About

About the Fawnskin Flyer

The Fawnskin Flyer contains topics of interest to mountain residents, part-time home-owners, and visitors to Fawnskin and Big Bear, California. In addition to events in Big Bear and the scuttlebutt circulating through the rustic town of Fawnskin, there are Big Bear vacation tips, mountain driving hints, hiking, camping, fishing, boating, and related mountain topics such as high altitude baking or high altitude gardening. But the Fawnskin Flyer was more amusing and entertaining than just tips and news from the San Bernardino Mountains. Are you wondering about that? Thought so, so here is a bit of history behind the Fawnskin Flyer…

So, how did this whole Fawnskin Flyer thing get started, you ask?

Believe it or not, it started as a joke!

You see, small town living in a rural and rustic mountain town is…errr, colorful.

The main focus around town seems to be on the local gossip. Soon after moving here, I found myself shaking my head over the daily abundance of tall tales–and let’s not forget about amusing antics of the locals and visitors either.

Wouldn’t you know, I found myself telling everyone that someone should start a gossip rag.

Never in my life had I been exposed to so much silly and trivial information that forms the main focus of small town life. The funny thing was, that in most cases, the rumors were true. You could never make this stuff up, either…amusing, sad, and sometimes unbelievable–the scuttlebutt forms the backbone of small town living.

Then one day it happened, I was ambling down the highway, pondering something silly that I had heard throughout town, and I started muttering (to myself, mind you).

“Someone should start a little gossip rag for the town…”

Then suddenly the name popped into my head!

“Hmm, it could be called the Fawnskin Flyer.”

The rest of the day different ideas kept popping in my head–making me laugh. Next thing I knew, I was at my keyboard writing about silly stories and some of the local scuttlebutt.

So, I printed the thing up as a two-sided flyer with the tag line, “We won’t be malicious, but we will be interesting” and distributed it around town.

Needless to say, it was a hit.

I even had someone who wanted to be the paparazzi for the darn thing.

For a time, every week I wrote about the goings-on around Fawnskin, California. And, every week people grabbed them up in a frenzy to read them.

Soon, I decided to create a blog and take it out into the world. Would you believe that in a short time my readership of 50 or so locals was outnumbered by my online audience which now numbers in the thousands?

I eventually decided to quit driving across town and paying premium money on printing the suckers. (Really, you can get the raw deal in a small town where there isn’t any place else to go. It cost $25 to print 50 flyers!)

The decision to go strictly online was made when people stopped pitching the coins into the coffee cans.

Yes, theft in Fawnskin.

Even here, the honor system is gone (but people snitched anyway–so I really know who you are). I figured that when people quit throwing the coins in the fancy coffee cans it was time to pull out from the big time labor and distribution to the three places throughout town).

The Fawnskin Flyer today still has a life of its own. Sometimes there are other contributors and I’d like that to eventually be the main content here. The whole experience has been an adventure. I’ve been praised, yelled at, threatened with lawsuits, and even got asked to run for mayor–all as a result of this little rag.

Ultimately, I decided to stick with a pen name of “GG” (short for Gossip Girl) since it mostly keeps me out of trouble.

Me? I am an avid blogger (this is one of many I manage). I prefer to keep anonymous. My intention is never to create drama or cause harm, I just blog about my life, frustrations, and goings-on around town.

As I pen this, the Fawnskin Flyer not only has readers in Fawnskin and throughout the Big Bear Valley, but also a readership made up of fans from around the globe. I hope you too will become a fan–enjoy yourself and come back often.

Below you will find an image of the first issue…and the last regular post was December 31, 2013 with two final updates in November of 2014 and 2015.

GG left town and there is no telling what the future may bring to the Fawnskin Flyer–but enjoy the archives while you are here!

Thanks to the following people for making the online version so awesome:

Fawnskin Photo (Public Domain) Courtesy of Mike Manning

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