In detailing this, I am not trying to suggest some kind of 77-year decline in cultural taste. My point is that, when Saratoga celebrates, it really celebrates in tune with the times.

The San Francisco Symphony, of course, was part of the Saratoga Blossom Festival, this town's signature event for 41 years. The Blossom Festival really put Saratoga on the map when it was literally no more than a wide spot in the road. Make that a wide spot in the orchards.

One could have eliminated the program and people still would have flocked through the area in early spring to drink in the beauty of miles and miles of orchards garbed in fragrant white blossoms. The programs were the ornate frosting on an ornate cake.

As has been described in this column on several occasions, the last of the Blossom Festival observances, which had begun in 1900, was on April 20, 1941. The U.S. entry into World War II the following December put an end to such celebrations. The in-transit soldiers camped on the Saratoga Avenue festival grounds—for about three months after Pearl Harbor—and covered the stately white, pillared festival gate at the entrance with brown and green camouflage paint, lest it be too easy a target for enemy aircraft. That's right; we had blackouts and air raid wardens—the whole precautionary bit. But no enemy fire.

After the war, there was no real attempt to revive the Blossom Festival on its former scale. Organization of such an event was a formidable task, and no person or group wanted to commit themselves. There was, however, a homespun celebration called Chip-In Day, which grew to rather impressive proportions. The March 25, 1950, program for Blossom Time Chip-In Day included a dedication ceremony for the plaque on the Memorial Arch designating Saratoga state-registered landmark No. 435.

Then there was a parade through town to Wildwood Park, where a community picnic and rummage sales were held, followed by a historical pageant, produced and narrated by the late Dr. John E. Cox. Climaxing the events at the park was an exhibition of folk dancing.

The Blossom Festival name continued, even after the blossoms themselves were becoming something of a rarity. In 1977, the Saratoga Village Merchants Association revived the festival under the original name, after an interval during which the Saratoga Parade was the town's celebratory event. For several years the parade was a feature of the festival, being held on the weekend following the other events.

Loyalty to the name was a constant. In 1982, for example, the Saratoga Village Blossom Festival was held on Sunday, April 25, from noon to 6 p.m. The brochure called it "A Revival of the 1900 Blossom Festival," and people were invited to come in turn-of-the-century costume. There were dancers, clowns, puppet shows and a barbershop quartet, all "in the streets of Saratoga Village." Posters advertising the events of this era featured handsome paintings of floral blooms, which, after all, are blossoms. Who'd argue the point?

The Saratoga Chamber of Commerce took over sponsorship in 1988, still as the Blossom Festival. The following year saw the first Celebrate! Saratoga (the exclamation point was placed after the word Celebrate in those first years). For my part, I kind of liked that punctuation. It has a nice sense of urgency to it. This time there was an actual event to celebrate: the restoration of Big Basin Way after it had been thoroughly torn up to replace sewer lines, or some such. Anyway, it had been a real mess, and putting it back in shape was a cause for real celebration.

1989 will be remembered as the year of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Saratoga's damage was fairly minimal, but Los Gatos suffered heavily. So the following year, Celebrate! Saratoga profits were turned over to the Los Gatos Red Cross.

The event has grown in participation and attendance. No one was out there counting noses, but the figure I've heard for the Saturday night street dance was something like 30,000—not all there at once, of course. The following weekend was Art in the Park, complete with a community band concert and Taiko drummers.

How about saying that we just celebrate Celebrate?