Railroaded

When I was a kid we were essentially promised three things in the near future: jet packs, flying cars and monorails.

Forty years later, I'm still waiting.

The first two will probably never happen, and after observing people's driving skills with terrestrial vehicles, I think we can all agree that's probably for the best. Nobody wants random people falling from the sky and crashing through their roofs.

The monorail still seemed like a possibility; I grew up 5 miles from Disneyland and they already had one.

So here we are in the year 2011 and the monorail idea seems dead as a doornail as well. But it looked like we might just get the next best thing: HI SPEED RAIL

They've been promising a bullet train between LA and San Francisco for decades. If you've ever spent hours cooling your jets at LAX waiting for the fog to lift at SFO, turning a one hour flight into a 6 hour ordeal, you'd certainly appreciate an alternative.

All it's been for years is talk, talk, talk. But in recent years they finally started to make it a reality, passed bond measures to pay for it, did impact reports, planned the routes, etc., etc., etc. Ground was supposed to be broken next year.

Now you would think the people of Bakersfield would be overjoyed. Not only was the route going smack through the center of town, on existing right of ways, but you'd be able to be in Downtown LA in under an hour, SF in two. And even more exciting was that the very first leg of the route was supposed to be built here, between little ole' Bako and Merced. It would bring much needed jobs, especially since the current plan was to build a massive maintenance facility here in Kern County. We're talking 70,000 jobs! It was a "win/win" all the way around! What could possibly muck it up?

I'll tell you what... the locals.

The local battle cry these days is "WHAT ABOUT THE DRILLERS?!?"

Bakersfield High School, "Home of the Drillers™", sits downtown, directly backed up against the city's largest rail yard. It's a collection of squat, bunker-like buildings and resembles a Depression era penitentiary. The first time I saw it I thought it had been abandoned. It turns out, that for the hi speed rail line, they'll need to widen the right of way, and that will mean tearing down one small building. And it has everyone completely up in arms.

ONE BUILDING!

I also heard someone cite "safety concerns", which seems a little curious since every day hundreds of tanker cars, carrying God knows which noxious poisons, go screaming by at 80mph within feet of the school and football stadium. Then again, the locals never met an industrial strength pesticide or poison they couldn't embrace. If there's a chance it might take out the whole Freshman class, so be it, cost of doing business in Bakersfield. But demolish a 20's era concrete box? No fucking way.

So everyone's now riled up and filing law suits and thinking of every way possible to throw sand in the gears and stop the rail project in it's, pardon the pun, tracks. Morons.

And I see, in the article, that it isn't just students and alumni who are spitting mad. They've also angered... mobile home owners.

Well, that's the final nail in the coffin, isn't it?

School Pride

The day I long feared finally arrived.

The ATM's at the bank were out of order.

I've written of the ordeal of banking in Bakersfield. The only saving grace is the ATM's, which make the process slightly less painful. And now, that option was taken from me.

I arrived at the bank and was relieved to see only one couple standing at the ATM. A dense looking biker couple, in more ways than one, stood at the ATM. The woman, the smarter of the two, was attempting to deposit a check. She'd slip in her card, punch some buttons, insert the check and...

Within about 5 seconds, the machine spit out her check, followed by the card.

Again and again and again.

On the fourth attempt, the machine spit out her check and then there was the sound of a soft "clink" as the red "closed" sign flipped into place. Without returning her card.

Moments of dumbfounded silence. You get that a lot here. And then she turned to her man and said "It done ate my card".

"It done ate your card?" said the man.

"It done ate my card" she answered.

He turned to me and said ""It done ate her card".

Yes, so I've heard.

They turned to go into the bank and see if they could somehow retrieve their card and I followed to go to the back of the bank where I knew there were additional machines. But when I arrived at the back, I saw all the machines there were out of order too.

I now had a choice. I could drive to another branch, although I didn't know where there was one. But if the system was down, I'd be met with the same situation. Or, God forbid, I could do my banking inside. So, I took the plunge.

I walked inside and immediately saw there was a line of about 75 people corralled in a switchback line in front of the bank of tellers. I know, I counted. Knowing from experience how long these people take to do a transaction, I figured I'd be lucky to be out of there by midweek.

Just then, a middle aged woman in a red polyester blazer tapped me on the shoulder.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

This was Dotty, the bank manager.

I told her I needed to deposit a check, but that all the ATM's were down and I was resigned to wasting my afternoon in line.

She said she'd see what she could do and disappeared and I glumly joined the great unwashed masses in line.

To the bank's credit, they do what they can. They had 12 teller windows opened and staffed, something I've never seen before. But it made no difference with this crowd. The line zig zagged back and forth and ended smack dab in the center of the bank of tellers. At that point there is a large, illuminated display like an airport. When a teller is free, a chime sounds, a directional arrow starts flashing either left or right and the number of the teller lights up.

Fat lot of good it does. Over and over again the person at the front of the line just stood there like a wooden post as lights flashed and chimes donged. Somewhere down the line, the open teller would start waving their hands over their heads and calling out, like a lost hiker trying to signal a chopper.

To no avail.

At some point, someone back in the line would reach over and tap the moron in front which would finally get the ball rolling. The truly amazing thing to me was that the shoulder tappers, who apparently were paying attention, fell asleep at the switch the moment they reached the front of the line and ultimately had to be prodded by someone else. There's an obvious cattle metaphor here, but I'm avoiding using it because it would be unkind. To cattle.

After about twenty minutes, four people had advanced and I was eyeing the deposit slip desk to see if there was anything I could use to kill myself. Just then I felt a tap on my shoulder and spun around to see Dotty.

"Come with me" she said, yanking me out of line. "I got the ATM's fixed for you. There's already a line forming, but I told them they had to wait. You go first."

What wonderful service! How did I get so lucky?

Dotty evidently read my mind.

"I'd do anything for a Driller" she said, pointing at my chest.

I'd forgotten I was wearing my "Bakersfield Drillers" T-shirt.

I saw it last summer in a local store and bought it as a lark. At the time, I still thought we'd be moving back to LA in a matter of months and imagined all the laughs and fun we'd have as I wore it out to the bars back in West Hollywood. Every queen loves a good double entendre.

But we didn't end up moving and I soon learned I couldn't wear the shirt here in town. Everyone would stop me and quiz me about my years as a "Driller".

"What year are you?"

"Who's class were you in?"

"Remember Mrs. So-and-so?"

I quickly learned that this town is so small those aren't the type of details you can fake. So I ditched the shirt to the bottom of the drawer. But this particular day I was behind on the laundry and it was the only clean one I had, so I wore it without thinking about it. And boy, am I glad I did.

Dotty escorted me to ATM like a celebrity, extending her arm to hold back the horde that had appeared like they were paparazzi.

"Everything good now?" she asked.

'Yes, thank you" I said.

"We Drillers have to stick together" she said with a wink.

Yes we do.

DRILLERS FOR EVAH!

The shirt's in the laundry as we speak. I may need to buy more.