Remember the Alamo

"The gallantry of the few Texans who defended the Alamo was really wondered at by the Mexican army. Even the generals were astonished at their vigorous resistance, and how dearly victory was bought..."

-- Francisco Antonio Ruiz, alcade of San Antonio in 1836 and supporter of the Texans; ordered by Santa Anna to see to the disposal of the bodies of the defenders of the Alamo.

Late '60s Postcard Relics

Ahead of our family's move to San Antonio in the summer of 1968, my grandmother took me to her home in Alamo Heights, mostly (I realize now) so I wouldn't be in the way of moving preparations. During that visit, I went with Grandma to the world's fair -- HemisFair '68, it was called. She got this card for me, and we sent it to my mother and brothers back in North Texas. "We had a good time at the Fair," my grandmother wrote. I signed it with my name.

I don't specifically remember going to the fair with Grandma, but I suspect that any memories of that visit have bundled with a later visit with my mother and brothers, after they'd moved to town. I don't remember the September 15 monorail accident at all, but I must have heard about it.

The card isn't dated, but it is postmarked July 12, 1968. The cancellation mark on the stamp mentions HemisFair. The front depicts the Institute of Texan Cultures, a worthwhile museum that's still in operation.

In summer of 1969, so famed for Apollo 11 and Woodstock's crowd control issues and the murderous doings of the Manson family, we headed out on the comparatively new Interstate system for a drive around the South: Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas to Tennessee to (briefly) Georgia to Alabama to Mississippi to Louisiana and back to Texas. Chattanooga was as far east as we got, and we stayed here.

On that trip, we'd previously stayed only in one- or two-story properties, so a five-story motor lodge was positively enormous. When you're eight. Again, my memories of the place are sparse, though there was the thrill of staying on the fourth floor, and I'm pretty sure a vending machine at the Chattanooga Howard Johnson's cheated me.

Cursory investigation reveals that there's only one Howard Johnson's in metro Chattanooga these days, in Cleveland, Tenn., which isn't the property on the card. If the structure is still there, it's flagged by another brand, and probably renovated beyond recognition. HoJo is a Wyndham Hotel Group brand now, incidentally, and I can't remember the last time I saw one. I never did associate Howard Johnson's with ice cream or food; for whatever reason, we didn't eat at them much when on the road. Mainly, they were the motels with orange roofs where we occasionally stayed.

According to Wiki at least, the brand is a b-school example of how not to deal with an adverse economy, especially if you're in the customer service business. The spikes in the price of gasoline beginning in 1973 cut into U.S. car travel, and so the company "attempted to streamline company operations and cut costs, such as serving cheaper food and having fewer employees. It proved disastrous as guests were finding this new era of Howard Johnson's restaurants and motor lodges unsatisfactory, compared to the services they had come to know for years." Oops.

Item From the Past: A Day Off For LBJ

A few years ago while visiting my mother, I found this scrap of pink paper tucked away among the few relics of my time in grade school, the same place I found this photograph. I don't know why I kept it. Maybe I knew I'd have a special interest in dead presidents some day, but more likely I put it away because it was unusual.

January 24, 1973

NO CLASSES THURSDAY, JAN. 25TH

School will not be held in the Alamo Heights School District on Thursday, January 25, 1973 to honor the memory of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. No make-up is required as the action is authorized by the Texas Education Agency.

For your information, we will have school on February 19 and March 16. These are the make-up days for the "ice holidays." Please change your school calendars accordingly.

George M. Moore, Principal

The school made this announcement during my last year there, sixth grade. Of course, Lyndon Johnson had died two days earlier, on January 22, 1973, of a heart attack, and his funeral was held on the 25th at the National City Christian Church in Washington. No doubt it was televised. I have no memory of watching the funeral or anything else I did that day. I just know I wasn't in school. Texas was honoring one of its own.

The "ice holidays" had happened earlier in January. We got out of school from two whole days because of an ice/snow storm on January 11 (I had to look up that date). We got all of 0.8 inches of snow that day, according to the NWS, but I suppose the ice really shut things down. We did not know -- could hardly imagine -- that there would be another winter storm on the night of February 8, 1973, leaving more than two inches on the ground. The next day was a Friday, which we got off. I don't remember making it up, but we must have.

Those were the only times I got off school for snow during the entire 11 years I went to school in San Antonio. And the only time I got off for a presidential death, all during the same few weeks.

