My burro is laden with bags of hard bones and I call him my friend. I know of nobility because of the years I have walked with a beast of burden. It is something too few of us do. Modernity does not demand it. But it is a choice one can make. It may not be a choice all are capable of making, I will allow. Our possible choices are determined by a fluttering multitude of factors we have no power over. My multitude of factors is mine alone and I cannot fault others for not having them.
So I walk with a burro, and I almost always call him friend. One exception was when I made a good woman laugh by calling him my "boo."
