Word: burros
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Next to the ox that pulls his plow, the Mexican peon's most valued possession is his wistful little burro. Last week, the sturdy little beast that carries the nation's backland freight, causes many of its automobile accidents, adorns its literature and enriches its profanity, supplied the theme for the song leading Mexico's hit parade. It was called My Little Burro Doesn't Want to Go, and it was written by a young man named Ventura Romero who had never ridden a burro in his life...
...rhythmic patter of a burro's feet, mariachis (street singers), gathered around café tables, tell the story...
Early Years. When he was three years old, his father went on strike, lost his job and moved to Bakersfield, where he became a chief inspector of shops in the Southern Pacific yards. Young Earl was brought up in a tough, frontier atmosphere, was riding his pet burro down the main street of Bakersfield on the day an outlaw shot & killed Deputy Sheriff William E. Tibbett, father of Baritone Lawrence Tibbett. He earned pocket money as a newsboy, later as a cub reporter for the Bakersfield Californian. In high school he spent summers as a call-boy waking up railroaders...
...moved pretty fast. Sometimes he got lifts, sharing the rear hump of a burro with a friendly peon or clinging to the bouncing tailboard of a truck. He walked a lot, too, and one by one he put the boundaries behind him-Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico. Six months after leaving San Jose, he was walking down the streets of San Antonio, Tex., gaping at the tall buildings, the glittering stream of automobiles. Then a cop picked...
...poking through musty, 1,000-year-old shrouds dug up from coastal desert tombs, Bailey rediscovered lost weaving techniques (spinning had once been so ' fine-they sometimes used mouse's hair-that the shrouds ran thread counts of 250 to the inch). On burro trips in the 12,000-ft. sierra, Bailey uncovered the finesse of the ancient backstrap loom. In Andean fields, he rubbed wild-flower petals into his palm, watched the sweat precipitate streaks of true dye colors; he tested and proved 420 hues. In the Amazon highlands he found long-forgotten "workable" hardwoods...