Thursday, May 3, 2012

Californian Radio to discuss pit bulls: misunderstood sweethearts or vicious potential killers that need to be outlawed?


* ... PIT BULLS: Did you know that in any given year pit bull type dogs account for about 60 percent of all fatal dog attacks? And when you add in Rottweilers, the number jumps to 73 percent? So how do you feel about pit bulls? Are they misunderstood sweethearts or a vicious breed that should be outlawed or at least regulated? Is it the owner that makes them mean or is it in their DNA? I will be discussing the subject Monday, on Californian Radio KERN 1180, to talk about Bakersfield's unofficial mascot. Tune in to share your stories, good and bad, by calling 842-KERN (5376) The show begins at 9 a.m.




 * ... ROY CLARK: Roy Clark, who along with the late Buck Owens made the TV show "Hee Haw" famous, played recently at The Crystal Palace but it wasn't a performance that left everyone pleased. Caleb Melton posted his own frustration on The Bakersfield Californian/Opinion's Facebook wall when he said Clark rejected his efforts to get a picture of him. "Just wanted to say if anyone did or wants to see Roy Clark live don't do it, because he knows how to shatter a person's childhood memories and has no heart." Melton dropped by Clark's bus and asked if he could get a picture. And this was after he wrote a heartfelt letter to Clark telling him how much he meant to him. "All I got was a thanks but no... he even gave the heartfelt letter back to his band manger to give back to me. He could have signed it but he didn't even do that... Mr. Clark has forgotten that if wasn't for fans like me, he would be a no one. Now I know why Buck Owens wanted to stay away from Nashville."


 * ... BAD FORM: Local businessman Herb Walker shared his frustration with me about people who use our community as their personal trash can. Herb owns a building on District Boulevard that houses the local YMCA, and over the weekend someone used his parking lot to change the oil of their motorcycle, leaving behind three Coke bottles full of oil and other assorted trash. "Who on earth does this?" he asked. Apparently, a lot of folks around town.

* ... HONOREE: Want to feel good about today's youth? Then consider Wendi Wu, a senior at Independence High School who was chosen as the "Young Woman Defining Philanthropy" at the Women's and Girls' Fund luncheon this week. Check out her accomplishments: She is a member of Independence’s Energies and Utilities Academy, she has an impressive academic record and she has a long list of community service accomplishments.  She’s also one of 1,000 students nationally selected for a Gates Millenium Scholarship. As a Gates Scholar, Wendi will have a full ride through college, including the medical degree she will pursue. (photo of Wendi with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (left) and Judi McCarthy (no relation) of the Women's and Girls' Fund.)



 * ... STRANDED: Reader Richard C. Clason wrote to respond to an earlier post by a woman who wondered why no one stopped to help when she ran out of gas. "If all she did was pull to the side of the road and get out of her car there is no reason for anyone to stop to help.  If she were to raise her hood, the men of Bakersfield would have stopped to help at the universal sign.  I know the firefighters would have stopped to help under those conditions, as I retired from the Kern County Fire Department, and know the mind set of those folks. Perhaps the best advise I could give her was some I received from my father almost 50 years ago, 'IT DOESN'T COST ANY MORE TO KEEP THE TOP HALF OF YOUR GAS TANK FULL THAN THE BOTTOM HALF!'"

* ... BOMB SHELTERS: All the memories about bomb shelters being built following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis brought this note from reader Glen Worrell. "The principal of the school where I was teaching and living (in the College Heights area) said he wasn't going to build a bomb shelter. He was just going (if necessary) to get a piece of plastic to cover the air vent, take his shotgun and cover the air vent. When someone came out to see what was wrong he and his wife WOULD get in the bomb shelter!"

 * ... DUCK AND COVER: Sue Anderson, a counselor at the Hort School, recalled the bomb drills when she was in private grade school. "We would all go into the church and lay under the pews, and were always cautioned to cover our head and get all of our limbs underneath the pew.  Looking back, it seems sort of naiive that we thought a church pew would save us from total destruction.  I had dreams about this for years."

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