Lancaster Man Has His Mule Team Hitched Up to a Century Past

Some guys just want to live in the past, and Fred Valentino is one of them.

But in the case of this 54-year-old Antelope Valley man, the past he’s stubbornly clinging to is not his own.

His friends say his body may be functioning in this century, but his head’s in the last one.

Valentino is quick to agree with that analysis.

He likes to picture himself living in the 1800s when California was full of rattlesnakes, rabbits and self-made men who were in the process of making themselves up. These were guys who panned for gold, and built railroads, roads and waterways, and who took some mules and a wagon and found ways to make a fortune, according to Valentino.

He doesn’t pan or build, but he does have a lot of mules and wagons. They cost him about $10,000 a year, instead of making him a fortune.

It’s a price the man who was named this year’s World Champion Mule Driver in competition at the Bishop Mule Days is more than willing to pay.

Valentino, who won the title in a series of competitions over Memorial Day, was born and reared on a farm in Upstate New York where mules were used to plow the fields when he was a youngster. The tractor came along to change that, but Valentino never got over his fondness for the animals.

“You know they’re not human, but sometimes they’re so smart they seem to be out-thinking you,” he says. “They have days when they just don’t want to go to work and it becomes a real test of wills.”

Back when Valentino and his wife, Katherine, were in their 20s, they thought they wanted out of bucolia, craving a taste of a big city and bright lights.

They chose Long Beach, which sounded glamorous, and was, heaven knew, about as far away as they could get from their childhood farm lives.

City life was a bust.

He took a job in Saugus in the 1960s doing construction on, if memory serves him, the Feather River Project. It wasn’t long before the Valentino family--which came to include four sons--was living in what was then the Antelope Valley boonies. “I had to have a little room to breathe,” he says.

For the past six years, the family has lived on a 10-acre spread that houses the Valentinos, as well as Kate, Emmy, Mary, Luke, Jack, Jill, Rita and Freta.

The latter eight are the Valentino mules.

“I went to Bishop about 16 years ago, saw some mules and said to myself that I had to have some. I really like mules, like working with them, like having them around.

“In addition to being smart, they have incredible stamina, not like horses who wilt in the heat or who can’t adjust to altitude or other conditions,” Valentino says.

One mule led to another. That led to getting some wagons for the teams to work with.

That led to buying trailers to haul the mules and wagons around.

Valentino, whose day job is overseeing an Antelope Valley landfill, still wishes he lived in the 1800s, but says the mules and his antique wagons help him to feel at one with the Old West while dealing with the here and now.

“Most everyone in the area interested in mules knows about me and my teams,” says Valentino, who adds that a lot of times other mule lovers will bring their teams out to his place to plow the old-fashioned way. “I grow my own barley for the mules. Use the mules to plow the fields. Use their waste to fertilize the crops,” he says.

He also is well-known as a soft touch when it comes to offering his mules and a wagon for rides to any group that is holding a fund-raiser.

It’s not exactly Death Valley days, he says, but it’s as close as he’s going to get.

Magic and Fortune With Your Caribbean Dinner

Red Robin restaurants have people in giant red robin outfits who bop around giving kiddies balloon animals and otherwise keeping them occupied while their parents are trying to eat.

Other eateries provide children with crayons and coloring books, funny masks, special menus or other such frippery.

For those petulant grown-ups grumbling about children receiving all this attention, check out Cha Cha Cha in Encino on Sunday nights.

No longer need one be bored while sipping one’s Voodoo Moondance and nibbling on one’s skewered ahi and Yucca fries.

The Caribbean restaurant offers the services of both a magician and fortune teller.

No, the magician cannot make the check go away.

Artist Creates Colorful Children’s Island History

Andrea Cleall is a Woodland Hills artist and designer whose work is in galleries on the Hawaiian Islands and the Mainland.

On a recent trip to Maui, she was trying to find something that would convey the rich historical heritage of the islands to bring back to her two grandchildren.

Drawing a blank, she thought about what she would have liked to have brought back to the youngsters. So she created the Island Dancers Coloring Book, sold at Child Dreams in Studio City.

According to Cleall--who has signed the art work in this book with the name Mamma Annie, as she is known to her grandchildren--the book honors the dances and dancers of the many Pacific islands including Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, New Guinea and the Trobriand.

The men’s dances, she says, are energetic and aggressive and celebrate hunting and the activities of warriors. The women’s dances celebrate births, bless harvests, welcome guests and bid farewell.

In the introduction, Cleall has a little history lesson about the migration from Asia and Australia to the many islands, and how the mariners and navigators used stars, the winds and the flight patterns of birds and waves to locate land.

“I am always struck by how much the dances reflect the intelligence, humor, beauty, uniqueness, power and gentleness of Hawaii and other islands and the courage and fortitude of the people who settled there,” she says. The artist hopes that children will not only enjoy coloring in the book, but will be encouraged to learn more about the islands.

“There is so much to learn from these island people and their culture, especially for our ecologically enlightened young people,” Cleall says.

Overheard

“It was a lot more fun and relaxing when someone I didn’t vote for was president. Now everyone in my family is unhappy, including my mother, who calls Clinton the Big Louse in the White House, and my wife, who’s still mad that we didn’t elect Hillary to begin with because she’s smarter and can get places on time.”

Man to woman while both were waiting in line to buy tickets to the movie “In the Line of Fire” in Woodland Hills.