I had to run a bunch of errands on my lunch hour on Friday and decided to treat myself to a little fast food. I stopped at a burger joint on a main drag near the highway and was surprised to find a gaggle of German tourists milling about the front counter.
Germans? In Bakersfield? Clearly they weren't here to see the sights since there aren't any sights to see. Not unless you count "Buck Owens' Crystal Palace", and really, why would you?
It then occurred to me that they were probably on their way to Yosemite and just pulled off the highway for food, proving once again that Bako is really nothing more than a giant truck stop.
A few of them were intently studying the menu board but the rest were surveying the restaurant and it's patrons, muttering amongst themselves.
Now it just so happens I took two years of German in High School. My parents were raised speaking it and I thought it would be charming to be able to speak it to my grandparents when they visited. It turns out it was all for naught. Seems my family speaks "low" German, a dialect, and nobody could understand half of what I was saying. So I abandoned my German studies before I ever got truly conversational. I've forgotten almost all of it, save for a handful of phrases and a random mix of words. And one of those words I remembered was "schrecklich" and I was hearing it a lot as I stood behind the Germans.
It means "horrible".
Now that seems a bit harsh, especially coming from people who idolize David Hasselhof. The people of Bakersfield are many things, but I don't think I'd go so far as to call them horrible.
Not all of them at any rate.
