Snapshots of life in the Golden State. : Donkeys Bring a Bray of Hope to Inaugural Parade

If you enjoyed the jackasses at President Clinton’s inaugural parade, thanks go to Janet Luke of Alta Loma, near Upland.

She’s the chief promoter of the American Donkey and Mule Society, and she persuaded parade coordinators that no Democrat victory march to the White House would be complete without two jacks, five female donkeys and 12 mules strutting their stuff before the nation. How soon we forget that George Washington bred mules to help give farming a kick-start in the new country.

Luke’s contingent may not have been as glitzy as the Sacramento Sheriff’s Posse--the only other California equestrian unit to march in the parade--but the exposure went a long way, Luke says, in elevating the stature of donkeys and mules.

“We still catch a lot of flak from equestrian units, but once we get our animals out there, those people appreciate them and end up buying them,” she said.

Inaugural parade coordinator Julie Gibson said she was smitten by the mules and donkeys after seeing Luke’s application. Not only were they symbols of the Democrat Party, but “we were looking for something different and these animals looked really pretty.”

Our Old Heaps

Recently the South Coast Air Quality Management District set up the nation’s first large-scale old-vehicle scrapping program, allowing factories to delay smog reduction efforts by buying heavy-polluting clunkers and taking them off the road. Below are the number of old cars in California that are registered for roadway use. So, if you think you’ve got the oldest clunker on the road, look again:

YEAR FIRST SOLD NUMBER OF CARS 1957 and Earlier 118,383 1959-67 410,682 1968-69 205,495 1970-71 241,130 1972-73 337,623 1974-75 333,393 1976-77 665,867 1978-79 1,027,857

Source: Dept. of Motor Vehicles’ Office of Communications, Sacramento

Compiled by researcher Tracy Thomas

*

No-Show: Gov. Pete Wilson didn’t make it back to Washington this week, even though he was invited to join other governors for Clinton’s lunch Tuesday to discuss “reinventing government.”

Wilson apparently thought one way of reinventing government was to cut travel costs, frequent-flier mileage notwithstanding.

Wilson’s spokesman, Dan Schnur, said the governor would be in Washington for a National Governors’ Assn. meeting later this month and didn’t want to travel across the country twice in such a short time.

“We’re sure the President will understand,” Schnur said.

*

T-I-M-B-E-R!: At Humboldt State University near Eureka’s timberlands, there’s talk of felling the university’s mascot--the Lumberjack.

An environmental biology student on campus says the lumberjack is “outdated, sexist and no longer representative of our views of the ecosystem.” The student body president agrees.

So on Monday the student council will decide whether to put the issue to an April vote by the student body. By then a list of alternative mascots will be drawn up.

But the university’s newspaper--the Lumberjack--doesn’t want to ax the burly dude.

Lumberjacks, an editorial pointed out, “have a long and proud tradition of hard work, dedication and productivity.”

“What seems like a pressing issue today will lose importance with time,” the newspaper said.

*

Go East, Young Man: A front-page story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, with a Hemet dateline, told how Phillip and Michelle Ebarb have joined the California exodus. Why?

“A trailer park in Redlands . . . was the Ebarbs’ last California home, the end of a tale of layoffs, too little money, the loss of a house and the sound of gunfire in the night.”

Phillip Ebarb, the story went on, landed his dream job in Alabama as a bulldozer driver--after cutting his shoulder-length hair and losing the earring.

*

Back at the Castle: The Jan. 9 issue of the Economist depicts Gov. Pete Wilson as “a melancholic king (who) broods within his castle. Outside the walls, the kingdom, after many years of plenty, has fallen on unhappy times. Natural disasters--drought, flood and fire--roll across the land. The people feel accursed. Support is ebbing away to a fair princess (state Treasurer Kathleen Brown), whose brother and father both ruled the land before her.”

No wonder Wilson’s public approval rating is so low, the Economist suggests: “The closest most Californians have come to him is to glimpse his heavily guarded limousine shuttling from one disaster to the next.”

*

Of Freeways and Fairways: For all those who golf to relax, only to find their chest tighten after that lousy bunker shot or that uphill par-5, consider the latest amenity at the Desert Horizons Country Club in Indian Wells:

Ten 911 call boxes, scattered across the golf course, for those needing emergency medical aid. A resort homeowner pitched the call boxes because of delays he encountered in getting help after a friend was stricken on the course and died.

EXIT LINE

“Woof! Woof! Woof!”

Palm Springs Police Officer Greg Jackson after deciding not to run after a suspected carjacker, instead barking a bluff over his patrol car’s public address speaker, “Stop or I’ll send the dog.” He barked. The suspect surrendered.