PLODDING MULES AND PRANCING HORSES

My father had a 1928 Willys Whippet, with wooden-spoke wheels and roll-down curtains in the rear windows. It was a fairly good automobile for its era, but around 1935 it developed a lot of problems including four flat tires, and that put an end to my acquaintanceship with the inside of a car for about eight years.

The old Whippet sat in the side yard next to the chicken-pen for some months, until one winter day when two men came by and said they would like to buy it for $5.

My daddy said he couldn't let it go for that, but then one of the men took notice of the chickens scratching around, looking for something to eat, and said he would throw in a bag of feed corn.

So daddy sold it for $5 and a bag of corn, and they hitched two mules to it and towed it away.

After the Whippet went I didn't have the opportunity to get into an auto again until I was 16 years old.

When I was about 11 my Uncle Starkey did let me ride on his running board but when he was slowing down to stop I jumped off a tad early and went head over heels into a ditch.

~/////////~

There are differences between horses and mules.

Some folks can tell you right off what they are but while I grew up in close proximity to some of each, I have never been the world's sharpest at telling them apart.

If I see a horse and a mule together, I know which is which, but sometimes if I see a mule off to itself or a horse off to itself I am a little hesitant at making flat-out identification.

~~~
Jodie and Lessie Brinkley head for the store at Menola
in their buggy ~ with the top down (c. 1920)

~~~

Some of my confusion stems from a language problem.

Folks always spoke about a "one-horse farm" even when the animal pulling the plow was a mule.

It was always "mule and cart" even when a horse was doing the pulling.

It was always "horse and buggy" because the buggy was used for church and courting, and it wouldn't have been seemly to use a mule in such social settings.

~~~
Elmo Parker (right) his wife Cellie (at left) and Thelma (Christine) Leonhirth
with the four-legged favorite at Cellie's farm, c. 1920

~~~

Cowboys rode horses, while only an occasional sidekick like Smiley Burnette would be caught playing a guitar on a mule.

Horses were always "prancing" and mules were always "plodding," so I never had I.D. problems when the animals were occupied with those pastimes.

"Working like a horse" wasn't really correct because people who understood the animals said that mules were far and away the best workers.

"Dumb old mule" wasn't good, either, because I was always told that mules were much smarter than horses -- that a mule would eat and drink only what it needed while a horse would eat and drink itself to death it you left the feed and water around too long.

I was never more surprised than when I was told that if you went to buy one, you'd have to pay twice as much for a mule as you would a horse.

~~~
A horse, of course, c. 1970
This mount
was Cricket Pearce's favorite
at riding class

~~~
Mascot of the "Dead Mule School
of Southern Literature"

Find their URL under "Quick Links"
at the Poor Town book titles

~/////////~

THE CHAINSAW IN THE CITY

Trees, when you start cutting them down, can be mighty unpredictable as to what direction they may decide to take on the way to the ground.

It is no job for a novice or a home handyman.

My wife and I saw three fellows put a rope around a tall pine about 10 feet away from a busy North Raleigh street.

One of them, apparently a little uneasy, moved his brand-new green pickup truck from the near side of the street to the far side, and several feet further east.

When we came back down the street from the other direction about 20 minutes later, the tall pine was down, all the way across the street, and the pickup truck had a broken back.

Two of the fellows were hard at work cutting and removing the tree from the street, but one of them -- watched by two solemn-faced young boys -- was leaning over the hood of the pickup, looking kind of sick.

~/////////~

All big-city developers can't be accused of not being sensitive to environmental concerns. Just about always, at areas where shopping centers or other buildings are planned and several hundred trees are being chopped down and ground to dust, one or two saplings are left standing at some of the corners.

And almost immediately, yellow tape goes up around them proclaiming "CAUTION --TREE PROTECTION AREA."