After a truly terrible start to the year, there’s been some good news lately for San Jose Dance Theatre. You might remember that nearly 100 of the company’s handmade costumes were stolen when its storage space was broken into this month.

That amounted to thousands of dollars of work and threatened the upcoming May production of “The Sleeping Beauty,” not to mention future productions including San Jose’s longest-running version of “The Nutcracker.”

Artistic Director Linda Hurkmans says that on Jan. 19 a woman named Cynthia Trujillo-Houde saw something sparkly coming out of big black bags left in the street at Bernal Park, at Seventh and Hedding streets. Sixteen tutus were inside, and she posted the strange find on Next Door. Two people who were aware of the theft read her post and told her to contact San Jose Dance Theatre.

The recovered costumes included the legacy “Spanish” tutus from “The Nutcracker” and five “ribbon candy” tutus from that show that took Costume Director Renee Forbes four months to make. Unfortunately, only the bottoms were in the bag and the tunic tops are still missing.

“Of course, we are very happy to have these back but hope to recover more of the almost 100 costumes stolen,” Hurkmans said.

More good news is that $10,000 has been donated to the fund set up to replace the stolen costumes. You can contribute to the cause at www.sjdt.org/donate, and if you’re in the Northside area of San Jose, keep your eye out for any tulle fabric sticking out of suspicious bags. You just might make a ballerina very happy.

THE REST OF THE STORY: I recently wrote about the 50th anniversary of the first print appearance of the term “Silicon Valley,” and learned from David Laws, semiconductor curator at the Computer History Museum, that some stories are just too good to be true.

After Ralph Vaerst‘s death in 2001, his wife told my former Merc colleague Mike Cassidy that her husband was the guy who first said the magic words to Electronic News journalist Don Hoefler. But Laws talked to John Vincler, co-owner of Vincler Communications in Redwood City, who says it was a couple of marketing guys who put the Silicon Valley idea in Hoefler’s mind at a lunch in San Francisco. He went back to the office, changed the title of his piece to “Silicon Valley U.S.A.” and sent it off into history.

Vincler was working for Electronic News at the time says he tagged along on the lunch, which makes him a primary source. And Vincler told Laws that Vaerst was a friend of Hoefler’s and they often lunched at Walker’s Wagon Wheel in Mountain View but he was not at that particular meeting in S.F.

Given that all this happened in 1971 and it’s hard to get the story straight, it’s stunning anyone believes a word about the Peloponnesian War.

THE TIMING COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: Wouldn’t you just know it? Guadalupe River Park Conservancy Executive Director Jason Su announced this week that the Rotary PlayGarden, the accessible playground that’s one of the park’s most popular features, would re-open starting Jan. 23. That’s right, just as an atmospheric river was dumping a boatload of much-needed rain on the South Bay.

But when the weather clears up, the PlayGarden still will be there. There are rules, of course, including masking, social distancing, a limit of 60 visitors at a time and a maximum visit of 30 minutes. I don’t know about yours, but my kids would raise heck about that last one so I’m glad they don’t wear watches. I’ll tell ’em it’s been an hour and they might buy it.

FAREWELL, BUT NOT GOODBYE: Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown‘s weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle comes to an end this Sunday after running more than 12 years, but he told the Los Altos Rotary Club this week that he’s not necessarily riding off into the sunset.

“At some point, you will hear and see Willie Brown,” said Brown, who never has had a problem with being seen or heard. “You might even see me in another publication because I’m a great lover of newspapers. At almost 87 years of age, starting a new career is a challenge for anybody.”

Brown said he looks forward to the day when the pandemic has ended and he can return to San Francisco’s restaurants and other cultural attractions — in part to show off his new clothes.

“I have literally put together a whole new wardrobe,” the noted clotheshorse told the club on Thursday afternoon. “My late friend Wilkes Bashford would have loved it, but I don’t have anywhere to wear my clothing. I suspect on some days I may have to change clothes two or three times a day.”

BE LIKE AMANDA: OK, we are all still reeling from the powerful performance by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman at the inauguration of President Joe Biden on Wednesday. The Harvard-educated, Los Angeles native show stealer put to words what so many people in this country were feeling.

But Janice Lobo Sapigao, Santa Clara County’s current poet laureate, knows Gorman is not the only young person in this country with a voice that demands to be heard. That’s why she is championing the Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate program, to create a community of younger voices.

“Youth are a vulnerable population in this current era we are living in,” she writes. “They are the ones staying home to protect us and keep us safe from COVID-19, they are the ones working and contributing to our local and national economies as essential workers, they are at school and meeting with friends through a social media app or computer screen. So much has been taken from them, but their voices will remind us to give back to them what they give us: hope.”

Go to www.sccyouthlaureate.com to find out how to apply and learn more about youth writing workshops. Like they say in commercials, we’re waiting to hear from you.