This 1947 view from Norton Road shows orchards in bloom in the north valley. Saratoga School, with eucalyptus trees, is visible in right foreground.
Saratoga Stereopticon
Old codgers can't help blossom enthusiasm
By Willys Peck
If it were within my purview, I'd be proclaiming April as Be Kind to Codgers Month, this by way of a plea for patience on behalf of those of us given to running off at the mouth, or typewriter (OK, OK, word processor), about the glories of Blossom Time.
It is, after all, Blossom Time, harking back to that pre-subdivision era--wasn't it just after the Pleistocene Age?--when fruit trees in bloom created a carpet of white across almost the whole valley floor. This panorama was written about, sung about, danced about and preserved pictorially in paintings and photographs. As a scrivener of some 50 years' standing, I have cranked out my share of turgid prose for this newspaper and the San Jose Mercury News, trotting out every cliché in the book to describe the blossom phenomenon.
In the absence of blossoms, I'd like to quote a few writings concerning that apogee of floral celebration, the Saratoga Blossom Festival (1900-1941). From the San Jose Mercury Herald of April 7, 1918, describing a trip by trolley car from San Jose to the festival here: "Saratoga--yes, here we are in this captivating foothill village--some people, in fact a lot of people, claiming that this place is the chief beauty spot of California, beautiful for situation, beautiful for climate, beautiful for home-building, beautiful for the simple, contented life for which we are all seeking."
The writer, one Clarence Urmy, even lapsed into verse, apparently his own since there was no attribution. "Leading south from Saratoga, on past Bonnie Brae, runs the path of springtime blossoms, flora decked today. Make a little turn at Farwell, on past Three Oaks Way--here's Glen Una, rest your eyes on mountain, valley, bay."
From the Sunday, April 6, 1919, issue of the Mercury Herald, describing the 20th annual Blossom Festival, held the previous day: "The sun was not in a mood yesterday to give the shimmer which adds so much to the acres of bloom covering the Santa Clara Valley, but the blossoms were present by the millions, and the snowy billows of the prune, relieved by the delicate pink of the peach trees, produced a beautiful combination and a lovely setting for the Blossom Festival."
It was estimated that more than 10,000 people gathered in the natural amphitheater adjacent to the old Saratoga Inn on a site now occupied by two condominiums, the Saratogan and Saratoga Creekside. The principal speaker was U.S. Sen. James D. Phelan, who didn't have far to travel from his home at Montalvo.
Phelan, to understate the matter, was not an internationalist, and a dominant theme of his remarks was the "silent invasion which is going on within our very gates. I speak of the alien occupation ... ."
Phelan's speech wouldn't fly today.
Going back earlier, to 1912, a promotional post card had this cheery message: "Blossom loving friends: Our Valley was never more beautiful. Colors never richer. Blossoms? The standard hundred billions. Our village was never heartier in its welcome." That was the year a parade was staged depicting early California history.
There were many facets to the Blossom Festival story, including the postscript written in recent years by celebrations of that name sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. The limiting factor was the absence of one of the two elements in the Blossom Festival title.
Saratoga, California Since 1975
