Alamo, San Antonio, TX. January 1984
Misión San Antonio de Valero
On my winter trip to Texas in January 1984 I spent a lot of time in San Antonio with my Gallaudet University friend, Molly Sheridan, who grew up there. Freakishly cold weather that year dashed my hopes for mild temperatures. In fact, a rare ice storm had just killed a lot of the tropical plants in and around the city. My travels often take me to "once in a century" weather events - like when I visited Kruger National Park in South Africa and it SNOWED! We toured the sites of San Antonio and, of course, "the Alamo" was high on the list. Probably my greatest shock while in Texas was realizing that the Spanish had actually colonized part of it for a long time and set up a lot of "Missions" that were made up of substantial old buildings. The Alamo mission was 18th century. That was "East Coast old". I began to realize just how clueless I was about that part of the country and American history.
While the Alamo may be the most well-known, in the 18th century, Spanish priests established five additional Catholic missions: San Antonio de Valero, San José, Concepción, San Juan and Espada, all along the San Antonio River. The traditions established by the friars of these missions still influence the culture of San Antonio today, and the five missions represent the largest concentration of Spanish colonial missions in North America. Each mission has its own unique history and attributes – the San José mission, for example, is dubbed ‘Queen of the Missions’ due to its large size.
I ended up driving around and seeing a few of those missions with Molly and her brother, Phil. The churches were impressive. I felt like I had learned nothing about this chapter of American history other than a meme-like understanding of Davey Crockett and "Remember the Alamo". How bizarre that one of the most famous battles in American history was fought in an old church. Why had history glossed over the Alamo's past? Irrelevant or just uninteresting? The Spanish had colonized, not just "claimed", a big chunk of North America that would become the USA and the vestiges of that were less than a historical footnote. That visit represented the first time I questioned what I had learned in high school. Certainly there were other "Alamos" - places I thought I knew about, but really didn't have the first clue. That was something to think about.
The other big memory of that trip was the nightclub "Bonham Exchange" which was THE club at the time in San Antonio. It wasn't the club that was so memorable (although it was a fun place), it was the event. We were there for the debut of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. At that time a full-length music video was still a novelty and all the special effects, make up, and dancing were ahead of their time. The whole place erupted when it came on the TVs spread across the club. What an odd memory!
The Alamo with a side of Michael Jackson - a strange introduction to San Antonio!
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