One example of this occurs when my wife and I go out to eat at one of the restaurants in the Village Square at Fourth Street and Big Basin Way.

"I'll just go park at the jail," I'll say, proceeding to the parking lot off Fourth Street, just behind the buildings. The reference is to the old Saratoga jail, which was at that location until it was torn down in 1937. It was a small, wooden building, with a barred opening over the front door. I understand it hadn't been used as a lockup since about World War I, and then it was mainly for incarcerating drunks. I think any serious miscreant with a pocketknife could have carved his way out.

My familiarity with the jail stemmed from the fact that I passed it walking to the grammar school (Saratoga Elementary) from our house at the end of Marion Avenue (Road, anyone?). My older brother and I made that trip—which measures five-eighths of a mile on a map—twice a day, inasmuch as we went home for lunch.

There was a high board fence in front of the jail, but we could look at it through the cracks, which we did about every time we passed it. At the same location was the old town fire-bell tower. The bell itself had long since dropped to the ground and lay at its base. That bell is now mounted in front of Firemen's Hall on Oak Street.

Mention of walking calls to mind the fact that a good many of the kids did walk to school or ride their bicycles. In those days, walking along public streets wasn't as hazardous as it is today. The school district operated a bus for those living around Pierce Road and other hillside areas, and pupils living down Saratoga Avenue or toward Los Gatos rode the trolley cars, later the Peerless buses. A few, very few, were driven in their parents' cars. Walking, though, was a standard way to get to school. I understand there may be a walk-to-school emphasis, with kids accompanied by a parent, as part of the school's 150th anniversary observance slated for the 2004­05 academic year.

I remember the day I started first grade—there was no kindergarten then—in September 1929; I had just turned 6 the month before. My mother had already signed me up, but on that first day I walked there myself and reported to Miss Pearl Davis' classroom, now part of the library, or maybe it's the media center. Walk to school? No sweat. Was there any better way?

Then, getting back to names as they were, I think of the garage at Villa Montalvo. It's now the Carriage House Theatre, which is OK, if that's what turns you on. To me, though, it will always be the garage. That's what it was when Sen. James D. Phelan had it built around 1912, and that's what it was 65 years ago when I was one of the high school kids the San Francisco Art Association used to hire to be on the premises Sunday afternoons to steer visitors around the grounds. Phelan had bequeathed Montalvo to the Art Association, and the local Montalvo Association didn't take over until 1951.

That garage was a great place to hang out while on duty, waiting for visitors. There was this big turntable in the middle, used for pointing cars out the door. You could get on it with one leg and pump it around with the other until the centrifugal force just about threw you off. It was as good as the Fun House at the beach.

Just recently, my wife and I went to a concert in the garage—the 30th anniversary of the Midsummer Mozart Festival, directed by George Cleve—and it was outstanding, a lovely instrumental and vocal presentation. I had been to other events at the garage-turned-theater, but I had forgotten how thoroughly it had been transformed. No more turntable, but a raked floor with luxurious seats, a proscenium stage and the necessary array of theatrical lights.

I looked for some trace of the original interior, and the only ones I could detect were the ceiling beams. That was enough; I was home. Once a garage, always a garage.