"No one hates the scum of Bakersfield more than I do..."

[NMSooner'80]

Seriously, that's a line from a mid-80's comedy. Anyone remember the name of that movie? I'll bet it didn't play well in Bakersfield, though.

I personally don't have an objection to Bakersfield, although I haven't been there since 1997. We used to pass through there from the Bay Area to visit my grandparents in Oklahoma when I was a kid, long before there were any freeways in that area.

 

[piehole]

"Best of Times" with Kurt Russell and Robin Williams.

 

[SoonerTraveler]

Back in the early 1980s when I was doing internal audits of oilfield supply stores and pipe yards, I twice made trips through Bakersfield, Taft and Long Beach, where my employer had such stores. Those were my first trips to California and I spent the weekends in LA and saw my first games at Dodger Stadium and the Rose Bowl (UCLA vs. Purdue/Mark Herrmann).

At the time, Bakersfield seemed like a nice town to me. I'm sure it has grown a lot since then. I remember eating at my first Basque restaurant in Bakersfield. The meal was served family-style with the various dishes to be shared from bowls in the center of the table. One of the appetizers was tongue, which was a first and last for me.

I remember that Taft and Bakersfield were about an hour apart, and that the landscape on the drive was a similar to the drive between Odessa and Kermit, Texas; where I also made multiple internal audit trips in the 1980s. Dry land with oilfield pumping jacks everywhere.

Between Bakersfield and Taft I observed the most densely packed number of oilfield pumping jacks that I have ever seen anywhere. They were small as the oil reservoir there was relatively shallow.

Also, the folks I met had a friendliness that reminded me of Oklahoma. Some of them were Okies after all.

 

[SoonerTraveler]

Pretty good article by Berry Tramel on this topic ...

OU opponent in NCAA Tournament comes from place a lot like Oklahoma
http://newsok.com/ou-opponent-in-nc...rom-place-a-lot-like-oklahoma/article/5485832

 

[NMSooner'80]

"Best of Times" with Kurt Russell and Robin Williams.

That is correct! I did read somewhere that they filmed the high school scenes in the LA area, which is why they had the "M logo instead of a Taft logo.