L.A.’s Outback : Three Points : Residents are like a family. They’re also like Boy Scouts--prepared and resourceful

“Are you lost?”

Those are the first words Bill Hart, a Three Points old-timer, asked a visitor who walked through Maxine’s, the major business in Three Points. In fact, Maxine’s is the only business in Three Points--a combination bar, restaurant, social club and video rental store that is the center of all activity in this mountain town.

Lost tourists in search of California poppy fields were a common sight this spring, so the locals gear up to give directions when an unfamiliar face walks in. “Poppy people” and “poppy commandos,” they are derisively called.

Recently, a young woman in jogging shorts and T-shirt wandered in, warily eyeing a decor that includes a jukebox, animal traps, rattlesnake skins, guns, old photographs, dollar bills pinned to the wall, a bottle of pickled pig feet and a sign that says “All tabs must be paid by the end of the month.”

She asked to be directed to an address on Pine Canyon Road.

Hart smiled as he took his cue. “You lost?” The bar erupted in voices, each offering different directions. After the joke, she was shown the correct route.

A roadside welcome sign says the Three Points population is 150, but no one really knows what it is. The county registrar says the voting district for Neenach, which includes the Three Points area and Holiday Valley, has 378 voters.

The proprietor of Maxine’s is Maxine Martin, but most locals just call her “Mom.” She listens to their problems, extends credit and occasionally cashes their checks. Her real passion is raising mules. A member of the Hi Desert Mule Assn., she has helped organize Mules in Motion, a festival for mule races and shows held near Neenach for eight years.

“I rode an 11-mile endurance race two years ago,” said Martin, 62. “I came in last, but at least I made the full circle. I was pretty proud of that.”

Except for frequent visits by film companies using the bar as a set, not much happens here. About the biggest excitement occurred a year ago when “a guy parked his van in front and it caught fire,” she said.

So everyone gathers at Maxine’s at least once a day for beer, burgers or talk.

“We almost have to be like family,” said Marta Perry, who lives in Neenach with her husband and two children. “I think we’re dependent on each other.”

Neighbors help out when a bear tears up a water line or deer invade an apple orchard, said Don Metcalfe, a 73-year-old Three Points resident. When a tree fell across the road last winter, trapping Perry and other families up Pine Canyon Road, other residents pounced on the trunk with chain saws.

Residents here have to be like Boy Scouts--resourceful and prepared. They stock up on extra food and fuel, especially during the winter when they might get snowed in. They are also used to rescuing one another during little emergencies. Samantha Rozner, who works at Maxine’s, said she always keeps a siphon handy to help fill up an empty gas tank.

“One winter will show you how remote you are,” Perry said. “It’s an adjustment. I’m still adjusting and I’ve been here nine years.”

The solitude also suits the students at a training center for clergymen, a few miles east of Three Points, run by the Vineland Christian Church of Lancaster. The 380-acre compound used to be a horse ranch and its seclusion enhances the students’ studies, said Jim Mumper, director of the school.

That isolation is what appeals to Laura May Lafferty--most folks call her Grandma Laura.

Lafferty’s grandparents homesteaded the area in 1892. Her grandmother, she said, was the midwife who delivered Bill Barnes’ father. Gookins Lake, a local landmark, is named after her mother’s family. Her father, Ben Cherbbono, was a French Canadian mule skinner who led the team that helped grade the Ridge Route.

She inherited his sturdy genes. Until she was 73, she cut her own firewood.

Lafferty has recorded more than two hours of her reminiscences on videotape for a local historical society, memories large and small. Lafferty remembers when the building housing Maxine’s was brand new. Among other things, it was the occasional headquarters for a dentist who powered his drill with foot pedals. “That was my first experience with a dentist,” she said.

Lafferty moved away in 1924, eventually becoming a jeweler, horse trainer, cook, photographer and tour guide, among other things. But through the years she always came back to Three Points. These days she tends her roses, and cares for three cats and a dog.

“I love this country,” she said. “It gives me no arguments.”