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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2018 • BAKERSFIELD.COM TBC MEDIA BOOKS C8 • CLASSIFIEDS D1 • EYE STREET C1 • KERN BUSINESS NEWS A12 • NATION & WORLD A11 • OBITUARIES A8 • OPINION A14 • PUZZLES C3 • SPORTS B1 • TRAVEL C9 • TV C6

It’s a working-class community of salt-of-the-earth Retiring DA Americans. It’s a troubled, ignored wasteland of drugs, homelessness and poverty. It’s a battlefi eld that pits presents hope against hopelessness and determination against

The first in Robert despair. Here, bands of good citizens work tirelessly to Price’s ongoing series on her closing the enclaves, districts and neighborhoods pull lost souls from the abyss and lift the place’s standing that make up the fabric of Kern County. in the eyes of both the world and its own residents. argument the fight to save

oildale ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN Lisa Green, whose tenure ends Jan. 4, refl ects on time as Kern’s top prosecutor and notable trials

BY JASON KOTOWSKI [email protected] With an unwavering dedication to vic- tims’ rights, Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green successfully prosecuted a mul- titude of complex cases — including that of one of the most notorious murderers in county history — and oversaw the office at a time when technological advances brought greater scrutiny on law enforce- ment in general. After a 35-year career, the last eight as the county’s top prosecutor, Green, 60, said she’s prepared to step away. She re- tires effective Jan. 4. Scott Spielman, who acted as Green’s second-in-command, said she is the first person who comes to mind when he thinks of attorneys who have most influ- enced him. “Her tenacity and her very strong sense of what’s right and wrong is what I ad- mire,” he said. Veteran defense attorney David A. Torres also used “tenacity” in describing Green, as well as “aggressive,” noting her refusal to give up when seeking justice for ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN victims. Green shattered the glass ceiling, he “Oildale, CA: Home of Good Schools, Good Homes and Good Citizens.” That’s the slogan that Linda and Fred Enyeart said, in 2011 upon becoming the first use to promote their love for Oildale. The flyer, conceived, designed and posted by the Enyearts, conveys admirable female district attorney in the office’s aspirations and some core truths about Oildale. history — dating back to 1866. As DA, she demonstrated effective and efficient skills FLYER IS TAPED TO THE FRONT GLASS DOORS of Wattenbarger hardware, the Oil dale in management, personnel and fiscal ac- lumber store and neighborhood institution founded in 1946. It reads: “Oildale, CA: countability, he said. “From an attorney’s perspective, she A Home of Good Schools, Good Homes and Good Citizens.” • The flyer, conceived, had an extremely successful career.” designed and posted by Fred and Linda Enyeart, conveys admirable aspirations and some Despite those skills, Green has no plans to practice law in the future. core truths about Oildale. But it tells only part of the story of Bakersfield’s northern append- She’s looking forward to simple plea- age, ZIP code 93308. • The unincorporated blue-collar enclave of 32,000 directly across sures such as being able to get a workout the Kern River from Bakersfield has a well-defined sense of place and a distinct personality, in at a “regular hour” instead of squeezing one in at 5 a.m. before heading to the of- much of it good but much of it undesirable. • People like the Enyearts have been working fice. Or sitting down with a good book in hard to shift the perception, both among Oildale’s own residents and the world beyond. hand. More time with her husband, more visits to her children. As many as five separate citizens’ committees, as well as local church groups, are actively And she will closely follow the progress working to alleviate the community’s multitude of problems, but it is a daunting task. of her beloved Buffalo Bills. An ardent

