Editor's note: Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person.
Originally published Feb. 23, 1997
There is nothing like a doctor’s waiting room to make you feel good about yourself. There is always somebody older, more bent over or more infirm.
Reader: This month, TBC ran an editorial hit piece on President Trump ("Our View: Trump ‘tilts at windmills’ with bogus cancer claim," April 7). He had made a speech about wind power causing cancer, which frankly was ridiculous. I love him but would be the first to admit that he sometimes is…
Notre Dame is the daily intelligence test for the newly arrived in Paris. Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. No matter how lost you get or how poor your sense of direction, locate either one and you’re probably not going to die of starvation or be eaten by the Parisian wolves.
It's been almost 25 years since I took my first trip to Canada to film waterfowl hunts.
Contact The Californian's Robert Price at 661-395-7399, rprice@bakersfield.com or on Twitter: @stubblebuzz. The views expressed here are his own.
I still like books. The real ones. Long, short or two fingers thick.
Editor's note: Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person.
What do Andre the Giant, Tito Santana, King Kong Bundy and the Junkyard Dog have in common? Well, I'll tell you.
It was dusk when Gary Moore, his wife Petrina and their 4-year-old daughter jumped into the family's little red Honda for a short jaunt down Highway 99, from Delano to McFarland, for a Sunday-evening visit with another couple.
Easter is a time of renewal, joy and love or at least I thought so until Sue and I got into it over a pound of jelly beans I’d bought from Smart & Final. I’d put them in a bowl and when I came home one afternoon she had removed the black ones and the white ones from the mix.
As the annual observation of Earth Day approaches, it seems things are heating up. Literally. The oceans and the atmosphere, as well as the debates and the rhetoric, are hotter than ever. In the face of impending crisis and even doom, however, our elected leaders are doing little to address,…
Reader: The bar that TBC sets for those reporters that contribute to its op-ed, national and world news pages is not set very high. As a matter of fact anyone who is a Trump hater is always welcomed with open arms. Case in point was "Trump struggles with border issues," published April 7, ab…
I finally jumped into "Game of Thrones," or GoT as the insiders call it. Too many people have said things like “This is the best show of all time,” with the subtext being "If you don’t watch this, you’re nuts."
New York City cab driver. Hazardous waste cleanup technician. Budget airline flight attendant. To that list of challenging jobs, add this: top executive of the California Republican Party.
I was in the car ordering at In-N-Out.
Editor's note: Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person.
When he went back to work on Jan. 2 after the holidays, Bakersfield deputy city attorney Richard Iger had a message in his email dated Jan. 1, 2019 at 12:05 a.m. It was a Public Records Act request from a media organization asking for copies of police misconduct records.
Our neighbors moved out next door. Their house is dark. A dark, empty house has a different feel than a dark, full house. It’s darker, emptier and more prone to be the subject of darker and emptier thoughts if one was prone to having such thoughts, which one is not.
Reader: I know you are getting a lot of well-deserved compliments on your excellent Baker Street neighborhood article, as well as suggestions for places left out ("Where We Live: In Old Town Kern, renowned restaurants and pervasive homelessness are side by side," March 24). I have a couple o…
Oranges in bloom, 70 degrees, skies stay light later — if you’re not eating outside now, when are you?
Paul Golla, the new head coach at Garces High School, likes what he sees of his new team thus far, even without the pads and footballs.
A few months before I lost my old friend and hunting partner, Steve Merlo, he called me one day and asked if I would do him a big favor.
In what will be his first extended interview with local media, Michael Stewart will sit down with The Californian's Robert Price for a special installment of TBC Media's "One on One" webcast to talk about his new job — head football coach at Bakersfield High School.
editor's pick
In the spring, they pick oranges and tangerines. In August, grapes. Then, come October, a choice: vegetables in and around Arvin or strawberries over in Santa Maria. The hours can be long, the work backbreaking.
I was buying some heavy cream at Trader’s Joe’s when I saw somebody I knew. I smiled and asked him how he was doing. He hesitated, as a deer might before crossing a road on a dark night.
Editor's note: Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person.
A couple of mornings ago, I had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios but that’s not breakfast, that’s a breakfast placeholder, so I backed it up with two pieces of Sonora wheat sourdough from Baker’s Outpost, a local bakery owned by Laura and Ian Journey.
Reader: The "article" about how local new car sales will be affected by the impending 1-cent sales tax increase is hardly relevant for the front page of The Californian, even on a slow news day ("Car dealers see purchase incentive in impending city sales tax increase," March 26). This is not…
East Bakersfield's history-rich Baker Street corridor is populated with a number of great restaurants — and the city's most severe homeless problem. Disconnected souls live both on the street and in homeless shelters around and among several renowned dining establishments. The result is a pr…
I don’t know the last time I attended a Board of Supervisors meeting but Tuesday I did and I’m glad I did.
The Gaslight Melodrama, one of Bakersfield’s great little treasures, just opened a show called “Shafter vs. Wasco.” It’s corny, slapstick fun, but the theme speaks to an actual truth: The Kern County farm towns, 10 miles apart and almost identical in size and demographic makeup, have a decad…
The late, great food critic Jonathan Gold was known to have visited Old Town Kern even when he had no intention of writing anything about the trip.
Reader: How can The Bakersfield Californian post the (March 19) headline, "Jury acquits Kern High teacher who allegedly sexted with student"? They said (Kern High School District teacher Johnny Gray Watson) wasn't guilty of that (charge) and the girl (who had accused him) admitted it wasn't …
The mother stands slumping in the corner. The moonlight gently casts the shadows of the bars in her cage which highlights her sadness. Through the bars of her window she sees the top of her child trying to reach in. The mother stands straight and her sadness is immediately replaced by a huge…
Editor's note: Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person.
editor's pick
Wondering what's so pleasantly different about that chile verde? Wide-eyed over that steaming platter of garlicky Basque fried chicken? Sizing up an angle of attack on that briny, rich clam linguine?
For his fourth birthday, he was a pirate. That made sense. He’s plundered, stolen and captured our hearts. Done the same with his parents, too.
Mental flashbacks to 2002 have plagued my brain lately. That was the year, dramatized in the movie "Spotlight," when a series of Boston Globe articles exposed the scandal of the clergy’s sexual abuse of children in the local Catholic Church. In 2002 I worked for the church across the country…
After watching Roger Federer glide around the court in the finals of Indian Wells last Sunday I realized we had a lot in common, starting with we both continue to defy expectations. Although he lost to the gifted young Austrian Dominic Thiem in three sets, the 37-year-old Federer does what h…
Back in the 1960s and 70s, when I was hunting waterfowl quite a bit, lead shot was the only choice available for shotgun shells.
Filmmakers have been turning their cameras on Kern County landscapes practically since moving pictures first existed.
Done. Done, but not finished. Done but the Kern County Soccer Park will live to see another day, another league and another generation.
Editor's note: Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person.
When given a class assignment to write about a family member, the 13-year-old eighth-grader didn't hesitate a bit. He titled his essay, "The Story of My Great-Grandfather," by Eddie A. Hernandez.
Here is one way to bring a community together.
Last spring, we put turf in the backyard. Turf as in artificial grass. Turf as in it’s green and looks good year-round.
Reader: I am a 73-year-old, Bakersfield-born-and-raised grandmother. I am not a big reader of the Sports section. I have one grandson at Garces High School and no connection to the state champion Foothill High School boys basketball team. But I want to extend my greatest compliments to The C…
Commented