I want you to see that bag and think that bag could be from 1935 or 2020 from the outside. But when you open it and start using it, I want it to function based on what we’ve learned over that time period. So there needs to be a place for your cell phone. There might need to be a waterproof pocket here, an insulated pocket there. There needs to be a functional shoulder strap. Some of that older stuff is really just a canvas bucket.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah.
B.C Rogers: And we got a lot more gear to take care of. It’s all pretty expensive now and you need more than that. So my functionality is a little different.
Ramsey Russell: As you were telling that story, I was thinking of my granddad and I wonder what happened to that bag, I was sitting here wondering, I wonder what happened that bag. Maybe my uncle had it, but he had a hunting bag that was literally a zip up, almost like 3 Ft. long, olive drab, military grade duffel. And that went to the blind with him and went back of the banco when, everywhere he went. And I had a toilet paper and a snake bite kit and extra socks and extra-long johns and extra cap and extra Johnny warmers. And I mean just it was everything a man needed. And if you fell in, he had socks for you, I mean that was, he was a boy scout. But it was like a big old bag. But as you were describing it, I think back to my origins and into my, to that era, back in the 60s and 70s and how practical they were. And they did shop at army surplus or just reaching to tolerate and grabbed out their army coat.
B.C Rogers: And their army rifle.
Ramsey Russell: Everything was leather and in canvas. That’s what they used. And my first hunting coat with my grandmother because I was just a child and she was a small woman. But it was just a canvas coat.
B.C Rogers: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s mine too. Luckily I was Starting in the early mid-80s and so things were changing drastically right then. But that to answer your question fully, that’s why I think that there are a lot of people from all age groups that have looked up to those people. I mean, you grow up reading Nash Buckingham and seeing his picture if you’re from Mississippi and just part of you wants to connect with that, and one of the ways I refer to our hunting bags and really our travel bags too. It’s like a totem. It’s a symbol. Now materialism is gross, right? It’s not about it being fancy or how much it cost or any of that. It’s about how long it lasts. So that can be a symbol of all of those experiences
Ramsey Russell: Value, Practical.
B.C Rogers: Yes. And when you see your grandfather’s bag, it could be made of anything, it has nothing to do with that bag. It’s a symbol of what your grandfather was trying to accomplish. And that’s what I think about when I designed my bags. I want you to go on that trip with your family and I want your kids to have seen that you have our duffel bag, Wellington Large enough, what we call. I want people to see that and say I remember that thing is part of the memory but the memory isn’t important. The thing is not.
Ramsey Russell: That’s very interesting you said, I used to have this old duck strap, I got to tell the story and. There was a guy up in Nebraska I believe, hunting on the Missouri river and he was on the old chat room, way 20 years ago and he made duck strap. And before I ordered one, he swapped to a camo impregnated version of leather duck strap. I wanted the leather. I want that leather duck strap. And I called him up and he said, well, I don’t have any. All I got is camo. And I just said man, I don’t believe. You’ve been doing it for 10 years, don’t tell me I got no leather stuck away somewhere, so I want leather. So it’s kind of what you are saying about, my granddad used leather. I wanted that leather. And he said, I got to tell you all the story, you’ll bear with me. He says, well let me tell you this story. And he said, I said okay, I’ll listen to you. And he said he started telling me about his dog. He had a dog named Kelly a lab and they hunted on Missouri river as he described where blind was located. It hunted north and south winds in the bend of the river Canada geese, mallards grow. And she developed cancer and it did crushed because he dogged a lifetime. And he had a bunch of his friends get together, it’s summertime, the river was down and sandbar beneath the blind, and in the shadow of blind they grilled out hamburgers and hot dogs and all the closest friends and duck hunting buddies came over, and they feed a few bumpers to the dog and on the third tree, if you can barely crawl out cancer done either up and the vet stepped in and gave her a shot and they buried it right there under the blank. And he said, you know what? I bought the best, I bought this leather the bridle leather, English bridle leather. And I got all these kooks once I got all this stuff and I put it together and to commemorate this dog and this day and I don’t remember who it was. It didn’t show up. But he said, that some bitch ain’t getting one, if you want to buy it. You have it man. I don’t walk in Nebraska after hearing that story.
