This occurred to me recently on seeing the news stories about Saratoga High School's problem with high-tech academic cheaters and the possibility of some sort of student bomb plot. One of these stories, to use newspaper jargon, was above the fold with a 60-point headline. Does this, I asked myself, represent the school's image to readers? Is this school really seen as a learning center where students are somehow driven to these extremes? Is that the image?

Now, I know for a fact that Saratoga High School has a whole lot more that is positive going for it than those aberrations that make the news. The positive achievements just don't get the ink. One recent event, which I like to think partakes of the school's image, was a final examination in Judith Sutton's creative-writing poetry class, to which various townspeople, including my wife and me, had been invited.

It was a breakfast session at the Bella Saratoga restaurant, and it involved not only discussing and analyzing certain works of poetry, but also writing some on the spot. This impressed me as in-depth treatment of the subject. I was left with a very favorable image in my mind.

One phrase that definitely embodies the concept of image starts out "Where else but ... ?" An example: Where else but in Saratoga would you find a mayor driving a donkey cart, giving kids a ride through an orchard? The mayor, of course, was Ann Waltonsmith, the locale was the Heritage Orchard and the occasion was the third annual Mustard Walk, sponsored by the heritage preservation commission and the city of Saratoga.

The event was a success. It was impossible to make an accurate count, but I'd say there were a good many hundred people who turned out to savor this essence of their hometown. The Heritage Orchard is, in my estimation, an essential element that goes to make up the image of Saratoga. It represents what we were and, I'd like to think, what we are: a city that cares about its past and the elements that made it one of the most desirable residential communities in the country.

This brings me to another topic, which, though not really in the image category, has something to do with Saratoga's essence and why it is what it is.

I'm referring to the observance at the Federated Church commemorating the 25th anniversary of the arrival of Arvin Engelson as associate pastor, along with his wife, Dale, and daughters. Engelson's province is community outreach. I'll have to admit that I'm not the regular churchgoer I should be, but my connection with the church goes back to when my name was put on the Cradle Roll in December 1923, and becoming a full-fledged member in 1936, when I was in the eighth grade at Saratoga Grammar School. I'm told this makes me the member of longest standing.

So, I have seen the succession of pastors over those years. Never, though, have I seen such an expression of love and appreciation of pastoral presence as was shown on that occasion. To say that Engelson and his family have touched and enriched the lives of a multitude would be understating the facts. However peripheral my connection may now be with the church, I'm proud to be a part of it.

Every now and then I have to backtrack and correct an error. In my last column, there were a couple of slip-ups. One, I wrote that James Tracy Richards was the namesake of Richards Hall at the Federated Church. Strictly speaking, it was the other way around. The hall was named after him, making it the namesake.

The other was the statement that, having gone to work for the San Jose Mercury Herald—now Mercury News—in 1949, I'd been observing my 54th anniversary there—where I still work an occasional copy-desk shift—on Sept. 1. Actually, it will be the 55th. I never was much good at math.

It was a different world back then in 1949 when I started covering the West Valley beat. I'll dredge up some of those memories in a future column.