Letter from Clay Warren
Pack-Burro Racing – August 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine
Beware the Burro Lobby and its cleverly hidden agenda
Editors:
Ah was all set to ignore them two essays in Issue #41 [July, 1997], the ones about how real men enjoy the outdoors, as jest another example o’ two extremists train’d to put a happy face on their own personal vices. Then hit occurred to me, “Clay” this little voice says (that’s how things occur to me). Clay, it says, how often does somebody with yere attitude get to play the part of the voice of reason, the guy in the middle, the man o’ moderation, etc., etc.?
Well hell, I says (that’s how ah respond to them voices). Well hell, not that often.
So this voice says, Well HERE is your opportunity. Ah’ll give’r my best shot ah says. So here goes and ah sincerely hope ah don’t choke on it. Er, choke up that is.
It must seem patently obvious to most regular readers of Colorado Central that neither one o’ these guys has the story straight ’cause nobody, even my fellow oxygen-challenged residents of Central Colorado, is going to buy into either one of these stories a hunnerd percent.
After going back and read’n both again, and again, and again and, well you get the picture, it occurs to me that there is more to this than a simple disagreement of philosophies.
It’s the horse and burro crowd, don’t you see? What we got here is a couple of sneaky attempts to make hay burners SEEM like the logical compromise between these two extremes. Man! They plumb near got away with it too.
My only real doubt is if the management o’ the magazine is part of some secret conspiracy like Ellen Miller is always debunking, to inject Equus quadrapeds into the whole social fabric o’ the country.
Ah mean iffen you look fer the subtle clues, why you’ll see burros, burro chasers, and burro glorifying text in dang near every edition. Ah mean, there was even recent mention of spreadin’ burro chasin’ to parts o’ the country where it wuzn’t naturally indigenous in the first place.
Now this could all just be a hasty coincidence, but ah keep seen’n the names Hal Walter, Curtis Imrie, and now this rockologist guy (who’s been tryin’ to scare the socks offen these second home owners an ruin the real-estate market for falcon perches disguised as house lots) and we all know he’s full of horses….t! The implication is that real outdoor men hang out with big, smelly, animals.
Ah mean what’s a dumb ole East Tennessee boy to think about all this? Each side has its good points, and Lord knows they both got holes in their stories big enough to chase a Clydesdale through. There might o’ been some room for doubt if they wasn’t each so equally matched for being the soul of rationality while copin’ equally to missin’ the forest fer the trees, no pun intended there.
Why they each read like one o’ them dang computer generated letters ya get from yer Congressperson after you’ve gone and written them a sincere one of a kind informative episile about their recent dumb vote on some piece of Government mischief.
You know them things is generated by an other than human intelligence ’cause if somebody had wrote me a letter like that, you can dang sure bet mah reply wouldn’t be half so polite, nor give the superficial appearance o agree’n with me! Ya’all paid them to write those thin’s didn’t yuh?
See even the titles give ya a hint. I mean “Walking in the Woods” vs “Driving off the Pavement” just gives it all away. Lessen yer a fool, you walk horses in the woods, and you try to make it seem like yer driving the dang burro (when in reality yer really just chasin’ him where he wants to go). Now ah really don’t resent this less than subtle effort at influencing the views of the general public, cause I figure if everybody has to ride horse, mule, or burro back into the hills, people will quit bringin’ home all that crap that gets stuck in their waffle stomper boot soles, and that just has to be good for the environment everybody seems so concerned about.
May the millers not fly up yer nose!
Clay Warren
Pseudonymous in Poncha