B.C Rogers: Is that a true story? Where is that strap?
Ramsey Russell: It’s a true story. Well that’s what I was getting at. How you’re talking about people, what you remember. It’s not the product in just the functionality. So one day, we were hunting at willow break, and my son Duncan was 12 or 13 years old. He had just gotten to the point if you were patient with, he could knock out his own limit. And he did that morning. We shot, I think we shot two mallards and a bunch of ring necks. He saw that strap hanging up his duck on one side mine on the other, and I want to strap like that one day I told him that story and I said, well, you have to wait like dying because this strap been all over the world now. It had all the brass and all the stuff and weight a ton. But I took it everywhere. A matter of fact, I’ve got the thing in Uruguay one time. And I broke the phone bill, calling the folks that I’m going to kill you if you don’t bring this thing back. They did. And but he said, now, if I ever get that strap, because I’ve seen you hunt with that and hold off, I’m going to hang it up and put it in a safe place. And when he said that, I think, I hunted with the next day and I hung it up in my game room. It’s there. I hung it up. Because I was thinking, holy cow, you think we take for granted a duffel bag, a blind bag. It speaks to me what you’re saying because I’m that guy, if I buy watch it, I like I’m wear it for the next 40 years. You know, my gun. I’m just, I don’t know if you think about all these things as gear, it’s like a hammer, a carpenter’s hammer. I want to use my hammer though. I get attached things like that because of the past, because of the story, because of where they’ve been, because who they connect to.
B.C Rogers: It’s right. It’s not about that thing.
Ramsey Russell: It’s not. And you nailed.
B.C Rogers: Being a premium brand or high end brand, I think that, that’s why it’s so important to me that that is said, it’s not about the thing. The thing is built to last so that you can put memories around the thing.
Ramsey Russell: I’ve had that overnight bag and it’s a big good old overnight bag, I’ve had several years now and it hasn’t even, it look brand new.
B.C Rogers: Thank you. I honestly think, I say this all the time, but I really do think they look those materials, leather, canvas, solid brass. If you take care of it, just like a saddle, there’s nothing prettier than 100 year old saddle that’s always been taken care of. And that’s why I built it out of the materials I did. If you take care of it and I don’t mean you have to baby it because you absolutely do not. But if once a year, you clean it up and maybe put a little wax on the canvas or put a little saddle soap or something on the leather, it will last forever and it’ll look better than it did when you first got it.
Ramsey Russell: Why would you got into? I get it, because it’s your past cause you upbringing what we’re talking about. But for you to get into outdoor world and I’m seeing this, it’s funny when I look at your computer from 25 years ago with all those pictures you were showing me how you and how the industry has started running this big full circle. Since the days you grew up hunting wearing brown or green camo, just like myself or grand mama’s old canvas coat to now, I mean all the different flavors and technologies and stuff like that. And it has a lot of ways, to me, the hunting industry has in a lot of ways, parts of it have become disposable, parts of it have become fashionable.
B.C Rogers: It is, but humbly I think, that it is that were almost, there’s two schools right now. There’s the disposable school that got, it’s a $19 gun case and you know what that’s okay. If that’s where your budget is. And if you and you know I sell a $400 gun case, you can buy $19 gun cases for the rest of your life and maybe never get to $400.
Ramsey Russell: I got a $19 dove vest and green camo. I’ve had since high school though.
B.C Rogers: That’s what I’m saying. Well but that’s different because things were built differently back then. But there’s that school of sort of disposable stuff but it’s less expensive, less expensive than it’s ever been. And then there’s this new school of, Wren and Ivy Sitka is a great example. It’s made from ballistic nylon, modern materials, but it definitely has its place. If I’m going on a sheep hunt, you think I’m going to take a canvas and leather bag? No, of course not. So as long as it’s made well, it still can be that totem. It still can last. And luckily, Wren and Ivy door open for me at a time where people started to realize I’m willing to pay for something I can keep a little longer. Part of that is that younger people don’t, or there tired of having to replace things and they’re tired of putting them in a landfill. And some of the modern gear is also built in a real high quality.
Ramsey Russell: The brands you named are high quality.
