"Seven," said Sam.

"Seven?" I replied. "Seven what?"

"Seven years since you started turning out this, er, column. Actually, a little over. Your first one appeared on April 17, 1996. Seven, in case you didn't know it, is a lucky number, and in your case it's an especially lucky number because it represents the logical time to quit. It's written in the stars."

"How, pray tell, did you come by this information?" I asked.

"Never mind," said Sam, "I've got contacts. I also happen to know you're groping around for a subject to meet your upcoming deadline."

"That I'll admit," I said. "However, I thought I might be able to look back and be able to ... "

"Regurgitate?" said Sam.

"Recycle," I corrected.

"I prefer the other term," said Sam. "Regurgitation is more descriptive of the end product. However, if that's your intention, may I suggest you go back to that first column, when they reproduced a daguerreotype of your first grade at Saratoga Grammar School. If you use a picture, you don't have to write so many words."

"That picture," I said icily, "was a photograph taken by the same kind of camera used today. Knock off that daguerreotype jazz."

"Did Mathew Brady take that picture?" asked Sam. "He would have been through with his Civil War gig by then."

"Look," I said exasperatedly, "I may be old but I'm not that old. When I went to Saratoga Grammar School, it was a modern, up-to-date building. We had indoor plumbing and electric lights, and they even showed weekly movies there for the people in town."

"Ye gods," said Sam, impressed. "You mean motion pictures, where the figures on the screen actually move? Were they talkies?"

"Uh, no," I admitted. "They weren't talkies, but a lot of people used to come see them."

Inane colloquy aside, there is a lot to be said for Saratoga School's role in community life here, just as in other American rural towns. And let's face it, until the post-World War II population boom, Saratoga was a rural town. Maybe there were some un-rural overtones, such as pockets of wealth and artistic achievement, but the place was still rural enough to have the fall opening of school determined by the timing of the prune harvest, when the kids were needed to pick prunes.

In the absence of a civic center or community theater, or a library community room, such as we have now, the town's only school was the logical place for public meetings and entertainment. There were, to be sure, other gathering places, such as the Foothill Club; Kane's Hall, over the blacksmith's shop; and the IOOF Hall, over Smith's Store at Third Street and Big Basin Way, but they all had their special limitations.

For one thing, the school, as built in the vintage year 1923, had an excellent auditorium in the space now largely occupied by the library and media center. It had a proscenium stage with draw curtains and a fireproof projection booth high behind the rear wall. The Foothill Club had the only other proscenium stage in town, and it had its share of dramatic productions.

Seating in the auditorium consisted of folding double chairs, nicely contoured. As kids, we used to get a kick out of reading the label under the seats: "Made in San Quentin Prison." Those in second through eighth grade sat in these seats during Friday assemblies. First-graders carried their chairs in and set them in rows in front while the music teacher, Mrs. Sybil Hanchett, played "Country Gardens" on the piano. There was no kindergarten back in my day.

Some memorable productions in that auditorium come to mind. One in particular that I remember showed the adaptability of the stage. I believe it was in 1940 when a group called the Saratoga Players used it in producing Elmer Rice's 1927 classic . The set was the exterior of an apartment house where the audience could look through the windows and see the action in both first- and second-floor rooms. I don't know where you could find that kind of theatrical venue today.

Fortunately the school has preserved some of its historical essence in the foyer. There is tradition in that school that goes back 150 years to the first building, the Sons of Temperance Hall, close to the present site.