I've been fascinated with California since a long time before I moved here from Wisconsin in 1971. My grandfather was here for a couple of years in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and he brought back amazing photographs of vast fields of wildflowers. Then my dad's employer, Walker Manufacturing Company in Wisconsin, was purchased by the Kern County Land Company of Bakersfield, and I developed a vague concept of the romance of the oilfields. The company was later acquired by Tenneco of Tennessee, but Bakersfield had become a Place of Interest to me. I was transferred from Los Angeles to Fresno in 1976, and my Fresno job required me to work 108 miles south in Bakersfield one week a month. Bakersfield had already captured my imagination as a kid, so I thought it was wonderful to go to Bakersfield so often.
Buck Owens was a big part of what fascinated me about Bakersfield. He was born in Texas in 1929 and moved to Bakersfield when he was 21 years old - and he stayed in that godforsaken town until he died in 2006. His recording studio across the Kern River in Oildale, was like a shrine. I've spent a lot of time in that godforsaken town since 1976, and there's something about it that still fascinates me. I can't explain why - it's dusty, even when there aren't dust storms; and it smells horribly of oil fumes and makes my eyes burn - but I still enjoy every visit I've made to Bakersfield over the last forty years.

I don't understand why, but I love Bakersfield.

-Joe Offer-