B.C Rogers: They are and that stuff’s going to last.
Ramsey Russell: If I can buy a pair of waiters one time, last me for the next 10 years, it’s a whole lot of shotgun shells I can buy instead of having waiters at an annual expense. That’s how I look at it.
B.C Rogers: The problem of finding something that fits you well that holds your stuff well, that works well for the way you like to hunt. There’s the money is one part of it, but also just the time of trying to find that thing. If you find that thing and it’s going to last you, it makes sense to do it.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I agree. What’s next for Wren and Ivy? That’s what I’m trying to think. Where now?
B.C Rogers: Well, this year has been really,
Ramsey Russell: This year we’re sticking spoke for everybody.
B.C Rogers: An interesting year. Interesting that we’ve done very well through this time. But mood product development has been challenging because we’ve had to shut down our manufacturing for three months. But I’ve got some pretty exciting things coming this year, on both on the hunting side and the travel side. My friend Jumbo Rosenquist is working with me on a product that I’m really excited about. My friend Josh Raggio is working with me on a product that I’m really excited about, and on the hunting side.
Ramsey Russell: I’m going to record him tomorrow by the way.
B.C Rogers: Are you? All right. I talked to him last night. And then on the travel side, I’ve got a couple of items that are, they’re going to fill a niche that we don’t feel. And I think fill a niche. That’s not in some cases, it’s not even out there. I’m really excited. And I’m most excited because had it gone on much longer, we weren’t going to have time to get those new products done. I got a set of prototypes in first this week, and it’s very rare that I build one prototype that’s usually three or four, and one of them it was like, ok boys you did it.
Ramsey Russell: Well I can tell you excited for.
B.C Rogers: I am very excited about 2020.
Ramsey Russell: I got another question for you. I met you probably a year after you all started. We were, and the season I went down to New Orleans, every hunting show down there and that’s where I met you and your wife in the booth. You always got very beautiful booth. I like that you really do. And you’ve got a, my wife is my partner, she’s the brains of the operation, I’m going to tell you right now. She is the brain that operates. A lot of my repeat clients get me altogether. They would go to her. So they put me back on that hunt. I don’t need top around. Do you all the partition the role? I mean, that’s what kind of she’s your life partner? She’s your business partner? But like, because I see parts of her, well I think to be her expressed and you all displays and stuff like that.
B.C Rogers: No question. My wife has a design background and merchandising background, so she has been an enormous contributor to that part. She doesn’t do much of the design of new products, although she probably could do it better than me, particularly on travel side. But there’s really not. You know what, I grew up in a family business, my grandfather, my great grandfather, we just have had nothing but family businesses, my whole life. In a family business, you don’t have a job description. You’re the lead toilet cleaner. This year, I’ve been the lunch lady and the home school janitor. Because my life turned into a school teacher, this year. Because we have to take him home. But no, we don’t have, Kim and I do not have defined roles and I don’t know, maybe would be better if we did. We just do whatever needs to be done that. I’m sure that’s how you do.
Ramsey Russell: That is a lot of how it is. But when it comes to the front guy stuff, I love people, I love being in front of people, I love telling duck hunt stories and my wife, she likes, don’t ask me why, she likes the number type stuff, the organization. I’m big picture, she’s fine detail. We don’t set out saying who’s going to do what it just happens that way.
B.C Rogers: Kim and I are both very similar about where both people and so I’m sure that you got lucky on that because we’re actually her strengths and my strengths are really in line with one another, unlike, some teams. But so we have to bring in people that are good at the stuff that we’re not so good at. But I think there’s just one big bucket of tasks that need to happen and we do the next thing that has to be done.
Ramsey Russell: I feel blessed a lot of times. My life partner is my business partner.
B.C Rogers: I do to. The challenges that come with being in a family business are far overshadowed by the benefits. And my even, actually you just missed Kim and Wren and Ivy, were here, 10 minutes before you got here. And it’s just been an enormous blessing just to have my kids. Ivy wasn’t born when I named the company. Kim was pregnant with Ivy, when I did name the company. Of course, I named the company Wren and Ivey when I made those first prototypes for me, I just put a Wren and Ivy on it. I wasn’t, I didn’t know I was naming a company. I just said, well, I’m going to call this Wren and Ivy because that’s, my kids name.
