"From your totally vacuous look, I'd say that you were searching for a column topic," said Sam.

"You really know how to hurt a guy," I said, "but you're right."

"Last time, and it's been only a couple of months, I reminded you of your five-year plan, where you look up columns you wrote five years ago to see what, if anything, has changed since then regarding the subject matter. I wouldn't say that what you wrote was any good, but you managed to fill the space."

"I'll overlook the snot and accept the thought," I said, repairing to my files and pulling out my Stereopticon columns from 1999.

One column, on odds and ends of local history, includes a reference to the Sons of Temperance, which has relevance to what's going on today. The Sons of Temperance was the name of a lodge that existed in this town's early years when it was McCartysville. At the Historical Museum, you can see a banner "Presented by the ladies of McCartysville" to the Sons of Temperance Lodge in 1855.

The connection today has to do with the fact that the lodge hall (from the pictures it looks more like a shack) housed the town's first public school beginning in 1854. It was located on or close to the site of the present elementary school on Oak Street.

Picking up on this, Marybarbara Zorio, principal at Saratoga Elementary, and others are organizing a sesquicentennial observance that will take place during the 2004­05 school year. Students and the community will be offered a many-faceted panorama of historical activities. One feature will be a celebration of restoring a sign that officially marks the Sons of Temperance Hall site. The sign had been placed by the Saratoga Foothill Club.

In that earlier column I noted that the Sons of Temperance were subsequently outnumbered by what might be called the sons of intemperance. This had to do with the proliferation of saloons catering mainly to the lumberjacks and teamsters who were logging the forests back in the hills. And I never miss a chance to cite a certain quote in Florence Cunningham's Saratoga's First Hundred Years. It was from an unnamed newspaper to the effect that "to be a drunk from Saratoga was the last word in drunkenness."

There was another column from 1999 that also has a sequel. This had to do with the giant eucalyptus on the grounds at Saratoga School and the controversy over cutting it down. One district trustee, Jill Hunter, who was pro-tree, resigned from the board in protest when it was voted to remove the tree. The sequel to all that is the planting of an attractive heritage grove, which greatly enhances the playground.

The year 1999 also marked the 50th anniversary of my starting my newspaper career on what was then the San Jose Mercury Herald, now Mercury News. Since I still work an occasional shift there on the copy desk, I'll be marking my 54th anniversary come Sept. 1.

That 1999 Stereopticon column gave me the opportunity to recount some of those early efforts, such as my 1951 interview of James Tracy Richards, who came to Saratoga for his health in 1889. The fact that he died in his 100th year in 1954 is the stuff of Chamber of Commerce blurbs about healthful climate.

Richards is the namesake of Richards Hall at the Federated Church, he having been a key member in its early days. He was also the one who sold 20 acres to James D. Phelan, who built Villa Montalvo on the property.

I liked the story told by Richards' widow, Grace Fisher Richards, about how her husband once declined Phelan's invitation to lunch at Montalvo because he, Richards, didn't approve of what was going on up there. I didn't press Mrs. Richards for details, but I assumed it had to do with drinking. Phelan had a famous wine cellar and Richards was, as the saying goes, so dry he crackled.

My inner voice, Sam, comes and goes, but I like to think I can always dig up something to appease him when he gives me a bad time.