We live at a time of growing choices regarding food substitutes. But how good are these new products when compared with the old staples? Think of margarine versus butter. Or more recently plant-based meats versus the real McCoy. Was William Shakespeare right when he wrote, “A substitute shin…
I’m not sure we’ve ever needed chicken soup more, given that it can soothe the soul and satisfy a deep hunger for the basic and the familiar. The winter of our discontent and our inclination to give in to a winter state of mind set the stage for the chicken soup Sue graced me with recently f…
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.
This year's election and related political activities yielded some unexpected results at the local level.
We no longer need evidence that Bakersfield’s Historic Preservation Commission is a toothless entity ignored by all but a passionate few.
“Let me ride on your shoulders, Papa,” Nora said.
Kern County farmers on Wednesday agreed to chip in $14 million over the next two years to kick off another attempt to move water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta via tunnel.
I remember the morning I received the phone call from my old pal and hunting partner, Steve Merlo. It was about 35 years ago, and we were planning a Canada goose hunt the next morning on the Tulare Lake Water District ponds located above the Kern Refuge.
A friend of mine fell. He fell and may have bounced. One of the falls you could hear from here, no matter where “here” was.
Nothing can be more heart-wrenching than the sudden death of a loved one. The visualization of a wrench tightening on the heart is apt. It can feel that way and the physical harm done from such intense pressure is not good for your health.
Friend John Hale gives great advice in regards to dessert inventory: Always be three-deep in your fridge or pantry. If you only have one sweet, you’re living on the edge. What happens if somebody mows through your last two chocolate chip cookies without telling you or something goes stale or melts?
Our adult daughter Nikki’s birthday was Saturday, Nov. 14.
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 thought they were just widening 24th Street, I didn't know the project had an international flair and the city was erecting a massive wall rivaling the great one in China as well as building pyramids on either end.
Eight months ago, when many of us entered voluntary or employer-encouraged semi-quarantine, a finish line was visible on the horizon. It was blurry and at an indeterminate distance but it was out there, like waves rising from hot asphalt. We would get past this pandemic like one gets past au…
Reader: Powerful article today, very powerful. Thank you again.
“The light’s on in your truck,” Sue said.
It’s fair to say, these are shaky times! In keeping with the rocky ride of 2020, have you noticed your hands shaking lately? Are you having trouble tying your shoes, signing your name, or embarrassed that the glass your holding is shaking? You think of those suffering from Parkinson’s diseas…
“Do you have Venmo?” Thomas asked awhile back.
In 1970 there were hearings in the U.S. Senate regarding the nutritional value in breakfast cereals. Reputedly, an expert witness brought a box of cereal to the witness table, poured the entire contents into a large bowl, and set the empty box on the table. He proceeded to tell the senators …
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 olives. I like eating olives, drizzling olive oil on top of a green salad and dipping toasted bread in it. I like looking at olive trees, especially the leaves — a silvery, slender, oblong-shaped delight — and olive branches, pruned and seasoned, burn hot and slow in a winter fireplace.
Can we be friends again now? No, I suppose not. Certainly not this week, and probably not anytime soon. Those more sophisticated than I — and that’s a serious chunk of the population — will insist it can never happen. Not when more than 70 million Americans somehow voted for that guy despite…
This is for all the families whose grief can be traced to the Sackler family.
I was recently having breakfast with my son Steve, and friend Brad Peters, when Steve asked me if I remembered how many times I had been to Alberta to film groups of hunters over the years.
I threw away Dad’s watch. Under ordinary circumstances, this might have been sad or sentimental, but it was neither because the watch didn’t work.
Readers of this column know, the Gifford-Jones natural health philosophy is built on the premise that the medical establishment should not be your first stop for staying healthy. Doctors are best as a last resort. Tragic bad luck aside, your first defense should be Mother Nature in combinati…
A friend turned 50 recently. I'm happy to have friends still turning 50. The only thing better than 50 is if he was 10 years younger and turning 40.
I have been thinking a lot lately about perfection. It sounds misplaced to even utter the word in 2020, I know, but bear with me on this.
When Delano police officers responded to a call of shots fired at an outdoor dance two weeks ago, they stumbled onto something more than just a shooting.
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.
You’ve heard this metaphor already, probably many times: Kern County is a red island in a sea of blue. Blue California is one of the nation’s most liberal states and red Kern County its most stubbornly conservative outlier. With the exception of the state’s sparsely populated far northeast, …
Reader: Good evening, Robert (Price), I want to congratulate you and thank you for your Bakersfield Californian column ("Robert Price: In the debate about police reform, some voices apparently matter more than others," Oct. 25) making the case for the Board of Supervisors' ill-timed, poorly-…
Note to children: When the last of us dies — my money would be on your mother since her grandmother lived to 103 — hold an estate sale. You’ll have walking-around-money as long as you are walking around.
There’s an old adage that “when white folks catch a cold, Black folks get pneumonia.” The COVID-19 epidemic has made it deadly clear. Throughout North America, wherever data is tracked, people of African heritage have higher coronavirus infection rates, higher death rates of COVID-19 and are…
Monday morning, while walking on Truxtun toward the pool, I felt something land on my shoulder. “Bird,” I thought, although bird normally appears when the sun is out and you are congratulating yourself on a job well done or you are so self-absorbed that birds do not exist and neither does an…
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.
Just in case you don’t believe men and women are different, I have proof. At least in my family.
I have tried to look at this from every angle, but there’s no way to view it as anything but what it is.
Nika was close to her dad. Close in the way that father and daughters often are. Close at the beginning and the end, and through the mysteries that sometimes unfold after that.
Back when I was a religious volunteer at a state prison, I sometimes had to correct people. “That’s not a necklace,” I remember telling an inmate, when I noticed he wore around his neck one of the simple rosaries that had been donated to the Catholic chapel on the yard. I had to explain that…
The Friant Water Authority on Thursday approved the final environmental review for a massive project to fix a 33-mile segment of the Friant-Kern Canal despite continued questions about funding and other concerns expressed by some Friant contractors.
Love was overflowing for the Kern River Tuesday at the State Water Resources Control Board’s monthly meeting.
Tomorrow is Oct. 24th. It is a very special day for me personally for two very distinct reasons.
I’d like to say the World Series is something we can agree on but if you’re not a Rays or a Dodgers fan, and hold one or both in low regard, this may not be true and we’re back to eyeballing one another across the aisle.
What do former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Gifford-Jones have in common? They were both born the same year and have remarkable staying power! But Carter has lived under the shadow of pancreatic cancer all his life. His father, brother, and two sisters died of this disease and his mother …
“How many water bottles do you need in the fridge?” Sue asked.
It was a latter-day anthropologist’s dream: an unconfirmed sighting of an artifact of another era. Evidence of the way humans lived before the digital age, long before cell phones, Uber and Michelob Ultra.
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 late Victor Borgé was a great comic who practiced his trade with a tux and a grand piano. A skilled musician and a man of great wit, he had insights into society that we should continue to hear. He never needed to stoop to vulgar language or sex to make people laugh. As a teenager, I was…
Positive Cases Among Kern Residents: 39,990
Deaths: 448
Recovered Residents: 18,290
Number of Negative Tests: 215,555
Number of Pending Tests*: 197
Updated: 11/25/2020. Source: Kern County Public Health Services Department
*As reported by community healthcare providers.
