Found this on housingdoom.com
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I’m not sure about the former.” –Albert Einstein
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Bakersfield "Stay Play Sun Fun" sign - and whatever became of that thing?
As long as I can remember, driving north on highway US 99 -later California 99- one encountered this welcoming sign upon entering the hazy environs of Bakersfield. Since nobody ever went to Bakersfield itself, but rather only went through it on their way to somewhere else (some better somewhere else) it was never quite known from the perspective of a back-seat kid, what the sign was actually referring to, since by most estimations, Bakersfield was worthy of neither staying upon nor playing in, and it certainly wasn't fun. And the sun part might as well been a form of punishment as summer temperatures in a (circa 1966) automobile without air conditioning probably (easily) reached 135 degrees Fahrenheit without fail or fan, and was without question hell on wheels. The last thing anybody in the car wanted to do was STAY in Bakersfield! We didn't even gas-up in Bakersfield, as the gas tank was still quite healthy after only a 100 mile ride from LA. But that's how it was in those days. In trying to get to Yosemite, Sequoia, or cooler points north one had to negotiate with Bakersfield. We didn't make a big deal about it. To cool off there was always some gas station hose in Delano or Visalia. Those kinds of events stuck in the memory as in "remember that time?" But poor, bigger Bakersfield had no such "that time". No memories were made there, no heart left behind there, except for seeing the crazy sign. And even as it was, the "Sun Fun Stay Play" sign was just "always there" without any other meaning, excepting that "there" meant for us only halfway so.
Later in the 1970's, one would learn how Bakersfield was really a hitchhikers worst nightmare. We used to compare stories about being stuck by some HWY 99 on-ramp for one, two, three, days or more. The police would tell you to get a "move-on" (as in "get out of town -we don't want your kind here") It was not-at-all obvious to them that that's what we were trying so desperately to do! "No officer, we really want to stay right here in Bakersfield, at this horrid off-ramp where drivers just pretend we don't exist forever - do you understand me...FOREVER!" We're going to be here FOREVER!! Etchings on on-ramp sign-posts and guard-rails reveals ancient script wrote down by earlier suckers that had passed this way before, telling tales of being stuck for "days and days" at the exact same spot where I am now with my 'Fresno/HWY41' sign hanging out. In essence, and often literately, the scribblings were just saying "GFL" and "GHYA-if you are here" I remember one that said: "If you're still reading this it means you did NOT make it out of Bakersfield!" Some notes rambled on about all sorts of stuff. Having nothing better to do, some scribblers would respond with comments to earlier "posts". A 1970's version of blogging on the go.
Standing there, the heat just fries your brain. Think: Get something to eat. Good idea! Open the pack. Pack now open. Stick hands in. Hands are in. Now dig around at the bot....Eeeeeuuuuhhyuuk?!!?...what in the hell was that?! Eventually I discover what a real science experiment has been going on in there the whole time. Certain foods, found by rummaging around at the bottom of the pack, have either exploded, are utterly foul smelling, cooked, or all three, depending on how bravely you faced the facts. It all boiled down to, as Morgan Freeman said in Shawshank Redemption, "heat and pressure". My lunch is a living lesson on exactly how baked avocados react and mix with melted cheese, smashed peaches, wool socks and dead, funky 100deg F. alfalfa sprouts. Believe it or not, when your young, broke and hungry, you eat it and shut up. The worse thing, by far, was realizing I was still stuck in Bakersfield, and probably not getting out tonight.
Eventually, one learned to simply not accept any ride (as hard as that was) that went only as far as Bakersfield, even though this implied refusing 100 miles of instant road progress, for fear that you would loose two days trying to get out of the wicked place. In hitchhiking, It all came down to real experience with the actual on-ramps. In most places, some ramps were better that others. In Bakersfield they were all bad.
"Where you trying to go"
"Yosemite"
"I'm going as far as Bakersfield...throw your stuff in the back, jump in..."
"Uh, Bakersfield...Uh no thanks"
"You sure?...got some good weed...I can drop you off at a good spot, it'll be easy"
"Uh, thanks anyway"
Any ramp, anywhere in Bakersfield just wasn't worth it.