George Moore, incidentally, was the only principal we'd ever had at Woodridge (we, as in the students who finished in 1973). According to this short history of the school, he had been principal since the unimaginably distant year of 1962, but would only be there until 1974. I don't remember much about him, except that he always wore a coat and tie.

Texas '10 Oddments

Back to posting on September 7 or so. An enjoyable Labor Day weekend to all.

On our last full day in Texas, we ate barbecue with my brother Jim, who suggested we go to Texas Pride, a joint east and a little south of San Antonio on Loop 1604. As the name says, that road loops all the way around the city, making an even larger circle than Loop 410, which is part of the Interstate system (though no one ever calls it I-410). Much of Loop 1604 is a rural, two-lane highway, and so it is near Texas Pride.

The place is going for that former gas station/road house look, I guess. Had some good 'cue there and a Frostie Root Beer. Can't remember the last time I had one of those.

On the way back, I asked Jim if I could drive (we were in his car), and he agreed to that, so I drove a little south on Loop 1604, and then turned west on US 87 back toward the city. The point of this maneuver? So I could pass through China Grove, Texas, the subject of a fairly nonsensical but still memorable 1973 song. Going home that way wasn't out of the way, so I figured, why not? I'd never been there before, song or no song. In China Grove I saw a scattering of businesses, including gas stations, an industrial bakery and a convenience store. I didn't stop. Maybe the interesting parts of the town are off the main road.

I had more interest in the San Antonio River and its headwaters on this trip than at anytime before, perhaps because of my visit to the now-dry spring at Cathedral Park that was flowing in the late 1970s. This web page is remarkably detailed on the subject of the headwaters. I wish I'd seen it before I visited (that happens often). Next time I'm in town, I'm going to visit the Headwaters Sanctuary and the Blue Hole on the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word.

There were a lot of objects around my mother's house, photos but also smaller items, that I wanted to scan and post sometime or other. Trouble was, I had no scanner. Not even a computer. That was one aspect of the trip that I liked best, since I need to leave my electronics behind now and then. Not quite all of my electronics, since I had my digital camera, and so I took a few pictures of unusual objects around the house. Such as this one.

That's a commemorative plaster plaque from the American Legion National Convention in San Antonio in 1928, which my grandfather attended. So did Gen. Pershing and Col. Lindbergh, who are the floating heads above the Alamo chapel. My mother says she has a faint memory of her dad in a Legionnaires parade (she would have been three years old). He didn't buy the plaque at the time of the convention. I don't think that would have been in character for him. But many years later, my mother found it at a garage sale or the like, and got it as a retroactive souvenir.

I've read that H-E-B, or more formally the H.E. Butt Grocery Co., now has nearly two-thirds market share in San Antonio, and I believe it. There were many to be seen during our drives through the city. Once upon a time, back in the retail mists primeval BW (Before Walmart), H-E-B was one of three major grocery operators in the city. The other two were Piggly Wiggly and Handy Andy. Piggly Wiggly left the market all together, I believe, while Handy Andy is a shadow of its former self with only a handful of stores. Maybe. I haven't seen any for years, and the most recent articles I found on the subject are some years old, never a good sign about whether a business is ongoing.

A Handy Andy was within walking distance of the house I grew up in. This was an important consideration in the days before getting a drivers license, so I went there often enough. It seemed so large then -- it would be small now -- and by the mid-70s had a deli. That was an exotic innovation. Besides an impossibly large selection of meat and cheese -- which would be small now -- the deli also carried exotic goods such as Tiger's Milk nutrition bars and canned bear meat. We rarely bought anything like that, but it was somehow good to know that you could.

There was also a mini-mall attached to the Handy Andy, all under the same roof, which was there as recently as 1994, when I had some film developed at the mall's camera shop. The entire area now an H-E-B, with no trace of the mini-mall; the grocery store swallowed it up. The site of the small barber shop where I got my hair cut every six months or so is now part of the store bakery, way at the back. My regular barber back then was a good ol' boy from somewhere in East Texas. He fit the stereotype, too (someone has to). In the early '80s I remember seeing a report on the barber shop TV about AIDS, before it even had that name, I think. The reporter explained that the mysterious disease seemed to afflict Haitians, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and heroin users; and my barber said that any disease like that was all right with him.

On the streets of Alamo Heights, a small city completely surrounded by San Antonio, I saw a number of black signs with white lettering that simply said: NO SOCIALISM. I'd heard about these signs, and others, which appeared last year during the long hot-n-bothered period before the passage of health insurance reform. I wondered whether the signs represent a principled stand against public ownership of the means of production (and service industries, in our time) or resistance to an entitlement program that will not benefit the sign-placers personally.

