The Burro Lady and Molly Ivins

By Sam Richardson

We used to see her along Big Bend highways in far west Texas. Mounted on a little burro, she sat erect in the saddle amidst a pile of blankets and tarps that she used for each night’s makeshift campsite. Down the road she’d go, eyes forward, never acknowledging the curiosity of thousands of travelers who passed her by each day.

Some hollered, some honked, some like myself would occasionally stop for a photo. But she continued to move forward, never making eye contact, never looking back.

I used to see her camped by the roadside in south Brewster County, down around Terlingua. It’s a place close to the Mexican border. Sometimes she’d stay in the same spot for days. We’d see her curled up under her blankets and tarps, sleeping late of a morning. She never pitched a tent, just crawled under those tarps. Then, later in the day, she would be sitting there, thinking. Next night, she’d be back under her pile of covers for another long nap. After a good rest of a few days, she’d saddle up and move along.

We never knew much about her. She was shy and didn’t enjoy conversation so most people left her to her private world.

Now she’s gone. They found her by the roadside up near Sierra Blanca. Funeral was a few days later in Terlingua. Big turnout. A fitting tribute to a lady so many knew and respected but knew so little about.

A few days before that, we’d heard that Molly Ivins had crossed over, too. After a long fight with cancer the nationally known columnist took another road, leaving us worse off for her departure.

Unlike the Burro Lady we knew a lot about Molly. Texas Observer, New York Times, Dallas Times Herald, syndicated columnist. Her columns, “drenched in good humor and fighting spirit,” according to writer John Nichols, appeared in 400 papers at one time. She called us to the battlements no matter where we stood. And people who didn’t have a position on some issues frequently assumed one after they read one of her broadsides.

In one of her last pieces she wrote, “And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”

I wonder if the burro lady might have wanted to say something along those same lines, even though in her case it had nothing to do with politics. It had to do with total freedom, more than any of us ever had. Imagine, owning nothing but a burro and some blankets, being owned by nobody and nothing, not even one little part of you. “Tell those who came after how much fun it was,” she might have said. I’d like to think she would have said something like that.

Then again, maybe not. It must have miserable, at least by most people’s standards, out there sleeping on the ground in all kinds of weather. But she’d obviously made her concessions and adjustments and just kept plodding along.

Her only debt was to her maker who finally called her home, leaving one grieving burro and thousands of friends whose names she didn’t know, passersby who at times may have felt sorry for her but who knew that they were seeing freedom in a burro saddle and the last of an era as she treaded wearily along our highways.

The Burro Lady and Molly Ivins, gone within a month of each other. They were both part of a world I knew and took for granted would be the same forever.

Seeing them go all at once, so close together, makes me feel ten years older.