“Oildale is a community full of hard- of Oildale, especially south of Norris Please see GREEN | A3 working people, many of whom are look- Road and west of North Chester Avenue, INSIDE ing for ways to improve,” Mike Maggard, a white ghetto of scruffy rentals sprin- THE CALIFORNIAN Kern County’s 3rd District supervisor kled with abandoned shacks. Some lots, and unofficial mayor of Oildale, says especially south of Decatur Street, are SEE: A map charts diplomatically. “Some are well along the almost Third World in appearance. points of interest around the area. A4 path and some are at the beginning.” Exacerbating the struggle of south Some time after its founding in 1909, Oildale is a persistent drug problem of READ: Learn about Oildale, originally known as Waits or alarming dimensions. When the weather some of Oildale’s vital Northside, grew into a mod- is warm, ashen people statistics. A5 est village built around the emerge midafternoon from Kern River Oil Field, a 2-bil- the darkened garages and lion-barrel field that at one squatter-infested alleys time was the fifth-largest around Warren Avenue to operating onshore oil field in congregate, among other ONLINE DINERS CAN BET the Lower 48 states. Today, at places, outside the Long- AT BAKERSFIELD.COM ON THIS HORSE No. 10, it is still significant. branch Saloon and a mo- READ: The story of The Dust Bowl migra- bile-phone store next door. how Oildale was born, Pete Tittl visits Horse in the tion of the 1930s and ’40s It’s not uncommon to as told by George Alley Vintage Steakhouse brought waves of migrants ROBERT PRICE see a user half-sprawled on Gilbert Lynch, a Kern to California from Okla- THE CALIFORNIAN the sidewalk outside the County historian and EYE STREET | C1 homa, Texas and the south- phone store in the throes of longtime Californian ern Plains states, and many remained self-induced spasms — tweaking, in the contributor who died in Oildale after the war to work in ag- vernacular of the street — from a blast of in 2010. riculture and especially oil. The heavy crystal meth or some other illicit drug. WATCH: Robert Price concentration of Okies in Oildale seems This is Bakersfield’s Tenderloin District. introduces a quick GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN to have made them slower to assimilate Methamphetamine and heroin have visual tour of the Partial closure likely to extend into the California mainstream than the been issues here for years. Then, a community. progeny of other Dust Bowl migrants, few years ago, along came fentanyl, a past Christmas amid standoff creating the insulated culture that came synthetic opioid that is 80 to 100 times WATCH: Sports Editor over border wall funds PAGE A11 to define the community. stronger than morphine. It can be added Teddy Feinberg joins to heroin to increase its potency or used Price as he visits the TWEAKING ON THE SIDEWALK by itself, street-marketed as highly po- Highland Cafe. The oil patch continues to sustain tent heroin and injected by users who WATCH: Longbranch families in Oildale and throughout metro might never know the difference. Saloon bartender Anne Bakersfield. But pervasive poverty and all Clifton remembers the COLLEGE BASKETBALL that comes with it have rendered much Please see OILDALE | A4 Oildale of old. CSUB’s Rickey Holden is giving it his all to make a better life for 3-year-old daughter PAGE B1

SUBSCRIBER SERVICES 58/44 TO REPORT A NEWS TIP 392-5777, 800-953-5353 or [email protected] Complete forecast | A16 395-7384, 800-540-0646 or [email protected] A4 The Bakersfield Californian Sunday, December 23, 2018

LOCAL

ROBERT PRICE / THE CALIFORNIAN Daniel Moffett and Rocket. OILDALE Continued from PAGE A1

“We have to be careful just open- ing the bindle, because you can be overcome by it,” Kern County Sher- iff Donny Youngblood says. “That’s the stuff that takes a lot of people down,” says Daniel Moffett, pushing a shopping cart down Roberts Lane, his dog, Rocket, in tow. “Too many people.” Moffett accepts a $5 bill and con- tinues west on Roberts. If I find him later, he says, he sleeps behind the doughnut shop a half- mile down the road. PREGNANT, HOMELESS AND HIGH Danielle, 27, is sitting at a picnic ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN table outside Young’s Drive-in, a Forty-eight-year employee Steve Robinson and 24-year employee Brad Robinson cut plywood to order. The father-and-son team love working 1950s-era mom-and-pop burger together at Wattenbarger Do-It Center in Oildale. joint on Oildale Drive. Danielle — not her real name — is high on Oildale like it used to be,” Hobbs JAMES RD S WA OU E R meth and talking to her boyfriend, said. “To us, you’re a person, not RE H D Bobby, in a speed-slur that defies a number, not a dollar bill. But it’s comprehension. She is thin as a not like it was. Everybody knew Oildale reed, except for the football-sized everybody, and everybody was paunch that juts from her abdo- friendly.” men. She is five months pregnant. Well, not everybody. 1 Her mother, Ali, at times frantic Longtime residents speak of a PETROL RD with grief, at times resigned to her threat, spray-painted on the back KERN RIVER daughter’s circumstances, has just of a billboard in some tellings, OIL FIELD pulled away in her little Hyundai, reading “N-----, Don’t Let The Sun The having met Danielle and Bobby Set On You in Oildale.” It remained 21 here just long enough to buy them for years, until the early 1960s — Bakersfield MERLE HAGGARD DR burgers, french fries, fried zucchini and much later, according to some Californian and milkshakes. accounts. That slogan did not exist This is Ali’s third trip of the week in a vacuum: Stories of harass- to south Oildale, having paid two ment and even violence were not P E 20 nights ago for a medium-sized uncommon. G A Meadows pepperoni at Santa Barbara Pizza “I know older people who would S 8 U Field

