Dear Editor,
I was born at that old beautiful hospital a couple miles south of town in 1954. It wasn’t pink then but I kind of like that color. My three brothers were born there too.
We grew up in the desert exploring nature with all our friends. A lot of those friends are still here. Those memories are some of the most treasured memories I have.
Time has changed but this beautiful spot on the map has not. It still offers the same experiences we had those many years ago if we are willing to get out and find them.
I left Hawthorne after graduating MCHS in 1972 thinking I would never return. Sure we’ve been all over the U.S. but moving back almost ten years ago at the nudging of my husband who found Hawthorne, by accident many years ago, was the best thing we could have done. The essence of this place on the map is not just the town of Hawthorne, Mount Grant and Walker Lake. It’s the wide-open freedom we experience. It’s the fresh air and blue skies and white puffy clouds we take in as we look out at miles and miles of beauty. The many different colors of rocks and all the little critters running around.
No one can know this in just a day trip after a blindfolded pick on a map. Maybe that guy didn’t take the blindfold off.
Shelly Barton Rich
Proud to be a resident of
Hawthorne, Nev.
Dear Editor,
This letter is written in response to Carne Lowgren’s opinion of Mineral County. What a prolific waste of ink. You [Lowgren] are a moron. You have a right to say what you want, but to put such hateful diatribe to print; I question the Inyo Register’s ideology to let this happen. Don’t come back.
Wade Barton
Proud third generation Hawthorne resident
Dear Editor,
Regarding the commentary written by Heidi Bunch and printed in the Jan. 7 edition of the MCIN, perhaps [Carne] Lowgren could not behold our county’s multifaceted beauty, for always looking down upon his treasured maps.
Ann Rodgers
Hawthorne
Dear Editor,
In my humble opinion the drug laws are very bad and are sliding the nation into chaos. A noble thing would be to feed and protect the tired and weary. What a wiser way to spend money. Number one incarceration in the nation and in the world would go down. In our holier than thou reputation, we alienate the world with our sheer and blatant hypocrisy of “medically prescribed” drug use.
Will Jones
Hawthorne
Dear Editor,
When I read the remarks made by Carne Lowgren about Mineral County my first reaction was anger and after some reflection my feeling changed to sadness that he would look at a map with some names and form a preconceived expectation of what he believed would be actuality. And when his mind picture didn’t match the reality of what his eyes saw, he immediately branded the area as ugly and everything about it as ugly because it had failed his expectations. The saddest part is, instead of exploring this new place and what it could offer; he closed his mind to any enlightenment.
He missed seeing the constantly changing patterns of light and shadow on the mountains and the beautiful sunrises and sunsets on those mountains and the reflections of those colors on the lake. He didn’t see the endless parade of cloud formations that pass overhead and reflect in the lake when it is like glass or the cap cloud on Mt. Grant and the lenticulars we often see. He wasn’t here to see the lake is never the same – sometimes glassy, sometimes in motion, and at times angry with the winds and forming white foam piling on the beaches. I bet he missed the Big Horn Sheep on those “ugly” rocks coming around the cliff area or maybe he wasn’t observant enough to see the large wild horse herd on the south end of the lake. Did he know there are eagles, both Bald and Golden, on that ugly Mt. Grant? Those are only some of our wildlife in the area. With his attitude I don’t believe he would appreciate access to Mt. Grant. After all, there is a lot of “ugly” rocks at the top.
He must not realize that Mineral County is a geologist’s playground and the many rock formations have stories to tell. Maybe the lake isn’t surrounded by trees, but the mountains are full of many types of trees and some are a photographer’s dream with the shapes and colors in their trunks. There are so many roads to explore in the mountains and across the desert and one doesn’t have to have a tour guide to go there.
His demeaning Hawthorne and our military base and military history is insulting to a town proud of its support of the military. The training in our mountain ranges have prepared our military to fight and survive in similar places in the world.
Mr. Lowgren, you insulted us and I don’t believe in tit-for-tat, but I am sorry you have shown us and your readers your narrow minded perception of what beauty is and I hope that someday your eyes will open and you can truly see and accept that beauty comes in many different forms. Heidi [Bunch] was right in that you totally missed one of the most wonderful resources of Mineral County and that is our people.
Betty Easley
Hawthorne
Dear Editor,
In respect to the Bishop, Calif. columnist that possibly tried to outrage the great people of Mineral County by writing a scathing review, well that was accomplished. To claim that we live in an “unlovely and unloved place with generally ugly human development” and refer to Walker Lake as featuring “the ugliest”, dear [Carne] Lowgen has yet to wake up to the kaleidoscope of colors upon our lake or see the vast skies we experience at each sunrise and sunset. He didn’t stay around to view the mirrored mountain range on the lake either, which hundreds of tourists stop to enjoy.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the Mineral County residents proudly behold beauty around us on a daily basis. Lowgen should’ve asked for a guide, to lead him to the big horn sheep grazing off the Mt. Grant range or to direct him to see each crevice of this mighty mountain as it embraces snow or springs up new desert growth. Driving north on Highway 95 he was not aware enough to stop at a turnoff, as most travelers do, to see our wild herd of horses grazing among the green landscape. He was sadly an apparent “drive by” rather than a true journalist. Lastly, Lowgren has obviously never viewed the many photos of this rich county, which have been recorded by the talents of our local photographers, such as: Beverly Orozco; Vic Trujillo; Tanya Bunch; Tony Hughes; the Nevada Backroads members and many more. As a writer, it would’ve been best for him to observe a little closer, looking for a unique and special presentation to write about; taking a moment to check out our local museums or seek out the historic side of Hawthorne that would have educated this man in a proper way. As it stands, he writes as an uninformed bully who only travels with his nose stuck in a map.
Randy Samson
Walker Lake
