COARSEGOLD - A man living west of Coarsegold and just past the Fresno River was severely beaten with a baseball bat ssometime Tuesday evening.
    Dennis Avery's wife returned to their home along Happy Hollow Road at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning to find blood both inside and outside her home, and her 37-year-old husband badly beaten.
    Because they have no phone, she helped her husband to the car and drove to a neighbor's home to call emergency crews.
    Mr. Avery, who received numerous head and shoulder injuries, including a fractured jaw and skull, was taken to University Medical Center for medical treatment.
    UMC says that Mr. Avery remains in serious but stable condition.
    "Right now, we have no idea who did this or why, says Public Information Officer Rita Valdivia, with the Madera County Sheriff's Department.
    "It looks like there was a struggle outside the residence. There are shoe tracks, and signs of blood both inside and outside the home.
    Ms. Valdivia says that Mr. Avery was coherent at the scene and was able to tell sheriff's detectives that he had no idea who it was that beat him up.

    FRESNO - For the Adelsbach family, the best gifts don't necessarily come in small boxes. They come in electronic boxes.
    Modern technology, often blamed for making life more impersonal, definitely put the personal touch into the wedding of Terry Adelsbach and Jennifer Heasley this past Saturday at Tenaya Lodge.
    Here's the story. It was the Monday before the wedding. Terry's mother, Cass, a receptionist for Sierra Telephone who had been having health problems for several months, had recently been admitted to Fresno's St. Agnes Hospital with a series of blood clots in her brain. It became apparent that the long-awaited-for event would be missed by Mrs. Adelsbach.
    "I was thinking about how upset my son would be if I couldn't be there, says Mrs. Adelsbach.
    The next day, her husband, Scott Adelsbach, was talking to Sherry Colgate, customer service manager, at the Sierra Telephone offices. Unable to sleep the night before, he had remembered a video conferencing exhibit he seen at the Showcase of Schools this past spring.
    "A little light went on in my head, says Ms. Colgate. What if we could utilize the same facilities that we installed at the Tenaya Lodge for a educational summit held there last fall, she reasoned.

    The do-it-yourself used-car sales lot along Highway 41 in central Oakhurst is officially off-limits.
    The site of a former gasoline station, the lot had in recent months grown increasingly popular as a parking spot for owners wanting to sell used cars, trucks, trailers and all sorts of vehicles.
    The practice aroused an increasing loud roar of protest from residents who thought the lot and its vehicles to be an eyesore and an embarrassment to the continuing effort to make Oakhurst an attractive mountain village.
    Madera County Supervisor Gary Gilbert [Mountain Area-District 5] apparently couldn't see anything attractive, either. He contacted the Pashayan family, owners of the property that once included the Midway Market before it burned last year.
    "They agreed it didn't look good, says Mr. Gilbert.
    The lot owners might also have had some concern about the potential for legal liability.
    In any event, signs were posted that made it possible to tow away vehicles parked there for the benefit of tire-kicking prospective buyers.
    As soon as the warning was posted, most of the for-sale vehicles disappeared.
    Vandals have already broken the warning sign, but the message remains: park a used-car here and it will be towed and stored until bailed out by the owner.