& Chicken for Danielle to pick up chase you out of town, shooting at S

12

later. The tattooed manager there you,” Hobbs said. D Airport R knows Danielle’s mother well by Racism still rears its head. Where ST MCCARY 11 now and his gentle demeanor there is poverty, there is frustration 7 DR AIRPORT speaks to his genuine empathy. and resentment, no matter what 99 19 CHINA GRADE LOOP Ali has tried pleading, ignoring, the dominant race of the neighbor- 13 screaming and recruiting others to hood. Here it is poor, uneducated Buck Owens help get through to Danielle. She whites and the Oildale Pecker- U.S. Post N. CHESTER AVE N. CHESTER has tried guilt, prayer and tough woods, a loosely organized white NO 17 Office love. She has entertained but re- supremacist gang whose name RRIS RD 10 3 23 jected the idea of a forced abduc- turns up in assault trials now and 6 tion or some kind of trickery. Now then. Perhaps that helps explain 2 14 24 that Danielle is pregnant, Ali has why Oildale, now as always, is less 4 taken another tack: the welfare of than 1 percent African-American. 15 18 DECATUR ST HRR Stables the baby. Doesn’t Danielle want a Tolerance quotients aside, the OLIVE DR healthy child? poverty has not gone away: The 5 Young’s Drive-in is exactly one percentage of residents living be- MANOR ST ROBERTS LN block from an Omni Family Health low the poverty line is 20.9, which Famous sites Center — and a second Omni is would place Oildale, if it were a 16 9 close by, as are two medical offices state unto itself, at No. 49 in the Well-known saloons run by Clinica Sierra Vista. Ali has nation, right between New Mex- assured Danielle that an appoint- ico (20.6 percent) and Mississippi Emergency services ment, even a walk-in visit, will be (21.9). Schools free or almost free of charge, and 204 22 the doctors won’t judge her. So ARMIES OF RESCUERS Parks 1/2 MILE far it hasn’t worked; Danielle has When Linda and Fred Enyeart previously promised she’d go, but first came across that “Good Citi- in the end her fear that they’ll take zens” slogan in a recipe book pub- away her drugs wins out. lished for the community’s 100- 1. Bakersfield Speedway At least Danielle is communi- year centennial in 2009 — it was 2. Buck Owens’ former Detail 7TH STANDARD RD Kern River cative. If this were a heroin jag in- taken from a 1938 letter written to recording studio Oil Field Kern stead of a meth binge, Ali wouldn’t an Oildale businessman — they area River have heard from her daughter at all. knew they had to do something 3. O’Hennings SNOW RD CHINA GRADE LOOP When days, sometimes weeks pass with it. 4. Longbranch Saloon without requests for fast food or “Oildale gets a bad rap some- 5. Trout’s (closed) OLIVE DR O RAMA DR groceries, Ali knows. times and we thought these post- PAN So the dance continues. Maybe ers would help,” Linda says. “We Rustic Rail Saloon 6. COLUMBUS ST tomorrow night Ali will return and started putting them up and down RD COFFEE 204 take Danielle grocery shopping at the street in Oildale. We distributed 7. Kern County Fire Station 62 178 ROSEDALE HWY the 99 Cents Only store just west 275 of them and then Mike Mag- 8. Kern County Fire Station 63 EDISON HWYNILES ST of Decatur Street. And then, in gard funded us 200 more.” Kern County Fire Station 64 TRUXTUN AVE the parking lot afterward, she will “We volunteer with a lot of 9. WESTSIDE plead or scream or try to reason groups here,” Fred says. “We’re try- 10. Kern County Sheriff’s Office PARKWAY with Danielle — or just give it a rest ing to make Oildale a better place.” STOCKDALE HWY this time and go home and cry. They write and distribute an 11. North High School 58 e-newsletter called the