. . . The importance of mules in southern literature of course reflects the importance of mules in southern life, at least until very recent times. The first American mules were produced in Virginia by George Washington, who bred to some of his draft mares a jackass received as a gift from the king of Spain. The mule (Equus caballus x asinus) proved ideal for southern farm life, being sure-footed, economical to feed, strong on stamina, and long of life. (They are, of course, also strong on stubbornness and have a tendency to become dangerous when perturbed as Faulkner observed in The Reivers [1962], one will "work for you patiently for ten years for the chance to kick you once" -- but some mule handlers consider this simply as adding elements of challenge and sport.)

In their heyday in the South, prior to about 1950, mules provided farm labor, transportation, and assistance in hunting, especially the kinds involving thick timber and hounds. James Battle Avirett's The Old Plantation (1908) gives an account of mules on a bear hunt remarkably similar to Faulkner's fictionalization. The largest plantations bred and raised their own mules; but the more usual practice was to buy full-grown animals raised mainly in Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky, often in sizes for special use -- the largest for hauling timber and for work on the big sugar and rice plantations, the smallest for mine duty and pack-animal service in the mountains. The most common type was the general-purpose "cotton mule" that grew to between a half-ton and fourteen hundred pounds. Mules come in most of colors that horses display, with dark brown, black, and grey predominating. Almost all mules are sired by jacks, but when the horse is the male parent the offspring is called a "henny" or "hinny." Mules, like many hybrids, are unable to reproduce.

Although the era of the working mule is over, there remains a rich legacy, not only in the literature described above but also in our speech. One may be as stubborn as a mule, but if he is flexible in his travels he lets a mule's rear end be his compass. His favorite shotgun and whisky may both kick like a mule, and something may please him enough to make him grin like a mule eating briars, especially if he makes enough money to burn up a wet mule or has forty acres and a mule without mortgage.

The term good old boy has been so widely misapplied, misinterpreted, and even mispronounced in recent years that it is now useful as a kind of shibboleth to distinguish people with experiential knowledge of southern culture and speech from those who derive their impressions from the national media. Inappropriate usage dates from the 1960s, among northern reporters covering civil rights in the South, compounded by stories on Jimmy Carter's Georgia origins during his presidential term (1977-1981). This coverage perpetuated certain misconceptions: that good old boy was synonymous with redneck; that it could be used to describe a particular social class; and that it was properly pronounced as though it were a single word with the emphasis on the first syllable.

In correct southern form, the phrase is pronounced as three distinct and equally accented words. It is always an individual distinction: a good old boy may be of any age, hold any job or profession, and belong to any economic class. And it is an honorable term, one that conveys approval and respect. West Virginia author Breece D'J Pancake, in a letter to his mother, wrote of his recently deceased father that "he was a good old boy and to imitate him wouldn't be a mistake," in the same spirit with which Willie Morris entitled his autobiographical account of a cherished Mississippi childhood Good Old Boy (1971).

The qualities of a good old boy are more or less formally defined by the journalist Tom Wolfe, a Virginian, in a famous essay on racecar driver Junior Johnson. Wolfe declares that such a person is "one who fits in with the status system of the region," displaying a good sense of humor, an acceptable amount of physical courage, and a tolerant and easygoing manner. John Shelton Reed elaborates on this description, producing a convincing figure who is "positive, independent, competent, and strong."

None of this is to say, of course, that a good old boy shuns all breaches of decorum, especially in areas of conviviality and fellowship and of nonpassive response to what he regards as affronts to institutions he holds in reverence. A notable example of a working-class good old boy is the title character of Larry Brown's novel Joe (1991). One from the professional classes is the judge of Ozona, Texas, in Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses (1992).