Photograph courtesy of Ruby Benson
Although the scene on this postcard is actually Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, it was identified as Santa Cruz Avenue in Los Gatos.
Today's postcard photograph obviously is not a scene on Santa Cruz Avenue, as indicated at the top of the card. The card was loaned by retired restaurauter Ruby Benson during Egon Jensen's recent Old Timers dinner at Villa Felice. Ruby believes that the photo is of Sutter's Fort in Sacramento. Ted Fletcher, our Sacramento spy, confirms that the photo is indeed,of Sutter's Fort.
George Kane, speaker of the evening at the Jenson bash and a collector of ephemera, noted that the error makes it more valuable.
Mishaps in this column have been too numerous lately. The worst was not knowing that our reputation for perfect weather is being challenged.
Rhonda Hoets of Los Gatos, a staff member of The Travel Store, writes that Sedona, Ariz., and the highlands of Costa Rica claim the world's most perfect weather.
It was the London Lancet, a leading English medical publication, that deemed early in this century that: "There are two places in the world with the most equable climate; one is Assouan, Egypt, the other a little town in the foothills of Santa Cruz mountains in California called Los Gatos."
Historian Bill Wulf uses this quote on his letterhead.
By phone, David Noble wants it known that Maile Mortensen, a Los Gatos High School graduate, is on a girls' volleyball scholarship at UC-Santa Barbara. Her name was omitted here from a list of Los Gatos High grads on college athletic scholarships.
Former Monte Sereno Mayor Steve Dorman, now living San Diego, corrected our miswording of the two local mountains, El Sombroso and Monte Sereno. A former three-time mayor of Monte Sereno, Dorothea Bamford, chimes in: "I, too, discovered that 'El Sereno' is a night watchman, so I ran this by a Spanish teacher, at West Valley College, a native of Barcelona. She laughed at me. Professor Catalana said no Spaniard would name a mountain after a watchman; that is why she laughed at me. The literal translations are 'clear' and 'shaded,' but would an American say 'Clear Mountain?' "
Paul Boswick of the Los Gatos High faculty notes that the President Harrison who visited Los Gatos in 1891 was Benjamin, not William. William, who was Benjamin's grandfather, died in April of 1841 after serving as president for only 30 days.
William was known for having given the longest inaugural address on record. He did this standing in the rain, and he died of pneumonia. Wags of the day said that his inaugural address was as long at his term of office.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, May 8, 1996.
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