Oildale 12. Highland Elementary School MING AVE H ST ALLEN RD ALLEN RD REAL RD MAYBERRY 93308 News that promotes community REAL RD FAIRFAX RD FAIRFAX FAIRFAX RD FAIRFAX Six blocks north of the Long- activities and generally reminds 13. Wingland Elementary School WHITE LN UNION AVE branch, at the Wattenbarger Do-It residents that good and notewor- 14. Standard Elementary School 99 Center, it’s 1954 all over again: Cus- thy things happen here. and Standard Middle School RD ASHE Bakersfield tomers and friends chat amicably The “93308 Salute goes out this COTTONWOOD RD COTTONWOOD GOSFORD RD GOSFORD with Ron Hobbs, who has worked week to Varner Brothers,” a local 15. North Beardsley Elementary 1 MILE RD GOSFORD HARRIS RD here off and on for 34 years, and waste management company, School PANAMA LN Debbie Shepherd, bookkeeper and declares the Dec. 8 edition. “If 16. Beardsley Elementary and daughter of Don Wattenbarger, one you haven’t seen their new and 19. North Park 22. Riverview Park of the five sibling owners. improved look, go by 1800 Roberts Beardsley Junior High School “People used to stand around and Lane. They do so much to keep the 17. McCray Park 20. North Meadows Park 23. Sears Park shoot the breeze” when they came Community neat & clean. ... They 18. North Beardsley Park 21. North Highlands Park 24. Standard Park in to buy their building materials, are a perfect example of GOOD Shepherd says. “Still do.” CITIZENS!” ROBERT PRICE AND KENT KUEHL / THE CALIFORNIAN Wattenbarger’s does a brisk busi- NASCAR racing star Kevin Har- ROBERT PRICE AND KENT KUEHL / THE CALIFORNIAN ness with local contractors and do- vick grew up here, past newsletters it-yourself homeowners, and the have reminded us, and so did Jack- with the sheriff, mental health, going in the same direction?” eradicate graffiti, promote street store has maintained a steady cli- sonville Jaguars quarterback Cody public health and other county OCAT Vice President Dave Kadel art, and conduct “flashlight walks,” entele of ranchers from Glennville, Kessler, although the family moved agencies to address a multitude of is a former Kern County sheriff’s in which they troop through neigh- 35 miles up Granite Road. to Bakersfield for his high school issues. deputy who retired after 30 years borhoods just after dusk and talk “You learn about everybody’s years. “When I’m out there with them, and is now the outreach pastor at a to residents who might be sitting lives,” Shepherd said. The Enyearts don’t miss a beat I see it,” says Maggard, referring church called Life House. in their yards or walking their dogs Hobbs, 70ish with neatly when it comes to promoting to OCAT, which evolved from a “We’re just trying to promote down the sidewalk to identify combed gray hair and a zippered Oildale, and they are in good Neighborhood Watch group into Oildale and bring some positive neighborhood issues and solutions. jacket, seems to know everyone company. a full-fledged 501(c)(3) nonprofit. spin,” he says, in the undersell of “There’s a poverty mentality there who walks up to the lumber The Oildale Community Action “It’s real. These aren’t pussyfooting the century. The members of OCAT in Oildale that people don’t seem counter. Team, Citizens for a New Oildale, white-collar workers who are used bust their tails. to have a way of dealing with,” “The majority of people who’ve the North of the River Chamber of to air conditioning. They work. The They feed and clothe children, been here 25 or 30 years believe in Commerce and several others work challenge is, how do I keep them all pick up litter and larger debris, Please see OILDALE | A5 Sunday, December 23, 2018 The Bakersfield Californian A5

