There Is a Man Wandering Around California With 3 Mules.
Sometimes I wonder what it used to be like before one was aware of the many fears in the world that concern us from observing the internet and media...when some people probably have no idea and just live life being unaware of such things...
At times it would be nice if one could roam freely without fear...living a nomadic simple life !
He has a name, but he prefers to go by Mule. Police departments throughout the state know his name. They inevitably get calls from residents who wonder why a man with three mules is sleeping on the side of the road, and from time to time they have to go and investigate and decide whether or not to ticket him. He has had so many run-ins with the police that he has a lawyer. (The lawyer knows Mule's name.) The filmmaker John McDonald, who has spent hundreds of hours filming Mule on his journeys, and who helped Mule set up a Facebook page, knows Mule's name as well.
But Mule introduced himself to me as Mule, and so that's what I'm going to call him.
Mule is 65 years old and has slept outside with his three mules for the last 10 years, though he's lived his nomadic lifestyle for much longer than that -- 29 years on and off. Early on, he split his time between summer wandering, and then enduring what he calls "shit jobs" during the winter to earn enough to live off for the next summer.
He got his first mule in Spokane, Washington, so that he could carry more supplies with him into the bush than his meager, rail-thin frame can handle; McDonald says of Mule, "He has the build of Ghandi, but he sure doesn't have the personality of Ghandi." With his first mule, and then a second, and a third, he could load up on supplies to last him for much longer in the undeveloped parts of the American West, so he'd only have to resurface in towns to resupply once every month or so before once again disappearing.
But the world he inhabited was changing. While he sought solitude, he kept bumping into development. Land he had passed through was no longer public, and was vanishing behind fences. Everywhere he looked, he saw ever more roads and cars.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/man-wandering-around-california-3-113000929.html