Where I Stand: Flight snafus mar informative trip to Northern Nevada

Tuesday, June 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

TRAVELING CAN BE a real pain even if it is just an hour trip to Reno.

First mistake was booking my flight on Reno Air. Over-booked and full to the hilt, the plane was an hour late leaving Las Vegas. Coming back I discovered I had been booked on an earlier flight than was shown on my ticket and every flight was booked solid. There was nothing but standby.

Thank goodness for Southwest. I was able to catch a flight back to Las Vegas and enjoy the delightful company of old friends, the Joe Foleys.

Guess how this senior citizen will be flying henceforth.

Reno is still a beautiful small city. Too bad some of its citizens are promoting growth even to the extent of running a superhighway through some wetlands and depriving small animals and birds of a natural habitat. While Reno aims to destroy the wetlands, Las Vegas is in the process of restoring ours.

Bowling at the national bowling stadium in Reno is a great experience for anyone involved in the sport. It is state of the art.

The world's largest sports tournament for women is now taking place at the Reno locale. Eighty-eight thousand women bowlers are in competition for millions in prize money. The bowlers hail from every state in the union with almost 2,000 teams entered.

And there are still die-hards who refuse to acknowledge bowling as a sport!

The Nevada SPCA has issued its annual warning about leaving pets in cars in summer weather.

"Never leave your pet alone in direct sunlight or in a closed vehicle. On hot, or even warm sunny days, the inside of a car heats up very quickly. On an 85-degree day, even with the windows slightly open the temperature can climb to 102 degrees in 10 minutes and 120 in 30 minutes. On hotter days it will go even higher.

"If your pet is overcome by heat exhaustion with rapid panting, drooling, rapid pulse and fever, immediately immerse them in cool running water. Try to get them to drink and try to get their temperature down. Then rush them to a vet for emergency assistance.

"Better yet, leave them home until October!"

Comments from the North:

The general consensus in Northern Nevada is that the state is in trouble as long as the Legislature is in session.

Resentment against Clark County seems to be at an all-time high.

Sen. Harry Reid has some fence-mending to do in the cow counties. Ditto Frankie Sue Del Papa.

Kenny Guinn, Southern Nevada's favorite son and heir apparent to the governorship, needs some name recognition in Northern Nevada.

Ever-popular Assembly Speaker Joe Dini is mulling a future in politics that might include running for a state office.

Ask any resident of the cow counties and they will describe themselves as disenfranchised voters, with all the power in Clark and Washoe counties.

The reasoning behind Sen. Dean Rhoads' opposition to a bill to ban the sport (if it can be called a sport) of horse-tripping has to be suspect.

Who could possibly endorse such cruelty?

Eileen and Tom Hatfield of North Las Vegas supplied this definition of horse-tripping:

"An event in which a usually young ... underweight horse, usually bound for slaughter, is whipped and shouted into a run, so that it can then be tripped with a lariat by a man on horseback or on the ground. The goal is to make the horse fall. The horse's rear legs may be pulled out from under it while at a dead run, or its front legs are roped, causing it to tumble forward. The horses' lives end in misery and the injuries they sustain -- both physical and emotional -- have horrified the handful of veterinarians who have been called in to treat the few horses who have been rescued from this fate."

California, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Kansas are among the states that view this practice as inhumane.

Horse-tripping is on a par with cockfighting and any sport that results in death or injury to an innocent animal.

A baseball umpire claims the pay for his job is immaterial. The real reward comes in calling "Strike Three" to a million-dollar-a-year man.