I like Texas. I like the way it opens up before you as you drive through, unafraid to reveal itself, visible for miles, left, right and center. I like the spirit of the people of Texas, a can-do collection of non-whiners who tackle adversity with a vengeance and a smile on their faces. I like the women in Texas, a welcoming lot not averse to giving a stranger a smile, maybe even a wink if he’s lucky. I have only been to Texas seven or eight times, but I have traveled from the top of the state at Gainesville to the bottom at Brownsville and Laredo, from the Arkansas border to far-flung El Paso. I spent the better part of the last six months of 1962 in the wonderland of Austin, walked the uncountable streets of sprawling Houston for a week in search of a job, broke and sleeping nights in an unoccupied dormitory at Rice University. I operated a head shop in Denton for a short time and experienced life in a town with ten times as many women as men. I visited San Antonio’s famed Riverwalk when it was a tottering infant and again when it was a strutting majorette. I like Texas. I like the weather and the vast starry skies and The Eyes Of Texas Are Upon You. I like the fact than when a vast area near the state capitol in Austin was cleared for renovations, the iconic old Scholz Beer Garten was allowed to remain. I like the Mexican food, which trumps anything you’ll find in Guadalajara. I like the Kilgore Rangerettes and the Texas A&M Twelfth Man and Kinky Friedman and the Terlingua Chili Cookoff. “I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences, gaze at the moon til I lose my senses. And I can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences.” Don’t fence me in? Don’t worry, Texas won’t.
San Antonio, you may be surprised to learn, is the seventh most populous city in the United States and the second-largest in the southern U.S. with a 2016 head count of 1.493 million. Not that you’d ever know it with its free-flowing traffic, uncrowded streets and smallish airport, an easy 20-minute drive from downtown. San Antonio was the fastest-growing of the top ten large cities in the country from 2000 to 2010 and second-fastest from 1990-2000. Straddling the regional divide between South and central Texas, San Antonio anchors the southwestern corner of an urban megaregion known as the Texas Triangle. The city is 63% Hispanic, 57% Mexican, and race relations are mostly cozy. San Antonio is as compatible a multicultural city as you’re likely to find. The good weather permits 12-months-a-year tourism, a major factor in the city’s healthy economy. The famed Alamo is a constant draw and the incomparable Riverwalk and its attendant hotels and convention center lure 34 million people a year to San Antonio, an increase of 66% from 2003 to 2013. Siobhan, Dr. Laura Benedetti and I checked into the pleasant Hyatt Regency hotel just a block-and-a-half from the Alamo, sitting right on the Riverwalk. We’d give it four stars, one off the maximum due to a cranky heater which found us changing rooms midstream. Everything else was the berries.
Riverwalking
These days, any city in America with a large pond is liable to have a “river walk,” a sprightly commercial area along the waterfront which draws in business and improves the real estate. Riverwalks have been increasing by leaps and bounds thanks to San Antonio’s exemplary model, the standard by which all others are measured. The SA version is the Babe Ruth of riverwalks, the prima ballerina, the Big Kahuna, a verdant oasis of cypress-lined paved paths, arched stone bridges and lush landscapes winding through the city center one story below street level. Hotel lobbies open to the Riverwalk, colorful umbrellas shade riverside tables as diners partake of a wide variety of restaurant offerings while watching the tour boats slip by, pilot/narrators relating the colorful history of the surroundings. In case there’s a chill in the air, accomodating heat lamps flame on to ameliorate the atmosphere.
The Riverwalk is the largest urban ecosystem in the country, a serene and pleasant way to navigate the city with 15 miles of sidewalks and paths, accessing hotels, bistros, museums, missions, shops and the King William Historic district. Our crew ate at Margaritaville the first night, where the performer on stage was definitely not Jimmy Buffet. A little noisy, with good food and decent service. We repaired to a seafood place called Ostra’s on evening two, a classy establishment with spiffy service and fine food, even though Bill’s fish was temperature-deficient. The last two nights, we chose Landry’s Seafood House, where everything was perfect and we got roaming mariachi music, which we shared on Facebook. My sister, Alice (the Republican) thought the vocals were a little tinny, but that’s what you get with cheap recording studios. Alice, by the way, is a known finger-wagger. Oh, and by the way, a narrated boat ride through the channels runs about $12 for dottering old seniors. Now and then, old age is an asset.
Once upon a time, in the early 1800s, Spanish military troops were stationed in an abandoned chapel of an old mission called “El Alamo,” named after the Spanish word for the grove of cottonwood trees which surrounded the place and in honor of Alamo de Parras, their hometown in Mexico. Military troops--first Spanish, then rebel, then Mexican--continued to occupy the mission during and after Mexico’s successful war for independence from Spain in the early 1820s. In the summer of 1821, Stephen Austin arrived in San Antonio along with some 300 U.S. families that the Spanish government had allowed to settle in Texas. The migration of United States citizens to Texas increased over the next decades, sparking a revolutionary movement that would erupt into armed conflict by the mid-1830s.
