"You've been too modest," said Sam. "You've been referring in your columns to 'both' of your readers. I'd say all three of them would be relieved to see you pack it in and sign off. You're pushing nine years with this drivel, and you seem obsessed with the notion of living in the past. What's wrong with living in the present and looking to the future, even writing about it?"

"I suppose nothing's wrong with it," I said, "except that the past is more interesting. There are things that people can't imagine ever having happened in Saratoga. They find fascination in these things. So I write about them."

"Maybe you're right," said Sam. "Saratoga has a past but it doesn't really have a future. I mean, its future is the present. Saratoga is an upscale residential area. Some might think of it as a suburb of--you should excuse the expression--San Jose, and that's all it ever will be. So where is there a future? Just more of the same. That's all I see."

"We're playing with the meaning of words," I said. "You speak of future as being something entirely different from the present, and if it isn't different, it isn't future. Yes, when Saratoga was a lumbering town it had a future as an industrial town--the name was even Bank Mills--and as an agricultural center. Now we're essentially residential. But I can see a future here."

At this point, Sam mercifully dropped from consciousness and I got to pondering the question, what does the term "future" mean to Saratoga? What really does lie ahead? Is Saratoga destined to be different than it is now? Does it have a future beyond what we are experiencing today?

To address this question, I resorted to the voluminous and not altogether tidy files that make up what I call my archives. My underlying thought had to do with the Village business district, which is widely admitted to be in trouble. How can it be revived? How can new life be infused into an area that should have a vast potential as a shoppers' destination? How can downtown Saratoga have a commercial future?

As has been frequently cited in this column, Saratoga's business district is a prisoner of history and topography. The main street, Big Basin Way, originally was called Lumber Street for the very good reason that it was the route of the lumber wagons coming down from the hills, and future traffic circulation was an issue that couldn't even have been thought of by the teamsters. On one side there was the canyon topography of Saratoga Creek, then called Arroyo Quito. On the other side was a hill, ultimately traversed by Oak Street. The idea of parallel streets for traffic circulation was many decades ahead. Even if the idea were brought into being, parallel streets would require a lot of changes in the current building pattern.

So now we come up to the year 1960, when there was a proposal called the Village Development Plan. It called for an extension of Saratoga Avenue, fairly close to the creek, and linked with Big Basin Way where it makes the sharp curve some distance past Sixth Street (called Sixth Avenue on a map published in the June 20, 1960, issue of the Saratoga Citizen, our local newspaper of the day).

Such an extension would have precluded developments such as the Inn at Saratoga, and the condos and commercial buildings that have their access from Fourth Street at the bottom of the hill.

Needless to say, that Village Development Plan did not fly, but the issue remained an extremely live one, and one outcome was the development of much-needed off-street parking areas. But has the issue of Village development been solved? Does Saratoga Village have a future or, as Sam contended, have no future other than its present?

Let's look to some of the positive elements that emphasize the town's history and its artistic antecedents. A couple of examples are the Golden Oak Gallery, housed in a former plumbing shop on Oak Street next to the Book-Go-Round, and the beefed-up Methodist Church now housing a bridal shop on Saratoga­Los Gatos Road. Maybe the qualities of creativeness and preservation can be brought into play to the benefit of the entire community, not just the business district.

Why not look to the future?