A Present-Day Look at Benson’s Mule Days

By TERESA BLACKMON

I grew up thinking Mule Days was as important as the Christmas holidays, if not more so. My family was instrumental in the founding of this September event and for us it was as much a family reunion as it was a four-day celebration.

Our “family” consisted not only of McLambs, but also of the cowboys and cowgirls who came to town for the rodeo and many campers who used their vacation time to bring mules for competition.

As I think about what to write, I realize that what I remember is quite different from what young people of today will remember. Maybe it doesn’t matter that there is so much difference.

I remember when the parade was on Friday afternoons and the rodeo was at the “old” ballpark, we called it. (Now Mitch Nance Athletic field.) I remember when fences were flimsy and bulls jumped them almost every year. Back then floats were homemade by townspeople who created spectacular scenes on old trailers, and kids decorated bicycles to ride in the parade, flashy with streamers, bells and horns.

Mules, young and old, groaned at coming to town, but held their heads high and plodded down the street uncomfortably. Townspeople covered front porches with rocking chairs and friends, huge plates of barbecue and buckets of slaw.

It seems that every year I write about memories, and this year I want to write from a different perspective.

What will the young people of today remember? Cell phones on horseback? Fast food instead of potato salad and fresh pound cakes? They moved horseback riding from town (which was a good idea), but now the air is ravaged with the angry sound of jacked-up trucks.

Instead of roaring campfires around the rodeo arena and campsites, souped-up gas grills cook whole hogs and local grocery stores produce what were once made-from-scratch layer cakes to store-bought, mass-produced concoctions.

Cowboys and their families packed into the grounds on rusty horse trailers and trucks big enough to hold provisions for the whole weekend. They arrived on Thursdays and didn’t leave until they had their hands filled with Sunday’s prize money or a handful of defeat. Now they rush to the rodeo grounds on enormous trucks and trailers, just in time for their event and leave quicker than the eight-second whistle.

Loud speakers blast what people now consider country songs, having completely forgotten the real country music from Hank Williams, Glen Campbell, Charley Pride, Loretta Lynn and Roy Acuff.

In my memory, there were few, if any, vendors in town. Families packed lunches and snacks for the parade or ate the barbecue long prepared in the Singing Grove. Now being in Benson on the fourth weekend in September is like being at a world-wide smorgasboard of delights.

The people at the first Mule Days celebration never thought of eating turkey at any other time than Thanksgiving; imagine what they would think of turkey legs almost as big as the hind end of a hog? And tacos and burritos? They would gasp! They would be shocked that people were paying good money for unshucked corn. Shaved ice, when their ice blocks we can help keep your came from the ice plant that was on Wall Street? Funnel cakes? Well, they did miss out on these. So do the differences matter? Well, to old folks like me, they do sometimes. I must admit that.

My biggest concern is that celebrants of the future will forget the mule and its contribution to American life. Maybe Mim the statue will remind them, or old copies of Mule Day books hopefully preserved in the Benson Museum. Or by people like me who find it difficult to let go of the past.

Maybe, just maybe, the differences do not matter if future generations can still appreciate that, along with the mule, people in Benson celebrate community and family and tradition. That’s the most important thing!

Teresa McLamb Blackmon is a lifelong resident of Benson. Her father, Willis E. McLamb, and Nowell Smith brought Mule Days to Benson from Tennessee. He continued producing rodeos until his death. For years, The Mule Days rodeo was “The Big One” for cowboys all over the Southeast. Blackmon is a retired English teacher and poet. She lives on the family farm just outside of Benson and continues to support the Mule Day celebration.