Posted on 03/06/2016 9:50:10 AM PST by GregoTX
Fifty years ago I was in the USAF basic at San Antonio, yet I remembered Mar 6, 1836. A few weeks later we got ONE day in town, and I went to the ALAMO!
Things I remember...
Across the street from the monument where the West Wall would have been was a WOOLWORTHS, around the corner to the north was a girlie review.
Lots of old cannon with spiked touch holes laying around, a large building and museum where the Long Barracks would have been. Inside was the original painting of John Wayne for his movie THE ALAMO. I noticed there was a deep scratch on the painting.
I had done a high school report on the Alamo battle and felt I knew each stone personally even though I had never been there before.
We left a few days later, it was about 85 degrees, landed in Chicago in Summer blues and it was around 20 degrees, windy and snowing. Then on to Rantoul for advanced training.
San Jac Day is celebrated and observed in our house every year, sometimes with a visit to the battlegrounds.
***Most of the original Alamo compound is gone,***
After the defeat of the Mexican Army at San Jacinto, they retreated from San Antonio. Before they left they blew up the Alamo compound leaving nothing but heaps of rubble and the Chapel.
My ancestors came to what is now Texas in the late 1700’s, and several joined the battle for independence, just as sick of the Mexican government as they had been sick of the King of Spain, leaving there more than a century earlier. I’m of Hispanic ancestry-as were most of the native born Texans on that list, given that Texas was a Spanish colony till 1821 when Mexico gained independence-no matter what ethnic group(s) we are part of, we are Texans, and proud of it...
God bless Texas,!
Remember the Alamo in Texas’s first, fight for Independence. And, remember Hood’s Texan division. In Texas’s 2nd war, for Independence.
***but at least they have assimilated !! ***
I’ve read that Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna later went and lived on Staten Island NY for several years while trying to interest Americans in a substance he called Chicle. We know it as Bubble gum, the Curse of Santa Anna.
Think of him the next time you feel stuck to the pavement.
“The war for Texas independence wasn’t an Anglo vs. Mexican conflict”.
Thank you for pointing that out-some do not understand that aspect of Texas-it was a destination for independent thinkers and rebels from Mexico and everyplace else from at least 1700, and likely before then...
My dad was stationed at Rantoul on the late 50’s...
This is the oldest known photograph of the Alamo in 1849 in San Antonio, Texas. It's a daquerreotype photo. It was taken 13 years after the battle. This photograph is located at the University of Austin in the center of American history.
Tejanos at the Alamo...
http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/archives/newsarch/tejano.html
Well worth reading.
Two t’s.
Went out to Limestone a couple of years ago in winter; cold, damp, and besides the park ranger, we were the only ones there. And the Nolichucky was running fast. Always the more memorable.
Hence the song we sang,Give me a T for Texas an a T for Tennessee
Notice how the top is broken but level. Inside the Alamo today you can see this original level and the add on that is so reminiscent of the Alamo outline.
I graduated from an old school, now torn down, that had a top layer much like the Alamo outline. Many of the students noticed it.
Great article, thanks! I’m glad my antecedents stayed isolated in the far West and Southwest of the state pretty much until the 20th century, when serving in the military was an attractive prospect to farm and ranch boys everywhere-but a lot of the family is still in the same place-ranching, construction and trucking are still the favorite jobs.
Watching the 1960 film in honor of it. It may be historically inaccurate but more accurate than anything on History Channel today.
Hell yeah, and Sam Houston was born in Virginia.
Col. Crockett famously stated “You can all go to Hell, I’ll go to Texas” and is revered as a founding father and legendary fighter for Texas.
Remember the Alamo for sure, and the Goliad Massacre. But also remember San Jacinto and Gonzales.
May the fleas of a thousand Iranians infest the pubic hairs of that bastard Antonio López de Santa Anna as he roasts in Hell.
In Latin-American Spanish slang the word for gossip is also “chicle” because of the constant moving of the mouth of gossips as in chewing gum.
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