U.S. oil independence is threatened by the coronavirus, wild sturgeon return to the San Joaquin river and are you spending the lockdown fat, drunk and happy?

Welcome to Bakersfield Observed. Our mission is to celebrate life in Kern County by focusing on newsmakers and events and the local characters who make this community such a special place. The views expressed here are strictly my own and do not represent any other person or organization.

 * ... OIL SLOWDOWN: Under the Trump administration, the United States has enjoyed a period of energy independence, but the coronavirus pandemic threatens to upend all that. That's according to Chad Hathaway, CEO of Hathaway Oil, who says worldwide consumption of oil is down 30 percent and that may not be the bottom. "We have changed the fundamental nature of travel," Hathaway told

me. "There are no places to sell our product." Hathaway says by the time the U.S. emerges from this pandemic, we will be an oil importer once again. Across the globe, Hathaway said tankers full of oil are sitting idly on the world's ocean, waiting for a place to dock and sell their goods. It's not happening. "We are running out of places to store" the oil, he said.

* ... LOCKDOWN HABITS So how are you spending your time in lockdown? Tutoring your children in math? Reading a novel? Working on a home improvement project? Researching ways to help humanity in this time of need? Well those are good thoughts, but if you believe Forbes, most of us have devolved into couch potatoes who drink too much, eat fatty foods and watch pornography. Listen to Forbes describe us: "It looks like Americans are collectively channeling their inner-slacker attitude. People are consuming more alcohol, smoking weed, playing video games, eating a lot of junk food, binge-watching Netflix and adult films more than ever before... According to investment advice site Motley Fool, 'During the first few weeks of the month, cannabis sales were soaring and spiked around the middle of the month as fears heightened that people would be confined to their homes in an effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic.' Marijuana sales are high in a number of states where it's legal... Pornhub, if you can’t tell by its name, is a popular online adult film site visited by roughly 120 million viewers every day. Now that Americans are self-quarantining at home, Pornhub has seen a large rise in traffic—up 11.6 percent."

 * ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "Well, millennials finally stopped going out for avocado toast. Can everybody afford a house now?"

 * ... QUOTE OF THE DAY: You just have to love this quote from Sheriff Donny Youngblood, commenting on the party where - amid the pandemic - 400 people gathered for a party in east Bakersfield. A drive by shooting left six wounded at the party and the victims are refusing to cooperate with deputies. Said Youngblood: "You can't regulate stupidity."

 * ... GOOD MARKETING: You have to give it to the folks over at Hoffman Hospice for coming up with a brilliant way to a) lift our spirits while b) raising money for the non-profit during a difficult time. I am talking about those red "Everything Will Be Okay" signs that are popping up in yards around town. Hoffman sells them for $20 each and will deliver to the house of your choice. When one mysteriously appears in your yard (thank you Karen Rowles for the joy you brought to me and Alysia Beene) it is certain to lift your spirits.

 * ... WILD STURGEON: It's been a long time but a rare, wild green sturgeon has been found on the San Joaquin river near Merced. According to Lois Henry writing on her SJVWATER.ORG blog, it had been years that the fish had been spotted that far up the river. Like salmon, sturgeon spawn in rivers and then swim out to sea, only to return to spawn once again. Most sturgeon are bred in farms for their eggs, or caviar. Said Lois: "Though the San Joaquin River Restoration Program is concentrated on bringing back spring run Chinook salmon populations, green sturgeons were also native to the area and evolved in the same habitat so it’s not surprising to see them return as the river has been brought back to life."

 * ... EASTER SUNDAY:  This is a lovely and telling photo spotted in The Los Angeles Times of Easter Sunday in Los Angeles. Enjoy.

 * ... MEMORIES: From the Kern County History Fans Facebook page: "This is the Lakeview #2 gusher at Maricopa, May 1914. It produced 20,000 barrels a day from a depth of 3400 feet."

The ugly side deals made by Gov. Jerry Brown in the gas tax deal begin to emerge, a hats off to the volunteers who made the Haggard childhood home unveiling a success, and Watson Realtor Mary Christenson brings back her colorful Easter display

 * ... GAS TAX: The details of how Gov. Jerry Brown managed to get the votes to pass the state's large gas tax hike emerging, and they are not pretty. It turns out Brown had to promise reluctant

legislators some $1 billion in pet projects (payola some call it) to assure passage. As the conservative blog FlashReport noted: "The deal is so bad they needed $1 billion in payola to buy enough votes to pass it. And shamefully, only 60 percent of the gas tax collected from SB 1, authored by Democrat Senator Jim Beall (D-San Jose), will actually be used for road maintenance and repairs. Environmentalists got plenty of taxpayer-funded payola as well including money for more public transit, and for walking and bicycling projects. SB 1 does nothing to relieve traffic congestion or expand highway lane capacity. If Democrats and Gov. Jerry Brown are trying to force California’s middle class out and small businesses, then it’s working."

