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10 Things to Know About Bakersfield
Topics: Bakersfield
Posted by admin Thu Jun 28, 2007 14:00:13 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments 1. We’ve got mountains. They run down the middle of the county and across the southern border. You can’t actually see them, so you’ll have to trust us.

2. In the mid-1960s most people around here (as well as several prominent farm animals) had bit parts in a reality TV show starring Buddy Ebsen. That’s why the towns have names like Weedpatch, Pumpkin Center, Greenacres, Buttonwillow and Pixley. There’s not actually a Hooterville here, but some of us are still holding out for a Hooters.

3. Virtually everybody here plays the banjo. A few people were able to get the accordion exemption.

4. Learn the local pronunciations if you don’t want to stick out. DELL-uh-no is the middle name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Duh-LAY-no is the name of the town just south of the Kern-Tulare (too-LARRY) county line. Wasco is pronounced WAH-sco, not WAY-sco, and Oildale is pronounced OIL-dale unless you drive a pre-1970 truck, in which case it is pronounced OLL-dale. Tehachapi is pronounced Teh-LOO-luh-bell.

5. Buck Owens is dead. Country music has been canceled until further notice.

6. There is not a moving body of water wider than 30 feet within 100 miles and yet we have surf shops. No one has been able to explain this.

7. No one actually eats the pickled tongue served in local Basque restaurants. It’s only prepared for the benefit of out-of-town visitors, who are invariably dared to try it. No one actually knows what it is. No one actually knows what this so-called “Basque” ethnicity is, either, but we like the food so we’ve all agreed to keep quiet about it.

8. The Bakersfield City Council selected the city slogan, “Life as it should be.” Coming in a close second was “We like to think we’re better than Fresno but we don’t have much evidence.”

9. Spring lasts about 31⁄2 hours on the afternoon of April 23. Autumn lasts about 15 minutes just before noon on Oct. 16. By “fall colors” we mean the sunburn on your kid’s neck that starts to heal about that time.

10. The official headwear of Bakersfield is a foam trucker’s ballcap. Get yourself one.

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