If it's fall, you can bet it is the non profit event season in town, Uricchio's rolls out some speciality menu items and a little history of the Boy Scout booth at the Kern County Fair

 * ... FUND RAISING: If it is fall in Bakersfield you can bet there will be a major fund raiser somewhere across town every weekend. This past weekend there were two: the huge Garces BBQ,

held at the high school under near perfect fall weather conditions, and the 14th annual Larry Carr Memorial Golf Event with a dinner/auction at Bakersfield Country Club. The tireless Tracy Kiser and Rogers Brandon chaired this event along with auction coordinator Lynn Joseph, raising more than $250,000 for the Lauren Small Children’s Center at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. The 280 dinner guests included BMH President Jon Van Boening and his wife Phillis, Kari and Steve Anderson, Beverly and Jim Camp, Janie and Kable Munger, David Munger, Tuesdy and Kevin Small and Susie and Ken Small, among others. I attended the Garces BBQ (Jenny Waugespack put this beast together) and caught up with an eclectic mix of Bakersfield characters: Monsignors Michael Braun and Craig Harrison, Ray Mish, Superior Court Judge Gary Friedman, Dr. Chris Hamilton and wife Susan, Shawna Haddad and her father Angelo and his wife Nancy, Oscar and Paula Baltazar, Dr. Javier Bustamante and wife Laurie, Mission Bank's Samy Abiaoui and Lisa Boydstun and Tom Anspach.

 * ... FOODIE: Looking for a new menu item for the cooler days to come? Check out the linguini with shrimp or the angel hair pasta primavera at Uricchio's Trattoria, two off the menu specials offered for the next two weeks.

 * ... OAK STREET: Is there a worst traffic choke point in town than the intersection of Oak and Truxtun from 3:30 p.m. on?

* ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "I'm in a long distance relationship. Sure, some people refer to it as a restraining order, but still."

 * ... SPOTTED ON TRUXTUN: A white Toyota Solara convertible is cruising down Truxtun going too slow for traffic and weaving while its driver stares into her cell phone and happily texts.

 * ... STARBUCKS: Remember when I told you that a barista at my local Starbucks was already well into her Christmas shopping? Well she told me the other day she is done, and it isn't even October. Talk about an over achiever.

 * ... FAIR: Did you know the history of the Boy Scout baked potato booth at the fair? Jim Houck does, and he passed along this interesting bit of history: "It started in about 1953 as a project of Troop 8, which met at Horace Mann School on Niles Street. The scoutmaster was a great guy named L.L. Carpenter, known as Slim. The troop was sponsored by the Kern County Potato Growers Association. Urner's lent us ovens, my dad, who worked for Meadow Gold Dairies, got us butter and sour cream, and of course the Potato Growers gave us huge sacks of White Rose potatoes, a great Kern County variety that baked beautifully but is hard to find nowadays, unfortunately.n In those days Scout equipment usually came from the war surplus stores that sold beat-up pup tents, canteens, mess kits, folding shovels and knapsacks. This stuff was cheap but very heavy.n After our first year we'd made enough money to ditch our bulky canvas tents and replace them with big, light ones. Not sure what happened to Troop 8, but I saw someplace that the baked potato booth has been taken over by the local scout council. The wealth spreads."

If it's fall, you can bet it is the non profit event season in town, Uricchio's rolls out some speciality menu items and a little history of the Boy Scout booth at the Kern County Fair

 * ... FUND RAISING: If it is fall in Bakersfield you can bet there will be a major fund raiser somewhere across town every weekend. This past weekend there were two: the huge Garces BBQ,

held at the high school under near perfect fall weather conditions, and the 14th annual Larry Carr Memorial Golf Event with a dinner/auction at Bakersfield Country Club. The tireless Tracy Kiser and Rogers Brandon chaired this event along with auction coordinator Lynn Joseph, raising more than $250,000 for the Lauren Small Children’s Center at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. The 280 dinner guests included BMH President Jon Van Boening and his wife Phillis, Kari and Steve Anderson, Beverly and Jim Camp, Janie and Kable Munger, David Munger, Tuesdy and Kevin Small and Susie and Ken Small, among others. I attended the Garces BBQ (Jenny Waugespack put this beast together) and caught up with an eclectic mix of Bakersfield characters: Monsignors Michael Braun and Craig Harrison, Ray Mish, Superior Court Judge Gary Friedman, Dr. Chris Hamilton and wife Susan, Shawna Haddad and her father Angelo and his wife Nancy, Oscar and Paula Baltazar, Dr. Javier Bustamante and wife Laurie and Tom Anspach.