 * ... HAGGARD HOME: The official unveiling of the Merle Haggard childhood home at Kern Pioneer Village was a success, but the real story unfolded behind the scenes thanks to scores of volunteers. Since the resignation and departure of museum director Zoot Velasco, the museum was been rudderless as its board of directors determines what they need in a future director. So it was left to the Board and other volunteers to pull off the event, among them Steve Sanders, Sheryl Barbich, Beth Pandol and Tracy Walker-Kiser.

 * ... EASTER: Mary Christenson, the award winning Watson Realtor, is at it again this Easter. This is the sixth year that Christenson has decorated her Seven Oaks home with thousands (3,000 at last count) of plastic Easter eggs to celebrate Holy Week. It has become something of a Seven Oaks tradition with families stopping by to snap pictures on the "bunny bench" and this explosive mosaic of color. The eggs will be removed the day after Easter.

 * ... SPOTTED: A woman hiking with two men on the Panorama Bluffs gingerly picks up a soiled diaper and walks it 30 feet to the nearest trash bin. Her male companions would not touch it.

 * ... OVERHEARD: A middle aged man is asking a friend if he would recall the name of an old bar that once stood at Panorama and River Road on the site now occupied by a car wash. Anyone remember?

 * ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "Marriage is like a public toilet. Those waiting outside are desperate to get in. Those inside are desperate to get out."

 * ... SPOTTED ON FACEBOOK: Posted by my friend Joe Drew: "Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason."

 * ... FIRESTONE: I've become a fan of the privately owned Firestone Grill on California Avenue and Highway 99. Twenty plus big screen TVs, robust salads and a fine signature burger, but what is with the tiny napkins that, unfolded, are barely the size of your palm?

 * ... 24TH STREET: Kelly Giblin dropped me this note about the houses being razed on 24th Street: "Each day as I drive past the homes and buildings on 24th Street that are being torn down for the street widening project, I can't help thinking that there must be a huge amount of material and fixtures in those structures that could be salvaged and repurposed. Does anyone know if that is being done? With all the structures being torn down for the widening project and the Centennial Corridor Project, I cannot help but think that it is a real tragedy if everything just ends up in a landfill."

Monday Bako Bits: Easter in Bakersfield, more on those outrageous telephone scams and some really good - and bad - form about town

 * … WEEKEND: If you were in town and didn't get out an about this weekend, shame on you. Restaurants were full, and those with outdoor seating (like Cafe Med, Uricchio's Trattoria downtown and Tahoe

Joe's and Eureka Burger in the southwest) were particularly popular as diners ventured outside to enjoy the cool temperatures. Cirque du Soleil was playing to full houses at Rabobank Arena, there was a 10k run on the bike trail Saturday, and the Easter sunrise services were nothing short of spectacular. Enjoy these spring days.

 * … SCAM: Alice Merenbach is sure her telephone number must be on a master scam list. "This time," she said, "a call to my phone for my adult child advised me that Chris Wilcox (in a very foreign sounding voice - actually, same voice when I received the bogus call from the IRS) stated that he was with the Department of Legal Affairs for the U.S. Treasury and wanted to discuss illegal activities
on 'our end/' He suggested we call immediately to (661) 980-3960 and if we didn't, that we should have our lawyer call for us, as this was very serious.  I didn't bother to respond, but I am assuming that some people might be frightened by such a call.  Oh, and my child does not live here.

* … SPOTTED: I picked up this nugget on Twitter: "There are no bad photos. That’s just how you look sometimes."

 * … GOOD FORM: Frances Mitchell wrote to thank the stranger who came to her assistance after her car lost power on the Union Avenue exit off Highway 178. "He pushed my auto around the corner into Snider's parking lot and into the shade.  I did not get this gentlemen's name but I know his bravery/strength came with help from a higher power. This 74-year-old cancer survivor is ever so grateful as this could have been one serious accident/situation. Thank you again and God bless you and your family!"