Since both Lilly and I were traveling by car together, we each sought San Antonio radio stations on the dial not necessarily to the other's liking. But here's the twist: I remember some of the same stations from years ago. Especially KONO, which now is an oldies station. In other words, it plays almost exactly the playlist it might have in 1979. KTFM, on the other hand, now plays contemporary music. In the 1970s it was an album-oriented rock station until suddenly one day in January 1979 it went 100 percent disco. I left town before the station, I imagine, sheepishly pulled the plug on that format sometime in 1980.

But in any case I wondered: which of these two stations hasn't really changed? One plays the same stuff as it did 30+ years ago; the other plays new stuff, which it did 30+ years ago.

Some lawyer or architect or accountant needs to lease this building, which is on the Austin Highway at its junction with Broadway in Alamo Heights. It was once a Mobile gas station, in case the Red Pegasus wasn't a giveaway.

The station closed in 1985, and I've read that Mobile allowed the new owners of the building to keep the trademark on the building as a "permanent loan." Good to see than not all landmarks disappear when you leave town for a few decades.

Cathedral Park & the Bishop Jones Center

It's been a run of clear, very warm days during declining summer this year, but cool nights. Meaning that Lilly and Ann weren't dressed for it on Saturday evening when we went to Spring Valley Nature Center to look through an amateur astronomer's fine telescope. So there was a fair amount of complaining about being cold while we walked to the viewing area. But it was worth it in the end, at least for me, since we saw the Ring Nebula (M57), which I'd never seen before outside of photos.

The colorful ring in photos isn't what you see through a small telescope. Instead, the lens reveals a wispy smoke ring among the solid background stars.

During the afternoon of the last day of 1977, some four or five friends and I gathered at a house on Patterson Ave. in Alamo Heights, where one of our group lived, to begin celebrating the new year. It might have been the end of December, but the day was pleasant, and so we took a short walk down Patterson to where it meets Torcido Ave. Ellen, the girl who lived on Patterson, told us this was the way to Cathedral Park.

The property is fenced in, so the gate must have been open that day. We repaired to a large patch of land at the foot of a large hill, in view of some buildings up on the hill that were partly obscured by trees. We sat under a copse of trees at the base of the hill, next to a small, rocky stream, and talked about whatever we talked about. I remember that it was warm enough to dip our bare feet in the water (a cold front in the early hours of 1978 brought more seasonably cold weather).

When it's flowing, that stream must be one created by the Edwards Aquifer that feeds Olmos Creek, which, together with the Blue Hole on the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word, form the headwaters of the San Antonio River. I didn't know any of that 32-plus years ago. Or exactly what was up on the hill, though I did look up and wonder about it out loud. Ellen said the park belonged to the Episcopal Church, but I don't remember any mention of the Bishop Jones Center. Turns out, that's what was atop the hill.

On August 18, 2010, I spent time looking around the Bishop Jones Center and its 19-acre grounds, unexpectedly answering the question about the place that I asked years ago, but had long forgotten asking.

The web site of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas has a paragraph's worth of information about the Bishop Jones Center: "In 1962, the bishop of the diocese and his staff moved... to the spacious new Cathedral Park in Alamo Heights. Already on the property, when it was given by the Kamko Foundation, was the lovely and quaint 'pink house.' Cathedral Park rapidly became a location of worship, rest and refreshment for the people of the diocese and community neighbors. Today, the Bishop Jones Center -- which comprises Cathedral House, Chapel House, and Cathedral Park -- is home to the diocesan bishop and his staff and continues to be a gathering place for the diocese."

During my recent visit, I drove my mother to the center late in the morning and while she did what she had to do as a volunteer for the Episcopal Church, I took a look at the chapel and meeting center, done in a charming Spanish Colonial Revival style inside and out, and set in a lush landscape all around the hill that sports enormous old trees, plantings at short intervals and thick grass. Stone-surfaced trails wind through the grounds and also lead to a columbarium built into the hillside. The columbarium must be fairly new, since I counted only about 20 permanent residents, with space for many more.

Though I took a few pictures, the photo collection of this fellow, who obviously works (or worked) at the Bishop Jones Center, provides a much more complete look at this gorgeous property.

