The reader will find this book a pleasant and endearing change of pace because of it’s mode of innocence and a mixture of sadness. Marc Bowman and Bobby Sousa and Jim Stern depart for the lake together expecting to find a day of self-reliance and fun. When the old Mohave man Mr. Malacka suggests traveling to the lake on horseback there becomes a sense of parental security and fulfillment that Mr. Malacka fulfills. The inclement weather is also a harbinger of how life’s good times can suddenly turn bad.
The group enjoys an idyllic day doing what young twelve-year-olds do on a fishing trip. The reader can feel the essence of the lake as it’s described and will enjoy old Chato as he shares some of his experiences with the boys. The reader will also laugh with the boys as Bobby’s story of Flavio is told around a mealtime campfire.
Those who have been to the tri-state area of Arizona, California and Nevada will readily agree that it is as scenic as when Jedediah Smith found it and the Mohaves in the 1800’s. The Boundary Cone and the Colorado River prominently remain.
Darrell Scott was born in A r i z ona and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of A l b u q u e r q u e < /SPAN> in New M e x ico. He majored in Data Management. The years proceeding academia, he was employed in data processing. He has been a Systems Analyst and a Computer Programmer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in A l b u q u e rque and at a bank in D e nver. He was one of Honeywell’s Computer Department’s software Computer Specialists. Currently, he is the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Specialist for La Paz C o u n t y < /SPAN> in A r i z ona where he lives.
Darrell Scott is a full-blooded Mohave Indian and speaks the language. Mr. Scott’s Three-Mile Lake is a recollection of his pre-teen years and also a composite of the people he grew up with. Mr. Malacka is a composite of the elders within Mr. Scott’s Mohave Tribe. The Fort Mohave Indian Band was and still is an active entity, which the tribe identifies with and looks to with great pride. The band played in Washington D .C. at the opening of the National Native American Museum in 2004 and is still the only tribal band in < / S P AN> A m e r i c a < / S P A N >.
Mr. Scott recently visited Three-Mile L a k e < /SPAN> and was poignantly pleased to find that nothing much has changed. Although he couldn’t find the catfish.