 * … MORE GOOD FORM: Linda Welch shops at the Von's on North Chester and recently left an 80 cent can of soup on the counter. What happened next is the sort of customer service you don't experience every day. "The store manager happened to be the person who answered the phone. He asked my address and told me he was going to bring me a can of soup. He had no idea if I lived a block away or 10 minutes away. I thought he deserved some recognition." Well said, Linda.

* … BAD FORM: You know what was coming next: bad form. And this is almost too incredible to believe, but my colleague David Vanderpol insists it's true. Said David: "My wife got a robo-call a few weeks ago from a 'Christian' church in Shafter telling us if we weren't going their church we were going to Hell. Needless to say my wife had to call their office the next day… and sure enough the guy was DEAD set in his ways, and insisted the only church was HIS church. She did let him know there were better ways to get noticed, if he was trying to attract people to his church, and that she will be praying for him. He hung up on her. " Wow.

 * … SANDSTONE: One last memory of the old Sandstone store, compliments of Mary Curran-Means, daughter of Robert and Yvonne Curran and granddaughter of James and Mary Curran. "I remember when school was out, when my sisters, brother and I were little kids our mother would take us across the street to the hardware store, then located on Sonora Street.  Guard Ray would put us on the nail scale to weigh us, then down to the corner of 18th and Union we would get our hair cut and then off to Breckenridge for the summer. This was not to get out of the heat but out of the valley to escape Valley Fever and the dreaded Infantile Paralysis. The family referred to Sandstone as the 'Yard' and at Christmas time yard sticks were given to customers as gifts."

Thieves find a new way to break into garages, it's rattlesnake season around town and a huge weekend with Easter, Cirque du Soleil and Fleetwood Mac

 * … THEFTS: Here's a new technique that thieves use to break into our garages, and pay special attention if you own bicycles or motorcycles. A friend who lives on Country Club Drive in the

northeast awoke to find his two very high end mountain bikes (worth some $18,000) gone from his garage. The thieves, it turned out, punched a hole into the garage door and used coat hangers to release the emergency manual pull for the garage door. The whole process likely took just a few minutes. The quick fix: use a zip tie to anchor the emergency pull. Meanwhile, there has been a rash of home burglaries in the downtown area, including several where thieves entered through windows that were cracked open to enjoy the cooler weather.

 * … RATTLESNAKES: The warming weather ushers in snake season, and already they are out on our hiking and riding trails. Pat Bentley was walking her Airedale on the dirt path west of Coffee Road when she came upon two rattlesnakes. "Usually I let her off the leash when we're away from the path. For whatever reason, I didn't this time. Thank God! I was about 10 yards away when I saw them. They didn't move until I bent to get a stick. The scary part was how FAST they moved then. Like lightening. I knew there was a reason that I'm totally snake-phobic! Needless to say, she won't be off leash at all from now on."

 * … SPOTTED: A colleague posted this on Twitter: "Discovering mid-bite that the Jelly Belly is cinnamon rather than the Very Cherry you expected — life is made of these disappointments."

 * … WEEKEND: This is a huge weekend for our local restaurants, so if you are planning to be out and about, make your reservations now, particularly if you plan on being downtown. Besides being Easter weekend, Cirque du Soleil is in town at the Rabobank Arena and Fleetwood Mac will perform there for a sell out crowd on Monday.

 * … WINGS: Wings of Rescue is a terrific organization that flies stray dogs and cats to loving new homes. This note came from organizer Kristi Townsend: "I would like to thank the people of Kern County for their recent flood of donations to Wings of Rescue. They will be doing another massive airlift in April. In addition to spay and neuter, Wings of Rescue has been a very cost effective way to save countless dogs and cats and send them to their forever homes in other states. Please, can we keep a good thing going?"

* … ACHIEVER: Hats off to Kylee Koland Hoelscher who will graduate from Cal State Long Beach in May with an MFA in creative writing. The daughter of Pamela Koland, she is 1997 graduate of Bakersfield West High School and a 2001 graduate of University of California, Santa Barbara, with a BA in English.

