Remembering the Alamo
A fabulous witch who's an old friend from a cozy e-mail list we both are part of recently mentioned her close proximity to the Alamo. This prompted some dusting off of the old travelogues from thirtysomething years ago. I was 11 and some of my memory has faded over the years, but Alamo still ranks among the most memorable historical places I've been to. Those old-time Western matinee movie images had imprinted upon my impressionable Midwestern mind a certain expectation that was simultaneously shattered and exceeded the moment I saw this place with my very own eyes.
Perhaps I was a bit jaded, having just toured the Astrodome a few days before (keep in mind that I was 11 and it was the mid-'70's) but the Alamo seemed kind of...small. Everything was supposed to be bigger in Texas - so where was the imposing fortress rising up along the wide expanse of horizon that rolls like a tumbleweed off into the sunset? There it was, looking rather innocuous, tucked snugly in the midst of the city! Our hotel was mere steps away. I was so suprised that there was not a larger 'zone of austerity' around this building. Something along the lines of the wide open elbow room around the old mission outside of town that we visited later that day. But then I walked through the building and the distractions of a modern time diminished as I dared to imagine the soul that permeates those walls. Passionate faith and sacrificial blood that so often play a part in the human quest for freedom are among the many things I've yet to experience with comparable intensity, but I do try my best to understand.
Historical sites have always seemed surreal to me. To think about what a place represents, what the people who created the history there might have been like in their every day life, and what motivated them to do this thing that sparked change in our world. Did these people have any idea the venues which hosted a few pivotal snapshots of their lives would become a place people would travel great distances to see on their Summer vacations? Would the tough grizzled men who fought at the Alamo have a chuckle at the thought of a silly little girl from a place called Indiana walking through the door more than a century later daring to claim even the slightest inkling as to what made them tick? Would they be pissed or relieved (is that redundant?) that the locals would pass right by day after day buffering any conscious reverence of a larger than life past with the minutiae of their present?
Or is it all just another adventure in the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman?
Perhaps I was a bit jaded, having just toured the Astrodome a few days before (keep in mind that I was 11 and it was the mid-'70's) but the Alamo seemed kind of...small. Everything was supposed to be bigger in Texas - so where was the imposing fortress rising up along the wide expanse of horizon that rolls like a tumbleweed off into the sunset? There it was, looking rather innocuous, tucked snugly in the midst of the city! Our hotel was mere steps away. I was so suprised that there was not a larger 'zone of austerity' around this building. Something along the lines of the wide open elbow room around the old mission outside of town that we visited later that day. But then I walked through the building and the distractions of a modern time diminished as I dared to imagine the soul that permeates those walls. Passionate faith and sacrificial blood that so often play a part in the human quest for freedom are among the many things I've yet to experience with comparable intensity, but I do try my best to understand.
Historical sites have always seemed surreal to me. To think about what a place represents, what the people who created the history there might have been like in their every day life, and what motivated them to do this thing that sparked change in our world. Did these people have any idea the venues which hosted a few pivotal snapshots of their lives would become a place people would travel great distances to see on their Summer vacations? Would the tough grizzled men who fought at the Alamo have a chuckle at the thought of a silly little girl from a place called Indiana walking through the door more than a century later daring to claim even the slightest inkling as to what made them tick? Would they be pissed or relieved (is that redundant?) that the locals would pass right by day after day buffering any conscious reverence of a larger than life past with the minutiae of their present?
Or is it all just another adventure in the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman?
posted by Sally at 11:51 PM
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