Some stairs lead down the hill in one direction, to Patterson Ave. In another direction, the hill slopes down without the benefit of stairs, or many trees or much grass either. I went down the hill at that point, reaching a small group of trees surrounding a dry, rocky stream bed. I couldn't remember whether this was the spot we visited all those years ago, but I figured it could have been. Then I turned around and looked up the hill -- and that jogged my memory. Whoosh. For an instant three decades and then some vanished. This was the same place, absolutely.

Noisemaking at the Witte

I went to San Antonio's Witte Museum just last year, but that was without kids. This year I took Lilly and Ann for a slightly different experience, and not only because the two exhibits I remember from last year (SA parks, wild west shows) had been replaced by other exhibits. With kids, you spend time at the H-E-B Science Treehouse, actually a multistory complex out behind the main building that towers over the San Antonio River. It also offers some good views of the river and Brackenridge Park beyond.

"The H-E-B Science Treehouse offers four levels of fun and experimentation with Energy, Air Power, Simple Machines, Eco-Science, Weather, and Sound Waves," gushes the Witte web site. "Try out the hands-on exhibits and see how science is used in the 'real world.' Small World Science offers a chance for young children (with adults) to explore science too!"

If you've ever been to a children's museum, you've seen places like this. Ann had a good time with it -- she's in the target demographic exactly -- but even Lilly, who's crossing out of childhood, enjoyed some of it. Who doesn't like making balls float on a current of air, after all?

Up on the roof of the complex is an opportunity to make a lot of noise by beating hanging metal objects with sticks. Steel, iron, aluminum: you could really get a fearful racket going. Lilly and Ann had their turns on it, of course, but pretty soon I decided that the opportunity wasn't just for kids.

I was right.

The Wonderland Mall 3.0

This is what I get for being a real estate writer. While in San Antonio, I wanted to drop by the former Crossroads Mall, which was the Wonderland Mall before that, to see how its redevelopment was going. I'd read about the project earlier this year. The effort to remake the mall caught my attention because of profession interest, since not that many retail properties are being redeveloped these days. But I also have a fond memory of the old Wonderland Mall: I saw Star Wars in the summer of 1977 at the Wonder Theatre, which was either one or two screens at the time. A Dave & Buster's occupies the site now.

Amazingly, photos of the Wonder Theatre are posted here, about mid-way down the page, along with other long gone North Side movie theaters, such as as North Star Mall's Cinema I, II & III (went there sometimes) and the Central Park Fox (went there more often, not sure why).

Last Tuesday, I took Lilly to North Star Mall because she wanted a new shirt for school (which started this Tuesday). North Star has not only survived but has thrived in recent years, though of course most of the stores I remember are gone. Where art thou, Chess King? J. Riggings? Kay Bee Toys? The book store in the middle of the mall whose name I forget, but where I browsed often? My first job was at the North Star Joske's of Texas department store; it's now Dillard's.

"Here's what I learned at that first job," I told Lilly as we walked through the Dillard's. "A manager is someone who forgets what you want him [her, in my case] to remember, and remembers what you want him to forget."

After we were done at North Star, we drove down Loop 410 a few miles to the Wonderland of the Americas, which is the Crossroads Mall's new name. The new part of the mall -- the Marketplace -- was closed. Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Hm. But I took some pictures, noting that the new part of the mall is distinctly colorful, and adorned with the flags of the Western Hemisphere.

On Thursday last week, after dropping my mother and Lilly off at a beauty parlor for a hair-do and manicure, respectively, I went back to Wonderland of the Americas and unexpectedly happened upon a grand opening ceremony for the Marketplace. Mostly the event involved refreshments and a mariachi band. I took the opportunity to make notes and interview the mall's leasing director and some of the merchants because I knew I would be able to write about it. As retail goes, it's a step above the mall kiosks, but not quite standard shop space, since the retailers are separated by see-through ironwork. Most of the Marketplace shops, including clothiers, jewelers and other specialty stores, have a distinctly Hispanic flavor.

But not everything. I also spotted a place called Ooples, which carries “anime and geek apparel,” and Nine Tails, a “cyber punk goth industrial fashion” store. I spoke briefly with the young men who own Ooples and Nine Tails. Young men indeed, not even zygotes when my high school friends and I came to this place to see that famed movie. Now they're out in the world looking for the main chance through fashion that didn't exist a few decades ago.

