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The Hayden Cabin/Mammoth Museum is celebrating the historic century of tourism in the Lakes Basin during its three big summer events.

Summer visitors started recreating here early in the 20th century, following wagon-era roads dating from the mining boom of 1877-1881. These roads were gradually improved for automobile use, and resorts and family cabins began springing up.

Tamarack Lodge, Wildyrie, Crystal Crag Lodge and Twin Lakes Store, Woods Lodge, Lake Mary Store and Pokonobe, were built from the 1920s-1950s. Each lodge has a continuous history and has hosted generations of family visitors.

Beyond the resort lodges, private family cabins sprouted in the Lakes Basin. Of these, some 120 remain standing today. Built on Forest Service land, most of them date to the Roaring Twenties and extend up to the late 1950s when the practice ceased.

A new exhibition depicting the history of the Lakes Basin is now on display at the Hayden Cabin/Mammoth Museum. Curator Mark Davis contrasts two large maps that show the area before (1924) and after (1939) the construction of State Highway 203 in 1937.

For the third summer, free Jazz at the Hayden Cabin brought together musicians from Mammoth Jazz Jubilee on July 11 and 12.

An enduring highlight of summer is the Country Western Dance and BBQ held at the Cabin. Derik Olson’s Cross Country Band will set feet tapping until people jump onto the dance floor for a rollicking good time. It’s a family affair with irresistible BBQ and side dishes. (July 28)

The annual Old Timer’s BBQ is always a memorable time, when old timers come and share their stories of the old days in Mammoth—this year, look for tales about the beginnings of packing and ranching here. (Aug. 25)

The Hayden Cabin Historical Museum is tucked into a bend in Mammoth Creek, off Old Mammoth Road. For more information call 760.934.6918. -Diane Eagle

And other Mono County briefs

With the departure this week of Mono County Assessor Jody Henning and Assistant Assessor Chris Lyons, Mono County’s Board of Supervisors began discussions of how to fill the posts at its regular meeting Tuesday in Bridgeport.

The Board has authorized advertising for candidates for the assistant position, and later re-evaluating moving them up into a fulltime slot.

Henning and Lyons are both leaving independently for new job opportunities.

In the short term, County Administrative Officer Jim Arkens said he will oversee the department, and at this point, no decisions have been made on any candidates. Once a candidate or candidates for the positions are lined up, Mono County Supervisor Larry Johnston agreed to sit in on any interviews.

In addition, the Board is considering reallocating the Assessor’s Office mapping duties to the Information Technology department.

In one of her last statements to The Sheet, Henning said only that she wishes the County well, hopes the Board will “think outside the box” when looking for candidates, and consider other assessors to find “the very best qualified applicants, who will keep the progress we’ve made moving forward.”

Fees-Fi-Fo-Fum 

Mono County Supervisors on Tuesday adopted a new fee schedule with $70,800 in new or increased fees for certain County permits and other services, most in emergency services.

Coming prior to development and adoption of the County’s Fiscal Year 2012-2013 budget, most fee schedules were set so that departments can use them in budgeting, according to County Finance Director Brian Muir.

Most of the Board seemed okay with the modest increases, but Supervisor Larry Johnston remained steadfastly opposed to any increases during what he indicated were lingering economic hard times in the county.

“Philosophically we’re in an economic downturn and have lots of people out there suffering, and we’re raising fees,” he charged. “Fees need to reflect what’s going on in the economy. We need to hunker down and reduce some of the fees. I’m not saying we should do away with them altogether, but we should find ways to make do with other revenue.”

Byng Hunt countered that discussing these types of fees “always comes down to fairness,” adding that the people who get the benefit from these services are the ones who should pay for them. “I’m not in favor of any across the board cuts,” he said. “Given the struggles we’re going to have to face in the coming 12 to 24 months, we’re going to have to cover our costs.”

Fees for the process of recording surveys were changed to hourly to make them more affordable, but Johnston held his ground against any fee increases, casting the lone dissenting vote.

GBUAPCD says yes to County

The Board was briefed on approval by the Governing Board of the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District of a County Public Works – Road Division Clean Air Projects Program (CAPP) application for $300,000 to replace two 1958 snow blowers with two new MT Trackless blowers.

An additional $13,000 for wages and advertising necessary for bid development, equipment preparation, training, maintenance and grant administration, which is not part of the grant, will be covered by the Road Fund. CAO Jim Arkens said the County should have no problem finding the extra money. A second grant application for ventilation upgrades will come forward as a separate item with a separate match, according to Arkens.

4-Way Stop in June

Supervisors also approved a resolution designating the intersection of Knoll and Crawford Avenues in June Lake as a 4-way stop intersection and gave Public Works a go ahead to put up stop signs.

