Pictures From the Past columnist John Baggerly doesn't just write about the good old days--he lived them. Before he began courting Barbara Gibson, the two of them performed together in 'Trail Days,' on the pageant grounds behind the Civic Center.
Photograph courtesy of John and Barbara Baggerly
Telling stories is in John Baggerly's blood
By Dale Bryant
Of all the John Baggerly stories I know, my favorites are the ones about the town's memorable canines. There was Chiefie, a dog of undetermined bloodlines who started his day at the old firehouse at W. Main Street and Tait Avenue. The firemen in the late 1920s and early '30s fed him a scrap or two at breakfast and also gave him his distinguished name. After a few bites at the firehouse, Chiefie moseyed on down to the kitchen door of the Hotel Lyndon, then headed for the back doors of downtown butcher shops before making his way to University Avenue School where he knew school children were eager to share their lunches.
Another canine of note in local annals was Taxi Cab Dog who lived on Pennsylvania Avenue during the '30s. His mistress had a standing order with taxi cab owner Bert Ferini to bring her dog home whenever he was found wandering downtown. One day, the dog's mistress found herself trudging up a hill toting two bags of groceries when the taxi cab went cruising by with her dog comfortably ensconced.
And who could forget dogs such as Black Barney, who was often seen in the '50s riding around Los Gatos next to the town's poundmaster, Johnny Fox? The poundmaster knew the dogs of the town by name, and gave them a lift or shushed them in the direction of their homes when he found them out wandering.
These are my favorite John Baggerly stories because they don't come out of history books. They're the kind of stories relatives hand down to youngsters to keep a family's heritage alive. John's long-running Pictures From the Past column started in the 1980s when he was with the Los Gatos Times and continued through the Times Observer years and the merger with the Weekly in 1991. It offers more than a history of the town; his stories make us appreciate the lore, make us feel as if we personally experienced the good old days.
That's because John Baggerly is something much more than a journalist--which trade he's plied for most of his 84 years. John Baggerly is a storyteller.
Last week this town's best storyteller, without the embellishment that characterizes so many of his stories, simply announced: "It's time for me to hang it up."
We don't doubt that he's going to slow down, but we also know that if ever a person could lay claim to having printer's ink in his veins, it's John Baggerly. And it's awfully hard to give up journalism, let alone storytelling, when you've got so many stories to tell.
John grew up in the newspaper business. His father, Hiland Baggerly, worked first for his brother-in-law, Fremont Older, on the old San Francisco Bulletin. In the 1920s, Hiland Baggerly bought the San Jose News, and later, wanting a slower pace, he bought the Mail-News in Los Gatos.
John was his adopted son. "Hiland took me in," John told me recently. " ... and what a life I've had."
John graduated from Harvard University where he studied English, but when he returned, he took some journalism classes at San Jose State and went to work in Oakland at the Post-Inquirer, an afternoon daily. There, he covered sports and news--and made a daily call to the local pound to see if there were any good dog stories.
He also enjoyed the perks that, in those days, were considered the birthright of journalists. "I got to play golf free, and we always got tickets to everything," he recalls. "In those days, journalists lived a style beyond what they could afford to pay."
Always self-effacing, he suggests that his wife, Barbara, may have married him because he was a journalist. "She hung on to the guy with the free tickets!"
Hiland Baggerly died in 1944 and, when John returned home after the war, he ran the Mail-News briefly before merging it with Lloyd Smith's Times. John stayed with the paper, covering town hall--and he still complains about how long the meetings lasted.
He also continued covering sports, something for which he's long had a passion. With three daughters and one son, he had plenty of personal involvement with youth sports in Los Gatos. For years, he's helped out whenever he's needed in the local Little League--he even trapped gophers at Balzar Field to keep the area free of dangerous gopher holes.
For years, John put together the Los Gatos High School football programs. Although he "sort of retired" from that volunteer job, he still collects all the frosh-soph information for the program.
I hope that when John says it's time to hang it up, he means he'd "sort of like to retire" from the newspaper business. I happen to know that printer's ink is strong stuff to have coursing through one's veins. It's hard not to be a journalist when it's in you and in the situation.
John went to work for the Los Gatos Weekly when it began in 1982. He started writing his Pictures From the Past column on a regular basis in 1990.
For the time being, we'll be running some of his old columns--stories that help those of us in this community maintain a sense of who we are, and help explain why Los Gatans are so darned obsessed with preserving our town character.
From time to time, John concedes, he might come up with a column. "In fact," he says, "I've been working on something about Ripley's 'Believe It Or Not.' Did I tell you my father once hired Ripley? That's quite a story ... ."
Dale Bryant is the editor of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