In December of 1835, during the early stages of Texas’ war for independence from Mexico, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers led by George Collinsworth and Benjamin Milam overwhelmed the Mexican garrison at the Alamo and captured the fort, seizing control of San Antonio. By mid-February 1836, Colonel James Bowie and Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis had taken command of Texan forces in San Antonio. Though Sam Houston, the newly-appointed commander-in-chief of the Texas contigent, argued that the Alamo should be abandoned due to insufficient troop numbers, Bowie and Travis demurred, hoping for reinforcements. They got a few, including famed frontiersman Davey Crockett, who kilt him a b(e)ar when he was only three but had a tougher time with Mexicans who shot back. Everything went peachy until February 23, 1836 when a Mexican army group of 2000 led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana came a-calling. Santa Ana’s men laid siege to the fort for 13 days, causing a drastic taco shortage inside, then attacked the weakened Texan force of 200. Travis said he would never surrender and he didn’t. Santa Ana said, oh well. Six hundred dead Mexicans later, Santa Ana took the fort, royally pissing off Texans elsewhere. On April 21, 1836, Sam Houston and some 800 Texans wearing “Remember The Alamo!” t-shirts defeated Santa Ana’s force of 1500 at San Jacinto. The victory insured the success of Texan independence as Santa Ana, who had been taken prisoner, came to terms with Sam Houston to end the war. The Mexican general told friends back home “Don’t mess with Texas” and the Lone Star Staters have been using it as a motto ever since. And they all lived happily ever after. Don’t you just love these in-depth history lessons?
Who The Hell Is Henry B. Gonzalez?
As a matter of fact, Henry was our kind of guy. Born in San Antonio of Mexican parents who had immigrated during the Mexican Revolution, Henry earned his undergrad credentials from the University of Texas and graduated from St. Mary’s University (SA) School of Law, then served on the San Antonio City Council from 1953 to 1956. He was elected to the Texas Senate in ‘56 and remained until 1961, setting the filibuster record in the chamber by speaking for 36 straight hours against a set of bills favoring segregation. Gonzalez was known for his staunchly liberal views and was often called a “communist” and a “pinko” by Republican politicians. When he was 70 years old (in 1986), Gonzalez was confronted at a popular city restaurant by a patron who used similar epithets and Henry promptly punched him in the face.
In November of 1961, Gonzalez entered a special election for the San Antonio-based 20th congressional district and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, barely beating a strong Republican candidate endorsed by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was the only close election Gonzalez would ever face; he was reelected 17 times thereafter. While in the House, Henry introduced legislation calling for the impeachment of Ronald Reagan, then of George Bush. When age began to take its toll, Gonzalez groomed his son, Charlie, to succeed him. Between them, father and son served 52 consecutive years in congress. Henry often reflected on his good fortune but regretted never having impeached “one of those bastards.”
So now we have the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, a worthy site for the 63rd Annual American Association of Equine Practioners Convention and Trade Show. Siobhan and her faithful Panamanian companion, Dr. Laura Benedetti, manned the Pathogenes, Inc. booth, the company’s first venture into displaying its wares in a convention setting. The days of these extravaganzas are long and tedious, a lot of standing and talking and salesmanship, none of it dearly beloved to people who would rather be in a lab. But, that’s business, as they say in the Kerguelan Islands. And it does send you off to exotic fun locations like Boise, Peoria and San Antonio, Texas, where Davey Crockett and Jim Bowie once roamed, where armies clashed and heroes died, and where one clever fellow took another look at the lovely winding San Antonio River and said, “You know, I think we can make a buck out of this.”
It’s Thanksgiving!
And we’re excited. Despite a night of constant rainfall which began at 3 a.m. and continues still, the folks in downtown Fairfield are lining up for the annual Turkey Day Parade and Block Party, a traditional celebration which harks back to the dawn of antiquity. Right now, they’re inflating the extra-large balloon figures of Donald Trump, ex-postmistress Julie Dare and pro tem mayor and sawmill operator “Cord” Cordwin and everyone’s hoping the brisk winds don’t shake Julie loose and send her swooping into the busy traffic on Interstate 75. The last time it happened, we lost two semis and a 12-car funeral. They retrieved the casket but the body went missing for 28 days and nobody’s in the mood for a repeat.
Anyway, happy times from The Flying Pie to you and yours. Save us some of that mince pie. We’ll be over around five.
That’s all, folks….
