Kudos to Sal Pizarro, writer for the Mercury News, for his Monday mention of the ECV Clampers “most satisfactory” plaque ceremony in Alviso. Sal’s mention is a bit of a surprise being that Clampers are wascally wabbits whose rough edges (they drink beer) might have sawed against the grain of the PC police at the Mercury News.
Apropos of very little, I am reminded of the carnage wreaked by the Mercury News on the town of Drawbridge, 5 miles up the railroad track from Alviso. Drawbridge was built on the marsh, wetlands, and sloughs that existed before the heinous salt evaporation ponds destroyed the south bay. It’s a ghost town now, and visits are forbidden and impossible.
Aeons ago, the Mercury News printed numerous stories stating that the hunting lodges in Drawbridge were “abandoned.” This effectively provided free reign for adventurous San Jose spirits to trek to Drawbridge to plunder belongings from lodges that were not, in fact, abandoned. The owners were just not home. The Mercury News also printed (in the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s) that Drawbridge’s inhabitants were low-life gamblers and prostitutes. Drawbridgians, many of them not fitting or appreciating the appellation, harbored ill-will for years on that account, and I suspect that their ghosts still haunt the news offices and editorial board room of the Mercury News on Ridder Park Drive—tipping over the occasional ink well or banshee-wailing en masse into the cubicle forest, discomfiting perfectly innocent, and possibly sleeping, columnists. This might explain the turnover.
San Jose’s daily paper and its writers have done much good work in the area and have had a positive influence on people and events. But there have been blemishes, and a besmirch or two. And the bias of the paper is a tad liberal for my bitter middle-aged taste. Six front-page stories a year on the Japanese internment camps, while of worthy intent, is disproportionate to other stories that could and should be told as well—like a story about the Bataan Death March survivors. I don’t recall ever reading a story in the Mercury News on that subject. Sal’s mention of the Clampers may signal a new zeitgeist at the paper. And cats will soon be lying down with dogs.
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