I expect people will start calling the shopping center Wonderland again, for short, and at least that will be the same as when the property opened in 1960. But 50 years ago you wouldn't have been able to drop by Wonderland to pick up a Black Butler t-shirt (Ooples), a pair of Trashville-518 boots (Nine Tails) and a couple of piñatas (Toudouze Market).

Riding the Miniature Rails

Brackenridge Park is a jewel of San Antonio Parks and Recreation for a number of reasons. It has one of the finest zoos in the nation, built on the site of a 19th-century quarry. The nearby Japanese Tea Gardens, locally known as the Sunken Gardens, charms with its walkways, stone arch bridges, pagoda-like pavilion, waterfall, islands among the lily pads, flowers, koi and tadpoles. Other park amenities include athletic fields, a municipal golf course, picnic tables and barbecue pits. The San Antonio River cuts through the park picturesquely.

The obscure sculptor Dionicio Rodriguez added a distinctive flavor to Brackenridge more than 60 years ago. Here and there in the park he created cement structures that look remarkably like aged wood -- which he called el trabajo rústico -- such as the torii gate for the Sunken Gardens and a "log" bridge across the river (photos here, and more on Rodriguez here).

Narrow roads and walking trails also wind their way through the park. Despite being home to all those attractions, much of the park in fact looks like this.

August, unfortunately, isn't the best time to visit Brackenridge, but there was one thing I wanted to do there despite the heat, and Lilly and Ann readily agreed. Namely, ride the 3.5-mile miniature railroad that snakes through the park. So last Monday we rode it as early in the morning as we could, to avoid the full blast of the noonday sun. I call the train the Brackenridge Eagle, because that's what it was called when I rode it during the late '60s (when my grandmother took me) and early '70s (when my mother did), but that name doesn't seem to be in use any more.

Ah well, time flies, things change. The train is affiliated with the zoo these days, but its essential features are pretty much the same: a faux steam engine pulls shaded passenger cars along a track that crosses the San Antonio River a few times, cuts through undeveloped parkland, goes through a small tunnel, and makes some stops for passengers to get on or off. These days the stops are at the Witte Museum and the Sunken Gardens, though I vaguely remember that there used to be a few other small station stops besides. Price, still reasonable: $3 for adults, $2.50 for kids 3-11, tiny kids free.

In operation since 1956, the train used to be billed as the "world's longest miniature train," though I see that slogan has also fallen by the wayside. Maybe it was never actually true or maybe some little train in Guangdong Province is now longer. No matter. I'm still reminded of grandma (born Edna Henderson), gone nearly 40 years now, when I ride the Brackenridge Eagle. She'd probably be glad that her oldest daughter's youngest son is able to take two of her great-grandchildren on the train here in early 21st century.

More Iconic San Antonio: A 750-Foot Icon, to be Exact

In the fall of 1968, I went with my family to the world's fair in San Antonio, known as HemisFair '68. I doubt that we would have traveled to see it, but we didn't have to go far to get there, since we'd moved to town in July of the same year. I remember a few things about attending HemisFair, such as my brother Jim getting lost in the crowd once; and my brother Jay buying an African-style wooden mask and some small iron-tipped arrows to go with it; and the exciting fact that the West German Pavilion was giving away one-pfennig coins as souvenirs.

Then there was the Tower. Officially, the Tower of the Americas, but few San Antonians during my time growing up there in the '70s called it anything but the Tower. It is as distinctive to the skyline of the city as the Arch is to St. Louis or the Space Needle to Seattle, and visible from countless vantage points far away, some even outside the city. More than 40 years later, it endures. Stand right under it and you see this.

If a city or town has a public observation tower, I'll find it and go to the top, provided it isn't outrageously expensive (that means you, Top of the Rock in Manhattan: $21 for adults, bah. Tower of the Americas: a tolerable $10.95). This tendency of mine might go back to 1968, when I went with my grandmother and brothers the top of the Tower during the world's fair: a thrilling ride for the seven-year-old that I once was.

I hope it was thrilling enough for the seven-year-old and the 12-year-old who went with me to the Tower after we visited the Alamo last week, getting there by way of the Riverwalk. They seemed to enjoy the rising view from the outside-facing elevator as it sped upward, and the miles and miles you can see on a clear day from both the inside and outside sections of the observation deck. To them, it might have been just a large, unknown city below, stretching out in all directions, but still impressive.

