March
and April are the two months when Texans remember our war for independence from
Mexico, 182 years ago. It is also the time of year when wildflowers bust out
across Central Texas. So this blog post is a meshing of wildflowers and rebellion.
The pretty color photo is
of the monument built in 1936 (oddly, paid for with Federal dollars, not state
or private funds) to commemorate the massacre of over 300 captive Texas
militiamen at Goliad on Palm Sunday in 1836. The granite monument sits atop the
charred bones of the Texas patriots in a mass grave.
The next image is
also from 1936, the year of the Centennial celebration of Texas’s victory over
Santa Anna’s army, which established Texas as an independent nation. This photo is of course the Alamo in San
Antonio during a renovation project, putting a new roof on the chapel.
This final photo is once
more from 1936 Centennial and is the frame of the giant three-dimensional ‘Lone
Star’ that sits atop the tall monument at San Jacinto, the site of Santa Anna’s
unlikely defeat.
I like this one
because my grandfather—Jackson Robert McBride, Jr.—worked for the pattern shop
that designed the star and made it. When all the star skeleton’s fasteners on
top of the completed tower did not fit exactly, Granddaddy McBride was the guy
who climbed out on the scaffolding and the skeleton on top of the tower and
fixed the fasteners. The San Jacinto Monument tower is as tall as the
Washington Monument in DC. The star hasn’t fallen off after 82 years, surviving
who knows how many hurricane-force winds, so I guess Granddaddy did a good job
of it.
All this relates to
my new manuscript, A Different Dragon Entirely, by virtue of the 1840 setting for
this Texas adventure with a fantasy twist, and that three of the main
characters fought with General Sam Houston at San Jacinto—in my imagined world.
To everyone—Happy
Easter. Christ Has Risen! He Has Risen Indeed! Rejoice!
