What a great idea you have for the Chart House (Feb. 4 editorial, "Chart House closure an opportunity for the town"). I grew up in Los Gatos and have attended too many funerals of friends and relatives to ever eat a meal there. I delivered two Liberty magazines there each week when I was in grammar school at Old Town. To me it will always be the Place Funeral Home.

But as you say, Los Gatos needs a downtown museum to display the many treasures now stored in some dusty storeroom. What better place than the old Place Funeral Home? What must we do to get this started?

As I said, I could never eat a meal there, but I sure would help with a museum.

Bruce Franks

Los Gatos

Chart House memories will live forever

I read with bittersweet feelings about the closure of a Los Gatos institution, the Chart House. As a freshman at Los Gatos High School, I scored my first job there as a hostess in 1979. It was such a blast, I couldn't believe they actually paid me to come to work.

Among the perks: $4 Australian lobster tails with my employee discount, the cutest beach and ski-bum waiters in the world and bribes from lovey-dovey types who wanted desperately to sit at Table 31 (the alcove).

In those days, the place was pumping! The wait for a table on a Saturday night was two hours and there was never a dull moment—there were the "dishdogs" who guzzled all unfinished incoming cocktails, the infamous midnight mooning incident in the upstairs window that got some busboys fired, and late-night spooky incidents (like when all the candles mysteriously extinguished at once) that became instant urban legend.

There was such camaraderie that the Chart was like a second family to lots of Los Gatos High kids at the time, and many of us transferred to different Chart Houses when we went away to college.

After the Chart House Corporation sold its restaurants to a Midwestern chain, the Los Gatos Chart was gradually stripped of its old school surf flavor that made it so unique, but for this ex-hostess who can still recite the red snapper special in her sleep, the memories will live on forever!

Kim (Wiggins) Ratcliff

Los Gatos

Town's solar future is not too bright

The headline read "Sunny Future for Solar Plans." But Los Gatos' solar future couldn't be more shady. The Los Gatos Town Council meeting on Feb. 2 was supposed to be an appeal to the planning commission's decree to move a proposed 112-panel, low-profile system off the hillside (which was visible to no one) and into the vegetable garden, a mandate that would make the system less efficient, more expensive, and more visible to the neighbors and homeowner.

The homeowner publicly stated that if they made him move the system, it would increase its cost by 30 percent and would kill the project.

The motion that was passed 3-2 was to simply allow the system to be put in the vegetable garden and was made after the public was closed to making any more statements.

We never got a chance to say, "Wait, you're voting on something that we're already allowed to do ... you're not even voting on the appeal!"

The public sees a victorious headline, but the reality is that this project, which had been approved by the engineers at the California Energy Commission last July, is now dead.

Thousands of dollars were taken from the homeowner in permits and fees and thousands more from the prime contractor in design and engineering costs. The word is out among solar contractors in the state—"Stay out of Los Gatos."

Andrew Perry

Los Gatos

Green Thumb is a Los Gatos treasure

One of the treasures of Los Gatos is the Green Thumb Nursery on Winchester Boulevard. The beauty of the natural world that is found there can only make you feel better, but the people who work there really make the difference.

I do not know how Steve Molho finds the great staff. They are always helpful and pleasant to deal with. And most important, they all seem to know everything about the hundreds of different plants that Steve carries. His nose for staff is as uncanny as is his nose for plants.

For example, last spring I bought two beautiful bougainvillea bushes for our home. They were incredibly bountiful in the beauty and quantity of blossoms all summer long and on into the winter. And then we were out of town for a month. We came back to some sick-looking bougainvillea plants.

The blossoms were faded and dropping. Even the leaves were falling off.

I fed the plants, watered them and talked to them. But all to no avail. The blossoms all fell off and almost all the leaves were gone when in desperation I finally loaded them into my van and took them to the Green Thumb for a diagnosis of their ills. (Oh my back, the planters are heavy!)

The plant doctor examined them. She scraped their limbs until the green underneath bled through. She caressed them.

And then she came through with her words of wisdom. I was ready for the worst. She seemed very serious. She said, "Shhh, shhh—they are asleep. Gently take them home and let them sleep, and in the spring you will have beautiful blossoms again. Just feed them when they wake up."

That is what I mean by the staff being wonderful. Over the years, they have boosted my morale when I strolled through the wide-ranging facility. Getting lost in the Thumb's forest of trees and fountains and planters makes the Silicon Valley rat race seem far away.

Green Thumb indeed is one of the treasures of Los Gatos!

Don Wolf

Los Gatos

Dentists open their doors for children

On Feb. 12, some dentists in Los Gatos opened their offices and their hearts to children from low-income families throughout Santa Clara County and provided free dental exams and treatment. Their generosity gave these youngsters a happier smile for Valentine's Day this year.

We want to thank and commend these dentists and their staffs for participating in "Dentists with a Heart." There are an estimated 120,000 low-income children in our county who are not getting the dental care they need, so we have a long way to go. But your efforts are helping this community tackle this significant health problem for children.

The residents of Los Gatos should be proud that dental professionals in your town have stepped forward to take care of kids in need. They are making a difference.

Gary B. Allen, president and CEO

The Health Trust

David Lees DDS, Director

Children's Dental Initiative