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Happy anniversary! And there are plenty in Saratoga

By Willys Peck

I suppose it has to do with old age, but I seem to be on this anniversary kick, looking for significant-year intervals that begin with noteworthy events. So far I've noted the 55th anniversary of the court case that preserved Villa Montalvo as a public center for the arts, and the 50th anniversary of Saratoga's incorporation as a city. Both of these institutions are still around, or at least they were the last time I checked, so an anniversary seems in order.

Now I would like to note the 70th anniversary of one that isn't still around--namely, Saratoga's swimming hole. Quite logically, it was on Saratoga Creek, below the Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road bridge. To get anything like an adequate mental picture of the swimming hole--even though I don't remember it having been called that--you have to think of the highway when it consisted of only the two western lanes. The bridge, which had been built along the same lines as many in the late 1920s, was of concrete, making a graceful arch over the creek.

The interior of this arch was black from the smoke of countless campfires of itinerants--today they'd be called homeless; back then they were known as hobos--for whom the bridge was a welcome shelter, as were bridges throughout the country during the Great Depression.

The swimming hole was created by some enterprising individuals who laid a couple of telephone poles--where the heck does one get telephone poles?--across the creek and piled sandbags against them. The result was a thoroughly satisfactory dam that backed up the creek water to a depth of several feet. There was even a diving board set up near the dam where the water depth was at its maximum. I didn't see it, but one young man is reputed to have dived from the bridge into the pond.

In 1936, I hadn't yet learned to swim, but I do remember some delightful moments paddling around in an inflated inner tube and going what seemed like a good distance upstream. Back then, I don't remember anyone talking about liability, but I shudder to think of what the result might have been in the event of a drowning.

The success of the sandbag dam inspired some local citizens to create a permanent concrete structure, with removable planks inserted in grooves in the two sections. When the planks were removed, the creek resumed its normal flow. Somehow this didn't work as satisfactorily as the sandbags. Then there was the matter of the County Health Department getting into the act and finding that the creek water was polluted. It seems there were some cows in a pasture upstream, doing what cows usually do as part of the digestive process, and somehow our swimming hole was affected. End of swimming hole.

The concrete abutments remained in the general area until the hundred-year storm of 1955, when they were pushed way out of place. I'm not sure how the remains were finally disposed of, but they haven't been around for a good many years.

Today, such a thing as a creek swimming hole would be unthought of. Why? Because anybody who is anybody in Saratoga has their own private swimming pool. I may be a nobody, but Saratoga Creek does run through my property.

Still on the anniversary kick, this year is the golden one for an institution started in 1956 by my wife, Betty, as a summer demonstration observation nursery school sponsored by the American Association of University Women. Parents brought their pre-kindergarten children and took notes as they observed the youngsters at supervised play at the Easterbrook Farm, located at the foot of Bainter Avenue. When the Easterbrook property was sold, sessions were then held at the former Methodist Church in Los Gatos, with summer and fall sessions at Saratoga Springs resort. Then the school was moved to a former farmhouse on the Saratoga High School property. When I started law school in 1959, Betty took a job as kindergarten teacher in the Saratoga School District, and left dedicated teachers and parents to carry on the school. At this time, the school was moved to the former Lakeside School on Black Road above Los Gatos, where it is today, known as the Mountain School. Spring and fall sessions are still held at Saratoga Springs.

Recently, Betty was honored at a 50th anniversary celebration at the Mountain School. She was the queen, and I got into the act as king as we watched a May Day dance ceremony and heard tributes paid to her.