Lake Arrowhead or Big Bear Lake?

 by Bob Sparrow

arrowhead queen

The Arrowhead Queen

There are two major mountain lakes in southern California, Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake, they are both in the San Bernardino National Forest about 25 miles apart. They’ve been sibling rivals since 1922, when a dam was built to form Lake Arrowhead. They are both man-made lakes, with the dam that formed Big Bear Lake constructed back in 1884.

Having grown up around Lake Tahoe, I have a deep appreciation for scenic mountain lakes, so have visited both of these local resorts on numerous occasions, Arrowhead more than Big Bear, primarily because it’s a little closer and esthetically more appealing to me. In fact I had not been to Big Bear in several years, until a few weeks ago, when I  visited my daughter, Dana’s mother-in-law’s place to check out the ‘new’ Big Bear. I say ‘new’ because over the last several years, Big Bear has made a concerted effort to up-grade its redheaded stepchild image, with considerable success I might add.

BigBearVillageWinter

The Village at Big Bear Lake in Winter

As I explored Big Bear, I imagined a discussion between these two alpine lakes going something like this . . .

Lake Arrowhead (LA): “It’s nice to see that you’re finally cleaning up your act.”

Big Bear (BB): “Yeah, well let’s see what you look like when you get to be 132 years old!”

LA: “Why do they even call you Big Bear anyway, there are no big bears around?”

BB: “There used to be lots of Grizzlies here until man hunted them into extinction; and by the way, they used to call you Little Bear Lake’

LA: “But I still have 14 miles of beautiful shoreline.”

BB: “I have 22, which is why you were called Little Bear!”

LA: “You used to have 22 not-as-beautiful-shoreline-as-mine, but it’s shrunk considerably with the drought.”

BB: “Same shoreline, just much more beach now for a population of just over 5,000 to enjoy.”

LA: “That’s nothing; I have a population of over 12,000.”

BB: “So you’re saying that it’s more crowded there than it is here?”

Celebrity-Homes1

Celebrity homes on Lake Arrowhead

LA: “If crowded means we’ve had more star’s homes here like Tom Selleck, Shirley Temple Black, Priscilla Presley, Brian Wilson, Patrick Swayze and Michael Jackson, then yes, I guess we’re more crowded.”

BB: “Yeah, well we have the homes of Britney Spears, Mike Judge, who did the voices for Beavis and Butthead, Michael Richards, Krammer on Seinfeld, the metal band, Korn, and Richard Karn, who was the sidekick to Tim Allen in Home Improvement.

LA: “See, you have to explain who your ‘stars’ are; Michael Jackson needs no explanation.”

BB:Michael Jackson needs a lot of explanation, but that’s besides the point. So let’s stay in the show business genre, what movies have been shot there?”

LA: The Courtship of Miles Standish, The American President and Space Jam to name a few.”

Gone

“Frankly Scarlet . . .

BB: “Yeah, a few that are not very well known. Here’s some of mine you might remember: Heidi, Shane, Old Yeller and you may recall this one, Gone With the Wind. Case closed, let’s move on the skiing.”

LA: “We have great water skiing.”

BB: “You are a ‘private‘ lake and many activities are restricted to residents only. I have two marinas where the public can rent pontoon boats, go fishing, rent fishing equipment, take wakeboard or waterski rides, rent kayaks and canoes and ride a pirate ship.”

LA: “Well, the public can take a ride on my Arrowhead Queen and see all the spectacular celebrity homes around the lake.”

BB: “So what happens in the winter? How’s snow skiing at your elevation of 5,174?”

LA: “Well, we have Snow Valley fairly close by”

BB: “But it’s actually closer to me and I’m at 6,750 feet elevation; we also have Bear Mountain and Snow Summit at 8,200 feet elevation; so we are clearly the winter destination. Let’s move on, how’s your summer hiking trails?”

LA: “They’re awesome; I have Goat Trail, Little Bear Creek, Heaps Peak, Crab Creek, Little Green Valley and many more.”

pct

View of Big Bear Lake from Pacific Crest Trail

BB: “Not bad I guess, but I have Heart Rock, Vivian Creek, Castle Rock, Deep Creek Hot Springs, Big Falls, Cougar Crest and, oh yeah the famous Pacific Crest Trail, which goes from Mexico to Canada, runs right by me.”

