Rena Bancroft’s timing was unfortunate

Not too long after assuming the principal’s chair at Crestmoor, district officials determined that the doomed school must be closed due to a precipitous enrollment drop throughout San Bruno in the lamentable 1970s, arguably the most challenging decade in San Mateo County public education history. 

Once that closure occurred in the summer of 1980 (with much hue and cry as you might imagine), she moved over to the town’s other public high school, Capuchino, in an administrative capacity as co-principal with Sam Johnson, then to the district office but wound up leaving the district for other ventures. 

The district lost a good one when she departed long ago.

THE YOUNG AREN’T DYING OF COVID: We are getting very close to the month of February. There is increasing evidence that the COVID scourge may be leveling off. Great news, if valid. Let’s hope the trend continues.

Still, even with all of the uncertainty hovering over a pandemic that began late in 2019 overseas, spread here and continues to mutate, one aspect remains crystal clear in San Mateo County: Teens and young children are not dying due to the disease. We have noted this positive fact before and it’s worth repeating with an update.

As of 10 a.m. Monday, official statistics from the county’s health authorities indicated that no one below the age of 20 had yet succumbed to COVID in the county and just one death in the 20-29 age bracket had been recorded.

In all, there had been 647 virus-caused deaths in all age groups here (568 in the age 60 and over category) as of the beginning of the work week.

And what about the ages of those hospitalized due to the virus? Unfortunately, the county doesn’t maintain those important numbers broken out by age. So policymakers here are operating without precise data in that regard, making needed context difficult to achieve or relate.

NINI’S IS GETTING NEW LIFE: It has taken awhile but Nini’s Coffee Shop is going to be reborn. The neighborhood diner on San Mateo’s northeast border with Burlingame is getting a new owner.

Reportedly, the fresh iteration will remain as a restaurant, at least in part. The Nini’s name will be no more, however. That’s something that will be confined to local history.

Nini’s, which began life in San Francisco, shifted its operations to the current site in 1968. It remained in business until early in the spring of 2020 as virus lockdowns hammered the economy. The establishment never reopened. 

In its considerable heyday, Nini’s was popular far beyond what you might expect, considering its rather modest digs and decidedly out-of-the-way location near Highway 101 and the Peninsula Avenue overpass.

On weekends, the line to get inside would stretch onto the sidewalk. Its home-cooked specialties were well worth the wait. Nini’s served only breakfast and lunch. It shut down in midafternoon. 

Under new ownership (and what appears to be a potential changed approach), things won’t be quite the same. But at least a pleasant resurrection of sorts is on the menu.

WANT CANADIAN CLUB? GET JABS: Meanwhile, in the important realm of adult beverages, leave it to the Canadians to figure out a brilliant strategy to combat COVID. 

In the province of Quebec, if you want to purchase liquor or cannabis, you must display proof of vaccination against the omnipresent, mutating virus.

We anticipate vaccination rates there to skyrocket. Fast. Want a vial of firewater? Show your jab passport, pal. Let’s dub the transaction a “Pfizer Boilermaker.”

HEY, FIDO, LET’S GET MOVING: Spotted this vanity license plate on a vehicle motoring along El Camino Real recently: “WOX DOGS.” Good know what that owner does when the spirit moves him (her). 

John Horgan can be contacted by email at johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.