Right now, the stop is a two-way stop, at which one of the remaining signs has been hit and taken out, thus making it essentially a one-way stop. The sign is meant to be more of a controlling measure, and not necessarily patrolled, since traffic flow doesn’t warrant any major monitoring. CHP will still investigate traffic accidents at the intersection, and Bauer said she hopes the signs help during the winter when the roads are icy.

“I’ve been flying this flag and found no one who opposes it. It’s been my legacy … woo-hoo, a four-way stop,” enthused Bauer, whose term on the Board will come to an end this year. Bauer was recently defeated for re-election in District 3 by Tim Alpers.

Alabama Hills Day – Saturday, April 14

The Alabama Hills Stewardship Group will host the first-ever “Alabama Hills Day” on Saturday, April 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Lone Pine Museum of Film History and with “in the field” field trips and self-guided tours in the Alabama Hills. This new annual event is intended to celebrate the uniquely scenic landscape and educate the public about the wide variety of groups that use and enjoy the Alabama Hills, including Friends of the Inyo, which will be among the 20 to 30 user groups and information tables at the film museum. Come by and say hello! Admission is free. For more information, call Chris Langley at (760) 937-1189 or FOI Membership & Outreach Manager Catherine Billey at (760) 873-6500.

Grouse Mountain Hike – Saturday, April 14

One of Friends of the Inyo’s seasonal favorite explorations, join us for six hours of moderate hiking up to Grouse Mountain which is uniquely positioned below Mt. Humphreys and Mt. Tom for great views. Add fantastical rock formations, newly arrived migrant birds, and interesting flora and you have all the ingredients for a terrific spring hike! Meet 8 a.m. at the FOI Office, 819 North Barlow Lane, Bishop, or 8:30 a.m. at the Line Street (Hwy 168) and Buttermilk turn off.  Please bring clothing for any weather condition, food and water. Dogs okay. Email leader Todd Vogel at todd@friendsoftheinyo.org for more information.

Conglomerate Mesa Hike – Sunday, April 15

Rising south of the Inyo Mountains near the mining ghost town of Cerro Gordo, Conglomerate Mesa lies just outside the west boundary of Death Valley National Park with terrain including mixed pinon, juniper forest, sage brush and Joshua Trees. Join Friends of the Inyo from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for this moderate hiking exploration! Meet in Lone Pine at the Inter-Agency Visitor Center one mile south of town. Bring clothing for any weather condition, food and water. Dogs okay. For more information, email leader Todd Vogel at todd@friendsoftheinyo.org.

The MHS spring musical opened last Thursday and runs through April 14. Evening shows Thursday through Saturday start at 7 p.m. All tickets are just $5. (Photo courtesy Craig Hansen)

At the Tuesday, March 13 Mono County Board of Supervisors meeting, County Counsel Marshall Rudolph said the County had received a letter from the Town of Mammoth asking if the County would like to participate in mediation talks regarding the fallout from the Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition settlement.

“This is a required step before filing for municipal bankruptcy,” Rudolph explained. “The Town is starting the process.”

The County has been given the option to participate in the talks because it is a vendor to the Town. The County has 10 days to decide if it wants to participate. Rudolph planned to check with the Town to see when that clock started. The Board agreed to put a discussion of the topic on its agenda for its March 20 meeting, and left it to Rudolph’s discretion to determine whether or not the item should be discussed in closed session.

Mammoth Lakes Town Manager Dave Wilbrecht conceded that yes, the Town had sent the mediation letter to the County.

“We have many creditors we work with,” Wilbrecht said. “State law mandates that we go to mediation with our creditors before filing for bankruptcy.”

Wilbrecht said that the County is one of about 40 Town creditors. He added that the creditors, including MLLA, do not have to participate in mediation, but the Town does have to send the letters.

The County provides Animal Control, joint GIS and Sheriff’s Department services to the Town.

At Thursday’s Town/County Liaison meeting, Town representatives stated that they wanted the County to come to the table.

“I want everyone at the table staring at MLLA,” said Councilmember Rick Wood. Of course, that would only happen if MLLA shows up to mediation. They have yet to agree according to the Town.

Mediation can go a maximum of 90 days, according to Rudolph.

Later in the meeting, during Board reports, Supervisor Vikki Bauer asked that the Board review the County’s support of Mammoth’s Fourth of July celebration to see if it should contribute more this year.

“We help Bridgeport a lot,” she said in comparison.

