GO WEST, OLD MEN: WEDNESDAY WAGON TRAIN TRAVLES THROUGH WAYNE, BOLLINGER AND CAPE GIRARDEAU COUNTIES FOR DOZEN YEARS

The wagon train consisted of four wagons this week. Three more were expected, but missed the 8 a.m. departure time. The trips are usually a weekly expedition starting from various points around the southeast region. Last week the trip began in Hiram and went to the Cascade fire tower and back.

The reigns coming from the mules were tied to the wagon during various breaks in the 23-mile journey.

WAYNE COUNTY -- A gaunt man in a long-sleeved shirt and overalls stands up in his wagon and waves. Go west, old men, John Van Gennip tells his companions.

The drivers of the three other wagons snap their harnesses and the mules begin to move. It's time to pull out of the grassy front yard where they've been exchanging opinions on livestock and the price of doughnuts, roll across Highway 34, and onto the back roads of Wayne County.

Van Gennip takes the lead with Tom and Bob, his horses, as the group goes up a trail more mud than gravel. One horse's hoof disappears into a deep puddle as the homemade wagon bangs in and out of other holes.

"We're lucky to get through here," he says.

But almost every Wednesday for the past 12 years, these wagons have continued rolling through Wayne, Bollinger, and Cape Girardeau counties. They are driven by a small group of men with an affinity for mules and an unhurried life.

"I've always enjoyed getting out here, moving at a slower pace," says Lindall Liley, 69. "You see things more closely, things you wouldn't normally see from an automobile."

On the first Wednesday of June, the horses' slow gait gives Van Gennip the chance to see more deerflys than he'd like. They cover Tom's neck like a sheet.

"Me and the Lord have a disagreement about deerflys," Van Gennip says. "I don't see any use for His creating them."

Van Gennip has only driven his horses with the others for four years. He started with a pair of one-ton Belgian draft horses, but sold them for his current smaller team. They remain the odd couple among the other wagons, pulled exclusively by mules.

Van Gennip would have mules, too, if it wasn't for his wife. She is stubborn about mules, he says.

After mules chased both their cows and her, Van Gennip says his wife made him choose between keeping her or the mules.

"If I had a pair of mules like Melvin's, she'd like them better," he said.

This week Melvin Hovis, 59, has Jack, 3, and Pete, 10, pulling his wagon. He made three-year-old Jill stay at home. Hovis wants to teach Jack a lesson.

"Do you see how he's pulling to this side of the road and then to the other?" Hovis asks. "Pete just moves straight ahead at a steady pace. I want to break Jack in like Pete."

After 10 years in the Wednesday wagon train, Hovis knows something about breaking in mules. He specializes in giving them haircuts as well.

"I'll trim them up real close around the head and ears, and it brings out their color better," he said. "

Don't believe anything Hovis says, Van Gennip says with a wink.

"When we get out here we like to tell stories on one another," Van Gennip says.

Van Gennip starts to tell a story about Hovis' high school girlfriend.

"They won't talk about me like this when they want a haircut for their mules," Hovis says.

But talk about the time Hovis' mules fell off a bridge is not off limits.

"It happened on the fifth of March two years ago," Hovis says.

"Are you sure it was this bridge?" says Chalk Givens, 76, referring to an eight-foot wide, two-foot high wooden bridge along their trail.

"Of course it was," Hovis says. "It was on my 57th birthday."

"The way it happened I thought one of them was dead," Van Gennip says, remembering how one mule landed on top of the other.

"No, only the harness was damaged," Liley says, correcting him.

"It would have been worse if the one on the bottom hadn't stayed so calm," Hovis says.

Such memories haven't made the mules more wary of Wednesdays.

"On Tuesday nights they get a little hesitant about coming into the barn," Liley says. "They know what time of the week it is and they're ready to go."

The routes change from week to week, but generally always start from one of the driver's properties. The circular trails are between 18 and 24 miles, Van Gennip says.

By now, the mules know the paths as well as their owners.

"The mules enjoy these trips," Liley says "They know the routes, where to stop for doughnuts. You don't have to tell them nothing. They'll stop right there."

As the wagons rattle down a slight slope, Liley's mules don't stop as quickly as they should and bump Givens' wagon.

"I did that to him last week," says Van Gennip, grinning.

If one driver damages another's wagon, he is obligated to fix it, Van Gennip says.

"Do that to me two times and I won't be coming back," says Hovis with a laugh.

Most of this group's wagons are built by a craftsman in Dexter, and cost between $3,000 and $8,000, Van Gennip says. Van Gennip made his own, using oak scraps from his woodpile and metal pieces from his blacksmith shop. After paying for sideboards and cushions, his wagon cost $500, he says.

The invention of tractors have made mules mostly obsolete during the latter half of this century, Givens says.

"Back in the 1950s mules became so cheap you could buy more than you could hold in a trailer truck," Givens says.

Their use has not changed much since then, Hovis says, but mules can be sold for a profit in the right market. The Amish like big mules, he says.

"That pair of matching grays that Liley has could go for $5,000," Hovis says. "The Amish will work their mules good and hard."

Liley's mules, Ada and Ida, seem content with life as it is. As the wagons drive along a stretch of Route MM before turning back into the woods, two cars and a delivery truck speed by. The mules barely turn their ears to acknowledge the sound of the tires. They are taking life at their own pace.

A little girl looks back as her mother's car passes the mules, perhaps wishing to trade places with the wagon drivers.

Givens, who takes his mules on camping trips, says he can understand.

"Where a lot of people might want a big fine boat or car, I'll take a mule," he says.