Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Señor Gato cartoon from the Los Gatos Weekly-Times files.

Picture from the Past

John S. Baggerly

Señor Gato left indelible marks on Los Gatos life

It's summertime and the living is easy. Easier, perhaps, for Señor Gato than for the rest of us.

El Señor did his own thing, answering to no one and sometimes causing distress to himself--like the time he mistook a jackhammer for a pogo stick and shook himself silly. This was when a major paving job took place during the widening of the N. Santa Cruz Avenue/Saratoga-Los Gatos Road intersection prior to the road being extended over Highway 17 to Los Gatos Boulevard.

Señor Gato was the creation of Marcellite Wall, a former Walt Disney Studio artist who moved to Los Gatos with her family and worked as a clerk for Fred and Lucia Callis at their Green's Pharmacy on N. Santa Cruz Avenue between Royce Street and Bachman Avenue. Wall had been hired by Disney after being awarded the title of most talented artist in the Los Angeles high school system upon graduation.

After the Señor popped into Wall's head, George R. Kane, publisher of the Los Gatos Daily Times, agreed that the mischief-maker should be a regular feature in the newspaper.

Wall accomplished her artistic honors despite being born with a disabled left hand. This drawback did not hinder her in her clerking duties for the pharmacy. At Christmastime, her quick gift-wrapping amazed customers.

Actually, the entire Wall family made an impression on Los Gatos. Her husband, Richard, was an interior decorator and a prominent member of the Los Gatos Lions Club. Son Camden, on his way toward 6 feet, 11 inches, played basketball at Los Gatos High School, UC-Berkeley and then for the Warriors.

Son Richard (also known as Dick) became the local fire chief, and son Mike developed a quick-draw pistol act popping balloons.

During his long fire department career, Dick and his mates were often called by distressed pet owners whose cats were stuck up trees. Upon retiring, he remarked, "I never saw a cat's skeleton in a tree."

Some years later Camden and his lanky bride paid Los Gatos a visit. This very tall pair were seen unfolding from a VW Bug in a parking lot adjoining the Daily Times.

Mike's quick draw show was a popular attraction around the valley and beyond.

Today, Camden lives in Homer, Alaska, Dick resides in Auburn and Mike's whereabouts are unknown to the Callis'.

After her husband's death, Marcellite married Harry Lincoln, an interior decorator like her first husband. The Lincolns then moved to Grass Valley, where she died a few years later.

If Señor Gato had been around earlier, he undoubtedly would have done something to disrupt the annual Los Gatos-Campbell Thanksgiving Day football game. And just a few years ago, when the Pacific Coast intercollegiate rowing regatta was held on Lexington Reservoir, he would have no doubt been "stroking" one of the crews. That is--he would have been a coxswain.

Señor Gato, with music baton in hand, would also have pre-empted outgoing principal Ted Simonson and given the downbeat to the San Jose Wind Symphony at the LGHS lawn. He might even have been holding his ears when "the three tenors" of Opera San José cut loose last month during a Music in the Plaza Sunday concert.

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