This Music Man’s Not Shy About Tooting His Own Horn

Eugene Cianflone loves a parade.

No, that doesn’t quite capture it. Let’s try this instead: EUGENE CIANFLONE LOVES A PARADE.

That’s more like it.

If there’s a parade in San Diego County, it’s a good bet that Cianflone is there, as close to the front as possible, tooting his bugle.

If there is anything Cianflone loves as much as a parade, it’s his bugle (or trumpet or coronet). He has combined his two loves into a splendid obsession.

“The bugle affords me a chance to lead the parade,” Cianflone explains. “I have to lead the parade. It’s kind of a compulsion.”

It’s been that way for the 10 years since Cianflone moved to San Diego after retiring as a mail carrier on Long Island.

When the Operation Desert Storm troops marched down Broadway, Cianflone was with a veterans’ group at the lead, playing “Over There.”

Parades are only part of it: “The horn has always been a beautiful escape for me.”

Cianflone also toots at the Veterans Administration Hospital in La Jolla (a World War II combat veteran, he’s done 10,000 hours of volunteer horn blowing at the V.A.), military funerals (he just did a World War I veteran’s funeral at Rosecrans National Cemetery) and wherever he figures bugle music is needed.

He tries to vary his funeral repertoire: “ ‘Taps’ alone is beautiful, but it’s too final.”

Six presidents have commended Cianflone for his V.A. and other work. So have hundreds of other dignitaries (usually at Cianflone’s request). He’s not shy about asking for a pat on the back.

Last week, he got an unsolicited honor: A city “sea horse” award from Mayor Maureen O’Connor for capturing the “spirit of San Diego,” one of 15 such awards given out at her State of the City address.

Other recipients delivered small thank-you speeches. Cianflone arose from the crowd and delivered “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” (he also sings).

At 74, he has no plans to retire his horn.

Horn playing, he says, is a way of life: “You have to keep at it every day, or you lose your lip.”

Isn’t Everyone a Night Owl?

Here and there.

* San Diego cops are stretched so thin that response time for lesser crimes has lengthened.

Which led a woman at a community meeting last week in North Park attended by Police Chief Bob Burgreen to complain that it took hours for cops to respond to her call that two bicycles had been swiped from her garage.

And, when the cops arrived, it was 2 a.m. Why send cops at that hour? the woman inquired.

Responded Burgreen: “We were up so we thought you were too.”

* Judge Dick Murphy puts only at 50-50 the chances he’ll run for Congress in the new 49th District:

“To be perfectly honest, it’s a position where there is considerable support for my candidacy, but I’m not sure I want to give up my Superior Court seat.”

* Peter Navarro says he won’t run for mayor if Roger Hedgecock runs.

* The elephant protection bill inspired by the Dunda beating scandal at the San Diego Wild Animal Park has been withdrawn.

The sponsor, State Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose), says he wants to give new regulations adopted by the state Fish and Game Department a chance.

* It’s only money.

The Sierra Club wants $400,000 in legal fees for intervening in the clean-water lawsuit involving the federal government and the city of San Diego. The city is fighting the request.

* The Mafia has unusual job descriptions.

Take John (No Nose) DiFronzo, 63, the Chicago mobster indicted Friday for trying to infiltrate the gambling operation at the Rincon Indian Reservation.

He rose in the mob ranks by being particularly adept at kneecapping troublemakers, like rival bookmakers. So says FBI agent turned author William F. Roemer Jr. in his “War of the Godfathers.”

In mob talk it’s called “making your bones” by breaking other people’s bones.

Expect the Worst and Be Satisfied

North County bumper sticker: “Sometimes Even Pessimism Isn’t Enough.”