Ramsey Russell: You all a very family oriented. I know, I see you in social media and you all right. Now, when you and Kim at the break, you all are at the break, usually whole family.
B.C Rogers: Yeah. But that was always the case. I learned that from my parents so I can’t take any credit for that. It’s always been, and my dad was such a great example of, he prioritized spending time with us. And I don’t know that I would be, well, I have given, I used to run hunt tested field trials. I don’t do that at all anymore. Because I don’t think my wife or my kids would enjoy going out there all day every day. If they ever did I do it again. But I want to do things that they want to do. And I’ve been real lucky that they want to do things I like to do. But I don’t care if my kids become big hunters, that’d be great. But if they want to, I’m going to get into whatever they want to get in.
Ramsey Russell: I’m going to spend a lot more time with them if they hunt what I told them, but I support him on doing whatever they want to do. People got to find themselves
B.C Rogers: So far, both of my kids like to go and have enjoyed it.
Ramsey Russell: Are they hunting themselves now?
B.C Rogers: Yes, but they don’t carry guns yet. There this year I bought Ivy a 4-10. Well I bought both of them are 4-10 and I was thinking about taking on turkey hunting but they really just weren’t quite ready and not because they couldn’t sit still or I don’t care about that. If you mess up a turkey hunt I don’t care. But they just weren’t I don’t want to take them if it’s going to be a bad experience. I can take them out duck hunting and it’s fun and we’re drinking hot chocolate and eating candy bars and they think it’s the greatest thing in the world. So part of that selfish on my part I don’t want to take them on a hard.
Ramsey Russell: Don’t. I tell everybody don’t do that man. If you’re going to take your children, especially to a duck blind you’ve got to make it about them. It’s going to get cold, it might get wet. I mean, you and I take for granted the dog shaking off and getting everything wet. Kids don’t man, and if they don’t enjoy, they’re not going to go by.
B.C Rogers: And that’s my goal. We have a couple of things we’ve done. We don’t take the kids. Neither one of my kids have been in the dark yet. They had, we were blessed to have this place where I can go back and get them pretty easily. It actually cypress Bend my brother in law and my best friend’s place, that’s in Tallahatchie County, is that way too. I can go back and get them. And so we just decided early on. And they’re almost ready. But the worst thing that ever happened to you on a hunt usually happened, headed out there in the dark. And so early on I decided, I’m going to just work, we go and then we come back and get them for the later stuff. And it also,
Ramsey Russell: I think that’s great man.
B.C Rogers: And little things like that. It’s been so far it’s worked out like I told you, I don’t necessarily have a plan. It’s working out.
Ramsey Russell: Sometimes that’s the best way. Get Duck started completely by accident. I mean, it’s just, we found ourselves and found the foot and just one thing led to another and the way you described about all the doors getting shut and just kind of leading you through a rat bait to one that’s open. Worked out so far.
B.C Rogers: But you said, you were talking about I’m going to circle back to something because I’m interested to hear what you have to say about this. You were talking about shows and you and I have been a lot of shows together and have fun hanging out doing that. With all the shows shut down this year. That’s been a real a loss for me, not financially, but spending time with my customers and meeting new people. I have so missed that.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I have to and really and truly, I’ve not yet missed any. Right now, Texas Trophy Hunter down in Houston Texas. That’s the one I go to. As far as I know, it’s open.
B.C Rogers: It is, that’s the first week of July or last of July.
Ramsey Russell: First week of august. And I know that, boy, I tell you, I went to the Great Outdoor Show, which from what I’ve heard is not near what it used to be, but it is still an incredible show up in Minnesota. I had, look, I’ve got a lot of clients, got a lot of friends from Minnesota, I had no idea. I mean, they may have more duck hunt than anybody on earth as far. And it’s such a good and big an outdoor show, but it closed this year. And they just, we got a letter from him yesterday and, we just went ahead and roll it into next year because I’m not going to miss that show. It’s too much fun. People are so nice. The country so beautiful.
B.C Rogers: We lost a lot of them. The ducks unlimited show.
