Where to go with this...???? Hmmmmm Ok.......If you will notice the songs under "Erie canal"....the mention in many songs of the mules...... The mules were used to pull the barges....barges were generally "poled" down the rivers....or pulled by mule ....as they had little or no power of their own.

The singer...In "OLD MAN RIVER"...was (I believe) a dock worker....."available" to do the job at hand....be it loading bales of cotton.....or whatever...The song is a form of lamentation.......backbreaking drudgery......but as long as the river is there...he will be also.....

When the barges needed to be pulled into the dock....guess who got the job??????...wasn't me.....