 * … MEMORIES: Here is a blast from the past complim's ents of retired teacher Gail Oblinger: "How many people remember when the bookmobile used to be a regular feature at the Hillcrest Shopping Center? That was maybe in the 1970s. It came once a week in the late afternoon. If for some reason you missed getting there, it would be on Mt. Vernon Street in the Freddie’s Top o’ the Hill parking lot on a different day. Lots of the same adults and children showed up each week, and pretty soon everyone knew each other and it was a social time as well as book check out.  In summertime, folding chairs were set out and  children’s movies were shown in the parking lot at dusk.  Sometimes little craft programs were included.  I made a cornhusk doll there. "

A near perfect Easter weekend and Urner's debuts the new Sous Vide cooking appliance

* ... EASTER WEEKEND: Hard to beat the weather over the long Easter weekend. On Sunday, all the parks were crowded and families were enjoying the spring-like weather. And shame on you if you missed First Friday when the streets and sidewalks of the downtown arts district were brimming with revelers. Among those I spotted in the crowd were Karen DeWalt, Linda Sullenger, Greg and Mary Bynum, Rob and Amanda Meszaros, Molly and Matt Clark, Karen Goh, Lisa Verdugo, Katy and John Glentzer, Joe and Mimi Audello, Nicole St. John and Bob Grewdson, Pat and Robin Paggi and Vicki Cruz.

* .... CAMILLIA MEMORIES: Zelma Lopez dropped me a wonderful note to share the story of a camellia plant that has been in her family since 1945. In 1942, she married into a Tulare family that had five sons, all of whom served in World War II. After the war, the boys bought their mother a small, white camellia bush for Mother's Day. "When the last of the family left Tulare by 1956 we moved the plant to our southwest Bakersfield home." The plant survived and to this day she enjoys "the beautiful flowers from a plant that is taller than the house. Precious memories!"


* ... KUDOS: Hats off to Joseph Schoorl who is graduated from George Washington University Law School in May. Schoorl graduated from St. Francis and went on to Garces Memorial High School where he was a valedictorian. He did his undergraduate work at UC Berkeley and has accepted a job with the law firm of Baker and McKenzie in Washington, D.C., His parents are Cindy and Andy Schoorl.

 * ... SOUS VIDE: I have one of the smaller kitchens in town so when my friend Steve Illingworth, manager of Urner's Appliance Center, tipped me off to a new cooking appliance my first thought was: 'and where am I going to store it?' But Steve appreciates my love of cooking, has excellent taste  and I came home with the new Sous Vide vacuum sealer and water oven that - when all was said and done - made one of the best pork tenderloins I've ever tasted. Sous vide is a slow cooking method that low-temperature water poaching with food packaged in vacuum sealed bags. The idea is that the food is cooked for a long time at the exact right temperature. Thanks Steve, for making my Easter weekend special.

* ... TAX FRIENDLY: If you are thinking about retiring, you might want to consider moving to a more tax friendly state. Marketwatch recently listed the most "tax friendly" states for retires, defining tax friendly as "states that don’t tax income, including Social Security and pension income. And then we added some commentary from the Tax Foundation about other taxes, such as property and sales, and the overall tax burden, in those income-tax friendly states." The winners were Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, Florida and Washington.

Bako Bits: From whitewater rafting to some downright appallingly bad behavior at our parks

Checking in from Easter weekend which was - in a word - glorious. Could not have asked for better weather after a week of being sand blasted by ugly wind storms. Here's some Bako Bits to chew on:

* BAD BEHAVIOR: It's a sign of the times that you can pretty much rely on a few dozen people being arrested for fighting and gun slinging virtually every holiday weekend in Bakersfield. And Easter was no exception. Today's Californian shows a picture of ambulance personnel wheeling away victims after 60-70 people got in a fight at Pioneer Park in the afternoon. Let me repeat: SIXTY OR SEVENTY people! This wasn't some isolated fight between a couple of drunks but rather a wholesale brawl. One person was stabbed and another clubbed with a baseball bat. Meanwhile three people were detained after fights broke out at Beach Park while over at Hart Park, cops had to close the place off because of crowding. Happy Easter everyone!
* GOOD BEHAVIOR: I did happen to drop by the Riverlakes Church morning service over at the amphitheater at River Walk Park. There were at least a couple thousand worshipers there and - voila! - they managed to get through the service without a single stabbing or clubbing. See? It can be done.
* MORE BAD BEHAVIOR: Another wild scene over at Pioneer Park where they had planned on an Easter egg hunt for 1,500 kids and some 3,000 showed up. And of course - you can guess what happened next - the parents ended up shoving kids aside to grab eggs during the hunt. Sheesh.
* SOME GOOD PRESS: Nice to see Kernville and our white water rafting featured in Forbes magazine as one of the best rafting sites in the nation. They are highly complimentary of the rafting and give us some good ink. Read the complete story here.
* ROAD EXTENSION: I also happened to end up on the bike path extension headed toward Enos Lane and noticed that the Allen Road extension - it will connect Stockdale Highway with Ming Avenue - seems near ready to open. That will be a welcome event for those Southwest residents.