Roll up the newspaper, but don’t forget the 2-by-4 When I was a small child, I remember hearing a story from my grandfather.
He was a retired blacksmith and was functionally illiterate, but he played a mean fiddle, and he loved to tell stories. One story I remember — and only recently really understood — was his advice on how to train a mule.
Mules are notoriously stubborn and hard to work with. But he explained that if you rolled up a piece of newspaper and just tapped them on the nose, they would follow you anywhere.
I was incredulous and asked, ”Just a rolled up newspaper?” “Yup,” he replied. “But first you gotta hit them across the ass with a 2-by-4 to get their attention.” I took some other advice from my grandfather as well.