Bakersfield's KBAK TV sold to Sinclair Broadcast Group and more musings on Bako's horrific trash and litter problem

 * ... KBAK: The sale of KBAK (channel 29) to Sinclair Broadcast Group means all three local TV stations have changed hands in the past year. The Baltimore-based Sinclair group won a bidding war to buy Fisher Communications, which has been quietly marketing its stations for several months. In the past year, market leader KGET 17 was sold to Nexstar Communications and KERO 23 was sold to
the Scripps TV group. No word on what this will mean for KBAK and its FOX 58 affiliate and their staffs.

  * ... TRASH: More musings on our litter problem, this thought compliments of Susan Chaidez.   "Many people don’t have the time, vehicle  or money to drive to the dump to take care of their trash.  Dumping it in a business dumpster is illegal. Why doesn’t the city or county station large dumpsters (like recycle dumpsters) in particular areas that are affected by this? ... The only way to stop the freeway trash is for a CHP officer to catch the offender who has uncovered trash while driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour.  But if it happened a few times and those people were required to pick up trash on a Saturday in lieu of a fine it would be a deterrent and a win-win fix. I recently witnessed a gardener 'blow' trash from a yard he was tending into the street far enough away that I know he wasn’t going to pick it up. This issue is everyone’s problem, it looks terrible and reflects on us as a community. We are better than this!"

 * ... EAST: Rick Van Horne, a local teacher and a board member with the Bakersfield City School District, wrote to say that Pat Patterson made an appearance at the recent 75th anniversary committee meeting for East High School. "Pat, who was a longtime counselor at Bakersfield High, was a freshman on opening day at East High in 1938," he said. "She was also the very first freshman class president of East High."

 * ... MOVING ON: Congratulations to Doug Collins, a 2002 graduate of Stockdale High School and California Baptist University who is now director of students (youth pastor) at Pathways Church in Redlands. His proud mother, Laurie Collins of the Kern Council of Goverments, said he proposed to his girlfriend Anna Hickey during Christmas and is getting married in the Lodi area on August 17. "We are so proud of him and so glad God answers prayers and directs lives," she said.

 * ... MEMORY: From reader Joe Chavez: "Remember Richard's toy store? And the stamp and coin shop on Baker Street? I used to go to there after a Saturday show at the Tejon Theater to buy an Aurora model kit monsters or sci fi spaceships... This was a awesome time in the mid 1960s. Is there any one out there who has pictures of these long gone places? Either outside shots, or indoor?"

 * ... MORE MEMORIES: And Dennis Claxton added this: "I think that the Brundage Variety Store was first opened as Fiddlers Variety (I may have misspelled the name). I grew up on Cypress and remember going in there to buy candy ... also our dad worked at Golden Crust bread. He delivered bread to Taft., Maricopa and Ford City... I would go with my dad every summer for a week and load his truck and smell the bread and ride with him on his route and he would pay me $10."              

 * ...  BAKERSFIELDISM: You are really a Bakersfield old timer if you remember when the "east side students of the one high school (KCUHS) caught the street car at Baker and Sumner to 19th Street, then west to F Street and south to the high school." Thanks to Jack M. Rademacher for that one.