LA: “Fine! Let’s talk about golf; do you have anything to compare to Arrowhead Golf and Country Club?”

BB: “No, not really, I’ll leave the country club set to you. I’ll admit you’re prettier than I am, but your ‘Village’ is looking fairly tired and my ‘Village’ is buzzing with new shops, restaurants and bars; summer or winter this is the place to be.”

LA: “But you said I’m still prettier right?”

Okay kids, enough! The fact is that neither one is a Lake Tahoe, but for my money, if you’re an adventurer, Big Bear Lake is probably your best destination in the summer and for sure in the winter, but if you just want to get to the mountains to enjoy some clean air and the scenery of a beautiful mountain lake, rent a home on Lake Arrowhead or stay lake-side at the luxurious Lake Arrowhead Resort & Spa and take a cruise on the Arrowhead Queen.

 

1968 REDUX?

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

The '68 Convention

The ’68 Convention

I had a hard time getting to sleep the night of the Dallas police shootings   I kept thinking about 1968, and how the events of that seminal year affected our society for years to come.  The next morning I heard several news commentators make the same comparison until someone (I forget who – I can remember 1968 but not last week) reminded us how bad 1968 really was.  It was a year that began to show the fissures in our society and a seismic shift in our values.  The Vietnam war was raging – both Mai Lai and the Tet Offensive occurred that year and we lost more men (16,592) in 1968 than any other year of the war.  Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, we saw the demise of Lyndon Johnson and the rise of Richard Nixon, the Zodiac killer terrorized the San Francisco area, North Korea captured the submarine Pueblo and kept the 99 member crew hostage for eleven months.  Finally, violent riots broke out at the Democratic convention in Chicago.  It was a really bad year.

The Graduate

The Graduate

As easy as it is to think about 1968 in rather dark tones, that year was also jam-packed with social, economic and entertainment “firsts”.  We here at From A Bird’s Eye View, in an effort to bring you some lighter memories of that year, bring you the following highlights:

  • The Beatles started Apple records and released their White Album, containing the song Hey Jude.
  • The Boing 747 made its maiden flight and Intel was founded.
  • Dr. Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant.
  • The first ATM went into a bank in Pennsylvania and  911 became the nation-wide emergency number.
  • The Graduate was the #1 movie, forever inspiring runaway brides.
  • TV programs ran the gamut from Peyton Place to Flipper, but perhaps the most influential new TV show that year was Laugh-In.
  • The average new car sold for $2822 and you could fill the tank for 34 cents a gallon.
  • The median price of a home was  $14,950, which sounds great by today’s standards but then the average annual salary was only $7,850.
  • The Jets/Raiders game was interrupted by a showing of Heidi, cutting off the last minute of play where the Raiders scored twice to win the game.
563 heart-stopping calories

563 heart-stopping calories

  • Perhaps this should be on the “bad” list, but 1968 saw the invention of the Big Mac.
  • 60 Minutes debuted on CBS and is still going strong.
  • Finally, on Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned spaceship to orbit the moon.  As one politician noted when the astronauts safely returned to Earth, “You have saved 1968.”

I write this just as the political conventions are about to take place so I don’t know what will happen – hopefully just peaceful protesting.  It’s hard not to be apprehensive; to hope that we don’t see rioting and injury.  I will endeavor to remember that 1968 had problems, but it also had breakthroughs. After all, it was in 1968 that Paul Lynde entertained us on Hollywood Squares.  Who knows, perhaps in 50 years we’ll look back at 2016 and despite the problems, we’ll remember the nuttiness of Pokemon Go.

