Big Bear City is slow-moving today, locals riding bikes and humming with a rhythm that is familiar to mountain resorts during summer months. It’s a combination of business owners and craftsmen covering their daily chores and ski resorts performing maintenance on lift chairs high on the slopes. A rider in street clothes, lank gray hair and flannel shirt, slides his cycle into the rack in front of Vons, hangs in front of the store for a few moments, as if wondering if there’s enough money to buy what he wants, settling instead maybe for what he needs. The sun is bright at 7000 feet and feels hot on my forehead and arms, thin air letting the sting of ultraviolet rays tingle on my skin. The lake is deep blue-green, boats bob in the breeze. At the back end of the town the lake reaches shore near the airport and a few twin-engine planes position for takeoff, their props a blur of motion as they crawl across the tarmac to the head of the runway. The highway splits at the corner back o