Ramsey Russell: I was looking forward.
B.C Rogers: So looking forward to that. When we do the NRA show, which is huge. There few thousand people. and that’s one of my favorite shows because we’re directed consumer, we don’t, I don’t go to shot show and I don’t do a lot of those industry type shows. So the NRA conventions of time when I get to see a lot of people from the industry and that’s always something we look forward to. So it’s been it’s been a real loss for us to not be able to spend time with people. We miss our interaction with our customers.
Ramsey Russell: I do too. And I’m fingers crossed the Canadian border opens this fall, fingers crossed Safari Club, International Dallas Safari Club. I love the show, I’ve got a lot of friends there now and I go as much for that and that, it’s just like the more people and the more people I meet, more contact I made, it’s like, it makes it’s like Popeye and Spinach, it’s just that momentum gets to go in and it’s such a great energy and I talk for a living, but the story I get to hear while I’m sitting in there, it’s just important to.
B.C Rogers: And for me, the product feedback that I get to hear. Is it working? Did something, should something be different? That’s what I hear it because when people, sometimes you get that from social media or somebody send you an email, but most of time somebody’s not going to tell you, hey, this zipper needs to be a little higher. But if you get them face to face, you know, I’ve been thinking, have you ever thought about moving this zipper over? Man, that’s that stuff is vital for us to be able to keep our products exactly the way our customers need it. And people duck hunt and travel differently in different areas all over the country.
Ramsey Russell: Duck hunting and travelling is very subjective. What I think about a particular duck hunt is one thing, what my clients think that matters.
B.C Rogers: Right. And how the same translates to my gear. If you hunt completely different in Oklahoma than you do in Greenwood. And I want to know. All right. So, I didn’t know that you needed that pocket. But now that I know I can put it on there. And we’ve lost some of that interaction with not doing the shows. We still everything’s cancelled through the end of July right now but it does seem like we may be back out with everybody.
Ramsey Russell: I sure hope. And I always carry and use hand sanitizer because it’s flu season, cold season, a respiratory infection during the winter time. But I just don’t know how I’m going to feel about, wear the mask and rubber gloves and all that mess. But I can tell you right now if convention were tomorrow I’d be there.
B.C Rogers: And if they make me wear a mask, I’m happy to do it to be able to be there with my customers and friends. I’ll be there right now.
Ramsey Russell: I’ll do it if I have to. But I pray that’s not the case.
B.C Rogers: And you know it seems that.
Ramsey Russell: I like smiles. I like to smile you smile. I want to see you all smile man.
B.C Rogers: I know, I don’t know how that’s going to work, but I’m going to make it work, however, I have to make it work. And also I try to be respectful. We ran into each other the other day and I told you this, I try to be respectful of what makes other people comfortable. I’m not really a political guy anyway, but I’m certainly not trying to make a political statement about any of that. If it makes somebody feel comfortable for me to be in the booth with latex gloves on, I’ll be fine. I’ve done worse.
Ramsey Russell: But I just don’t want to see humanity get to that. I guess that’s what I’m saying.
B.C Rogers: I don’t think that’s going to happen, Ramsey.
Ramsey Russell: I hope you’re right.
B.C Rogers: I really don’t. I think that this thing as tragic as it’s been is going to pass and we’re going and we’re going to get back to being able to spend time with our friends and our customers.
Ramsey Russell: I’ll tell you one thing on the upside I’ve noticed is for example, I saw you at the garden center the other day and the breaks been good. Everybody I’ve talked to, has enjoyed just a little bit of that break and I have done some things that I might not ordinarily have done, but we’re right in the middle of a website rebuild. It’s freaking old, it’s green jacket, green shag carpet, old, our website is, and so we’re taking a break to get it done. And but the guy called me yesterday and I’ve seen this, business hasn’t been dead, It hasn’t been flat. People who are thinking, okay, I’m ready to get outside his house, I’m ready, get out, I’m ready for the world open back up. And I said, but he told me yesterday that the U. S. Hunt list, he said nuclear was the word he used. He says the traffic is unfreaking believable that people going through, coming to US hunt list, which tells me everybody ready to get out.
