The articles, though not expressing an opinion of a crusading nature, accomplished that end simply by describing the primitive facilities in Saratoga and Los Gatos and, by implication, the need for passage of the bond issue, which happened. Both communities had tried installing disposal units—Los Gatos with something called the Imhof tank and trickling filter system in 1913, and Saratoga with a large, two-compartment septic tank in 1912—and both installations ultimately proved grossly inadequate.

Both communities had ended up with what were accurately referred to as sewer farms. Los Gatos' consisted of a series of deep ponds into which the raw sewage flowed, with as much as possible seeping into the ground. Chemical treatment kept down the odor to a degree. The sewer farm was on the site of the present Oak Meadow Park, which I like to think of as having incredibly rich soil. With my penchant for calling places and objects as they formerly were known, I refer to Oak Meadow Park simply as the sewer farm.

Saratoga's sewer farm was an orchard on Fruitvale Avenue. Originally, the old Saratoga Sanitary District's two-compartment septic tank was supposed to drain into cesspools around the perimeter, but these proved inadequate. A rancher let the district run the effluent through a flume onto his orchard for irrigation. In 1941, however, the orchard was going to be sold, so the district leased 19 acres around the septic tank and got into the fruit growing business.

A series of good crops—talk about fertile ground!—enabled the district to pay off the purchase price in 1948. Just a few years later, the Saratoga Union School District was looking for a site for its second school, and the erstwhile sewer farm was very much available, since the Sanitary District's function had been taken over by a larger entity.

The school, of course, is Redwood Middle School, originally Fruitvale School. I know better than to refer to Redwood School as the sewer farm. I got enough static when I was writing news stories about the purchase and kept referring to the site as the old sewer farm.

But, back to the crusade. My wife and I just recently attended a West Valley Light Opera Association performance of the musical, Big River, in the Saratoga Civic Theater. It was outstanding; "glittering" would not be an overstatement. The acting, the singing and instrumental music, the choreography, the sets—everything about it was just right. Given this town's long association with excellence in the dramatic arts, dating back at least to 1933 when Olivia de Havilland played the title role in Alice in Wonderland, I'd describe the production as very Saratoga.

There was one drawback, however. I did have difficulty in understanding all the spoken words. They weren't garbled, they were just, well, seemingly slurred somehow. I was attributing this to dotage-inspired hard-of-hearing until I learned that others were having the same difficulty.

Rightly or wrongly, I blamed the sound system in which the performers were equipped with miniature microphones and we heard their voices through a loudspeaker over the proscenium, or so it seemed. And I wondered, why bother? As a founding member of the old Saratoga Drama Group, I have appeared in productions in the Civic Theater, including the musical Guys and Dolls, but I don't remember complaints from audience members about not being able to hear the performers; the acoustics there are excellent. What I do remember is the director exhorting us to project our voices and remember the people in the back row.

So, addition of that sound system makes me think of that wise, if ungrammatical, aphorism: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. To which I add this corollary: If you're going to fix it, spell the operative word F-I-X, rather than H-E-X.