LOCAL

ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN Bartender Anne Clifton and Ronnie Jones discuss pool strategy at the Longbranch Saloon. Clifton’s son, Ken, owns the bar.

Oildale OILDALE Community Continued from PAGE A4 Action Team Vice Kadel says. “That’s a big obstacle to President progress.” Dave Kadel He, like Maggard, says the var- and President ious pro-Oildale groups could Donna achieve more if they worked to- Clopton are gether better. working on a “There’s no real unity there,” mural project Kadel says. “We’re trying to address at 501 N. things collaboratively. We try to tell Chester Ave. them we can do so much more to- As many as gether than separately.” five separate “Wouldn’t it be great,” says citizens’ Donna Clopton, OCAT’s president, committees, “if once a year all of these groups as well as could come together and work on local church one project? Just one thing?” ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN groups, are They might want to include Ben Ben Hanna is the pastor of Church Without Walls on Beardsley Avenue actively Hanna. He moved away from the in Oildale. His tent church, at 114 Beardsley, has been there for more working to desperate poverty of Beardsley Av- than eight years, helping feed and bathe homeless people in the area. alleviate the enue some years ago but never re- community’s ally left: Twelve years ago, he estab- pool leagues and darts leagues. multitude of lished Church Without Walls, which ABOUT OILDALE And, for those so inclined, it’s problems, operates literally under a pop-up ZIP code: 93308 ­conveniently located right next but it is a canopy on a lot at 114 Beardsley, door to a “pharmacy” staffed by daunting 400 feet off North Chester. Government a “doctor” who can prescribe mar- task. He hands out blankets, coats, representatives: ijuana (but apparently does not stocking caps and canned goods, ■■ Kern County Board of dispense it). and he helps facilitate showers ­Supervisors: Mike Maggard Another door farther down, for the aromatic homeless in a ■■ State Senate: Shannon behind an unmarked storefront ALEX HORVATH / THE CALIFORNIAN borrowed trailer modified for that Grove (R) with butcher paper covering the purpose. ■■ State Assembly: Vince windows, is an internet casino. It is former manager supposedly sent it Oildale that locals like to refer to “We’ve got sky-high rates for HIV Fong (R) operating illegally. Three horizontal out for repairs just about the time as “Royaldale.” That’s an exag- and sexually transmitted diseases, ■■ U.S. Congress: Kevin video screens almost the size of the building was sold, the saloon geration: Homes here start in the we’ve got drugs and illiteracy, and ­McCarthy (R) pool tables display brightly ani- was shut down and he quietly left low $200,000s and a few tickle we are number one in California for Area: 6.533 square miles mated sea creatures; players — as town. the $400,000s, but they’re bigger poverty,” Hanna says. “We have 300 Elevation: 469 feet many as eight at a time — direct The locals have moved on from and newer than the rest of Oildale. or 400 homeless people in our area. their fish to eat other fish. A player the defunct establishment that Many more are under construction So there’s a lot going on.” Population (2010): 32,684 can win $40 or more in five min- beloved Red Simpson on both sides of Merle Haggard You’re doing good work here, I Founded: 1909 (as Waits or utes and lose it just as fast. and equally beloved crooner Billy Drive, the northernmost boundary tell him. North Side) Against another wall, players on Mize frequented in their semi-re- of Oildale. “Well,” he says, “God is.” Historical claims to fame: U-2 laptops play video poker and simi- tirement years. Like so much else It is here that Oildale’s future spy plane manufacturing site; lar games of chance. of Oildale, Trout’s, now unrecogniz- lies. An Amazon fulfillment center ENFORCEMENT CHALLENGES: home of Buck Owens’ recording Near the entrance, behind a able, is boarded up. is well under construction across ‘IT’S LIKE MERCURY’ studio. counter, a short, muscular bald Bucks Owens’ old recording Wings Way from the William M. It’s coming up on noon and man in a T-shirt looks warily at the studio on North Chester, the old Thomas Terminal and Meadows Noteworthy industry: Kern Anne Clifton is bartending at the out-of-place customer who so far River Theater that he converted in Field and commercial real estate River Oil Field and Kern Front Oil Longbranch Saloon. Ken Clifton, has shown no interest in actually the early 1970s, is quiet now, too. signs dot the landscape. Amazon Field. her son, bought the Longbranch spending money. Cop? Must be. Merle Haggard’s boyhood home, a will be at the center of a new in- two years ago in May, she says. He Demographics: White 84.0 Two days later, the casino is converted boxcar that for years was dustrial park, and other industrial would have liked to buy Trout’s, the percent; African-American 0.8 closed, shut down by the Sheriff’s the holy grail of any self-respect- parks are certain to follow. They in legendary, now-defunct honky- percent; Native American 1.8 Office. The butcher paper has ing Bakersfield Sound tour, still turn will bring