Tuesday, January 3, 2012

A tribute to the late Rev. Glenn Puder and some really bad behavior on our streets


  * ... SUBSIDIES: Beth Pandol is executive director of the Water Association of Kern County and dropped me a note to respond to an earlier reader's post on agriculture subsidies.  "Hats off to her for trying to minimize air pollution but her comment on farm subsidies was a bit off base. While there are farms that receive farm subsidies here in Kern, there are relatively few and our top three crops - grapes, almonds, pistachios - are not subsidized crops. Neither are carrots, fruits or other vegetables. And as for the dig at corporate agriculture, she might want to take a look at the jobs those corporate farms provide, the innovation they create and the boost they give to our local economy. Why is it people feel perfectly free to relegate agriculture to a 1910 business model while heaping praise on other corporate creations like the Apple iPad or HP laptop?"

 * ... PASSINGS: I was saddened to hear about the recent death of Rev. Glenn Puder. Rev. Puder was one of the first people I met on moving to Bakersfield in 1994 and he was a kind and decent man with a huge following. Back then, he was head of the downtown First Presbyterian Church and was active in a number of outreaches around town. Rev. Puder moved to Bakersfield right around the time of the great earthquake of 1953. The church was destroyed and he was among the team that worked to rebuild the church. He died in Napa. By way of background, Puder's wife Dorothy was a niece of the late Walt Disney.




 * ... SPOTTED: Reader Carol Black submitted this doozy. "If you are aware of your surroundings while motoring around town you will see the unbelievable. Yesterday I sat at the stop light going south on Mohawk and Truxtun. Beside me a guy in a red Ford pulled out a bottle of vodka and took three swigs before the light turned green. I couldn't call and report him because I would be driving and talking trying to catch his license number.  And today while driving on the 204 (Golden State) I spotted a quite new dark blue Chevy Impala without any kind of license, no plate, no stickers in any window.  I bet if I did that I'd get stopped within a block from home!  Just my luck!"

 * ... MORE SPOTTED: A younger woman wearing a white medical frock stands in front of Memorial Hospital Tuesday at lunchtime casually smoking. Memorial is a smoke-free campus and cannot control behavior on the sidewalk, but it's an odd sight nonetheless. Someone forgot their New Year's resolutions.

 * ... SORORITIES: Attention all sororties ladies. The National  Panhellenic Conference International  Badge Day is coming up Monday,  March 5, at the Petroleum Club. This is a celebration of sisterhood for women who were members of their sororities in college. Contact Marianne Keathley at (661) 831-8321 with questions. 

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM: You might be a Bakersfield old timer if you "remember when the Haberfelde Building had its own switchboard operator, just inside the main entrance. I believe her name was Edna." Thanks to reader John Strand of Lake Isabella for that piece of history.

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