Indeed, Gary!  You're remeniscing about home deliveries made me wonder, "How on Earth can those crappy ice cream trucks stay in business?"  With the price of gas, they must be selling something much more expensive than ice cream.

How about the Christmas displays in Brock's windows?  Remember when Santa Claus would arrive at Montgomery Wards via helicopter?  The snow was a great treat. 

 Thank you for starting this. I grew up there in '60/'70's but remember many of the sites on your blog. I have lived far away from "home" for many years and am very home sick! Hope to be visiting soon to see what is left.

Thank you

 Charlieszoo - Sometimes you can never go home.  The place has changed...some for the better...some for the worse.  Welcome to you if you do visit though.

 The tunnel on N. Chester is still in use as is the one on Airport Dr. at Roberts Lane.  The brownies at Smiths have finally been priced out of what I'm willing to pay for such a small piece but I still have a danish now and then.

Somewhere in the blog archives is a post I did a while back with a lot of old photos of Bakersfield.  I recently ran across one of China Grade Loop when it was a dirt road.  I'll have to see where I stored it.  In the meantime I'll see if I can find the link to the photo album I posted.

 Yaaayyyy I found it.  I love that search window at the top of the page.

Here ya go.....

http://people.bakersfield.c...

 Tiny's restaurant and The Californian.  I saw Cleopatra there.

Hazel Allen, George Day, Sandra and Jimmy Bays, Zippy the Clown, Little Jimmy Dickens, The Blackboard, The Saturday Matinee at the Fox (with a zillion screaming kids), The Downtown Christmas Parade, The Downtown Christmas Lights and Santa out in front of Vests drugs.

Getting your foot X-rayed for a pair of shoes.  Having your teeth and hands checked by the teacher for cleanliness.  Getting your hands rapped with a ruler (not me of course).  

Boys in white t-shirts and dark blue jeans.  Girls in white blouses and Capri's.  Crew cuts, braids, crinolines, saddle shoes and moccasins.

Did it seem like every day was summer to the rest of you "mature" folks?

 It really does Audrey.  In the overall picture my life was fantastic and ideal.  When I take it one day at a time I remember our tiny neighborhood was the only Fruitvale stop on the Rosedale bus into BHS.  We were arch enemies and the kids would spread out so we wouldn't have any place to sit.  I was so shy I wouldn't buck them so my years on that bus were miserable.  I would deliberately miss it half the time just so my Mom would have to take me and hang aound town til 5 when my sister came down 24th St on her way from work and gave me a ride home.

I remember living so far out that I wasn't able to hang our with kids they way the town kids did.  Or even the Greenacres kids..there were only about 5 houses in my area and  not all had kids my age.

I remember the good things too.  I think I was a lot happier before starting high school.  When you take a shy, skinny little bumpkin who went all 8 grades in a country school and drop her into BHS where the freshman class alone that year was over 1000..and you have one pretty miserable kid.  I made it by working in the Student Store and later in a dress shop..that helped with the shyness to some degree.

Once I started going steady with my future hubby things were a lot better.  He was and EB guy, he was coooool...and he was all mine...LOL.

Gads..working on making it smaller.  15 years old.