SNOW PROBLEM: Ventura County’s high country has...

SNOW PROBLEM: Ventura County’s high country has had its first snowfall of the season (B1), and Dave Kenney is ready. “We’ve got snowshoes, a snowmobile, four-wheel-drive Blazers--all the good stuff,” said Kenney, one of two deputies who live and work at the Lockwood Valley station. . . . And they need every bit of it, Kenney said. Each winter, the deputies have to search for missing skiers, hikers and day-trippers. . . . “They don’t bring chains, or they get stuck in the snow, or they wear just a light jacket. If you don’t live up here, you don’t know how hard conditions can be.”

WRIGHT STUFF: Trivia question: When the aviation era began 90 years ago Friday (A5), who flew first, Wilbur or Orville Wright? Answer: Orville, who covered 120 feet in 12 seconds. . . . Ventura County’s first aviator, Joe Gisler Jr., took to the skies 25 years later, flying a two-seat biplane from a rutted strip near what is now the Esplanade Mall. He was 17. . . . “It was an adventure,” said Lucille Gisler, who often donned goggles and hat to fly with her husband. “I wouldn’t go near that plane now.”. . . Gisler, who died last year at 81, quit flying in the 1930s after crashing his plane into the Santa Clara River. “It fell apart, but he walked away from it.”

BREAK A LEG: For even the most devoted parents, sitting through a holiday pageant can be a tough nut to crack. Just imagine trying to produce one (Ventura County Life, Page 28). . . . Karleen Hamilton pulled it off with 400 pupils in Camarillo, despite trouble in Toyland--like the time the Nutcracker had the flu.

WET TAPE: Thousand Oaks council members have never been shy about passing laws, as many merchants have learned while trying to put up a sign or paint a building. . . . But some on the council fear a proposed wetlands law might create needless red tape (B5). . . . Developer Albert Cohen had a suggestion: “All the ordinances the city passes are don’ts--don’t do this, don’t do that,” Cohen said. “Why not pass an ordinance that says something you can do?”