Lunch with two friends ended with sort of fighting over the check. “Sort of” because I wasn’t fighting that hard and No. 2, who surrendered the check to No. 3, was fighting harder than I was but not exactly breaking a sweat either.
“Did you know that the back window on the driver’s side doesn’t work?” said a prospective buyer last weekend.
Frank Torres makes you want to quit drinking. Quit drinking and ride a bike. Quit drinking, ride a bike and get your head right.
Harry Truman, when elected president of the United States, was well aware of the potential hazards of his job. He famously remarked, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Truman was a good judge of character and knew a dog would always provide him with unconditional loyalty, regar…
The Central Valley had Sacramento’s attention in two noteworthy ways last week.
Before I launch into this, let me expose my bias. I think our state’s regularizing of the use of recreational marijuana was a huge mistake. My experiences teach me we will rue the day we did it. I believe the idea that marijuana is no different than alcohol is nonsense and, even if true, jus…
Reader: Thank you very much for spotlighting — and correcting — state Sen. Shannon Grove's absurd Facebook post about a book supposedly part of California's sex education curriculum for sixth-graders ("How do you like your sex, kids? And other fake news," Jan. 15). I guess I should not be su…
A few weeks ago I mentioned an email that I had received from my old shooting teammate Phil Murray. It was one of the nicest notes I had ever read. It made me think about another note I had got last year from one of my readers, Larry D. Kelley.
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After months of fireworks over lowball pumping numbers and concerns that some groundwater agencies wouldn’t get on board, Kern’s last groundwater sustainability plan was approved Wednesday with barely a murmur.
How about an “I’m sorry." Would that kill anybody? If it does, we’ll say nice things at your funeral.
Little Suzy won't be learning about kinky sex after all. Not in her sixth-grade class, anyway. On the playground, maybe, but not from Mrs. McGillicuddy.
Columns can surprise columnists. Surprise because you never know which one will hit or thud. Animal columns, especially when your animal does something cute or dies, usually find an audience, but who figured that writing about the 1967-68 Emerson Junior High handbook would ripple the literar…
What can we learn from history? Dr. John Yudkin, professor of nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College of London, made headlines in 1972 when his book, “Pure White and Deadly,” was published. Yudkin’s research convinced him it was not fat that caused heart attack, but sugar. So has history prove…
I like McFarland. I really do. This working-class northern Kern County city of slightly more than 15,000 souls has had a colorful history and has come back from adversity a number of times in several ways. Disney even made a movie about it aptly titled "McFarland, USA." But the city today is…
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
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It was her first day as a server and Scarlett Sabin was trying to be meticulous. "Cheeseburger, no onions, light sauce," she would write in her little order pad, spelling out every letter in lilting script. The cook, accustomed to "CB w tom" and similar lunch-counter abbreviations, motioned …
Recently we stayed in a motel in San Juan Capistrano. Motels can be fun. They are like a retro treat, something you’d do on a road trip in the ’50s.
History has nicknamed the decade of the 1920s the Roaring ’20s, because lots of things were roaring at the time: the economy, the stock market, disposable income, inventions like the automobile, new technology like the radio, the women’s suffrage movement, jazz music, the illegal market for …
Reader: Regarding the tendency of theater-goers to occupy seats set aside for disabled customers and their companions ("These movie seats are reserved — until they're not," Jan. 8): What do you expect when drivers who are not handicapped park in handicap spaces and are never ticketed? — I've…
I came home and the house smelled like smoke.
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It was Romi's last night in town before he returned to school for the spring semester and the Lara family wanted to do something together. Apparently the Laras have no aversion to sequels because they agreed on the latest installment of The Rock's action franchise, "Jumanji: The Next Level."…
Shelley Dunlap loaned us the Emerson Junior High 1967-68 Handbook. The worn, yellow cover had an ink drawing of an eagle with its talons extended. Emerson Eagles had a ring to it.
I just threw away my coffee-splattered 2019 desktop calendar and pulled its 2020 replacement out of the plastic wrap. This one is special because it ends in a zero. Somehow, again, a decade has passed.
I did not understand what my maternal grandma was really trying to say to me 55 years ago.
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the First Person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
A boy needs a desk like a man needs a project and for Christmas, the man and boy got both.
Reader: Amazing how my comment and several others disappeared from this article ("Businesses try to roll with minimum wage increase," Jan. 2). Didn't know The Californian was anti-First Amendment.
The holidays are good for seeing movies (2019 was an exceptional year) and after hearing Bill Simmons interview Adam Sandler and ex-NBA player Kevin Garnett, I was eager to see “Uncut Gems,” the movie in which they star.
Wow! Where did the year go? The older I get the faster it seems to fly by. This is a great time to remember all of the good things during the past 12 months.
An old high school buddy of mine recently shared his two New Year's resolutions: Run 1,000 miles this year and stop following politics. The latter, he says, will be the more difficult of the two.
This can be a good time of year because all the leaves are down, which sounds like a tweak of a song by the Mamas and the Papas. All the leaves are down but the skies are blue rather than gray.
Twenty years ago Bakersfield started arranging seats at the table for what would be the longest, broadest, most detailed exercise in self-reflection in city history.
In 1215, King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta. One of its provisions was the guarantee of a trial by a jury of one’s peers when accused of a crime.
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
It’s the last dance for Art Garcia, and what a dance it’s been.
Reader: I'm a fan of The Bakersfield Californian and buy it every day at my local Fastrip market. And one of the things I appreciate is that if I have a question about something in an article, I can email or call the journalist. On Christmas Day, three articles on Page A2 did not have byline…
Dec. 28 marks the Feast of the Holy Innocents on the Catholic liturgical calendar. It is also the birthday of my first child. At the time of her birth, it pained me to think that this most joyous day in my life commemorated such a terrible tragic day for the mothers of ancient Bethlehem.
Not one, not yet.
America's foremost scholar on the power-generating prowess of wind turbines has been challenged by a lesser expert from Bakersfield.
There is pleasure in wandering around town before Christmas. Pleasure in thinking about the old familiar places. Pleasure in touching base, which seems important before Christmas, New Year's and a new decade.
For the past five months, Sergio Arredondo has been carrying a huge weight, troubled by the murder of his brother, well-known Bakersfield businessman and car dealer Jose Arredondo.
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
The relative lull in lawsuits over Kern River water was broken Dec. 11 when Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District filed a complaint against the city of Bakersfield.
Finally: something for which I am grateful to the president of the United States. On the way to getting himself impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, he has given us the enduring gift of excellent female role models. Thank you, Mr. President, for the chance to get to know…
Reader: I have followed the whole ugly mess of the unsolved 1979 Dana Butler murder for many years ("Dana Butler deserves one last chance at justice," Dec. 15). I nearly fell off my chair when I first read the big article that touched on it back in 2003, "The Lords of Bakersfield." I couldn'…
Milt Cole has already written his obit. It's short and there isn’t an ounce of "me, me, me" in it. The last thing Cole wants to do is call attention to himself.
On errands and trying to appear useful, I asked if we needed anything at the grocery store.
editor's pick
A coordination agreement approved Wednesday by the Kern Groundwater Authority is just cover for continued overpumping, according to the Buena Vista Groundwater Sustainability Agency, which has refused to sign on to the document.
It was the Friday night just before Thanksgiving week, and I was at Meadows Field greeting my son who was returning from a business trip on the east coast.
Writing about vacations can be tricky. Not everybody is in the mood to celebrate your good fortune. Unless they are on vacation with you, you’re away (Kona, Hawaii, in this case) and they’re (Sue) home with a leaky roof and the laundry room and downstairs bathroom unusable and torn up.
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