A Birthday Tribute to Our Brother, the ‘Other’ Jack Sparrow

by Bob Sparrow

bar

Jack, blowing out not quite 75 candles

A party was held in our home last week to celebrate the 75th birthday of our brother, Jack Sparrow. He is not only my brother, but my best friend and has been since right after he broke my arm. I was 12, he was 14 and like most brothers we’d have an occasional difference of opinion; fights never lasted too long as he was much bigger and stronger than me, but I was of the opinion that it ‘wasn’t the size of the dog in the fight, it was the size of the fight in the dog’. Yeah, well that philosophy didn’t work out so well on this occasion when I thought I was going to land a big ‘haymaker’ right on his chin, when he put up his arm and blocked it. My forearm hurt for several days after and when I finally went to the doctor and had it x-rayed, my arm was found to be broken. That was our last fight.

Jack BB

6’4″ center at Novato High School

Later that same year, he entered high school and was a three-sport letterman for the next four years. Not just a letterman, he was good . . . real good. I idolized him, he was the best athlete I had ever seen and the great thing about it was he didn’t treat me like a ‘bothersome little brother’, he always had time to work with me to teach me to throw a baseball and football and shoot a basketball.

In his senior year he was 6’4” and 180 pounds – great size in 1959. Aside from getting good grades and being student body president, he stood out in every sport he played.  In basketball, at the center position, his turnaround jump shot from 15’ and in was an automatic. He was the top scorer and rebounder on the team and amongst the leaders in both categories in the league; he was a unanimous All-League selection. He received scholarship offers to play basketball at a number of West Coast schools.

He was the ace pitcher on the baseball team and an All-League selection, who lead his team to a league championship in his senior year. He had a great fastball and a wicked curve; he threw several one and two-hit ball games and was being talked to by major league scouts to continue his career in baseball.

Jack 3 QBs

College of Pacific quarterback

But his love was football. At quarterback he had a rifle arm, could run extremely well and was a great on-the-field leader of the team. In his four years of high school football, he lost only 4 games. Back in 1959 there was a North-South Shrine game, where top high school seniors from Northern California played against the top seniors from Southern California in the Los Angeles Coliseum in the summer following their senior year. Jack was selected to play in that game along with two other quarterbacks from the North, Daryle Lamonica, who was headed to Notre Dame and ultimately a great career with the Oakland Raiders, and Bill Munson, who was headed to Utah State and later drafted in the first round by the Rams and played 16 seasons in the NFL for various teams. Needless to say, it was a very tough competition for the starting quarterback spot. Guess who worked his ass off and was named the starting quarterback for the North? Yep, Capt. Jack; and they won the game!

I was a sophomore during Jack’s senior year and was in awe of the college football coaches and recruiters from all across the country who sat in our living room trying to convince Jack to go to their school. He ultimately chose College of Pacific in Stockton, the school his high school coach had attended and at the time, had a high-powered football program, headed by star running back Dick Bass, who went on to have an outstanding pro career with the Los Angeles Rams.

off shore

Off Shore Bar & Grill – Lake Tahoe

Tragically, Jack broke his neck playing in a game in his junior year in college, yet remarkably came back to play in his senior year. But the neck injury came back to haunt him after his senior year, when he took the physical at the San Francisco 49ers training camp and was told that the risk of re-injuring the neck was too great for him to pursue a career in football.

Jack went on to have an outstanding career in the restaurant management business, capped by owning his own restaurant, the Off Shore Bar & Grill, on the shores of north Lake Tahoe. After he and wife, Sharon, moved to Santa Maria, he was convinced by none other than Fess Parker himself, who became a good friend, to come to work at the Fess Parker Winery, where to this day he still enjoys working part-time in the tasting room.

3

Bob, Suzanne and Jack

Some 25-30 friends and family attended the party to help Jack celebrate his three-quarters of a century on the planet.  He enjoyed some good wine and a few gag gifts, but most of all he enjoyed the friends and family who had gathered on this beautiful southern California evening to wish him well.

You readers know what a awesome sister I have; I just feel so fortunate to have such great siblings – hat’s off to Mom and Dad, who at least got 2 out of 3 right!

 

I COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER – OR NOT

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

imageEvery four years I have a Walter Mitty moment – I fantasize that I am an Olympic Games contender.  This past week I’ve been watching all of the USA Olympic team trials and, as always, think that with a little more effort I could have made the team.  This is totally delusional, of course.  I did swim for my high school and AAU teams but I think I was more interested in how I looked in my Speedo than my split times.  I also participated in gymnastics in school, but soon realized that my “thunder thighs” were not compatible with elegance, grace or balance.  So I have the utmost admiration for those who are talented and dedicated enough to take their skills to the try-outs, putting it all on the line to make the American team.  There are hundreds of competitors, but a few have stood out for me this week.