Marc Margulies in Cambodia filming “Act of Valor” (Photos courtesy Marc Margulies)

On the heels of its most successful Wounded Warriors event yet, Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra (DSES) is teaming up with local resident Marc Margulies for a fundraising event coinciding with the premier of “Act of Valor,” a motion picture hitting theaters nationwide on Friday, Feb. 24.

Margulies has been a cameraman since 1978. He and his wife, Lou, own the local Mammoth Lakes Laundromat, the Laundry Annex and Aloha Sudz. Marc was part of the crew for the new film, which is cast with active duty Navy SEALs.

The film follows an elite team of Navy SEALs as they embark on a covert mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent. Also threaded into the plot is the hunt for the “bad guys” who kill the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines at the beginning of the film. The Ambassador getting offed is a face that many locals will recognize, as it is none other than Margulies himself, who was cast in the role during filming by co-director Scott Waugh.

“I was working on the film and Scottie Waugh said he wanted me to be an actor in it,” Margulies said. “So, I played the role and even have some lines. I also got a custom-made suit out of it.”

Margulies’ scene was filmed in Cambodia, and in a small hint he related that his character’s death revolves around an ice cream truck. While acting, Margulies also had to run interference with the camera crew, which didn’t know how to load the film into the camera without him.

“I worked as an actor and a camera assistant on that day,” Margulies said.

Margulies and the young actor who plays the US Ambassador's son

The film, according to Margulies, honors service people.

“It’s so real, it brings you right in,” he said. Using active Navy SEALs makes the experience even more authentic. The crew was able to accompany the SEALs on practice ops to make the experience even more genuine.

“I’ve worked with a lot of actors who are using guns [for their roles], but to see these guys handle a weapon was very real,” Margulies commented.

Also very real is the DSES fundraiser being held on the evening of Feb. 24; head over to Minaret Cinemas that evening at 7 p.m. for free appetizers provided by Roberto’s, plus a no-host bar of beer and wine, in addition to the film’s screening.

Anything that is donated above and beyond the cost of your movie ticket will go to DSES. Following the screening, Margulies will be on hand for a Q&A.

“There are 210 seats in the theater and we hope to fill them all,” said DSES Executive Director Kathy Copeland. “The more the merrier.”

If you’d like to reserve your seats in advance, call DSES to do so, 760.934.0791.

Directed by Mike “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh, “Act of Valor” is being touted as the ultimate tribute to the troops, which is why the partnership with DSES on Feb. 24 makes so much sense. Each year DSES and Mammoth Mountain host Operation Mountain Freedom for the nation’s wounded warriors. Servicemen and women enjoy several days of therapeutic recreation catered by DSES during the event. This year, 38 attendees made for the biggest event on record.

For more on the film visit www.actofvalor.com

At this same time last week, I was sitting in a Santa Barbara courtroom. Seated directly in front of me were Dr. Andrew Bourne and his wife, Gilann. They were holding hands, occasionally sharing a whispered thought back and forth.

The following is what I wrote on my legal pad:

“Standing by a loved one in the eye of public humiliation. Others perceive it as pathetic. How can you stand by someone who broke your heart in that way? And yet … there is something profound about it. Noble. Simple. Real. It strips away everything that one’s life has been adorned with. It’s just two people, partners, lovers, trying to get through something. Just waiting together. Holding hands. Just like it was in the very beginning. In the moment in a way they might not normally be in everyday life. It makes me want to go home and hug my wife.”

Today, I have someone to go home to and Gilann does not, and that is a very wrenching thought.

I have heard more rumors and secondhand information about the Bourne/Walker case than you can possibly imagine. I have no idea how big the iceberg is, or what part of it still remains hidden beneath the surface. I don’t know whether the case is relatively benign or wildly salacious, whether the case is isolated, or whether it reflects a pattern of behavior for either man.

I do know studies suggest a clear link between high-risk teen behaviors and subsequent depression and even suicide. According to Dr. Jane Anderson, writing for the American College of Pediatricians:

“In the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health, 13,491 adolescents in grades 7 to 11 were interviewed in 1995 and again one year later. The authors differentiated the cause and effects of depression and found that early high-risk behaviors, including sexual activity and drug use, were linked with later depression.

“Clearly, the adolescent years are a time of rapid brain development, a time of susceptibility … High-risk behaviors encountered during these vulnerable years can have lasting adverse consequences and should be avoided.”

I also don’t believe the police just invented the whole thing. Wrong was committed on some level. Wrongs. I ask myself what if it had been my daughter? What is a just punishment? Could I forgive?

They say that in life, there are no coincidences. So perhaps it was no coincidence that I watched Sir Richard Attenborough’s film “Gandhi” on Monday night.

I last saw the film in the theaters when I was 14.

