Still, I don't think it's out of line to discuss again some aspects of incorporation, just to emphasize what being a city means and what the alternative could have been. This involves going back to some of my favorite territory, the past.

I'm thinking now of the era just after World War II, when Saratoga was pretty much as it had been for a good many decades. "Sleepy little Saratoga"--as described in the famous June 10, 1946, Life magazine article about the visit of actress Donna Reed--just about summed it up.

Vast orchards radiated out from the edges of the Village, which contained the businesses needed to serve the daily needs of orchardists and those residents who commuted to their jobs, some as far away as San Francisco.

But changes were being felt, largely brought on by the war. For one thing, defense industries were gearing up for civilian production, drawing increasing numbers of workers. Military personnel who had been stationed in the general region liked what they saw in the South Bay Area and resolved to come back and live after the war. They did.

The result was a rapidly increasing population, with a consequent diminution of orchards. Ranchers who had gone through hard times along with the good were more than willing to sell their land to subdividers for prices that would have seemed impossible in their lean days.

A key factor in this changing economy was the city of San Jose. As the county seat, it had always been a center of commercial and cultural activity. Ranchers and other outside area residents went there to do major shopping, such as for clothes and cars. Until the 1950s, this pattern prevailed. San Jose was the local metropolitan center, and outlying towns such as Campbell, Saratoga and Cupertino had their separate identities and historical backgrounds. Nobody got in anybody's way.

But with war's end and the resulting population increase and geared-up industrialization, San Jose got territorial ambitions. The key figure here was the city manager, the late Anthony P. "Dutch" Hamann, who, more than any one individual, has been identified with San Jose's annexation thrusts.

Hamann is said to have envisioned a San Jose encompassing most of the central Santa Clara Valley. This was to come about through "inhabited" and "uninhabited" annexations. The number of residents in an area made the difference between the two terms; "uninhabited" didn't mean empty land, just very few people. There were also strip annexations, where a thoroughfare could be annexed to reach a certain piece of land.

When San Jose went on its annexation binge, it triggered what were known as defensive incorporations. The first of these was Campbell, where residents, after one failed election, voted to form a city in 1952. Then came Cupertino, in 1955. By this time, San Jose in its edging across the valley was getting close to Saratoga.

This raises a question: Would Saratoga have incorporated as a city without the impetus of San Jose's annexations? My own theory is that yes, it would have happened, ultimately if not in 1956. For example, look at the population figures. Fifty years ago, incorporation proponents reckoned the population of the future city at 12,900. Today it's more than 28,000, and I can't see that many people wanting to leave strictly local civic decisions in the hands of a county board of supervisors.

But, logical as it seemed to its proponents, incorporation was bitterly fought by the opponents, who couldn't tolerate the idea of another level of government when the existing system was functioning adequately. They formed the Saratoga Protective Committee. On the other side was the Saratoga Citizens' Committee for Incorporation. Each got out its own brochures.

Proponents argued that failure to incorporate could mean this would simply be the Saratoga district of San Jose, just like Willow Glen, which had once been a separate city. The same was true of Alviso, one of the state's oldest cities and later part of San Jose.

Almost 75 percent of Saratoga's registered voters turned out for the September election. The vote was 1,729 to 1,570, and incorporation passed by just 159 votes.

Today, 159 is a number etched in gold.