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October 26, 2000

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* The Alamo *

This "special place" picture comes from San Antonio, Texas, where I
have been on numerous occasions.

    There in downtown San Antonio are the ruins and relics of the Alamo.

    It was actually an 18th century Franciscan mission and the site of the
historic resistance effort by a small group of determined fighters for Texan
independence from Mexico in 1836.
    After a 12-day siege every fighting man (out of less than 200) perished
under the onslaught of 4,000 Mexican troops. Hmm, those numbers just don't
add up to me.
    Among the fallen were Col. William B. Travis, James Bowie, and Davy
Crockett.
    Boy, talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

    So we lost at the Alamo but secured our independence with the victory of
San Jacinto, which nobody seems to remember, but everybody is suppose to
remember the Alamo for some stupid reason.

        I say, "We lost, so tear the dumb thing down and put up some neat
shopping mall with cool stuff and movie theaters and restaurants and arcades
and things like that."
        (Just kidding, history is actually kind of cool now that I don't
have to learn it. Besides, they already have a pretty fancy mall right next to the Alamo.)