I recognized a lot of San Antonio's buildings from that perch, such the former downtown Joske's of Texas department store, home of the first retail escalators in Texas, and an early user of air conditioning. The structure would have been a complete city block in size but for the refusal of St. Joseph's, a Catholic church, to be demolished to make way for Joske's expansion. The church remains, surrounded on three sides by the former department store. "Former" because Dillard's, the successor flag to Joske's, closed up shop downtown a few years ago. (God forbid there be any local or regional variation of department store names, like Joske's or Marshall Field.)

Looking down from the observation deck on a summer afternoon, you see this, if you're facing east.

Not far from the shadow of the Tower is US 281/I-37, and beyond that -- the Tower shadow is nearly pointing at it, and note the rail line -- is the 1902-vintage Southern Pacific Railroad Station (Sunset Station), now a special-events facility. Early one morning in March 1990, I caught an Amtrak train there that took me to San Francisco, where I caught a flight to Japan.

I barely remember my 1968 visit to the Tower (except it was a thrill), but in 1978, I clearly remember taking a date up to the observation deck. On January 13, as it happened, because that was also the day that Hubert Humphrey died, and remarkably it was warm enough to spend time on the outside part of the deck. In the mid-80s I came again, with a out-of-state girlfriend who previously doubted that San Antonio was a city of any size; and in early 1993, I brought Yuriko. So besides seeing the three dimensions in front of me, I also sensed the arc of time as I made the ambit around the Tower's observation deck with my kids.

Iconic San Antonio

We arrived in San Antonio on Friday the 13th and left Friday the 20th, traveling by way of that very Texas institution, Southwest Airlines. When we returned to suburban Chicago, her mother asked Lilly, "How was Texas?"

"Hot."

So it was, but in fact only five to 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) hotter than the Chicago area during the same span of days. Still, that made for a more oppressive heat, near or at 100° F. every day, which took some getting used to, even for me. Such is August in South Texas. Casual visitors, especially lifelong Yankees and Canadians, take note: see San Antonio in October or November or in March or April. Or during winter, for that matter, but take a coat. Hawaii, it's not. For the record, the climate is considered humid subtropical.

Hot or not, I spent a few afternoon hours last Wednesday introducing my daughters to some San Antonio icons. The Alamo, for example, which also counts as a Texas icon and, though out of fashion for now, an American icon. Maybe they'll read about the place later or see pictures of it, or even hear about its non-existent basement, but being there remains a different order of experience, so I took them.

A hot 'n' sweaty experience it was, until we entered the chapel of the Alamo, which has been air conditioned in our time (and has a roof, too, which it didn't have in 1836). Inside the quiet, somber space, we milled around with other people, looking at the various display cases, pieces of art and plaques, some of which are in small sacristy rooms off the main room. William Barrett Travis's ring and David Crockett's buckskin vest are among the items to be seen there.

According to the Moon Handbook of Texas, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, who operate the shrine, "have removed from the north interior wall the large, tacky painting that featured Davy Crockett swinging his flintlock at a mob of Mexican soldiers -- the figure's face was unmistakably John Wayne's." Moon's usually pretty accurate, but I can't remember ever seeing such a painting, which sounds like the artwork for the 1960 movie Dmitri Tiomkin soundtrack. Then again, I've only visited the Alamo sporadically over the years, the last time being in 1993, I think. More poignant than any such painting are the names of the defenders on signs near the rear of the chapel, and the chipping of the walls that might date from the battle.

We passed a few good minutes in the chapel, and then a few less pleasant minutes in the gift shop, since Ann hasn't quite outgrown her little-kid pestering when it comes to retail spots. Outside the gift shop we returned to the hot 'n' sweaty experience, and it was all I could do to keep Lilly and Ann seated (in the shade -- still hot) to listen to a short talk about the siege of the Alamo by a costumed interpreter whose opinions on the subject I didn't entirely share, but who wasn't outrageously revisionist (along the lines of how dare those people not live up to modern standards).

We hurried through the Long Barracks at Lilly's insistence, even though that structure is also air conditioned and contains some fine exhibits. As it should, since the Long Barracks saw some of the fiercest fighting on the last day of the siege. Still, I managed to take a few more pictures of the grounds of the Alamo. Such as one of the enormous live oak (about 100 years old, it seems) shading the entrance to the Long Barracks, and a sizable cactus of indeterminate age near the chapel.

Who knows, maybe my daughters will actually remember the Alamo.

Don't Forget to Remember the Alamo

Remember the Alamo with a good scene from the 2004 version of The Alamo, featuring David Crockett on the fiddle, in the face of death.