B.C Rogers: Our sales have been good during that time period. And I attribute that people are sitting at home were directed consumer, they can go to wrenandivy.com and they can look at all of our gear, they can contact me, and most of the time I’m the person that emails, and there’s I’ve seen the same thing. I think that there’s pin up desire to get out and get back in the in the woods. Of course the poor Eastern Turkeys of Scott County. It’s going to take years for them to recover. Every one of my friends to hunt it every day. I got stuff off my hunting do list, but I am not exaggerating, been on there for six years. And for me personally this couldn’t have come at a better time, for the last five years since I’ve started running Wren and Ivy, I’ve been gone at least one week a month doing shows and traveling for manufacturing and different things. My kids are seven and five and I’ve spent, I’ve eaten three meals a day with them since March 13 and here we are with June 3rd, June 4th. And I’ve spent an enormous amount of time with my kids. That I think honestly I think my Children will look back at this pandemic as some of the best times of their life and I know I will.
Ramsey Russell: I don’t disagree at all, and now hear something funny, I don’t know if it’s Tiger King [**01:07:19] I’m about a good thing or bad thing, I thinking,
B.C Rogers: But you know you lost it.
Ramsey Russell: I lost it. Pandemic. But then the other thing about the pandemic was Garrett walker, who episode aired today. He said something about Tiktok and I’m thinking, what the heck of Tiktok.
B.C Rogers: You don’t know what it is?
Ramsey Russell: Oh, I do now.
B.C Rogers: Don’t click on it, you won’t turn off.
Ramsey Russell: I’m like holy, I found myself laughing absurdly. I mean. Now look, it’s a whole lot of girls doing the same little things, but if you keep scrolling, you find these nuggets and one thing I noticed that I’m like, holy cow, look at these freaking families spending time together. Mom and dad and kids like Andy Griffith.
B.C Rogers: Absolutely. Well look at you said Andy Griffith reminded me my neighborhood has been like Mayberry man, everybody mama’s, daddy’s and kids are all at home, they’re riding their bikes now we were real safe about that. We told the kids, look, you all stay six Ft. apart. But if you’re riding your bikes don’t touch each other now we’ve relaxed off on that because we just didn’t know. In March man, we didn’t know they were talking about it was going to kill 2.5 million people. But it’s been like Mayberry, I put to the point that there were so many kids in our neighborhood playing in the yard and just around all the time I went and bought the water cooler we used to carry on the back of our work truck? I went and bought a water cooler with a cup dispenser on it and I put a bag of ice in it every morning. They’re on my front porch, drinking ice cold water. It’s like, Mayberry, we have a glass in the driveway. In the afternoon, it has been great. And I think we’ve all had to re-evaluate what was important and been forced to see where we were wasting time. I know that, I have done that in a big way, and wasting money, which is really the same thing.
Ramsey Russell: Well, I mean, I can tell you this, that brings up a whole new point. It is just, wow, the money, just the stupid money you’re spending when the world spending, but you’re on that freaking conveyor belt just running all the time. It’s helped me redefine some priorities of what is really important.
B.C Rogers: It really has for me too. And I don’t know I will be aware of it. I mean, we’ll go back to a lot of that when you and I travel, what we eat is limited, particularly if you’re a trade show, they got four things you can eat. Yeah, but there will be things that that I never that I’m now aware of. Look, there’s been so many blessings and I don’t, I’m not making light of how terrible this has been for so many people because I know that it has, for a lot of people there’s been a lot of silver lining to the cloud.
Ramsey Russell: It has been, I don’t disagree with that, you got to look for the silver lining, everything that comes to life and it’s not all going to be good, you got to find a silver lining. And I found mine, I’m ready for the world to start spending again. I’m ready. I’m ready for this force of nature to get its foot off the throat of a lot of my friends and just ready for that. Well, I just, I’ve got know people, I don’t know very many people that are suffering of COVID the disease, but the cure, “is hurting a lot of people”.
B.C Rogers: One of my best friends lives in New Rochelle New York, which you know, it was the first outbreak first hotspot and they were actually basically under martial law for a period of time. And that’s been, it’s been interesting to talk to her because her perspective and our perspective are very different and they’re scared. They live in a very different place than we do. We don’t live on top of each other. I don’t know a lot of people who’ve had it. I do knew some, I don’t know, I don’t have any friends who died of it. But I have to remind myself when I’m sitting on my front porch in Mayberry that there are people in other places that have a very different reality.
