The fall 2023 issue of Missouri Times has a photo of a coon hunter’s mule jumping a woven wire fence
![IMG_5126.jpeg IMG_5126.jpeg](https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/data/attachments/254/254991-60f1762504842429bb390ca3aed5db74.jpg)
A few coon hunters rode mules back when I was a kid. The mule is not a spirited animal and will ride slowly through the timber at night, and when a fence appears will stop and allow the rider to cross and then jump the fence, my father explained.
My mother thought any man who would lay out all night with a bunch of his buddies instead of in bed with his wife getting ready to get up early the next morning to work would never keep much of a wife for very long if he ever attracted a wife in the first place.![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
When there were foxes, my father and a few of his friends would fox hunt at night.
But that was socially acceptable because children could tag along, the fox was never killed, and the men could build a fire and join their families after hounds struck and the fox was on the run.
I can still remember a blanket of a million stars overhead and my parents arm in arm listening to the music of the hounds as they chased but never caught a fox.
There’s no describing, pure heaven on earth.
I did coon hunt a little when I was a teenager. But there’s lots of things a teenaged boy does grown married men shouldn’t even want to do, you know?
![IMG_5126.jpeg IMG_5126.jpeg](https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/data/attachments/254/254991-60f1762504842429bb390ca3aed5db74.jpg)
A few coon hunters rode mules back when I was a kid. The mule is not a spirited animal and will ride slowly through the timber at night, and when a fence appears will stop and allow the rider to cross and then jump the fence, my father explained.
My mother thought any man who would lay out all night with a bunch of his buddies instead of in bed with his wife getting ready to get up early the next morning to work would never keep much of a wife for very long if he ever attracted a wife in the first place.
When there were foxes, my father and a few of his friends would fox hunt at night.
But that was socially acceptable because children could tag along, the fox was never killed, and the men could build a fire and join their families after hounds struck and the fox was on the run.
I can still remember a blanket of a million stars overhead and my parents arm in arm listening to the music of the hounds as they chased but never caught a fox.
There’s no describing, pure heaven on earth.
I did coon hunt a little when I was a teenager. But there’s lots of things a teenaged boy does grown married men shouldn’t even want to do, you know?