<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Pageant Cowboys Include at Least One Rough Rider
The thrilling finale to the Ramona Pageant in Hemet, where the cast of horseback cowboys comes thundering down off the cliff for a curtain call, had an even more dramatic climax at a recent Sunday performance.
A 16-year-old cowboy went head over spurs, and in his pain, he said something about having had a drink beforehand; passing a bottle among the cowboy cast is reportedly an end-of-show tradition.
The California Highway Patrol expects to arrest someone for providing a minor with an alcoholic beverage. “Everything points to the fact all the cowboys knew this kid was drinking, including his father and his uncle,” says CHP Officer Ron Dahlbeck. “But we only have direct testimony that one guy handed him the bottle. We sort of feel sorry for the guy taking the fall for the whole bunch of them.”
Roland Parker, who directs the venerable annual outdoor play, has reiterated the rules against drinking during the pageant.
They don’t make cowboys the way they used to: Evidently the teen-ager had a single swig of the riders’ tipple of choice--apricot brandy.
Gun vs. Driving Deaths
In 1991--the latest year for which figures are available--California was among six states, along with the District of Columbia, where shooting deaths surpassed traffic fatalities as the leading cause of injury-related deaths. Here are the numbers for some of those states and the district, ranked by firearm deaths and the ratio with traffic fatalities:
STATE FIREARM DEATHS MOTOR VEHICLE DEATHS* RATIO California 5,064 5,009 1.01 Texas 3,727 3,229 1.15 Louisiana 1,101 869 1.27 District of Columbia 344 66 5.21 Nevada 333 272 1.22
* Includes deaths on both public and private roadways.
Compiled by Times researcher TRACY THOMAS
Source: Centers for Disease Control
*
Go ask Elvis: The U.S. Postal Service, which is issuing a Richard Nixon commemorative stamp, has yet to say whether it will ask for a vote on whether the stamp should depict the Old Nixon or the New Nixon.
*
Hot rods: The weather was downright Californian in Washington as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) presided over an outdoor news conference to support limiting availability of military-style weapons.
Arrayed on the table was a semiautomatic arsenal--an AK-47, a MAC-12, a TEC-DC9 and the like.
As a reporter was asking Feinstein whether there were more weapons she would like to see banned, she reached for one of the gats cooking in the sun:
“I think that the legislation that we have produced is sufficient. It would do the job. It would ban the manufacture . . . Wow, is that hot! . . . the manufacture of large capacity ammunition feeding devices and it would ban the military-style assault weapon in the United States of America.”
Her trigger finger was apparently unburned.
*
Republicrats for What’s-His-Name: When Richard Nixon ran for reelection to Congress in 1948, the now-vanished practice of cross-filing allowed Republicans to run in the Democratic primary and vice versa--and incumbents’ names came first.
In that long-ago primary, Nixon’s name appeared on both Democratic and Republican ballots (his party was not listed on the Democratic slate, just “member of Congress”). Right before the election, Nixon mailed postcards to Democratic voters. They began, “Fellow Democrats . . . “
He won both primaries.
*
Scratch one premiere: The Temecula Valley Playhouse’s production of “Love, Sex and the IRS” has been delayed until May 6; an outbreak of chicken pox laid low much of the cast. It’s a tossup whether the show will be reviewed in Theater Week or the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
*
Fire-o-fax: At 3:21 p.m. on April 13--the same day the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, endorsed Kathleen Brown for governor--Tom Rankin, a lobbyist for the labor group, received this fax:
Dear Tom,
Your appointment to the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau Governing Committee is terminated, effective immediately. Please feel free to call me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
John
That’s John Garamendi, the insurance commissioner, who did not get the labor endorsement.
“John has a very hot temper and didn’t consider things very thoroughly,” says Rankin, who intended to retire next year from the unpaid seat he has held since 1987.
This all happened , says Garamendi spokesman Darry Sragow, because Labor Federation head Jack Henning had assured Garamendi that his group would endorse Brown and Garamendi, or no one. When that didn’t happen--and they heard Henning was actually plumping for Brown, says Sragow--Garamendi let Henning know his displeasure by firing Rankin, the man Henning had recommended.
“This has nothing to do with Rankin,” Sragow said. “It has to do with Henning.”
Got it?
EXIT LINE
“This is the second time Nixon’s come home under a dark cloud.”
--One helicopter pilot flying through a rainstorm above the motorcade taking the 37th President’s body to the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace.
