A horse is a horse of course
An Open Letter to the Horse Thief.
Dear Horse Theif:
Over a dozen horses have been placed in this location and they were all removed within 24 hours. We suspect it’s the same person who is doing this, as well as removing other horses in the area.
What gives?
By removing the horse you are depriving both children and adults of the joy of spotting this horse and noting part of this city’s history.
No amount of pleasure you get by stealing our horse could afford the joy you are taking away from the community as a whole.
Further, if you are walking around with a tool capable of cutting wire rope, I’m going to venture to guess that you can afford to walk into a Dollar Tree and buy your own horse.
So please do, because installing these horses, including hardware, costs nearly $3 a horse.
Personally, I’m a student who is not working, so this is a big sacrafice for me. A sacrafice that I’m willint to make to benefit the community, but not to benefit you personally. In the last case I used my birthday money, so you should feel pretty bad about your actions.
Leave the horses alone.
Kim.
…………………………
Lordy, lordy, lordy. This note was tied next to one of those damned minature horses that are tied around to street corners around Portland. To that person who seemed to be watching from the parking lot, waiting in her car, as I transcribed this letter to my notebook, in the happenstance that you are reading this, I am uninvolved in anything here.
But I really don’t know who’s side I’m supposed to take here. Stealing those minature horses strikes me like stealing gnomes, and we all love the Gnome Liberation Army. But there’s a twist here that makes it a little less sanguine: gnomes are private property stolen on private areas. In this case, the horses are left in public areas. What the heck are they doing there?
I have seen the horses “providing joy” to both children and adults. To me they just bring confusion and bafflement. Again: what the heck are they doing there?
This letter has proven most useful in answering that question. Apparently they are left by a college student, with a suggestion that there are compatriots in on this of one sort or the other. But it leaves more questions than answers. (1) What a strange hobby. Let the buyer beware, I guess. (2) What history, exactly, is it telling of Portland? Horses used to be what automobiles are today, and were left on the sidewalk? Was there a horse racetrack in the vicintity? A manufacturer of minature horses? What?