Tag: hugh davis

Being the Garlic Festival President has its perks.

When a young, new-to-Gilroy Hugh Davis volunteered to pour beer at the Garlic Festival's beer garden 25 summers ago, he had a blast, and knew right away he’d be hooked for life. To the Garlic Festival, that is.

Everything you need to know to make the most of Gilroy’s stinkin’ rose extravaganza

In preparing for more than 100,000 visitors to descend on the Garlic Capital for three days of eating, dancing and wearing funny garlic hats, the minutiae associated with executing an event of this magnitude is a story unto itself.

Beautiful cover on the city of Gilroy’s parks and recreation Summer 2012 Activity Guide shot at the Christopher High School swimming pool with three of Gilroy’s finest young lifeguards. The guide went to the printer weeks and weeks ago no doubt, and, lo and behold, there’s not a word mentioned about activities available at the South Valley Middle School swimming pool. Yep, not going to get many participants when the activity isn’t even listed in the city summer guide. The city staff, clearly, decided to close the pool long before our City Council decided to keep it open. And therein lies a systemic cultural problem that has to be dealt with and eradicated before our city moves forward. As one of our astute Community Pulse Board members commented upon answering the question about whether the city should spend the money to keep the South Valley pool open: “The culture of NO has got to GO.” Not good for a brochure …

As of this week, there's one less brouhaha in town.

Never heard this Gilroy-centric line, but when Doug the veteran Las Vegas cab driver who used to run a Vegas casino poker room “back in the day” heard we were from the Garlic Capital he immediately showed his hand. “You know what they called a hand with three 10s?” We didn’t have a clue what the old-time poker players called it. “They’d say, ‘I’ve got 30 miles of bad road between San Jose and Gilroy.’ ” Miss Jenny and I laughed out loud. The card quip referred to the 30-mile stretch of Monterey Highway. Before the new U.S. 101 it was known as “Blood Alley” – a nasty stretch of stoplights, accidents, backed-up traffic and fruit-peddling stands, the latter being its lone saving grace. It seems like so long ago, but the Sig Sanchez Freeway between Morgan Hill and San Jose opened less than 10 years ago in 2003.