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Things are looking up in Saratoga's Village

By Willys Peck

Anyone who might have been thinking it was time to lay a memorial wreath on the Village business district had better think again, or better yet, look again. Or far better yet, shop again. The picture is getting brighter. It upsets my wife that I'm always looking on the dark side, and she isn't impressed by my credo: Always expect the worst; anything less comes as a pleasant surprise.

I had been ruminating along those lines in connection with the Village, which had been going through some difficult times. There was a multiplicity of vacant stores and precious little foot traffic. Taking my usual negative view of the situation, I thought about--and wrote about--the time when we had what I called a functional business section, i.e. the Village, with businesses there because they were needed.

I think of it as a rather impressive array. There were four grocery stores, all of which had home delivery; three, later four, service stations (underline "service"); three auto repair garages, one of which had a new-car agency; a drugstore, later two, one of which had a soda fountain; a lumber yard; hardware store; two plumbing shops; two barbers; a shoe repair shop; and, oh, yes, a blacksmith shop. There was even a small department store in the building now occupied by the Historical Museum, which previously had been a candy store and a dry goods store. Back then it was next to the drugstore with the soda fountain.

Mention of the shoe shop brings back another memory phase, going back to my childhood and the year 1934. The shoemaker (OK, he didn't make shoes, he repaired them) was one Joseph L. Bohnert, a rather religious man and also an amateur printer. He had a small hand press and a type cabinet at the back of his shop. Somewhere in my ponderous pile of memorabilia I have a copy of a play he wrote and printed, The Finger of God. As far as I know, it never was produced.

In the aforementioned year of 1934, a sixth-grade classmate of mine and I were writing and printing a newspaper we called the Weekly Torch. The "printing" was literal; we did each copy in pencil and by hand. Somehow we learned that the shoemaker was willing to sell his press for $20. The sum was out of the question for me, but my friend's dad, who ran a hotel in San Francisco, dug up the amount and I thought we were in business. Twenty dollars was a lot of money in 1934, and when my friend's mother got wind of our plan, she put the kibosh on it. She saw it as too big an expenditure for what she considered a toy. The Weekly Torch glimmered out after less than two months of publication.

But back to the Village renaissance. A good example of this kind of activity is the forthcoming St. Patrick's Day celebration on Saturday. It's the second annual event, arranged by the Saratoga Village Development Council, and is scheduled from 3 to 5:30 p.m. There will be a bit of everything Irish: dancers, singers, food, story-reading, face-painting for kids, anything with a touch of green in it. For the kids, incidentally, there will be penny-picking, with shiny coins placed along the street. Marilyn Marchetti is coordinating the event for the SVCD.

On April 7 there will be the Easter Promenade, a Village fashion show. Also on the SVCD agenda are Friday night dances and Living History Days. While we're on the subject of downtown activity, let's not forget the work done by the Village Gardeners, a group of 30 volunteers who are seeing that the "tree wells" along the sidewalks are abloom with flowers. So who's behind all this activity? I give a major part of the credit to Jill--Mrs. Dennis--Hunter, who adds a new dimension to the term "civic activist." Jill is not only a member of the city council, she's served on the planning commission and the Saratoga school board. When something needs doing, Jill is there to do it.

One can't comment on civic celebrations without the term "Blossom Festival" surfacing. Is there really someone out there planning to revive this only-in-Saratoga event, the festivity that put Saratoga on the map during the first half of the 20th century?

Maybe it's time. I'm positive those were blossoms I saw on the trees in the Heritage Orchard.