John Orozco on learning he made the team

John Orozco – In 2012 it looked like the sky was the limit for this talented gymnast.  He made the Olympic team and was heralded as a sure thing for a medal, an athlete with a fairytale story. Born to parents of little means, his mother drove him a hour each day from their home in Brooklyn to the gym in Chappequa.  Early on they slept in their car when they traveled to competitions.  A lot of hard work resulted in his Olympic dreams coming true.    But  those dreams turned into nightmares at the 2012 games.  Uncharacteristially,  he had two disastrous pommel horse routines and then fell on one of his vaults.  He was routinely chided by the critics as a huge disappointment.  But he kept plugging along.  Then in 2015 he was hit with a double whammy – his beloved mother died suddenly and he tore his Achilles’ tendon.  Everyone wrote him off for the 2016 team. But John believed in himself and wanted to honor all the sacrifices his mother made.  During the trials last week he summoned the courage and fortitude to perform at the highest levels.  He was not error-free, but was good enough for the selection committee to put him on the team.  He cried throughout the induction ceremony and anyone who watched his interview and didn’t tear up is just not human.  No matter the outcome in Rio, John Orozco is a winner in all the ways that are important.

imageTroy Dumais – Not everyone’s Olympic dreams come true.  Troy Dumais has been a premier diver for the USA since 1996, participating in the past four Olympic Games.  Think about that – he started his Olympic career when we could still leave our shoes on at the airport.  He dubbed the trials this year as his “Dive for Five”.  Unfortunately, at 36 years old, time had caught up with him and he was in fourth place going into the final round, well out of Olympic team contention. He has contributed so much to his sport that when he climbed the ladder to perform the final dive of his career, the audience gave him a standing ovation.  They continued to clap and cheer, forcing Dumais to pause and take it all in.  He broke down, then summoned the composure to execute his dive almost flawlessly.  He said afterward that he knows it’s time to retire.  He is now married with a family and said that it’s difficult to cobble together enough income to support them.  And that’s the thing that is so admirable about most of these athletes – they do it for the love of the sport.  For every Michael Phelps and Shawn Johnson who rake in the big endorsements, there are hundreds of Olympic-level contenders that have to scrape by just to make a living.  I have untold admiration for their dedication and purity of purpose.

Kevin Cordes

Kevin Cordes – I’m going to admit up front that I’m a bit biased when it comes to Kevin Cordes.  I’m a friend of his grandmother and have been following his swimming career for almost ten years.  He attended University of Arizona, where he was named the Pac 12 and NCAA swimmer of the year – twiceand in 2015 was named the Pac 12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year, completing his degree in Business with a 3.4 GPA.  Today he is the American record-holder in the 100m breast stroke and if you Google his name you will see a very long list of his awards and medals, both national and   international.  But what makes Keven so admirable is his discipline and comportment.  At the 2012 trials he came in third, just missing out on a spot on the Olympic team.  But he took that disappointment and built on it.  He has dedicated his life to being the best possible swimmer while remaining a good and humble person.  Sadly, that can’t be said of all of the “glamour” athletes we see on TV.  As testimony to Kevin’s reputation, last week when he won the 100m breast stroke event, finally becoming the Olympian he had dreamed about, an observer noted that during the medal ceremony all of the lane judges stood up and gave him an ovation – the first time that had happened.  In Rio Kevin will be competing in both the 100 and 200m events as well as the relays.  I know his family is extremely proud of him, not only for his achievements in the pool but also for his behavior outside of it.  He is truly an All-American in every way.

I can’t wait for the Games to begin.  I have reconciled that I will never make an Olympic team, unless eating and knitting become competitive events.   Instead, I will root for John and Kevin and all the other Olympic athletes who are so hard-working, dedicated, honest and a tribute to our country.  I’m proud that they will be representing the USA.  I wonder if we can get one of them to run for President?