Driving mules, for work and pleasure, is alive and well in pockets all over the country. One group in central North Carolina gets together for short jaunts on mule-pulled wagons, forming a loose community that appreciates the pace of days gone by.
Photos & Essay by Lisa Whiteman
January 31, 2023
Ronald Hudson has aged in the 13 years since I last saw him. His hair is whiter, his shoulders curled in, but his blue eyes hold the same kindness, and being in his company feels immediately familiar. He has a calmness I associate with Southerners — not anxious or hurried. I suppose if you were hurried, you’d be a poor match for a mule, which has been Ronald’s most constant companion for the last 50-plus years.
Mules travel at a clip of about 3 miles per hour and famously do things, or don’t, at their own pace. “M’yuuu-uhl” — Ronald makes a meal out of the word, saying it with a drawl that seems fitting for such a slow and sturdy beast.
Ronald Hudson likes music but never thinks to listen to it while he’s riding. He once rode with a friend all the way to California “without ever cutting the radio on.”
I met Ronald in 2009, when I attempted to make a shot-but-never-finished documentary about him and a group of his muleskinner friends who regularly take recreational road trips across North Carolina. A “muleskinner” is the term used for a mule driver, but it also refers to the microculture of the caravan. They pull over at night to sleep on farms and in the yards of churches and friends, their sleeping bags or old quilts laid out in the backs of their wagons. They open up a can of Beanee Weenee, or splurge on a “fish dinner” — what they affectionately call a tin of sardines. Sometimes they chase it down with a few sips of homemade moonshine they’ve brought in Mason jars, sitting around a campfire and telling stories they’ve shared a thousand times.
“[Ronald is] just an icon to our community. Everybody knows Ronald,” Janet Wallace, host of the Sand Hills Trail Rides at the Hoffman Field Trial Grounds, where we all met in September, says. “He can be doing five things at one time, but he’s never too busy to answer a question or to help somebody. He’s a genuine soul.”
I grew up in North Carolina, and I have a real affection for it, but I also never fully felt like I belonged in the South. Maybe it’s because my parents grew up north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and therefore the Southern food, accents, and “ma’am”s and “sir”s weren’t a part of our household. Even so, or perhaps because of it, there’s something fascinating to me about immersing myself in groups that have a strongly defined culture. I lacked that, so the next best thing is to spend time with those who have it.
One of Ronald’s personal goals as a muleskinner is to give younger generations, like 11-year-old Stetson Yow (pictured left), a bridge to the past and inspire some of them to carry on the tradition.
The last time I traveled with Ronald and his friends, we covered 86 miles. By car, it would take about an hour and a half; by mule, it took us a leisurely four days. This time, we stayed on a spacious patch of government-owned land in the center of the state, where muleskinners can ride in large loops without the added danger of car traffic. The scenery is less varied — it’s mostly rows of pine trees with miles of trails running through them — but you can go for a brief three-hour ride, as opposed to a full day’s journey. I got the impression that these days, the longer trips are hard on Ronald, who’s now 83 and told me he suffers from back problems. Shorter jaunts scratch the itch but take less of a toll.
Ella Dallas, 10, on her paint horse, PJ. When she saw me with my camera, she asked me, “Can I rear up?” Ella has been riding horses since she was 4 years old. Ella lives with her grandfather in Seagrove, North Carolina, and wants to become a barrel racer. Randy, her grandfather, said horses are all she wants to talk about and noted that his granddaughter is very brave.
Ronald began muleskinning when he was about 25 years old, after he saw some local guys on TV traveling by mule. He said to his father, “That looks like something we might be interested in.” The way he tells it, they simply went and bought a mule, and then another, and so began a lifestyle Ronald has embraced for about half a century. These days he has a dozen mules on his farm just outside Asheboro and has lost count of how many wagons he owns. Of course, wagons are more affordable to maintain than mules — or, as Ronald puts it, “wagons don’t eat.”
At 83, Ronald has some back problems, which he’s been treating with acupuncture. “After I had it done, a fella asked me, ‘What’d you think of that?’ I said, ‘I believe it’s the next best thing to sex.’”
If you ask Ronald a question, he may take upwards of 10 minutes to answer it. His use of language makes me laugh: It’s clever, and he turns phrases I’d never dream of. A retired roofer, he occasionally gives mule wagon tours at local town festivals for some extra cash. He looks the part: His outfits aren’t flashy, but they’re timeless and thoughtful. Sometimes he accessorizes with a kerchief tied around his neck, or a vest, and, of course, a wide-brimmed hat.
Jaxon Wilkins (9) stands nose-to-nose with a horse.
Ronald graciously brought out one of the classic wagons with metal wheels for me, because he thought I’d find it more photogenic, despite the fact that the ride is much less smooth on the bumpy dirt roads than the wagons with rubber tires, and probably not great for his back. Getting the mules ready in the morning is a process, but one that doesn’t come with complaint or urgency. The muleskinners wake up with the sun still low in the sky, to feed and brush and hook up the mules, maybe give a mane or tail a trim. They make each other food on their camp stoves — our camp had bacon and eggs, with a couple of chubby dogs staring us down for handouts. As the camp comes to life, the air is filled with braying and barking, laughter, and the sound of kids playing. Many of the kids ride ponies around the camp — miniature humans on miniature animals, in a picture-perfect free-range life.
