The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151914 Message #3551288
Posted By: Joe Offer
21-Aug-13 - 02:29 AM
Thread Name: Folk Music in Bakersfield, California?
Subject: RE: Folk Music in Bakersfield, California?
I figured I ought to also tell some of the good things about Bakersfield:
I always enjoyed my working visits to Bakersfield, and I made some nice friends there. I needed to find oilworkers who had worked with one security clearance applicant, and the oilworkers union business manager drove me out to several rigs west of Bakersfield and introduced me to people who knew my guy. Then he took me out to dinner at a country place that had terrific barbecued ribs. And then he had me drive a union-owned vehicle back to Bakersfield for him - so he got something out of the deal, too.
And then there was the guy working at the California Aqueduct, right where it starts to go south across the Grapevine. He gave me a three-hour tour of his facility, and it was fascinating.
And then there were the grape pickers I interviewed in the field on a hot day, and I learned all about their lives.
And the train conductor who rode the Tehachapi Pass route every day.
And the police officers in nearby Shafter who were so proud of their coworker who wanted to be a Fed, that they lined up to be interviewed by me. And after those interviews, I took a country road back to Bakersfield and went through acres and acres of roses that were being grown in a huge nursery.
I used to hang out at the Border Patrol office because I could use the photocopy machine and the government phone there. If I was there at lunchtime, they'd give me an extra bag lunch if they had one left over from the detention center. They were usually white bread baloney sandwiches made by the Kern County Jail. About the only time I can think of, that I ate jail food.
It was interesting to see the converted theater when Buck Owens operated his recording studio in Oildale, just across the Kern River from Bakersfield. [Buck Owens was born in Texas in 1929, and moved ot the Bakersfield area at the age of 21. He lived in the area until he died in 2006, at the age of 76. He had performed at the Buck Owens Crystal Palace theater in Bakersfield the night before. [(obituary)]
Merle Haggard was born in Oildale, but I never saw much evidence of Merle Haggard there. I think he left town in the 1950s, while Buck Owens lived in Bakersfield most of his life.
And it was fascinating to have first-hand contact with the oil industry.
-Joe-