The Haunting of Bakersfield

Personal Background:

Ashley is a 19 year old student at the University of Southern California. She grew up in Bakersfield and went to Bakersfield High School. She had a family that had a lot of American culture, as well as Japanese culture since her mother is Japanese. She is able to bring bits of each into her every day.

Local Legend:

Ashley says there have been rumors for as long as she can remember about her old high school being haunted. It is a very old school, built before the city even had a name. She has heard multiple stories from others that there were strange things happening around campus, specifically in the auditorium. Before the high school was a high school, it was a college, and before that it was a hospital, and it has been haunted ever since. Many of the students there are bodies buried underneath the school. Or that certain people who died in the hospital now haunt the school. There are also a lot of different rooms through the school that have not been opened for years. There are  underground tunnels that have not been used since the hospital was there, so people has their suspicions of what could be down there.

With the auditorium being the place with the most haunted things, people try not to go there very often alone. It has been heard that there have been strange noises and doors shutting without other people being there. This was due to an apparent death during a play of Peter Pan. One of the wires broke, killing the person who was attached to it. This person is known to be the one who is haunting the auditorium.

There is also a rumor of a couple who broke up and committed suicide on campus. They are also haunting different areas of the school at night. Ashley says that this is way to keep all the “stupid people” off campus at night. All of these stories come from people Ashley know and trust, and this is why she believes the what she has heard.

To Ashley, these stories are a fun way for people to spread rumors in school. It is a way to bring the community together, and a way to scare the young kids from going to the high school at night. It is a way to keep a story going through the high school, even after the people she know and who know her have gone off to college.

Analysis:

To me, these stories are way to keep the past and present connected. It is a way to connect the students and give them a common legend to follow. They can talk about it with the students from the past, as well as the current students. It can be a way of initiation to the newer students coming into the school. They may need to know the stories in order to be part of the theater groups or other groups that spend a lot of time within the auditorium. This is a type of urban legend that has the town keeping up with the things that are happening in the high school. It has a lot to do with the belief of the people in town, and nobody has been able to disprove any of it. The rumors that are very specific are what make it a legend. They have to do with historical events that may or may not have actually happened. It has created a belief within the school that seems to connect the student body.