Remembering the Alamo

Allison sisters outside the Alamo. July 1956

“Daddy, where did you come from?” LA asks.

“Texas”, Lewis says,   “I was born in Texas.” 

“Ohhh Texas. Does that mean you are a Texan?”

“Yes, I guess so, why ?”

“Like Davy Crockett?

Linda asked these questions in the 1950s when Disneyland ruled Sunday night TV, when Fess Parker won the heart of little girls and every kid worth his salt wore a coon skin hat.  Davy Crockett died at Alamo. The Alamo was in Texas. We were Texans…. Finally, something cool.

 A few years later we visited the Alamo. I was just eight. Stella was four.  Our family had come to visit Dad's cousin Vera in San Antonio. It was July and it was hot as hell.  The Alamo was not what I thought. I was expecting a fort. Instead we entered a big churchy looking building with its main selling point was that it was dark and cool inside. It was empty except for other tourists milling around. …. The only link to Crockettness was the presence of coonskin hats on the other kids.  I am not sure what I expected…. Maybe Fess Parker. Or some battle action. Horses. I remember thinking…. Is this it?

This was perhaps my first encounter with the big gap between myth and reality. Myth is so much sexier. Years and a thousand disappointments later I know to remind myself of adman David Ogilvie’s wisdom “never confuse the thing, with the thing being advertised.” I didn’t know that when I was eight.

Every family has its myths. Every family has its mysteries.  The project that the Allison sisters have set out to do is to follow the threads that reveal to the lives of our ancestors. To shed light on some of the mysteries…. And to perhaps to clarify some of the myths.