Playing Fair and Being Kind

It’s difficult sometimes to make up one’s mind. In light of all the things I’ve done over my lifetime I think I would rather be a mule. I haven’t come by this choice easily. I’ve thought it over on occasion whenever the tune “Swinging on a Star” has rambled across my brain. “Would you like to swing on a star? Carry moonbeams home in a jar? And be better off than you are? Or would you rather be a mule?” Then the lyrics go on to denigrate the mule as well as a pig later on. I’m not so sure humans are any better. In fact I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the lyrics are rather judgmental.

I think mules are cool. At the Common Ground Fair held in September in Maine I enjoy visiting the farm animals in the barn and I go straight for the mules. There is something about them that is so satisfying to me. I first heard about the qualities of mules from a sick-bay roommate back in the mid-sixties in Portsmouth Naval Hospital. We were in an isolation ward for ten days because the TB skin test that we were subject to came out positive. Back then a positive test result was cause for panic and we were immediately  put into a limbo condition to see if the disease was going to manifest. Medical staff behaved like the mules of the lyrics. That is; “His back is brawny but his brain is weak, He’s just plain stupid with a stubborn streak.” What my roommate, a tobacco farmer, revealed to me is that mules are the beast of burden of choice for those who can choose between a horse and a mule. He claimed that mules are precise in their footwork between the rows of tobacco plants whereas horses walk on everything. That little piece of information has stuck with me for all these 50 plus years.

So, I think some days I would rather be a mule. My only fear is that I might not want to stay a mule forever. I might want to visit mule-dom and then return to my human form. That then raises another issue; how to perform this changeover and do it under controlled circumstances. I’d need a friend whom I could trust to not mess around with me and bring me back when I said to. I’ll have to think more on this. I’ll get back to you.

G. M. Goodwin 1 July 2016