Ramsey Russell: There are. I pray for him, but its the cure is what bothers me the reaction and the and the politics and everything else is really hurting people, and I’m just, I could wish it away. I’ve got some very close friends that are struggling right now and, but we all are, we don’t know what we don’t know what’s going to happen when it’s normal return. We don’t know. But that’s just it, you just keep on kicking man.
B.C Rogers: But what I try to find myself doing during this time, particularly early on when we really didn’t know, is focusing on the things I can control, trying to be like, I know I can do this today and this is productive. The productive thing I can do and not try to worry about the things that are out of my control.
Ramsey Russell: That’s life and business right there buddy. That’s all you can do.
B.C Rogers: I don’t always succeed at that, but that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve actually been better at that during this time. When the chips are really down humanity steps up. I really do believe that.
Ramsey Russell: I grew up in the Deep South since the day one. Oh, you want to make America great, show me a crisis. The Cajun navy comes to mind.
B.C Rogers: Absolutely. Well, post Katrina Mississippi comes to mind. And again, this is not a political thing that Haley Barbour got on the news every day for 365 days. We didn’t fall apart as Mississippians. We bound together and we always have.
Ramsey Russell: As a nation, we really did. I’ll tell you what you’re talking all around it. It’s the truth. And I tell you what, all the message going on T.V right now, politicians ain’t going to fix it. We’re going to fix it.
B.C Rogers: And they are fixing it. The last couple days have been way better than they were at the beginning, and I think that’s because people in those communities, we’re not having a lot of that problem here. No, but the people in those communities are saying, hey guys, we have a valid point we’re trying to make and you all are ruining it and it’s getting better. It I don’t mean to sound like Pollyanna, but it always will. And I think it has over the last few day.
Ramsey Russell: People, we’ll make it better. Not politicians. That’s what I say is a cure for all the telling on fox news right now. Whatever channel you watching is going to be us people communicate and commit ourselves to being better.
B.C Rogers: Well, us being having to be so aware, I’m not a big news watcher, but us having to be so aware of the news during the last few months, Kim and I were just talking about this the other day that, that’s really been a negative for us because they’re going to to hype everything up on the news. Now, we have to watch it during this time period because there’s so much changing. But I’m ready to I’m kind of ready to let it slow back down and not watch the news every day and not. I think things get better when you let people just love each other.
Ramsey Russell: B.C I appreciate you coming on man. I love your product, I love your brand, I love what Wren and Ivy represents in the outdoor world. That’s what I like. I’ve said it a million times. I really believe the future of hunting lies in its past and again as you articulated so well. It’s not the stuff, it’s not the product, it’s what it represents and that your brand speaks to. That really does.
B.C Rogers: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure to be here. I think we most people feel the way we do about that, when you get to talking to them and most we all have more in common than we have different and that needs to be focused on even more so in our hunting community where we’re on the same team. We need to find the ways that we agree not the ways we disagree. We used to live in a world where we judge a person by the best things about them. Not the worst. Now, we seem to live in the world, but we find the worst thing about that person or the worst thing about their brand or the worst thing about whatever and that’s what we focus on. Not the best thing. And I just don’t think that’s the way to be.
Ramsey Russell: No, it’s not. B.C real quick tell everybody listening how they can get in touch with you.
B.C Rogers: Oh sure. Well, we’re easy to find. So Wren and Ivy on all the social media platforms. I don’t do twitter, but I don’t really think anything I have to say.
Ramsey Russell: It’s a mad house. I don’t blame for doing that
B.C Rogers: On Instagram and Facebook, you search Wren and Ivy brand and then Wren and Ivy.com and you can email me directly @infoWren&Ivy.com
Ramsey Russell: Wren and Ivy.com folks. Thank you all for listening. I didn’t bring this up during the show somehow or other. I didn’t want to throw him off on his interview somehow or other B. C. Rogers and I are related. I’m thinking to find out. Thank you all for listening. I’ll see you next time.