I'll admit that I haven't talked to anyone in either the elementary or high school districts serving Saratoga, so I don't know how this date is factored into the yearly schedule. Maybe school will let out before Memorial Day in 2006.

But, back to the prune trees. They figured in the academic picture because there was a time when the opening day of school was determined by the maturing of the prune crop, occurring over a period in late August and early September. A couple of generations ago, the kids were needed to work in the harvest. It's true that picking prunes is nobody's idea of a vacation pastime; it's hard, dirty work done on hands and knees on rough ground. But it isn't school, and this was at a time when most kids were expected to work during the summer to earn money to buy their school clothes. The prune harvest was definitely of school concern.

I could, but won't, go into detail about my other fixation having to do with prunes, and that has to do with packaging that identifies them as "dried plums." The prune is a variety of plum, but a prune is a prune is a prune, etc., at least locally. And a prunepicker (I prefer it without a hyphen) was a prunepicker, not a plumpicker.

The other main summer occupation for the younger set was cutting apricots. This took some manual dexterity, as one grasped the whole fruit and rotated it against the blade of a special cutting knife. Then the two halves were separated, the pit extracted and put in a shallow box that could be easily moved, and the fruit placed face-up on the tray. There were workers there in the cutting shed whose function was to carry boxes of fruit to the cutters and to remove the trays.

Before the trays were set out in the dry yard (I don't remember it ever being called a drying yard) the trays were stacked on rail cars and put in the closed sulfur house. There, sulfur was burned under the tray-stacked cars as a means of curing the fruit. Sometimes, when the breeze was right--or wrong-- escaping sulfur fumes wafted into the open cutting shed, giving a fire and brimstone effect.

Cutting 'cots required concentration, but not to the point where one couldn't socialize. Adults, usually housewives, as well as kids were among the 'cot cutters and there was always lots of socializing. The apricot harvest lasted something like two weeks in late June and early July, allowing a slight respite before the prune season.

Changing the subject but not the locality, I see that the 17th Celebrate Saratoga! bash, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, is coming up on Sept. 17. I like to think of this as an outgrowth of an earlier local event of considerable note, the Saratoga Blossom Festival. I've written about this on previous occasions and will probably uncork another opus nearer the celebration date.

Finally, I can't resist commenting on an article in the latest edition of Silicon Valley Home, a monthly advertising magazine put out by the San Jose Mercury News marketing department.

Anyone downhearted about the economic status of the Village business district would be glad to know that said district is "a shopper's and diner's paradise." The description continues: "If you're looking for the perfect place to while away an afternoon, consider picturesque Saratoga Village ... Though only a stone's throw from San Jose, Saratoga feels like a world unto itself, far removed from the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley."

Who was it who called the Village a "potential ghost town?" Oops, it was my acronymic inner voice, Sam (for Subliminal Argumentative Mouthing). Sorry about that, Village. Sam apologizes.