new commercial tonk up the street but it was too percent; other 9.2 percent; come down from the windows stands, just not on Yosemite Drive development — restaurants, gas expensive and it needed work, so mixed race 4.3 percent; Hispanic to reveal three empty rooms. A anymore. It has been moved just stations, mini-marts and perhaps he bought the Longbranch instead of any race 19.3 percent small hand-drawn “for rent” sign across the dry, empty bed of the eventually more. And that will for a quarter of the price. Median age: 31.4 years is tucked in a lower corner of the Kern River into Bakersfield, to the mean jobs. Clifton, 69 and gloriously blond, Housing: Owner-occupied 43.3 window. Kern County Museum; Merle over- Whether it’s enough to put a is sitting across from her friend, percent; renter-occupied 56.7 “It’s like mercury,” Sheriff Young- saw the move in the last months of measurable dent in Oildale’s des- Pam, also gloriously blond, drink- percent blood says of the casino phenom- his life. perate poverty remains to be seen. ing coffee with Coffee Mate and enon. “We close them down and No one pilgrimages to Buck’s But it’s something. a splash of brandy. A disheveled Median income: $27,041 indi- we take their machines and the former Oildale home on Hard- Oildale needs more than Am- young man in a long Army surplus vidual; $32,397 family next thing you know they’re back ing Street, or Merle’s place on azon. It needs the collective will jacket walks in through the main Poverty rate: 20.9 percent up with new machines in a new Highmoor Avenue, where he to escape its cycle of poverty and North Chester Avenue door. “May Notable natives: location. New machines are always played stepdaddy to Buck’s two hopelessness. It needs the people I have a glass of water?” She nods ■■ Vern Burke, NFL receiver being delivered. eldest boys, because almost no one who are there now, working, push- and walks over to the soda gun, fills (1963-67) “The penalties are not enough realizes the significance of those ing and caring, and it needs them a glass with ice and splashes it full ■■ Merle Haggard, country mu- because there’s not a lot of fear. houses. to all work together and grow their of water. He accepts it, and without sic artist We seize the machines, we seize The closest thing to the honky- voice. sitting, drinks it down. Then he’s ■■ Kevin Harvick, NASCAR driver the cash and they’re back anyway. tonk scene in Oildale these days “My primary goal for Oildale,” gone. ■■ Gerald Haslam, More often than not there’s drugs is the Rustic Rail Saloon, where says Supervisor Maggard, “is for “His name is Jason Rose,” she author-historian involved, and there’s a gun in there, old-timers and a few middle-tim- the community to embrace its own says. “Comes in sometimes for a too.” ers still two-step to the twang that conclusion that they can make glass of water. I always give him Hobbs, from the lumber counter made Oildale famous. Some will their neighborhoods a better place. one — but just one. He usually asks beer or a cocktail. at Wattenbarger’s, told me he claim Ethel’s Old Corral, 4 miles And that is happening. The com- if there’s any work for him to do.” “It’s not that I feel threatened,” recalled that years ago Reader’s east along China Grade Loop, qual- munity has seized that challenge Homeless young men like Jason she says. “I just don’t want my cus- Digest named Oildale the roughest ifies as well, and some nights per- with much more energy than some Rose are harmless. But that’s not tomers feeling threatened.” town in the United States, although haps it does. could have imagined. But there’s a necessarily the case with some of She appreciates how difficult he couldn’t cite a date. The Bakersfield Sound still lives lot of work to be done.” the druggies who hang out on the their lives can be. Homeless people Maybe some things about in Oildale, but you have to look Indeed there is. And the work is sidewalk outside the Longbranch. sleep almost nightly under the Oildale haven’t changed that much. hard to find it. underway. Still, Anne has a heart for them, all eaves of the Country Kitchen 200 of them. She gives away clothes feet down the street. “They found CLOSE UP THE HONKY-TONKS ‘ROYALDALE’ AND AMAZON Contact The Californian’s Robert sometimes. But she can’t let them one of them this morning pretty People in Oildale have finally North Chester Avenue is a long, Price at 661-395-7399, rprice@ drink alcohol outside the saloon beat up,” Anne says. “I don’t know if stopped talking about Trout’s. steady hill that climbs from the bakersfield.com or on Twitter: whether it’s from the Longbranch he lived or not.” They’ve stopped talking about the Kern River, through south Oildale, @stubblebuzz. His column appears or not, and she has a low tolerance The Longbranch, which has classic sign out in front that de- past Wattenbarger’s to North High on Sundays, Wednesdays and for odd or anti-social behavior music every other Saturday night picted a flailing trout — a sign that School, home of the North Stars. Saturdays; the views expressed are from any who might come in for and karaoke twice a week, hosts famously went missing after the Farther north still is the section of his own.