 * ... FOODIE: Looking for a new menu item for the cooler days to come? Check out the linguini with shrimp or the angel hair pasta primavera at Uricchio's Trattoria, two off the menu specials offered for the next two weeks.

 * ... OAK STREET: Is there a worst traffic choke point in town than the intersection of Oak and Truxtun from 3:30 p.m. on?

* ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "I'm in a long distance relationship. Sure, some people refer to it as a restraining order, but still."

 * ... SPOTTED ON TRUXTUN: A white Toyota Solara convertible is cruising down Truxtun going too slow for traffic and weaving while its driver stares into her cell phone and happily texts.

 * ... STARBUCKS: Remember when I told you that a barista at my local Starbucks was already well into her Christmas shopping? Well she told me the other day she is done, and it isn't even October. Talk about an over achiever.

 * ... FAIR: Did you know the history of the Boy Scout baked potato booth at the fair? Jim Houck does, and he passed along this interesting bit of history: "It started in about 1953 as a project of Troop 8, which met at Horace Mann School on Niles Street. The scoutmaster was a great guy named L.L. Carpenter, known as Slim. The troop was sponsored by the Kern County Potato Growers Association. Urner's lent us ovens, my dad, who worked for Meadow Gold Dairies, got us butter and sour cream, and of course the Potato Growers gave us huge sacks of White Rose potatoes, a great Kern County variety that baked beautifully but is hard to find nowadays, unfortunately.n In those days Scout equipment usually came from the war surplus stores that sold beat-up pup tents, canteens, mess kits, folding shovels and knapsacks. This stuff was cheap but very heavy.n After our first year we'd made enough money to ditch our bulky canvas tents and replace them with big, light ones. Not sure what happened to Troop 8, but I saw someplace that the baked potato booth has been taken over by the local scout council. The wealth spreads."

Bako Bits: speculating about the old Padre Hotel and $160,000 raised for the children's wing at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital

 * ... SMALL WORLD: Mary Vanfleet and her husband, owners of Purifying Systems, were on a 12-day trip to China recently when they were reminded just how small the world is. "While cruising down the Yangtze River on a ship that holds only 200 passengers, my husband Rodger and I ran into our old neighbors from Bakersfield, Ed and Chris Biebrich! They moved about 15 years ago and now live in North Carolina. We haven't seen each other since. Ed Biebrich was with American Bank and then with Citizen's Bank and is now retired. So after all these years,  there they were and there we were in a far away land. It was like running into an old friend at Cafe Med!"

* ... HAUNTED PADRE? Who would have guessed the the old Padre Hotel would turn up in a new cable television show featuring an alleged psychic from Long Island? Will Winn said it happened as he was watching a promotion for a new episode of "Long Island Medium." The episode features an email the psychic received from a lady who claimed to have been visited by a child who died in a hotel.  "The picture of the hotel is shown and it is the Padre!" Winn wrote. "Wonder which room she was in?" 

* ... MEMORIAL: Good news from the 10th Annual Larry Carr Memorial Golf Tournament last week: it raised more than $160,000 to go towards the construction of a children's pavilion for emergency care. The event was held at Bakersfield Country Club and was co-chaired by Steve Loyd and Jenny Waguespack. 

 * ... COLLEGE BOUND: Julie Gibson wrote to say that her son, Timothy, is now attending the University of California Irvine and while dropping him off at school, she learned he was in good company.  "Five of his classmates from Golden Valley High School who were also on the 'We the People Constitution' team are also entering freshmen at UCI. They include Arshdeep Gill, Rocio Martinez, Karen Cervantez, Juan Castaneda and Stephanie Padilla.  I attribute that to the influence of their coach, John Hansen." Mike Gibson, Timothy's father, was his son's football and baseball coach at Golden Valley.

* ... ACHIEVERS: The Jim Burke Education Foundation has released its new team of "Dream Builders," a group of high achieving local kids from our local high schools. Among them are Alexander Pearson, Highland; Renae Lewis, West; Connor Brady, Liberty; Emily Norris, BHS; Nolan Cooney, Stockdale; Xitlaly Estrada, Golden Valley; Sean Tieu, Independence; Heather Hansen, Centennial; Joshua Park, Centennial; Alice Verderber, BHS; Connor Fisher, Stockdale; Katie Cornford, Frontier; Joshua Gaddis, Independence; Abby Grisedale, North; Robert Keathley, Bakersfield Christian; Esperanza Gutierrez, South; Corbin Burnes, Centennial; Paige Basconcillo, Liberty; Charles Hale, East; Bailey Wanner, North; Caroline Kim, Frontier; and Hunter Villanueva, West.