(Link for Facebook readers.)

Elsewhere in the movie, Billy Bob Thornton's Crockett offers this remarkable line about the perils of fame. If the book Three Roads to the Alamo is correct, the line is a good guess at why Crockett might have stayed at the Alamo, even though he had just arrived in Texas.

"If it was just me, simple old David from Tennessee, I might drop over that wall some night, take my chances. But that Davy Crockett feller... they're all watchin' him."

Item From the Past: Band Concert

It seems like I participated in a high school band concert 31 years ago. I have no memory of that particular concert, the Christmas concert of '78, probably because nothing unusual happened -- nothing funny (strange) or funny (ha-ha). But because of my essential pack-rat nature, I have documentary evidence that points to me being there. I would have remembered skipping a concert more than going to one, so I must have been there. And my mother paid $2 to sit through it.

The program actually has four pages. Besides the cover and the Symphonic Band member list, there's a Concert Band member list and a list of the music performed that evening, ordinary items such as "Old St. Nick Rock," a medley called "Noel," "Sleigh Ride," and "Christmas Music for Winds." No early versions of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" or anything remarkable (if I remember right, that song didn't exist in 1978).

Looking at the Symphonic Band member list, I'm struck by how little I know about the people on it. I'm currently in contact, more or less, with one person in that band, and occasionally hear from or about a few others. A handful of others are Facebook friends only since this year. I know that at least three people on the list are dead -- one cancer, one suicide, one cause unknown. On the whole, I don't know what the people on the list are up to now; probably some are mathematicians and some are carpenters' wives, but mostly I don't know what they're doing with their lives.

Which is as it should be. Cleaving too closely to high school, more than 30 years later, would be pathetic.

I also took a look at what else might have happened on that particular day, besides a high school band concert no one remembers. Wiki tells us that one Patrick Casey was born on December 19, 1978. And what did the newborn baby Patrick have to look forward to (thus far)? A career in le bad cinema, as a writer and director worthy of commentary by Leonard Pinth-Garnell.

Among others, he has worked on such deathless films as I Was A Teenage Frankenstein's Roommate; Hey, Stop Stabbing Me!; National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze; Sledgehammers at Dawn; and his latest, Transylmania, "the story of a group of not-too-bright American college kids on a semester abroad at the only college that would accept them: The Razvan University," notes the free encyclopedia.

It continues: "The film has been universally panned by critics, with overwhelmingly negative reviews. The film currently holds a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, receiving not one positive review. It received an 8 out 100 on website metacritic, which assigns a normalized score to a film based on reviews, which makes it fall into the category of 'Overwhelming dislike.'

"[It] opened extremely poorly, at #21 with only $263,941 from 1,007 theaters, making it the 3rd worst movie opening since 1982 for films which opened in more than 600 theaters, and the worst for films opening in over 1,000 theaters."

Old Basilica, New River Walk

I never did meet Tom and Barbara, either at their wedding, which was a couple of years before I was born, or at the renewal of their vows on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary, which was on June 13, 2009, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower, in San Antonio, an enormous church building on the West Side of the city. But as my brother Jim and I entered the basilica that afternoon, we were given a program with this cover:

We went to the basilica to see the basilica, not to attend any event. At least that was my plan, since Jim didn't care one way or the other about the place. When I visit San Antonio, I usually don't see much I haven't seen before, but I wanted there to be at least one exception to that pattern this time. Looking on line for information, I was surprised by how easy it would be to fulfill that stray desire, provided I could make it to the West Side. Even though the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower has been around since long before I moved to San Antonio in 1968, and is only a few miles from where I lived, went to school and otherwise grew up, I'd never been there. Never even heard of it. Such is the power of habit.

Wiki has better pictures of the basilica than I was able to take, especially because it was blinding hot that afternoon. Inside it was cool. Must cost a fortune to air-condition a place like that, so I made my little maintenance donation on the way out. We'd arrived right at the beginning of the Tom and Barbara's celebration, with the choir singing "Keys to the Kingdom" (based on verses in the Book of Matthew, composer anon.) and "Ave Verum Corpus" (No. 3) (Mozart), and "Ave Maria" (Lambillotte), fine sounds that wafted through the vast interior. A number of people had turned up for the event, but were so spread out that no one even looked at us.

