Dogies, Dirt, Horse Are Provided; Bring Your Own Greenhorn Fantasy

Most mothers heed Willie Nelson’s advice and don’t raise their sons to be cowboys.

This makes sound fiscal and anatomical sense (saddle sores can be hell). But it leaves an unfulfilled cultural yearning to participate in that Western rite of passage: the cattle drive.

Into the breach steps Mike Klarfeld, 62, a Rancho Bernardo attorney and executive vice president of Cattle Drive America.

He’s convinced there is a desire among the populace to pay up to $450 a day to hop on a horse and be part of a weeklong cattle roundup and drive.

Last summer Klarfeld went on a 40-mile drive from Big Hole Basin, Colo., to the rodeo at Cheyenne, Wyo. He’s been talking about little else since.

“When the boss yelled out, ‘Head ‘em up, move ‘em out,’ I got goose bumps all over,” he said. “All that was missing was the theme song from ‘Rawhide.’ ”

Among Klarfeld’s fellow fantasy cowpokes in driving the 475 steers were a military pilot, an optometrist, a car dealer, a Federal Express executive, insurance salesmen and several schoolteachers.

A chuck wagon followed the drive. Tents were available for sleeping. At night, tall tales were swapped around the campfire, naturally.

After the drive, Klarfeld became an officer of Cattle Drive America. Now he’s taking reservations for several drives from mid-June to mid-August.

Corporate interest is high--there are discounts for groups--and inquiries have come from Japan, the Netherlands and Germany. Klarfeld sees no trouble filling all the spots.

And he’s still aglow over what happened when he headed for a motel in Cheyenne--grubby, dirty, smelly and dressed in chaps and spurs.

“A woman looked at me and told her friend: ‘Look there’s a real cowboy,’ ” he said. “That made it all worth it.”

Hands Off Does Fawns and Felines

From here and there.

* Hands off Bambi!

A protest by animal rights’ advocates is planned for this morning outside the State Building in downtown San Diego during a meeting of the California Fish and Game Commission.

San Diego Animal Advocates wants the commission to ban the hunting of does and fawns in San Diego County. So do the Board of Supervisors and the city’s Wildlife Advisory Committee.

But the commission staff says the monthlong hunt is needed to thin down the deer herd because of dwindling rangeland.

* The La Mesa City Council has scratched plans to license cats. Too hard to enforce; too much opposition from cat lovers.

* In “The Hunt for Red October,” Sean Connery plays a Russian submarine skipper who wants to defect to the United States but first has to trick his own crew.

“How do you get a crew to abandon a submarine?” he ponders.

At a preview this week, a San Diego sailor shouted out a sure-fire solution: “Just let water start coming in.”

Putting Cork on Alcohol Law

San Diego Councilman John Hartley has an interesting attitude about alcohol.

He was among those council members who at first voted to ban booze at all city beaches and parks. But he takes a different approach when his contributors and supporters who own liquor stores and groceries are involved.

After receiving contributions from an East San Diego grocery owner, her cousin and the cousin’s son, Hartley sought to help the owner get a rehearing on her rejected bid for a beer-and-wine license.

Now he has voted against a proposal by the city manager to reduce the sale of cheap, fortified wines such as Thunderbird and Night Train in several middle-income residential neighborhoods east of California 163.

Hartley’s vote bottled up the proposal in committee. Judy McCarty and Wes Pratt voted in favor, but it takes three “yea” votes to advance to the full council.

That probably will be accomplished at the next meeting. Ron Roberts, who was absent for the first vote, is also in favor.