June 28, 1992 Kentucky Man Takes Old Friend For Last Ride
NEBO, Ky. -- Old friends. Pete Ayers and Doug Helm met during the Second World War. Helm owned a few cattle trucks and hired Ayers as one of his drivers. Helm later got in the coal-hauling business. Ayers combined farming and coal mining for his life’s work. Helm sold his last truck two years ago and pronounced himself retired. Ayers walked out of the mines for the final time in 1983. Helm owned mules most of his adult life. He prided himself on having the finest stock and enjoyed the good feeling that comes with keeping a tradition alive. He kept pestering his buddy to become a convert. You don’t know what you’re missing by not having mules, he said. You’ll meet new people. You’ll see new places. Very well, Ayers replied. I’ll try a couple of animals and see how I like it. That was 10 years ago. Since then, he’s stabled more than 40 mules and traveled as far as Texas to go on wagon rides. The Hopkins County men shared the same age – 70 – but little else. Doug Helm loved to laugh. Trucking, farming, life in rural America – he had hundreds of stories. Pete Ayers is quieter. Ask a question and he’ll give the briefest of answers. If you want to hear more, you’ll have to ask another question. Helm wasn’t a collector of mules. If a pair worked together, he’d keep the animals until they died. Ayers is a trader. Buy today, sell tomorrow. The four mules in his barn know better than to take out a long-term lease. The two men became even closer friends when Ayers left the mines. A spontaneous man by nature, Helm was always ready to go on a wagon ride. Right now? Ayers would ask. What’s to stop us? Helm would say. Usually nothing. They’d pack their wives and a few provisions Garret Mathews
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