the exact years of the different parades confuse me , though each must have been before the mid-sixties , and all of them have the same stock actors and props : dappled ponies , their glossy black tails and manes flapping behind them in the wind , their features washed-out by curtains of drifting dirt , but with their alien hammer-heads bowed toward their chests , nostrils pinched shut , and long eyelashes fluttering ; wincing parade marshals who grip the brims of their ten gallon hats and wave and occasionally manage tight smiles as the airborne grit pelts them and sends the fringe of their suede vests streaming in the air as though the wind is slicing through them and carrying their bodies away in shreds ; gaily striped popcorn boxes that scud along the pavement scattering their few remaining oily kernels ; wrinkled newspapers spread eagle and crackling against chain link fences ; shaggy palms , their skirts of dried fronds rustling nervously ; and big billowing plastic bags which zip into the parade route as last-minute entries and soar skyward where they float like the bodies of bloated jellyfish , spooking the horses and puffing and flitting at the edges of my consciousness even today whenever the wind ransacks our desert valley .