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The killer approached from the backyard.
There's a simple equation when it comes to snow: Snow = chains = fear.
Reader: The photographer caught this devastated woman at possibly the most extreme moment of her shock and grief ("Woman dies, four children left injured and orphaned in northwest Bakersfield house fire," Feb. 9). How unkind, actually cruel, to publish this picture for the public to witness.…
In a conversation recently, the person with whom I was speaking said, “I’ll have to check with my attorney.”
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This may come as a shock to some, but Gov. Gavin Newsom knows where Bakersfield is. Not only that, he seems to appreciate the depth of its economic challenges.
We have friends. We see them once a year for dinner. We don’t want to overdo it, and at this pace, there is not much danger in doing so.
Now that the football season is officially over, I can say it. Some people will miss the excitement of the actual games. (Obviously, when I say "excitement," I am not including the Patriots' 13-3 victory over the Rams, the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever.) Me, not so much. I will miss the foo…
As a woman over 50 (ahem!), I have some thoughts to share with Yann Moix. Who, one might ask, is Yann Moix? I confess I’d never heard of him either before I came across his provocative assertion that women over 50 are “invisible” to him. I have since learned that he is a 50-year-old French n…
Lynne Haley used to occasionally imagine herself standing up in a crowded Bakersfield restaurant and shouting, "Raise your hand if you've ever been to Camp KEEP!"
This will be simple, I assured myself. I am large and hairy and capable of simulating a deep, authoritative voice.
How well I remember when the Kern Refuge was first established in 1960.
I lost my wallet recently. What’s worse? Losing your phone or your wallet? Both are reasons to throw in the towel.
We live in the age of apology. We're sorry we misspoke, we're sorry we were insensitive, we're sorry we had the audacity to once have been less enlightened.
A friend started chemo. She lives in the neighborhood. She has kids.
Just as I was beginning to get used to writing “19” in notes and letters, February arrived. January is one of my favorite months. It’s a long month, but there is also an unmistakable newness that January brings with it. You can’t help but use its 31 days to look back over the past year, cast…
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.
"He would take me in the back and do all sorts of things. I was really confused. I didn't know what I should do," George Santillan told me in 2013.
Reader: Just read your article on Bakersfield's Westpark neighborhood ("Where We Live: In Westpark, the new freeway's path determines homeowners' fate," Jan. 27). You captured the human side brilliantly. As one the property appraisers commissioned to perform the eminent domain appraisals for…
By now, most people are at least vaguely aware that something culturally monumental is happening Sunday that will compel Americans to gather around television sets.
Nora, our 2½-year-old granddaughter, came over. I thought we’d had fun. We had, but grandparents and parents are gateway fun. The glittering rides lie ahead.
For the first time, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno will publicly name the names of San Joaquin Valley priests accused of sexual misconduct.
Ron emailed a couple of days ago. Ron is my cousin Bea’s husband and ranks high on the all-time, good guy list.
If you work in oil, agriculture, construction or a line of work associated with one of those industries, Bakersfield is a great place to call home. If you work in the creative arts — as a writer, an animator or a musician — Bakersfield is a great place to be from.
Matthew Koelzer emailed in response to the column about the best fries in town:
Editor's Note: Introducing a new weekly feature called "Cop Tales," by Brian Smith. These are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The tales are told in the first person.
Not afraid to cry. Not afraid to correct. Not afraid to love.
Forty years before the first bulldozer tore into Bakersfield's Westpark neighborhood, people were attempting to drive on the Centennial Corridor freeway.
Reader: Your columnist, Leonard Pitts, wrote that Nathan Phillips, the Native American elder who was mixed up in that incident in Washington with the high school kids from Kentucky, was a "Vietnam veteran." Fake news! The man served in the military during that time but that doesn't make him …
While I was out-of-state over the Christmas holiday, I went to Mass at a parish not my own. The thing about Mass somewhere new is that even though the building and the presider and the music and the liturgical details and the people around you are completely unknown to you, the Mass is the M…
Well, just two days of waterfowl season left. But for me, it all ended over 30 days ago. I'll get to that in a minute.
“Do you think you can clean this pan?” Sue asked, handing me a 12-inch Cuisinart frying pan that we’ve had for a long time.
It was 7 a.m. when I picked up the phone in our Seattle hotel room and called home. Pam, who had been minding our house, feeding the dog and collecting the mail, answered.
Last week the showers at the pool were closed for maintenance. The “pool” is the McMurtrey Aquatics Center. Without a shower, because of the chlorination (sodium hypochlorite), swimmers risk looking as if they have brushed their faces against a salt lick.
Reader: I refer to the Associated Press article in the Jan. 10 Californian headlined “Trump stalks out of shutdown session with Dems.” Who fact-checks Associated Press material and associated headlines? There are conflicting reports in the article sourced both from Democrats and Republicans …
At her swearing-in ceremony last week, new District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer playfully borrowed an ominous line from "Game of Thrones," HBO’s bloody medieval fantasy of power lust, betrayal and assassination: “Winter has come.”
I don’t know why I feel sorry for somebody when I see them walking over the Oak Street overpass, but I do. I wonder, how did they get there, where will they go next and what will they do when they arrive?
For Valentine’s Day, we have tickets to the Neil Diamond tribute show at the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame starring Jay White.
Before passing out Christmas presents to my children and grandchildren each year, I always ask which of them would like to start off the morning's traditional gift giving.
If you are the type to dodge jury service, today’s column is not for you. If you are the type that looks forward to it, read on.
Tell me this doesn’t sound like a train wreck: Guitarist for a world-famous nu metal band, with custody of his 3-year-old daughter, tries to raise her in a mosh pit of drugs, dissolution and general dishevelment while he himself is wrestling with almost every demon known to man and the underworld.
We live in a time of perpetual outrage.
Time to catch up with a friend so we had lunch at Mexicali. He’d had a year, having lost two people close to him.
The new year begins with new leadership at Shafter city hall.
A few years ago, the TV comedy team of Key & Peele had a running shtick: the Obama Anger Translator.
Reader: Reading The Californian’s “Notable deaths of 2018” article, one was notably absent: Pat DeMond. I also do not recall seeing any coverage of her Oct. 10 passing in your paper at that time.
My mother, God rest her soul, was a smart woman in her day. She was an excellent student up through her high school graduation. She could calculate numbers quickly. She could spell any word. She read a lot, and she remembered almost every detail she either read about or came across in real l…
A few weeks ago I received an E-mail from a gentleman by the name of Carl Bachhuber, who lives in Colorado.
Cousin Bea is starting the year by giving up french fries.
Think Van Morrison with equally good material and a textured, New Orleans twang unlike any other voice in America and you have Andrew Duhon. The singer-songwriter’s upcoming performance at the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame on Jan. 18 will be his third local appearance with Passing Through P…
Mark Witsoe is not in charge of the Meadows Field airport. You are.
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