Friends are returning to the neighborhood. “Returning” because they lived here once and they moved north.
Had it not been for his uncle Ray, Delano police chief Robert "Roberto" Nevarez might never have become a cop some 35 years ago. The then college-age student wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life and toyed with the idea of accounting, but soon realized working all day in an office w…
I say less now. I have less to say. Saying less is probably saying more than I should.
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.
Armando Guerrero had a cold.
Reader: Yet another old white man giving his opinion on the low birth rate. Way to go, Californian!
"I like to be in Bakersfield." Imagine somebody saying it. Imagine someone meaning it.
Chuck Wall's "Random Acts of Kindness" had legs. Wall, who died June 8 at age 80, came up with the one-sentence philosophy "Today, I will commit one random act of senseless kindness ... Will you?" in 1993.
This is the time of year for graduation celebrations.
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.
On schedule is probably the sweetest phrase a project manager can hear.
Thanks to the new normal of the COVID-19 pandemic, I now own a bunch of cloth face masks. Some are homemade. Some are store-bought. Some convey messages. Some are plain. Some are adjustable. Some wash well. Some are better than others at not fogging up my glasses. I keep one mask in the car,…
You think you're safe. You think you've got it licked. You think there's you and then the other guys who, unfortunately, are subject to the laws of mortality.
Carrie Walker doesn’t just keep her boys in her heart. She keeps them on her calf, too.
Reader: My first awareness of mass shootings was in 1966 when one occurred from the University of Texas Tower. The next was of a cluster of workplace shootings started among federal employees in the mid-'80s with what is described in the slang as “going postal.” In 1999, Columbine occurred, …
"There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Many diseases can be effectively managed thanks to therapeutic treatments involving pharmaceutical drugs. But have we gone too far in popping pills for every ache? Or even for serious health conditions, has your doctor put as much thought into how to get you off prescription medications as h…
The road out of addiction was treacherous enough without this. The mountain was high enough, the dangers along the trail more than sufficient. Then this.
I heard that Jerry Stanners, former CEO of The Bakersfield Californian and self-described turnaround artist, has died.
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.
I like cars. I’ve had some fun ones and I appreciate their comfort and convenience. That said, it strikes me how captured our cities and neighborhoods are by the car culture. Roads for cars dominate how they are laid out, where sidewalks are placed and most everything else about how they loo…
Though questions remain about whether San Joaquin Valley towns and farms that rely on water from Millerton Lake could be cut to zero, as they were in the last drought, water managers are moving ahead as if that won’t happen.
I have a soft spot for choir. For choral teachers. For anybody that encourages people to sing louder, better and more.
I met a friend for a Friday lunch at Luigi’s. Nothing like a Friday lunch. The week’s work is done, should be done or, if it isn’t done, may never be done and Friday lunch, which can trend long, is a way to celebrate.
Farms and towns in the south San Joaquin Valley that rely on water from Millerton Lake north of Fresno are anxiously waiting to hear if they will be cut to zero again this year.
Don’t play defense. Not on your birthday. Go big, go forth and go eat bacon.
The barely teenager from Ciudad Acuña in northern Mexico desperately wanted to help his mother, who was the sole support for a family of six children. So in the 1950s at age 13, the boy slipped into the United States — alone — and connected with a Texas rancher who promised to pay him $3 a d…
I had no idea a block of ice could last three days sitting in a luke-cool fridge. Maybe, that's an idea. Rather than buy a new fridge for $1,400, how about a $2.50 block of ice at Smart & Final?
It was 1991 and Chris Vanderlei just wanted to replenish his stockpile of vitamin supplements.
CORCORAN, Ca. — In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp.
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 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is one of the few biblical citations I know by heart: We Catholics are not big on memorizing chapter and verse. Matthew 25 offers the blueprint for the work of Catholic social justice, which Jesus lays out clearly in the parable of the sheep and the …
I know you've heard me say it before, but I will say it again. I am not a fisherman.
A friend told me his son was graduating. This was good news, and I can appreciate good news.
Oklahoma has fans. So do road trips. The first is worth seeing, the second, doing. As Dad used to say, "If not now, when?"
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.
“Grief is love that has no place to go,” wrote author Jamie Anderson.
As we approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., I turned on the Joan Baez version of "We Shall Overcome." The bridge and its history felt like a "We Shall Overcome" moment.The original "moment" was March 7, 1965 — Bloody Sunday — when police attacked civil rights demonstrators with…
Dan Jacobs is moving in. After a five-year bromance with the dusty little oiltown on the southwestern corner of California's vast San Joaquin Valley, he’s finally committing.
Reader: My opinion on your article about PG&E rate hikes ("Electric utilities try for smooth customer experience during transition to variable rates," May 16): I believe that an "international expert" on rate hikes does not impress. Mentioning percentages without a real base is deceptive…
I learned something on our three-week, 6,600-mile road trip: Miles and time will vaporize a playlist like a rocket does rocket fuel.
I’m not a landlord. Never have been. I don’t have the patience for it and recognized it early on. But I have some sympathy for people who rely on rental income for their living. During COVID many ordinary people have been severely damaged by a system that relieves some tenants from paying th…
In another example of my finely tuned prognosticative powers, I forecast a year ago that the country would see a spike in births around this time. A year of semi-isolation with spouses and others appropriately significant, with Netflix, Zoom and little else to distract, would surely mean a b…
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.
Reader: I have always believed that the purpose of an Opinion section in a newspaper was to allow differing opinions on political and nonpolitical issues to be put out to the reading community to allow people to consider and arrive at their own conclusions.
The Bakersfield Police Department and the Bakersfield Community Policing Organization are partnering to host a community workshop to create discussion between BPD staff and members of the community on how to safely record police officers, what the law says, and how both community members and…
We were on our way to Fancy Gap — yes, that's the name, you may or may not want to Google it — and we were lost having taken a detour.
Well, summer is almost here and I am doing nothing. Bird seasons are gone and I have yet learned how to be a good fisherman. For most of my life I used to hunt birds from September to February, and then target shooting would take over until the end of August.
Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo. That caught my attention.
May 10, 1990. I was in the newsroom when the radio scanner picked up a police dispatcher saying something about a missing child in southwest Bakersfield. The child was taken by someone while she was playing just outside her apartment with other kids. Her mother rushed home from work. A frant…
Positive Cases Among Kern Residents: 110,799
Deaths: 1,404
Recovered Residents: 40,329
Number of Negative Tests: 404,617
Number of Pending Tests*: 163
Updated: 6/21/2021. Source: Kern County Public Health Services Department
*As reported by community healthcare providers.
