Autumn traditions interweave old and new
Autumn in the Ozarks means
• Football — Blackhawks and Razorbacks;
• Gathering and selling black walnuts;
• Picking up hickory nuts;
• Getting the last hay crop in the barn;
• Cutting and stacking firewood;
• Turkey shoot; and, last but not least
• Jumping mules — the annual Pea Ridge Mule Jump!
Growing up in northwest Louisiana, I was far more familiar with the evergreen pines, live oaks and cypress trees that dotted our gently rolling landscape, replete bayous and lakes.
When I was a young teen, my family took road trips north into Arkansas to see the fall foliage.
Little did I realize then that four decades later I would call northwest Arkansas home. Here hillsides are bedecked with brilliant reds, oranges and yellows of the oaks, hickories, walnuts and sassafras trees in the fall. The Pawpaw trees provide a delectable fruit if one can beat the forest scavengers (opossums, foxes, squirrels, raccoons and birds) to them.
Autumn in Pea Ridge country just wouldn’t be the same without the annual turkey shoot at Garfield and the mule jump in Pea Ridge.
(And no, they don’t shoot turkeys. A frozen turkey is won by the person with the highest score shooting at paper targets.)
I fondly remember my first mule jump, although it doesn’t exactly “count” in the enumeration of the 30th annual event being held Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018.
The first event I attended was in 1985.
It was the fall festival and was held on the school grounds on the downtown corner of North Curtis Avenue and Pickens Street. (Then, that was the ONLY school campus.) The fall festival and mule jump were an incredible amount of fun.
I grew up in a city and had not seen mules jump nor coon dogs tree a raccoon. It was engaging to watch the farmers coax (or curse) their mules over the jump. Each man, each mule, had his own style.
Denim overall-clad gents would quietly, unhurriedly walk their mule to the wooden structure built for a jump. Sometimes they would quietly whisper in the mule’s ear and he’d just leap over the barrier. Other times, the mule would balk and the farmer would get frustrated. He’d back up, and start again, speaking more demandingly to the mule.
Today isn’t much different, except it’s in front of a crowd of thousands of people, many of whom are not known to the “locals.”
This event, now held for the amusement of those attending, has deep roots among the Ozark farmers, who used their mules to farm as well as to hunt.
In all of life, the old is beautifully interwoven with the new. So, too, with the mule jump.
Third- and fourth-generation family members participate in a tradition wrapped up in the old ways. Family names repeat themselves again and again in the list of winners. As some grow older and retire from jumping, they pass their wisdom on to the younger generation and take a back seat to their grandchildren who continue to lead their mules to the jump. Over the past 30 years, some of the former mule owners have passed on and leave a hole filled by their children and grandchildren.
People attending the mule jump see old friends and make new friends.
The mules — small and large, light colored and dark — continue to bray, balk, prance and jump to the delight of the crowds.
The Pea Ridge Mule Jump has become entwined in the color of Pea Ridge.
It, like the story of the pea vine and the Battle of Pea Ridge, help form the fabric of this community so rich with character and caring people.
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Editor’s note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County, chosen the best small weekly newspaper in Arkansas for five years. A native of Louisiana, she moved to northwest Arkansas in 1980 to work for the Benton County Daily Record. She has nine children, four sons-in-law, eight grandsons and three granddaughters. She can be reached at abeard@nwaonline.com.