I live in the OD

My mail says I live in Bakersfield. But I don't...Oildale isn't part of Baketown, no way no how. Residents take exception to being tossed in with Baketown. We are part of the county, not the city and that is a world of difference to those that have grown up here or lived here..forever.

Anyone that has been down on their luck in this neck of the San Joaquin valley has lived in the OD. Its an old, "down-trodden" part of the "Bakersfield" area that you will go through if you ever fly out of here. It was originally small wood-frame houses with HUGE fucking yards. The sq. footage of the yard was usually more than the house. Over time it has been subdivided and apartments shoved into the back of the property, or in some cases the house was razed and a cheesy duplex or triplex was wedged in. NO parking was added of course, thats expensive land just for cars. Cars, that for the most part, residents don't own. I have never seen so many adults on bikes in my life..and I don't mean the ones with engines. These are people powered means of transportation. The kids are bad-mannered. Husbands and wives don't have a problem with airing their dirty laundry so loudly that a square block radius can hear the nasty details. We have more than our share of spun-out people that have that wild look in their eyes and work on their cars at 1 am.

Some parts of Oildale don't even have sidewalks, or gutters for the rain runoff. We are basically the armpit of Bakersfrigginfield..which if you think about it..is hysterical.

Its different being an 08'er, which btw is the last two digits of our zipcode.Merle Haggard was born here. A railroad boxcar is still around that he lived in. I shit you not,he surely did. Buck Owens recording studio is just a block away, closed down and looking abandoned since he moved his operations over to Sillect Ave. awhile back. That wonderful tune "The streets of Bakersfield" was written just a couple blocks from my house in a motel that has long since been torn down. Nascar drivers have grown up here and still come home when they race in the state. Harvick used to race at our lil short track.... that one I can hear on a summers night if I stand at the front door and quit talking for a minute or two, which ain't no easy feat for moi. Tony Stewart uses some of the shops around here to produce parts for him.

Train tracks run through various areas and its a bitch when they play "fuck around" and run the boxcars back and forth over a major street during lunch time when everyone wants to get somewhere quickly.

The residents are primarily white folks, proud to call themselves "Okies". The people with brown and black skin have started moving in, much to the chagrin of the rednecks that still refer to black people as "colored folks". The meth flows freely I am sure, god knows you can smell it cooking if the breeze blows right on a hot summer night. Everyone owns a dog or two and they don't nueter the males, letting them roam the streets when a female is in heat somewhere, which pisses off the postman to no end...and me too. The cats..ah..we could do a whole post on the cats in Oildale..but not now.

So the duplexes and triplexes are on top of each other and every couple of buildings there is still an old house or two, which is what I live in. Which brings me to my current rant....

If that fucking sumbitch next door doesnt stop warming up his damn truck for 20 minutes at exactly 11:45 each and every fucking nite..I am gonna put a cap in his ass. Its spring time for gods sake and the temperature doesnt dip below 50 anymore you dumb bastard. Put the key in and crank it up, wait maybe five minutes TOPS and then drive your happy ass to work. I am tired of my windows rattling whilst you "warm" up your friggin 25 year old Dodge with that big damn engine which I am sure your proud of, but buddy..its an old rust bucket and I need my sleep.