The Willow Glen Resident

Keeping in touch with our piece of the global village

By Joe Guerra

In the era of the global village and the World Wide Web, our quality of life still revolves around the place we call home. A community paper makes our neighborhood a better place to live and work.

Asking me why I started the Willow Glen Resident almost assumes that I had a choice. In hindsight, I'm not sure I did. I was young and believed there was nothing I could not do, no cause I should not tackle. With all my community activities, I know there were times my dad wondered how much I was really working.

So when Phil Keller and a couple businessmen from the Avenue told me that we really needed a community paper (after two others had tried and failed), I agreed. When they said I should start one, I protested. I knew nothing about running a newspaper. When they fired back that local businesses knew I would never take their advertising money without putting out a paper, I was stuck. I had to agree to look into it. When Terri Oropeza (then of CopyInk) told me she could do all the layout and graphics, my fate was truly sealed.

Back then, there were 12 thrift shops and many vacant buildings on Lincoln Avenue. No one in the neighborhood knew what was going on at the local schools. Even though I lived next door to Willow Glen Elementary, I could not have told you what was happening there. The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association struggled to inform folks about development issues and the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association had trouble getting the word out about upcoming events. Most of all, we had to rely upon the Mercury News to find out what was going on in our neighborhood. That usually meant we were uninformed.

Last week, I was walking down Lincoln with my daughters after a Willow Glen Elementary night at Round Table. My eldest lamented that she could not go play pool at Willow Glen Billiards and Brew. We stopped at Dolce Spazio, and then we ran into friends at Willow Glen Coffee Roasting. Things sure have changed these past 10 years.

I often refer to the paper as if it were my child. The early years were tough going, but slowly it grew and improved. In 1993, when I sold the paper, it was like my child was going off to college and beyond. The paper today is far better than I could have ever made it. Weekly information about our neighborhood simply makes this a better place to live and work. The Willow Glen Resident will keep making this the best neighborhood in the whole global village.

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