 * ... BLESSING: One of my favorite events will be held this Friday at the St. Francis Parish School when it will hold its annual 'Blessing of the Animals.' It will start at 2:30 p.m. at the Palm Street school. The community is invited to bring pets for a blessing, in honor of the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, along with their spare change.  It is always a fun event, with critters large and small, manageable and hard-to-handle.  The school will also finish its annual  Coins for Canines drive to raise money for needy pets and will donate the money raised, in addition to blankets and pet food, to a local animal charity.

Local West Point graduate is gravely wounded in a suicide attack in Afghanistan and Bakersfield gets ready for the city's most celebrated cooking show, Savor Bakersfield

* ... VAN KOPP: My heart goes out to the family of Samuel Van Kopp, a standout graduate of Bakersfield High School who has been gravely wounded in Afghanistan. His father, local veterinarian Cliff Van Kopp, says his son was hit by shrapnel when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb. Friends say Samuel is the classic high achiever: No. 10 in his class where he excelled at debate and forensics, and on to West Point along with other bright men and women. His Facebook page is testimony to youth, hope, love, friendship and promise. Keep this family in your thoughts. (photos from Van Kopp's Facebook page)

 * ... COOKING SHOW: Our town's most celebrated cooking show - Savor Bakersfield - is coming up on Tuesday, November 13, at Rabobank Arena. This is always a hugely popular event that features boutique shopping, local food and an unforgettable cooking show featuring Dash magazine chef Jon Ashton. There will be food from more than 10 local restaurants including The Padre Hotel, Chef's Choice Noodle Bar,  Johnny Rockets, the Red Pepper, Prime Cut, the Garden Spot and others. Tickets are just $20 (there are discounts for early registration) and there will be raffle drawings throughout the show, including a grand prize of a Kenmore Elite refrigerator freezer. Tickets are available at Rabobank or by phone at (800) 745-3000 and at ticketmaster.com. Sponsors include Smart and Final and 3-Way Chevrolet.

* ... LARRY CARR: The annual Larry Carr Memorial golf tournament to benefit the Memorial Hospital Foundation is being held today (Friday), but there's more to the backstory on this long-held charity event. Before it was named for the late Memorial president Larry Carr, it was called the Buck Owens tournament to support the Buck Owens Foundation.  Said current Memorial CEO Jon Van Boening: "The two best stories of these tournaments were John Wayne getting drunk every tournament at the BCC bar and Johnny Bench claiming he contracted Valley Fever attending one of the tournaments. Both probably true but who knows? When the Buck Owens Foundation decided to stop doing the tournament I picked up the ball and along with John Brock Jr. and Doug Findley (who at that time was partners in Advanced Beverage), started Club Out Cancer to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The ACS tournament existed for 25 years and when that charity decided to get out of golf I took the core of that committee and started the Larry Carr Memorial for Bakersfield Memorial Hospital.  Proceeds from this year's tournament are allocated towards the capital campaign to build a new children’s emergency pavilion at the hospital. "

 * ... PARTY SCHOOLS: If you're a parent with a kid in college, you might be interested in Playboy's annual list of the top party schools. These lists are purely subjective, of course, but it's always interesting to see who makes the cut. The top party school? According to Playboy it's the University of Virginia, followed by the University of Southern California, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tulane, Texas Christian and Ohio State.

 * .... SPOTTED: This bit of bad form comes from reader Dee Rhodes. "I was driving south on Highway 99 just a little after lunch today, and took the Golden State Avenue off ramp to come back into town. I came up behind a slow moving Cal Trans utility truck and trailer. As I was about to go around them, the driver and passenger each threw out their lunch wrappers, bags and empty soda cups onto Golden State Avenue.  I thought I had pretty much seen it all ."

  * ... PTSD: Local Rotary Clubs are partnering with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to sponsor a special program on post traumatic stress disorder. The conference will be held next Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 8 pm. at the Good Samaritan Hospital on White Lane. It is open to the public and free. The program is specifically designed for veterans, first responders, their families and virtually anyone else. For more information or to make a reservation, contact Patrice Maniaci at namikernpatrice@gmail.com or (661) 333-5484.