Alamo Day

March 6 was Alamo day. I grew up just a few miles from the Alamo. I used to take the bus downtown with my brother on summer days and just walk around and buy raspas (sno-cones) in the shady park across from there. Most people are amazed at how small the remaining building is and they are mystified by how it held out for so long. I guess what most people don't understand is that it was a much bigger place and the Mexicans probably had qualms about attacking a fortified mission with no real escape route. It was more of a standoff and there was bravery on both sides, I guess.
What most non-Texans don't understand is that the Mexicans who lived here made the decision to rebel against their motherland because it had been taken over by a military dictator. I respect and honor Travis and Houston and all those other guys, but Juan Seguin was the driving force behind the rebellion. He was treated pretty shabbily by all those hillbillies who poured in later on, but most of us here still acknowledge his importance.
I know a lot of this seems dull, but to my mind it points out that revolutions and liberations always have to run the risk of being turned into oppression and swindles. I don't think the men who fought and died in the Texas revolution did it because they wanted us to become a slave state and they didn't sacrifice everything so that the U.S. could use us as a staging area to go into Mexico and take over. I think they did it because they wanted the most vital thing any free man wants and that is to be left alone to handle his own business. So much of that is dead and gone like the Commanche and open land, but I still run into little echoes of it here and there. Would it be so terrible to have some of that back again?