Chloe Richardson, 11, (pictured above) and her sister, Makayla, 13, have been around horses and mules their whole lives. They started riding on trails independently around age 6 with a pony named Tiny.
I’m told the younger generations are drawn to this lifestyle, but the rising cost of land may prevent the average person from living it — to have mules, you need a place to keep them. And fewer folks use them on the farm as work animals, so they become more of a luxury item. It’s a personal goal of Ronald’s to show this generation of kids how some of their ancestors may have traveled and to give them a bridge to the past. He hopes that riding with him will give the younger ones a taste for it so that at least some of them carry on the tradition.
I ride with Ronald and his pal Melvin Beal, who regularly travels with Ronald and his mules to provide both company and assistance. Melvin keeps a close eye on operations and gives Ronald a hand when he asks for it but lets Ronald lead. They’ve known each other for as long as Ronald has been driving mules. Riding ahead are Kenny and Myla Tyndall. I’d met Kenny — a fast talker who never runs out of stories or history lessons — on my previous trip. Since then, he’d grown a bushy gray beard that his rosy cheeks and bright eyes peek through, and he’d found himself a wife who has a wry sense of humor and seems to be very no-nonsense. Kenny and Myla had just gotten married on this very land in a big celebration less than a year earlier. As we sit by their mule trailer, she eggs him on, “Tell the one about the possum. I love that one.”
During one of our rides, Kenny climbs off his wagon to take me through the edge of the forest, identifying the plants and trees around us. He shared with me the history of the Lumbee Tribe and taught me some Lumbee slang (“juvember” = “slingshot”; “gallinippers” = “mosquitoes”). He told me a string of stories of him and his friends playing pranks on each other, each tale punctuated by his infectious cackle. I asked Kenny if he ever falls for pranks. He admits that he does, but Myla adds, “I never hear those stories.”
Kenny came to muleskinning accidentally. He rode horseback but didn’t drive a wagon until he found himself in a situation where he needed to be a designated (wagon) driver for two intoxicated old men. That was 30 years ago, and he’s been driving mules ever since.
Both he and Ronald help train Army Special Forces, which sometimes need the particular talents of mules for difficult terrain. It runs in the family; Kenny’s grandfather was part of the MARS task force in World War II that drove mules in Burma.
Miranda Farmer, 12, poses while sitting atop a horse.
Kenny holding his dog, Betty. Betty’s a rescue who reminds him of Jekyll and Hyde: She’s really sweet unless you put her in a vehicle by herself. “She’ll turn into a monster and eat you up, ” Kenny says.
Ronald takes breaks for his mules when they become visibly sweaty; Melvin places a bandanna between one of the mule’s hips and the ropes, so that it doesn’t chafe. During these breaks, I climb out of the wagon to pet the mules’ soft noses and say hello, while they stare back at me with large, wet eyes. I’d forgotten just how enormous these creatures are; they make horses look dainty. The muleskinners prefer it aesthetically when their mule teams are coordinated in size and color, but they have to work well together, too. It takes a bit of trial and error to find a good team.
The ride is quiet, save for some chatter with Melvin and the sound of the cart squeaking and eight hooves pounding the sandy dirt. The wagon lurches and dips and occasionally gets caught in a pothole.
Another muleskinner pair, Sandra and Jeffrey Hoover, follow along in their wagon, too. Sandra’s creased face suggests she’s not young, but her spirit says otherwise — she’s got the energy of a teenager, and is always up for trouble. She reclines, with her flip-flops and freshly painted toes on the dash, smoking cigarettes and offering up beers.
Kenny and Myla at breakfast. Kenny’s great-grandmother was a Native American from the Pee Dee Tribe. In 1952, that tribe and several others were grouped together by the government and adopted the name “Lumbee.” Kenny says,“What the government did, they just threw [eight or nine tribes] together and said, ‘All y’all are Lumbees … everybody’s a Lumbee now.’” Kenny grew up in Robeson County, where much of the Lumbee Tribe lives, until he was 8 years old, and then he and his family moved to Southern Pines.
It felt good to be among them, to be disconnected and unaware of the time, to be fully present, and to get a glimpse of a life far removed from that of my home, which is now in New Jersey. Any differences we might have went ignored, and we simply enjoyed each other’s company.
After dinner one evening, some of the folks at the camp were kind enough to sit for nighttime portraits.
From top left to bottom right: Kenny Tyndall and his dog Betty, Makayla Richardson (13), Sandra Hoover, Myla Tyndall, Jerry McClamb, Sandra Hussey, Easton Yow (7), Stetson Yow (11), James Gillis, and Chloe Richardson (11)
I want to bring my (non-Southern) husband and kids to this place, to let parts of this lifestyle rub off on them, and to have a relationship with the South not dictated by what they hear about it through media and culture. They’re up for it. Ronald and I have made a plan to meet up again in the spring, when my kids will get a first-hand lesson in muleskinning and the art of slowing down.
Lisa Whiteman is a portrait, event, and documentary photographer. She is happiest when taking photos of people, whether they're senior citizens in a roller rink, young boys in a boxing gym in Cuba, or her heavily photographed (and patient) children. She grew up in rural North Carolina and now lives with her family in Maplewood, New Jersey, by way of New York City and Los Angeles. Her photos have appeared in films, books, and other publications, including GQ, Interview Magazine, and Los Angeles Times. You can find her work on Instagram at @lisawhitemanlens.
