When Edison Highway was the cool spot
by Bryce Martin

Edison Highway was the main entry to Bakersfield coming from the east before the bypass changed things. The Lucky Spot country music tavern, a long loaf of a building, stood on a sun-bathed corner on Edison to partner with a slew of other beer joints, liquor stores, second-hand stores, garages, and fruit and vegetable stands. All of the businesses lined the south side of the road. The railroad track ran alongside the north side for several miles, that and some scattered packing sheds. I will always remember two roadside businesses in particular, those oases signs you see along an approaching desert advertising as a last chance for gas, water, and even a howdy. A traveler leaving town and heading east faced a long, hot trek of highway back in the 60s when legendary Bakersfield and Mojave Desert summertime conditions were bound to be hot ones. Travelers didn't want to be the ones they had seen stalled on the side of the road roasting in the sun until who knows how long. As a sure-fired attention getter, one of the gas stations had a huge billboard with a big-breasted cartoon girl wearing a bikini. ICED JUGS -- JUGS FILLED FREE, the sign read. Not to be outdone, a gas station right next door to it offered the same, FREE ICED JUGS, but no bikini-clad girl. Both places always had an overflow of cars.

"Jugs," in this instance refers to the slang word for female breasts. Full-bosomed bikini babes were  likely the last image one recalled leaving Bakersfield..

sign a traveler might see