Whoa!

August 26, 2014

By James Burbank

Let me tell you —People here in Alburg are very jealous of the little village of Placitas where romantic herds of free-standing, starving, thirsty horses in their thousands surround your car and threaten to kick in the door unless you surrender your water and your Cheetos. Thank you for granting me this moment of wild freedom, my beloved famished and parched stallion friends.

There are so many horses that have moved to Placitas from someplace else that they are sucking up all the water by running horse straws into the ground. If you go up to Placitas, you will see all these horses from someplace else with their long and unwieldy straws slurping up ground water.

You will also observe in the quaint village, folks who have lived there for generations now crawling up the dusty Placitas roads on their hands and knees holding one arm up in the blazing sun and crying piteously for water. So many horses with longer and longer straws drilled into the earth to drink up all that water, and still they’re thirsty, and meanwhile people who would kill for a dish of dogwater.

Some folks who probably don’t live in the village but in and around in the nearby coyote hills have started a group of fellow dyed-in-the-wool romantics who love observing the wild horses roaming free, eating local vegetable gardens, trampling children, and drilling their horsestraws ever deeper in search of ground water.

The local Burque paper wrote a geewhiz story about all these bony horses and the romance of their manes blowing in the wind, and the romance of their running free through the living rooms of the paper’s ten loyal readers. This genuine Old West story has influenced Bayor Merry to start his own Albuquerque group to rival the Placitas horse observers.

The Wild Homeless Observer’s Association or WHOA YO will make use of our abundant population of free-raving homeless human animals. That’s why Bayor Merry wants to veto any legislation proposing to increase social services spending for the homeless. More resources for the homeless, especially the mentally ill, would of course impinge on their free-raving wildness and ruin their romantic Old West appeal. Bayor Merry is thinking bus tours and culling the herd by encouraging more hunting to attain eco-sensible economic development. Now that’s what I call, “pro-active.”

This piece was written by:

James Burbank

James Burbank has written and published over 200 articles for regional and national publications such as Reuters International News Service, The World & I Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, Farmer’s Almanac, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, La Opinion, New Mexico Magazine, Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque Tribune. He is author of Retirement New Mexico, the best selling book published by New Mexico Magazine Press, now in its third edition. He is also author of Vanishing Lobo: the Mexican Wolf in the Southwest, published by Johnson Books.

As a professional writing consultant, he has written and edited publications, video and radio scripts, annual reports, and investment information for a wide variety of corporate clients. A Lecturer II for the Department of English, Burbank has specialized in teaching technical writing and professional writing. His interests extend from composition and writing theory to environmental and nature writing. He has played a leadership role in developing and implementing the English Department’s teaching mentorship program.