I think by the 1980's some escapees from the San Fernando Valley had figured out that illegals (ah the 1980's), crime and high-prices could be eliminated from their life by just thinking a little big and a little beyond. For many, the "beyond" meant Bakersfield, and the big, was their new commute to work. And by this, they did not mean telecommute. Yes, they would live in Bakersfield and drive two hours one-way to work in LA! Gas was cheap in the latter half of the 1980's, and the musthavea4X4 (SUV) mentality was in its infancy (the term "SUV" had not been popularized, or as far as I know even invented yet). So most cars were still pretty inherently economical -being left over from the late 70's early 80's fuel efficiency mandates - and so the I-5 "super-commuter" was born, quite out of nowhere and quite without serious gas-bill repercussions, or guilt. I actually remember reading a newspaper article about this in the late 80's. The newspaper reporter was interviewing a husband and wife who made the switch to Bakersfield. They, trying to sound upbeat about what must have been a unfolding crisis of confidence and stress said "but the commute really isn't that bad...It gives us time to be together!" Just reading the article made me exhausted. They would get up "at 4:00am" have breakfast "together" and be on the road by 5:00AM. "Home by 7:00Pm or 8:00Pm" to spend some quality time with the kids. It was so sad to me. To me, there was just no way - no how this sort of thing could be sustained.
If I were rich, I would offer a contest that would offer $1000 bucks to the person who could offer the funniest (or any) comments about this old sign, and what happened to it, etc. Was it's demise a "big story" in Bakersfield? Did anybody care? What replaced it? Heck, maybe the damn thing's still up? Is there anyone out there who can send me a photo of this old relic from the mid-1960's/1970's highway days?
Speaking of Bucks...Since this blog comes out of a place in the great Midwest, far removed from the potato/cotton/onion fields and agri-pestiside dust of Bakersfield, the significance and lore behind the word "Buck", when used in conjunction with the word "Bakersfield" might be lost on my local friends, and for that I should strive to give light. I was never a country music fan, but every place has it's hero's nonetheless. I'm certain that my story about Bakersfield should not go on without paying some tribute to Buck Owens.
TBC
Later in the 1970's, one would learn how Bakersfield was really a hitchhikers worst nightmare. We used to compare stories about being stuck by some HWY 99 on-ramp for one, two, three, days or more. The police would tell you to get a "move-on" (as in "get out of town -we don't want your kind here") It was not-at-all obvious to them that that's what we were trying so desperately to do! "No officer, we really want to stay right here in Bakersfield, at this horrid off-ramp where drivers just pretend we don't exist forever - do you understand me...FOREVER!" We're going to be here FOREVER!! Etchings on on-ramp sign-posts and guard-rails reveals ancient script wrote down by earlier suckers that had passed this way before, telling tales of being stuck for "days and days" at the exact same spot where I am now with my 'Fresno/HWY41' sign hanging out. In essence, and often literately, the scribblings were just saying "GFL" and "GHYA-if you are here" I remember one that said: "If you're still reading this it means you did NOT make it out of Bakersfield!" Some notes rambled on about all sorts of stuff. Having nothing better to do, some scribblers would respond with comments to earlier "posts". A 1970's version of blogging on the go.
Standing there, the heat just fries your brain. Think: Get something to eat. Good idea! Open the pack. Pack now open. Stick hands in. Hands are in. Now dig around at the bot....Eeeeeuuuuhhyuuk?!!?...what in the hell was that?! Eventually I discover what a real science experiment has been going on in there the whole time. Certain foods, found by rummaging around at the bottom of the pack, have either exploded, are utterly foul smelling, cooked, or all three, depending on how bravely you faced the facts. It all boiled down to, as Morgan Freeman said in Shawshank Redemption, "heat and pressure". My lunch is a living lesson on exactly how baked avocados react and mix with melted cheese, smashed peaches, wool socks and dead, funky 100deg F. alfalfa sprouts. Believe it or not, when your young, broke and hungry, you eat it and shut up. The worse thing, by far, was realizing I was still stuck in Bakersfield, and probably not getting out tonight.
Eventually, one learned to simply not accept any ride (as hard as that was) that went only as far as Bakersfield, even though this implied refusing 100 miles of instant road progress, for fear that you would loose two days trying to get out of the wicked place. In hitchhiking, It all came down to real experience with the actual on-ramps. In most places, some ramps were better that others. In Bakersfield they were all bad.
"Where you trying to go"
"Yosemite"
"I'm going as far as Bakersfield...throw your stuff in the back, jump in..."
"Uh, Bakersfield...Uh no thanks"
"You sure?...got some good weed...I can drop you off at a good spot, it'll be easy"
"Uh, thanks anyway"
Any ramp, anywhere in Bakersfield just wasn't worth it.
