I was palaverin' with CHC last night and got to reminiscing.......

So here is my one and only mule story.

I went broke in 1986. Lost my business, house, cars and self esteem. I moved my family into a dilapidated rent house that flooded three times in the first six months we lived there. The house was on the east side of a local street that dead ended into a 20 acre or so field.
The guy across the street had a "4 wheel parts" junk yard.
He was a great big barrel-chested bear of a man who had a surly disposition and was always hollerin' at his wife and kids. He also had a son that was the same age as my oldest son. He and my son Glenn soon became running buddies. They were always getting into trouble (they were only 6 yrs old at the time) as they were harum-scarum little imps.
Anyway Roy was his name (the dad) and Roy was a pack rat, a hoarder and a really small minded man. Anything he owned was golden. Anything you owned was lead. On top of that he was a horse trader of the first order.
Among other possessions, he had this mule. From time to time he would harness him up and pull stuff around. I guess in his own way he might have cared for that mule, but it seemed to me, it was just another living creature he could bully or take out his frustrations on.
After a time he decides to put the mule up for sale. Well it seems that on the day in question, he had a fellow coming over to look at buying this mule. Just about an hour before the prospective "mark" got there, Roy's son, Marshall and my son Glenn III found a gallon bucket of fluorescent green paint. Evidently they had watched a cowboys and indians movie recently, cause they took that bucket of green paint and dipped their hands in it, and covered that mule in little green hand prints. Even got a step ladder or something cause they had prints much higher than they could naturally reach. Naturally this turned out to be an oil based paint and not a latex.
Well when that fellow got there, he and Roy went to take a look at that mule. Right away he told Roy, he wasn't gonna buy a mule that had been painted green, at least not without a steep discount. Boy was Roy pissed. He beat Marshall, then came over dragging the boy, (a little fat cherub that was a miniature of his dad, except for the disposition) to tell me about it. He wanted me to beat my son.
I almost got a hernia and a whuppin' from Roy myself cause I laughed so hard. Naturally this turned out to be an oil based paint and not a latex and IIRC, it took a couple weeks for it to wear off. Every time I saw that mule I just about died laffin' from the vision of Roy, Marshall and that mule.

Best

GWB