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Village isn't set up to be a shopper's destination

By Willys Peck

It's good to know Saratogans are concerned about the welfare of their thoroughfare, in this case the Village section of Big Basin Way, as evidenced by the large turnout for a public meeting at which the proposed Saratoga Village Mixed-use Project was discussed.

Townspeople always have voted on development along this important segment, and, you may ask, what were the ballots in previous times? Answer: The contents of their wallets, their investment in the businesses they established to fill a need. Let's look at some of them. I know I've covered this matter in previous columns, but I think it's appropriate to review the subject again, given what may be lying ahead.

My reference was to a utilitarian downtown, the find-a-need-and-fill-it approach. So, what did we have here a generation or so ago? Well, there were four grocery stores offering free home delivery; three auto repair garages, one with a new-car dealership and all having gasoline pumps; three other service stations, where, in addition to filling your tank and checking the oil, the attendant would wash the windshield; a couple of drugstores, one with a soda fountain; a variety store; a blacksmith shop; and a laundry. After World War II, we had a hardware store, department store, dry cleaners and movie theater.

So far, I don't see this utilitarian approach in what has been outlined for the near future. I hope I'm wrong, but I get the idea that there are some who want to see the Village as a shoppers' destination. In my view, nothing could be worse. Again, I'm on previously covered ground, but I can't imagine anything more disagreeable than increased traffic along two-lane Saratoga Avenue and Big Basin Way.

One aspect previously covered in this space is the lack of a parallel street for traffic circulation. My oft-repeated phrase is to the effect that the Village is the prisoner of history and topography. History has to do with the logging wagon drivers who, as they created Lumber Street (it wasn't Big Basin Way until 1927), weren't concerned about future horseless carriages needing a parallel route. The topography has to do with a hill on one side and an embankment going down to the creek on the other. People driving into the Village for the first time may get up to the sharp bend after Sixth Street before they realize they have to double back the same way they came.

When I get into the subject of grocery stores--four in the old days--I can't resist sentimentally reminiscing about my months working in one of them. Back in my high school days--I graduated in 1941--it was something of a rite of passage for teenage boys to work either as a gas station attendant or drive a grocery delivery truck.

I worked for a man named Artus Metzger, who had come to Saratoga in 1907 as a schoolteacher. He later formed a partnership with one Joe Corpstein, and Corpstein & Metzger occupied a location where the Golden Mirror is today. It was a real general store. When Corpstein died, the firm continued as A. Metzger, Groceries, Meats, Hardware, Paints. When I worked there on Saturdays in the spring of 1941, there was still a lot of hardware and paint in stock. I even was able to buy a pair of shoes there.

There were two of us who worked as clerks and delivery drivers. The routine was for people to phone in their orders in the morning, and deliveries would be made shortly before noon. The truck was a 1936 Dodge pickup, which, though only 5 years old, had definitely seen better days. Delivery boys, as we were called, were not known as cautious drivers. There were two roads where we really revved up that truck. One was Shumer Road, now Reid Lane, and the other was Douglass Lane.

It was traditional that in making deliveries, we never knocked or rang doorbells. We just walked in the back door. Only once was I challenged over my lack of etiquette, and I figured the man just didn't know any better. I can think of only two really unpleasant experiences during my tenure. One was when I accidentally kicked over an open can of paint on the back porch of a house on Oak Street. The other was when a woman who lived on Douglass Lane stormed into the store and yelled that she'd shoot any driver who hit her dog. Her husband was an Army colonel, and I'm sure she would have followed through on her threat.

That didn't happen, and I'm still here. I think.