I think by the 1980's some escapees from the San Fernando Valley had figured out that illegals (ah the 1980's), crime and high-prices could be eliminated from their life by just thinking a little big and a little beyond. For many, the "beyond" meant Bakersfield, and the big, was their new commute to work. And by this, they did not mean telecommute. Yes, they would live in Bakersfield and drive two hours one-way to work in LA! Gas was cheap in the latter half of the 1980's, and the musthavea4X4 (SUV) mentality was in its infancy (the term "SUV" had not been popularized, or as far as I know even invented yet). So most cars were still pretty inherently economical -being left over from the late 70's early 80's fuel efficiency mandates - and so the I-5 "super-commuter" was born, quite out of nowhere and quite without serious gas-bill repercussions, or guilt. I actually remember reading a newspaper article about this in the late 80's. The newspaper reporter was interviewing a husband and wife who made the switch to Bakersfield. They, trying to sound upbeat about what must have been a unfolding crisis of confidence and stress said "but the commute really isn't that bad...It gives us time to be together!" Just reading the article made me exhausted. They would get up "at 4:00am" have breakfast "together" and be on the road by 5:00AM. "Home by 7:00Pm or 8:00Pm" to spend some quality time with the kids. It was so sad to me. To me, there was just no way - no how this sort of thing could be sustained.
If I were rich, I would offer a contest that would offer $1000 bucks to the person who could offer the funniest (or any) comments about this old sign, and what happened to it, etc. Was it's demise a "big story" in Bakersfield? Did anybody care? What replaced it? Heck, maybe the damn thing's still up? Is there anyone out there who can send me a photo of this old relic from the mid-1960's/1970's highway days?
Speaking of Bucks...Since this blog comes out of a place in the great Midwest, far removed from the potato/cotton/onion fields and agri-pestiside dust of Bakersfield, the significance and lore behind the word "Buck", when used in conjunction with the word "Bakersfield" might be lost on my local friends, and for that I should strive to give light. I was never a country music fan, but every place has it's hero's nonetheless. I'm certain that my story about Bakersfield should not go on without paying some tribute to Buck Owens.
TBC
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Chain Letters and la-la-la-la land
Got this in mail.
It begins:
“Dear Friend, I am a retired attorney. Approximately two years ago…”
Looking back, there are so many things wrong with it I don’t even know where to start.
Hmmm. What would Columbo do?
You could see him now, letter in hand, cracking a hard boiled egg, and spilling shells and egg crumbs all over your carpet. “Ah, sir, when did you say you first saw this?”
But a lot of people believe in this stuff. Why?
They want to believe that’s why. I was like that too. I wanted to believe that I could make $800,000 in “20 to 90 days” After all, it was a “retired attorney” saying it. A retired attorney saying that this letter, what all the ones before it have failed to be, is legal. The mind works like this: “A retired attorney is talking to me saying that I not only could, but positively would receive $800,000 cash.…. And not only would I, but that it would never fail to be anything other than that”. Your base-brain, concerned with only the primeval, thinks fast & simple: “$800,000--Me!” But watch how fast your more evolved mid-brain works next, trying to cover all the bases: “And even if I only get a quarter of what he says, I’m still rich!” The words that come next practically throw-up out of your mouth, as though discharged by your vocal cords all by themselves. “I’m in! It’s legal, I’ve got nothing to loose!”
It begins:
“Dear Friend, I am a retired attorney. Approximately two years ago…”
Looking back, there are so many things wrong with it I don’t even know where to start.
Hmmm. What would Columbo do?
You could see him now, letter in hand, cracking a hard boiled egg, and spilling shells and egg crumbs all over your carpet. “Ah, sir, when did you say you first saw this?”
But a lot of people believe in this stuff. Why?
They want to believe that’s why. I was like that too. I wanted to believe that I could make $800,000 in “20 to 90 days” After all, it was a “retired attorney” saying it. A retired attorney saying that this letter, what all the ones before it have failed to be, is legal. The mind works like this: “A retired attorney is talking to me saying that I not only could, but positively would receive $800,000 cash.…. And not only would I, but that it would never fail to be anything other than that”. Your base-brain, concerned with only the primeval, thinks fast & simple: “$800,000--Me!” But watch how fast your more evolved mid-brain works next, trying to cover all the bases: “And even if I only get a quarter of what he says, I’m still rich!” The words that come next practically throw-up out of your mouth, as though discharged by your vocal cords all by themselves. “I’m in! It’s legal, I’ve got nothing to loose!”
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