Mules anyone?
- Thread starter NancyNGA
- Start date
Falcon
DV8
- Location
- So. California
Thanks for that Aunt Bea. I learned a lot.
Pappy
Living the Dream
Ode to a Mule - Ken Curtis
"Ever wonder why Festus rode a john mule named 'Ruth' in the TV series, Gunsmoke? Here Ken Curtis tells the story in Festus' own words. The majority of photos used are actual photos from the Civil War."
WARNING: Tear Jerker Ending
"Ever wonder why Festus rode a john mule named 'Ruth' in the TV series, Gunsmoke? Here Ken Curtis tells the story in Festus' own words. The majority of photos used are actual photos from the Civil War."
WARNING: Tear Jerker Ending
Last edited:
Pappy
Living the Dream
A little off topic, but the Chenango Canal use to run right through my hometown. This canal ran from Utica, NY to Binghamton. It was a feeder canal off the Erie Canal. 
Aunt Bea
SF VIP
- Location
- Near Mount Pilot
The Mule Days Celebration in Bishop, CA. I'll be there with bells on!!!
Aunt Bea
SF VIP
- Location
- Near Mount Pilot
Not a mule, just another smart Ass!
Deucemoi
Member
Okay NancyNGA here is a true story. When I was a kid on the ranch we had one jack and two jennies. The jack was a big ol boy and had a touch of mean in him. One afternoon I was out checking on animals when I rounded the garage to see the jack with the soft part of his nose against the electric fence wire. We had the electric fence to keep the animals from the hay. He had his front feet crossed and was sound asleep..I thought maybe the charger for the fence wasnt working but I could hear it ticking in the garage. mmmm.. Odd..So I touched the wire......bad move. It shocked the living crap out of me..Pissed me off so bad I grabbed a 2x4 and smacked that mule in the head. He shook his head and looked at me like 'what the heck you wake me up for'.....
Thanks for the story, Duecemoi. It is strange how that mule could stand his nose on the fence. I've touched our fence a few times, but never on purpose. The worst was hitting it with the top of my head. One minute I was standing up, next minute I was on the ground. Never knew what hit me. Had to figured it out later.
Aunt Bea
SF VIP
- Location
- Near Mount Pilot
Pappy
Living the Dream
Aunt Bea
SF VIP
- Location
- Near Mount Pilot
Aunt Bea
SF VIP
- Location
- Near Mount Pilot
I wish I knew what they were looking at.
Aunt Bea
SF VIP
- Location
- Near Mount Pilot
The Quill and the Mule - by Rick Bragg
Photo by Phil Mullen
From the article:
"Scholars have long debated the defining element of great Southern literature. Is it a sense of place? Lost causes? A struggle to transcend the boundries of class and race? No. ... After some four decades of cataloging, Prof. Jerry Leath Mills, of UNC Chapel Hill concluded that the true test is: "Is there a dead mule in it?
Southern writers were killing mules even before William Faulkner drowned a perfectly good team in the Yoknapatawpha River in As I Lay Dying in 1930.
The carnage has been written about in The Southern Literary Journal and debated at academic conferences. Mules have perished in books, plays, and stories. They have been worked to death, bludgeoned, asphyxiated (by accident and on purpose), run over, shot (by accident and on purpose), bitten by rabid dogs, stabbed, starved, frozen, herded into the barren plain to perish of thirst, driven mad by erroneously administered castor oil (the less said about this the better), led out to be murdered on the blind curve of a train track, and, in Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, hung from a chandelier.
They have been killed by Larry McMurtry, Richard Wright, Reynolds Price, Larry Brown, Robert Morgan, Jack Farris, Kaye Gibbons, Clyde Edgerton... everybody who is anybody. The most inventive is Cormac McCarthy, who had one beheaded by an unbalanced opera singer. "
William Faulkner at least knew mules. With the help of his brother, John, he bred them and grew corn to feed them on his 320-acre farm about 17 miles northeast of Oxford, Mississippi. J.R. Cofield, Faulkner's personal photographer, recalls, “Bill saw Phil Mullen’s closeup picture of a Mississippi mule in my studio one day — I had attached to the print a clipping of his writings in praise of the lowly mule. Only time I ever saw Bill autograph something without being asked.”
Faulkner at his barn.
Photo by Phil Mullen
From the article:
"Scholars have long debated the defining element of great Southern literature. Is it a sense of place? Lost causes? A struggle to transcend the boundries of class and race? No. ... After some four decades of cataloging, Prof. Jerry Leath Mills, of UNC Chapel Hill concluded that the true test is: "Is there a dead mule in it?
Southern writers were killing mules even before William Faulkner drowned a perfectly good team in the Yoknapatawpha River in As I Lay Dying in 1930.
The carnage has been written about in The Southern Literary Journal and debated at academic conferences. Mules have perished in books, plays, and stories. They have been worked to death, bludgeoned, asphyxiated (by accident and on purpose), run over, shot (by accident and on purpose), bitten by rabid dogs, stabbed, starved, frozen, herded into the barren plain to perish of thirst, driven mad by erroneously administered castor oil (the less said about this the better), led out to be murdered on the blind curve of a train track, and, in Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, hung from a chandelier.
They have been killed by Larry McMurtry, Richard Wright, Reynolds Price, Larry Brown, Robert Morgan, Jack Farris, Kaye Gibbons, Clyde Edgerton... everybody who is anybody. The most inventive is Cormac McCarthy, who had one beheaded by an unbalanced opera singer. "
William Faulkner at least knew mules. With the help of his brother, John, he bred them and grew corn to feed them on his 320-acre farm about 17 miles northeast of Oxford, Mississippi. J.R. Cofield, Faulkner's personal photographer, recalls, “Bill saw Phil Mullen’s closeup picture of a Mississippi mule in my studio one day — I had attached to the print a clipping of his writings in praise of the lowly mule. Only time I ever saw Bill autograph something without being asked.”
Father and mother he does not resemble, sons and daughters he will never have;
vindictive and patient (it is a known fact that he will labor ten years willingly
and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once).
vindictive and patient (it is a known fact that he will labor ten years willingly
and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once).
Faulkner at his barn.
