Jerry Brown's History Lesson For Fourth Graders: 'They Ate Mule Meat'

It's no secret that Jerry Brown's interests are eclectic, and that he loves to share quirky tidbits with various audiences.

Take this year's state of the state address. Throughout the course of the speech, the governor managed to pack in references to Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spanish colonial officer Jose de Galvez and The Little Engine That Could.

Or the eponymous Twitter account, JerryBrownSays, that chronicles important subject matters like Ouija boards, Sunday School, "education vaccines" and the merits of burping vs. farting.

So why should we be surprised to learn that Brown's brief appearance before a group of fourth graders in Sacramento Wednesday morning included a history lesson about mule meat?

The Sacramento Bee captured a video of the governor telling the gaggle of youngsters about Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola, who settled in California in 1769. "They ate mule meat," he told the enraptured crowd. "And the mules weren't very healthy."

If only our own elementary school history teachers had been that, um, colorful.