In one of the later scenes, just before Gandhi’s assasination, Hindus and Muslims are engaged in Civil War, slaughtering each other, and Gandhi undertakes a hunger strike to stop the fighting, vowing not to eat until the violence stops.

And a Hindu man, clearly anguished, visits him, and tells him that he is trapped in a personal hell because he has murdered a Muslim in retaliation for the Muslims killing his son.

Gandhi suggests to the man that there is a way out of his hell – and that is to adopt a young Muslim boy and to raise that boy as a Muslim.

As Gandhi said, “The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. And that is where all our battles ought to be fought.”

We traditionally look upon doctors as gods, not as flawed individuals. In some respects, I have great pity upon doctors, because they carry this great weight of expectation. To elaborate on what Hartley says in his column this week, the ethical standard required to be a Republican candidate for President is a helluva lot less stringent than the standard required to practice medicine.

May 17, 2003. I had just finished publication of the fourth-ever issue of The Sheet and drove home to Sunny Slopes and on the way stopped in to have a few drinks at Tom’s Place. And on my way across the highway I was stopped by a CHP officer who had been laying in wait and claimed that I had crossed a double yellow-line making a left turn.

So he put me through the various tests which I passed without a hitch and … he let me go. But if I’d stayed a bit longer and had a few more drinks, maybe The Sheet would’ve ended before it began.

I vowed that night that if I wanted to become anything more than a historical footnote – if I really wanted to remain in the community and have a voice in the community – that I needed to adhere to a higher standard. But it was easy for me to crawl inside the boundaries of my little self-imposed box. It can be cold and dark out there in the wilderness. And I had spent enough time out in the wilderness to know.

It makes me want to go home and hug my daughter.

I think about Andy Bourne and that straight-and-narrow path of a doctor. Maybe he never spent enough time out there in the wilderness of spectacular failure, unrealized dreams and general uncertainty. Maybe he just got claustrophobic, temporarily insane …

I’m just trying to understand.

That’s why I find his apparent suicide so frustrating. I find that it provides an enormous blocker to a conversation that needs to occur, that should occur. How does a community heal, understand, reach closure, look itself in the mirror when that mirror’s been effectively shattered.

I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had over the past several weeks where women have told me about adolescent sexual experiences they had with significantly older men. Experiences that they undoubtedly never shared with their parents. For some, it was nothing more than that – an experience woven into a mosaic of experiences. For others, it had longer-lasting impact, longer-ranging repercussions.

I hope this teenage girl is okay, that this does not affect her ultimate life’s arc, her ultimate fulfillment.

My wife recalled the other day one definition she heard about forgiveness (sorry, no attribution), which is to “waive the right to hurt someone because they hurt you.”

Or, as Gandhi said, “For myself, I’ve found we’re all such sinners; we should leave punishment to God. And if we really want to change things, there are better things than derailing trains or slashing someone with a sword.”

A fund for the benefit of Gilann Bourne & Family has been set up at the Eastern Sierra Community Bank in Mammoth Lakes. In lieu of sending flowers, contributions may be made to “FBO Gilann Bourne & Family” (Account # 5015553) and dropped off or mailed to:

Eastern Sierra Community Bank
307 Old Mammoth Rd.
PO Box 5069
Mammoth Lakes, CA  93546
ATTN:  Yvonne Martin

760.923.1500
ymartin@escbank.com

A Celebration of Life Ceremony for Bourne has been scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 4, from 2-4 p.m. at Cerro Coso. All who were touched by Bourne’s life, talents and energy are encouraged to attend.

Tom Greenstein, age 41, of Mammoth Lakes, was found unresponsive and without vital signs in his Mammoth Lakes home on Dec. 15, 2011 at approximately 4:15 p.m. when the Mammoth Lakes Police Department and Mono County Paramedics were dispatched to the residence in Mammoth. When units arrived on scene, it was determined that Greenstein was deceased. Mono County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the scene to begin the coroner’s investigation, and the final cause of death was determined as acute narcotic intoxication. The final cause of death was confirmed by autopsy and toxicological results. -MCSD

For more on Greenstein, who was well-known in the Mammoth community, click here.

An autopsy as well as toxicology results have confirmed that Kevin James Jarvis, 26, of Bishop, Calif. died due to a drug overdose on Dec. 26, 2011.

Jarvis was found without vital signs at a family member’s home in Mammoth Lakes at approximately 9:45 a.m. on Dec. 26.

The Mammoth Lakes Police Department and Mono County Paramedics were dispatched to the residence in Mammoth. When units arrived on scene, it was determined that Jarvis was deceased. Mono County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the scene to begin the coroner’s investigation, which resulted in the cause of death stated above. -MCSD