Sometimes an official label can be a benefit in itself. I happen to have two such labels conferred by the city of Saratoga, and, if nothing else, they're at least conversation pieces.

One is a 1997 mayoral proclamation naming me official town character. No practical value, but good for an occasional yuk on the part of visitors. The other is a year 2000 proclamation naming me honorary city historian, and this gets results in the form of phone calls from people calling the city office for some kind of historical information. The city staff refers these calls to me at home, and I'm always glad to do what I can to answer the questions.

The caller might be someone trying to find if and where a certain person lived in Saratoga many years ago. That's when the telephone directories come in handy. I have them back to 1924, thanks to my dad, who was an NTAA (Never Throw Anything Away) devotee. Years ago, people didn't go in for unlisted numbers. If you had a phone, you were in the directory. For instance, in the 1924 directory I find James D. Phelan, address: Villa Montalvo; phone: Saratoga 24. Maybe he answered the calls himself.

Speaking of Phelan, he was the subject of my most recent phone referral. The call was from the secretary of the Sausalito Historical Society, who said her organization had been given a small volume called A Day in the Hills. It was described on the title page as "A poetical competition of the Edwin Markham Chapter of the English Poetry Society held at Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, Santa Clara County, California, September 18, 1926." The woman wanted to know if I knew the best place to send it.

I didn't use the word "schizophrenic" but I did say that I was involved with two organizations that would be only too happy to get their respective hands on such a book, and I could see something of a tug of war shaping up. One organization is the Saratoga Historical Foundation, which maintains the museum in Saratoga Historical Park. The other is the Phelan Library committee, which is concerned with maintaining the library at Montalvo. I really didn't have to ponder the question for long; the library committee won in a walk.

It's a rather small book: 92 pages measuring 4 by 7 inches, with a number of fascinating photos of people and the Montalvo grounds. It was privately printed, with the copyright held by Phelan. I was fascinated not only by its format but also its content. This, I said to myself, is the essence of Montalvo. This embodies the elements of what Phelan envisioned as an ideal haven of creative enterprise: a matchless hillside setting, classic architecture graced by classic statuary, and, most important of all, a concentration of talent committed, in this case, to the most noble employment of words. When the people in this poetry society went wooing the muse, that muse stayed wooed.

The names in the book are of special interest. First there is Edwin Markham, who lived in San Jose. His poem, "The Man With the Hoe," written in 1899 and inspired by Jean Francois Millet's painting, won him international fame for its message about the exploitation of labor. Markham, who died in 1940, was not present at the 1926 gathering, but the book includes his greeting sent from New Brighton, N.Y. " ... when you all feel a strange unaccountable vibration in your hearts on the tenth at Montalvo, it will be caused by the impact of my flying halloos, with my high joy in the heart of them," he wrote. Also present was George Sterling, a major California poet. The book includes a picture, taken in 1915, of Phelan with Markham and Sterling.

The book includes poems by many writers, including a couple by Helen Wills, the internationally famous tennis star, who was a special protégé of Phelan's. In their biography of Phelan, Legacy of a Native Son, James P. Walsh and Timothy J. O'Keefe note that Wills was less than a third Phelan's age. The authors state that the primary reason for Phelan's attention and patronage was "the clear association of the youngster's great talent with California." In Phelan's poem written to her and printed in the book, he said, in part:

Delightful child, who from thy Berkeley nest
Took flight—a fledgling native to the skies,
Thou dar'st the sun—and undimmed are thine eyes—
To hold aloft the banner of the West.

There was a lot more poetry that day in 1926, and there were other days and other books. I'm extremely glad this one surfaced.