I would say that, if not by great labor, one of Saratoga's most significant traditions has been originated and preserved by a lot of dedicated effort over a long period of time. This is the Memorial Day ceremony arranged by the Saratoga Foothill Club, which goes back almost 80 years.

I remember these observances from my earliest childhood because my family always attended. My mother was active in the Foothill Club and my dad attached special significance to the day on account of one of his older brothers. This brother was a 39-year-old college professor with two children who did not have to go into service during World War I. But he enlisted, became a captain of engineers and was killed in action in France about a month before the Armistice.

My dad had enlisted, too, in the Army Air Service. As he recounted, when he finished ground school, someone told the men there weren't enough airplanes to go around and if they wanted to get to France, they should go into the balloon corps. These were the hydrogen-filled captive balloons (run aloft on cables) used for observation at the front lines. They could be protected to a certain extent by pursuit planes, but essentially the balloons and their crews were sitting ducks, easy prey for enemy planes.

I've often thought that, if my dad had gotten to the front as a balloon observer, I very well might not be here today. Mercifully, the war was over before he could get to the action.

But, back to this year's Memorial Day rites. They will be on Monday, May 31, starting at 9:30 a.m. with the laying of a wreath at the Memorial Arch, situated on its handsome new base in the plaza. Participants will then walk on up Oak Street to Madronia Cemetery, for a program at 10 a.m.

There will be music by the Cupertino Symphonic Band, directed by Tom Narcisso, and the Saratoga High School A Cappella Choir, directed by Jim Yowell. The principal address will be given by Lt. Col. Charles Ingalls, commander of the 130th Rescue Squadron, Air National Guard, at Moffett Federal Airfield. Laurel sprays and miniature flags will be placed on the graves of the more than 800 veterans at Madronia, by members of the Saratoga Brownies, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and 4-H Club. The graves are of veterans going back to the Civil War.

Mention of Moffett Federal Airfield gets me back to the subject I was kicking around in my previous column: calling things and places by their previous names. For instance, I can't help but think of Moffett Federal Airfield as the Sunnyvale Airbase, which is how it was referred to at the first visit of the dirigible USS Akron in 1932. The story goes that, although the field—no hangar back then—may have been in Mountain View, the Navy people didn't want a name that included "mountain." That kind of terrain could cause trouble for airships like the "big rigids." That was the term applied to dirigibles, which had frameworks, as compared with nonrigid blimps, which were simply elongated gas bags.

Still on the old-name kick, you'll have to forgive me if I refer to the Highway 85 overpass at Saratoga Avenue as Congress Junction. That was the name of the stop on the Southern Pacific railroad line that ran on up the Peninsula to San Francisco. Actually, it was on the branch that connected with the main line at California Avenue in Palo Alto. There are still tracks, but they go only to the Permanente cement plant.

Another name I can't quit using is "library" for the building at Oak Street and Saratoga­Los Gatos Road that houses the Book­Go­Round. It was built as a library in 1927, and I still have the library card I got there in 1929. I don't think it would work in today's computer or whatever they use in checking out books.

I consider it very fortunate that the building has its present use, rather than becoming a professional office or some such. Actually, half the space was used for a time as the office for the Valley Institute of Theater Arts—VITA—that my son helped found. "Library" just seemed to fit even that use.