Then the bagpiping started: "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Three" (Beethoven). Later I read that the Houston Highlanders Bagpipe Band had been hired for the occasion, and I did see them in their highland garb, getting ready outside the basilica. Boy, did they look overheated. But they did some fine piping. I knew that marked the beginning of the procession, so we left. I'm sure Tom and Barbara are fine people and all, but we didn't see the need to witness their vow renewal.

The visit to the basilica was actually an add-on to our visit to the new extension of the San Antonio River Walk. The existing River Walk in downtown San Antonio is a municipal treasure, and has been for years. I have my own fond memories of the place, especially during high school and during visits to town while in college, when I'd hang out with groups of friends there.

The extension of the River Walk from downtown to Breckenridge Park, upriver and north of downtown, has just been completed. Completed in the sense that a number of miles of new riverside sidewalks, landscaping and bridges have been finished just this year -- just in time for my visit. Sure, it was about 95° F., but I had to see that. And so we went.

It was worth enduring the heat. The extension is every bit as aesthetic as the original, the main difference being that not many businesses are located along it, yet. Give them time; there's a recession on.

The is the view looking southward toward the Lexington Ave. bridge, which was as far as the River Walk used to go (I think). All the work on the photograph's side of the bridge is new.

This is a lock just north of Brooklyn Ave.

I hadn't realized the river needed locks. A dam, yes. Olmos Dam, which I used to drive across. In earlier decades, the San Antonio River was fittingly wild and woolly, escaping its banks periodically, especially during the 1910s, culminating in the Great Flood of 1921. For more on the efforts to tame the river, which remarkably didn't end in its uglification, see this extensive article.

This is further north, between 9th Ave. and Jones.

The only business operating on the new segment of the River Walk is a VFW post that runs a restaurant. The colorful umbrellas of that place are visible in this shot.

It smelled like barbecue. Just another reason to come back someday, but maybe in October or some other cooler month.

Item From the Past: Lunch at Cappy's

May 30, 1979

The day before my high school graduation ceremony, I went to lunch at a place called Cappy's on Broadway in Alamo Heights. Cappy's must have been an early entrant in the world of casual dining located in a retrofitted structure from earlier in the 20th century, established as it was in 1977. None of that would have meant anything to me 30 years ago. It was just an interesting place to have lunch with friends.

Apparently the place has seen success down the years -- I was mildly astonished to learn that it's still around. Hope it doesn't become a victim of the recession.

Someone, not me, had a Polaroid instant camera, and a number of pictures must have been taken, since I ended up in possession of two images. Physical images tucked away somewhere; it's what people did before the Internet.

This is the better of the two, and it looks like it was made before the food arrived. Most of us were raising ice tea glasses. It was South Texas in summer, after all.

No point in detailing who's in the picture very closely, but I will say, left to right: Mrs. F, Debbie, Tom, Donna, Catherine, Kirk, me, Margie, Mr. F. Catherine's aunt took the picture. She and Mr. F have passed on. I've lost track of Debbie and Donna. Margie, I met only that day. She was a friend of someone else, and I never saw her again.

Don't Forget to Remember the Alamo

Remember the Alamo!

With your heart:

And with your head.

Though distinction between the two approaches is a boundary as porous as, say, the Texas-Mexico border.

Dreams of the Expo

Began reading The Devil in the White City just after the new year. Been wanting to since it was published, and I’m not disappointed. It’s a dual story, both riveting, of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, and also of the mass murderer H. H. Holmes, who owned a hotel not far from the fair, and took gruesome advantage of the influx of people into the city that year.

I’ve read about the fair before, but as usual in a good book, never in such detail. It’s the sort of book that makes me want to finish assembling that time machine in the garage (from Ikea, easy assembly promised, but I have my doubts) and go. I’d take enough antique banknotes to visit the fair for several days, to get the full experience of the countless exhibits, the carnival on the Midway and the original, first-ever Ferris Wheel. Of course, I’d know enough to stay away from H. H. Holmes “castle” and its horrors.

But as far as world’s fairs go, I’ll to be satisfied with dim memories of the Hemisfair of 1968, which I attended, and its best legacy, the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, a defining point in that city’s skyline. It’s the only world’s fair I ever went to. Like most of the country, I skipped the ones in Knoxville (’82) and New Orleans (’84). Considering that such events are now, for all practical purposes, things of the past, Hemisfair will be the only one I’ll ever go to.

Too bad. The idea of bringing marvels of the age together so people can see they with their own eyes still seems like a good one to me. We only have the illusion, provided by sophisticated video equipment, that the world is coming into our living rooms.