Mr. Bubba paused to consider the question.

Reader: Congressman Kevin McCarthy voted Oct. 16 to oppose President Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops from northern Syria, exposing the Kurdish population there to Turkish advances. Your column on McCarthy ("McCarthy needs to catch a different train while he can," Oct. 6) may have helped here.

They call it Cafe 1600 because that's the number on the outside of the county government building where it resides. But, considering all that goes on there, a better name might be the Second Chance Cafe.

Reader: Well, Robert, you may be an expert on the Bakersfield Sound, but as a political pundit you basically suck. Your article on Kevin McCarthy ("McCarthy needs to catch a different train while he can," Oct. 6) was an indication of your total hatred of President Trump. It began the day tha…

In August 1996, Kevin McCarthy invited me to accompany him on an Amtrak ride from Los Angeles to San Diego. It was a party train, in more ways than one: Thirty people from Kern County, happily sequestered in the far-rear car, were heading south for the Republican National Convention. McCarth…

Reader: I think you missed or didn’t know a very important incident that happened during the selection of the Cal State Bakersfield location mentioned in your Sunday column about Rio Bravo and the 1966 decision to reject it as a possible site for the new Kern County college campus ("Where We…

Tom Richardson was dressed to the nines Sunday morning, resplendent in his biker best. As a cancer survivor, he was taking this Distinguished Gentleman's Ride seriously.

Young Arun had been targeted and targeted again. White teens were beating him because his skin was too dark. Black teens were assaulting him because his skin was too light. Finally, Arun decided the only solution was physical superiority: He would pump iron until his muscles bulged. Then he …

Raphael Avenue just might have the best view in all of Bakersfield and, by extension, the entire San Joaquin Valley.

SACRAMENTO — The end of oil.

Four years before Gov. Gavin Newsom set in motion the managed decline of California's oil industry, Aera Energy CEO Christina Sistrunk was asking questions about the mechanics, and wisdom, of such an undertaking.

Reader: David Hogg was not on campus during the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, where a lone gunman killed 17 people and injured 17 others ("Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg to hold lecture at CSUB," Sept. 20).

It's Extraterrestrial Week, an observance I made up just now to mark the confluence of two noteworthy news items concerning alien visitation.

Today's column was supposed to reveal precisely where Bitwise Industries, the coding-education, software development and coworking space innovator, intends to set up shop in Bakersfield.

Reader: I like The Californian and many of its features but I have been very frustrated with its political bias favoring liberals over conservatives and in the last two years slanting the news to always be critical of President Trump while never giving him any credit for his success, i.e., t…

Craig Garrett taught karate, but that was just a front. What he really taught was happiness — a concept that inspired every bit as much passion for him as did his quest to instill fitness, discipline and self-confidence in the children of his farm town.

Maybe we should drop the "y" and start identifying this part of the state as Kern counties, because it really is two distinct places: The Kern of the Central Valley and the Kern of the Mojave Desert. 

Reader: No news organization more so than our hometown paper has glorified this issue (of state lawmakers' attention to the large, uncontrolled surface leak in western Kern County's Cymric Oil Field).

Its 19th campus opens three years from now, and the Kern High School District needs to come up with a name for it. A number of factors must be taken into consideration in the decision-making process, but the most important one is this:

The Kern High School District isn't cooperating, so the Lamont High School booster club will just go it alone.

Reader: You managed to humanize the face of homelessness in your portrait of Danny ("Toilets and showers would be great, but dignity is in shortest supply," Aug. 25). From our comfortable perches, we are quick to judge and slow to help. We, too, are disgusted by the trash and vandalism left …

I have only a couple of faults that I'm willing to admit to, and one of them is football. I loved to play and I still like to watch, and I'll be in front of a television when the NFL season kicks off in eight days.

I was at a strip mall in Oildale considering my options for lunch-hour takeout when a thin, sun-ripened man walked past me. He was carrying three very full, 24-ounce cups of water, moving carefully so as not to spill.

Reader: I'm an avid consumer of your newspaper, both print and digital, and my only gripe is missing the New York Times bestseller list. This letter is, however, in response to the latest issue about Kern County oil and the state's apparent plans to shut down, eventually, its production.

Shari Rightmer calls it her Forrest Gump moment.

Reader: It’s very obvious the new owners of TBC are anti-oil, anti-Bakersfield and anti-Kern County. When an oil leak in McKittrick is front-page news ("Governor promises balanced approach after touring McKittrick-area oil leak," July 25) I have to think newsworthy stories are not their focus. 

The Kern River Valley has one of the most severe opioid problems in California. One particularly stricken burg in the area, Wofford Heights, has an opioid overdose rate five times the national average.

Kern County's days as a capital of crude oil production are numbered. California is seeing to that. Bakersfield hasn't reached the end of that road but we can see the T intersection ahead in the distance.

Reader: Your criticism of Rep. Kevin McCarthy was disappointing ("McCarthy's tired talking points on gun violence," Aug. 7).

Three years ago, in the wake of yet another mass shooting, a reader submitted an op-ed commentary to The Californian that laid out his thoughts on this national scourge.

The charming little Kern County mountain town of Tehachapi has one and only one big box store: A Kmart on West Tehachapi Boulevard. At the moment, anyway. 

Reader: As Will Rogers used to say, “All I know is what I read in the newspapers.” I imagine he did get a lot of useful information in the 1920s and '30s and this info was a good source for his humor. But today, thank God, we have social media, the internet and other venues that supply a gre…

Reader: So the Big Enchilada for The Californian gives his journalistic take on Jose ("Who killed audacious, driven Jose Arredondo, and why?," July 21). A large portion is dedicated to salacious speculation — based on unsubstantiated rumors started by other, green-with-envy car dealers.

When Matty Roberts invited his Facebook audience to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," he accomplished several things:

The grandiose, arched entrance into the Cabo Real Golf Club resort community has no gates.

Reader: I see that Bakersfield College has closed the Latinx gap ("Bakersfield College earns Student Success award," July 17). The article uses the term "Latinx," which I'm reading as "Lah-teenks." I think this ought to be explained to us. My guess is that the term is intended to replace the…

It's on.

Mr. and Mrs. Waddell couldn't have known it at the time, but the sight of their 2-year-old son Willard atop the 30-foot-tall windmill that pumped water for their southeastern Nebraska farm was a glimpse into the future.

Reader: I was born and raised in Bakersfield. I am 77 years old. In his article, Steven Mayer ("Some tried to burn him out, but 'Uncle' Larry still in Oildale 50 years on," July 12) stated that 50 years ago there was a sign telling colored people to leave Oildale by sundown.

The Bakersfield City Council is about to embark on an undertaking that will determine the city's direction like no other single decision in recent memory: Finding the right person to call the shots.

Many Bakersfield natives have ventured out into the world that lies beyond that flat, low valley horizon and made names for themselves. Musicians, athletes, inventors, artists, entrepreneurs.

Reader: With all the change at The Californian, I was not surprised, but was still saddened, to see that longtime sports reporter Mike Griffith was leaving.

On Jan. 26, 1897, Alfred Harrell, then the 34-year-old Kern County Superintendent of Schools, bought The Daily Californian. On June 30, 2019, his great-granddaughter, Ginger Moorhouse, sold it.

Reader: Your recent column ("Loaner life vests: Another possible answer to Kern River drownings," June 26) said if anybody out there is in a position to donate to a local loaner-vest program for the Kern River, to call you. I think I probably can scrounge up enough money to take care of some…