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Controversy blooms in Saratoga--it's prune vs. plum

By Willys Peck

Well, here I am again. I've been through this prune vs. plum routine a number of times, but the issue keeps surfacing. I think it has something to do with my background as a professional nit-picker, a.k.a. newspaper copy editor, but I can't resist commenting when someone pushes my button.

In this case, the button was pushed at the recent Mustard Walk, sponsored by the Heritage Preservation Commission and the city of Saratoga. It was a thoroughly enjoyable event, favored by fair weather, outstanding performing and artistic talent and enthusiastic docents. The mustard in the Heritage Orchard may have been rather sparse, but a volunteer sowing of mustard seed arranged by my wife, Betty, hopefully will take care of that situation for next year.

But about the nit-picking. One situation involved the printed program's reference to the Warner Hutton House, which was a focal point of the gathering. The cover of the leaflet had the spelling correct, "Warner." Inside, there were four listings calling it the "Warren" Hutton House. OK, no big deal.

That same leaflet included an enumeration of the trees. It was stated that the orchard consists of 18.2 acres with approximately 1,400 trees. The trees are 50 percent apricot, 25 percent cherry and 25 percent plum. Oops, come again; did somebody say "plum?" Yes, all the references in the program are to plum trees.

OK, to quote prominent Saratoga orchardist Vince Garrod, all prunes are plums, but not all plums are prunes. The prune is a variety of plum. In local usage, though, at least in my childhood and youth in Saratoga, we had prunes and we had plums, and ne'er the twain did meet. Kids earned money to buy their school clothes by being prune-pickers, not plum-pickers, in the late summer.

When I was attending Los Gatos High School--no Saratoga High then--the athletic teams were, and still are, the Wildcats. We referred to the Campbell teams as the Prunepickers (no hyphen), although I'm not sure they used that name. Campbell, after all, was known as the "Orchard City," even before its incorporation in 1952. There is no more Campbell High School, but when there was, its athletic teams were the Buccaneers, née Prunepickers.

Getting back to my plum phobia (pluobia?), prunes are a variety of plums, and it's customary to use varietal names. Take music, for instance. A symphony is a variety of music, and the subject of a title such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony wouldn't make much sense if it were called Beethoven's Ninth Music. Well, that's running the subject into the ground, which is where prunes are picked from to begin with.

Back at the Mustard Walk, there was talk going around about reviving the Blossom Festival, which would take a bit of doing, but it's a nice idea. For one thing, there's the matter of blossoms, of which there is a rather limited supply. The Heritage Orchard and Novakovich Orchards on Fruitvale Avenue are about the only source of blossoms in quantity.

The original festival, in 1900, was called by its founder, the Rev. Edwin Sidney Williams, a "thanksgiving jollification" because it was inspired by rain that ended a prolonged dry spell. The initials of Williams, a retired Congregational minister, were applied to his nickname, Everlasting Sunshine, and his grave marker at Madronia Cemetery recognizes him as "Father of the Blossom Festival."

The real attraction, of course, consisted of mile upon mile of fruit trees in bloom, but the townspeople also provided sports and entertainment, and a home-cooked meal was available for 25 cents. The first festival location was the Village Green, adjacent to the site of the present Foothill Club. Subsequent sites were a natural amphitheater on Saratoga Avenue, site of the present Saratogan condominiums, and a location off Fruitvale Avenue, near the present Valle Vista Drive.

Any revival of the Blossom Festival would have a long tradition to draw from, ranging from ballet dancers to symphony orchestra and band concerts to parades to speeches from noted politicians. It's a great idea, though, and it's worth some serious effort.