Tag: alamo

Biannual Roundup Time

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san-antonio-song

As 2016 begins, you, once again, have given me an excuse to write about whatever strikes me. Your favorite posts on this blog during the past six months are as random as the thought process of the writer pecking at the keyboard.

I have to admit I love it that you continue to let the ghost of Helen Madarasz haunt Brackenridge Park, care enough about the future of Alamo Plaza to go back to old rants and are still looking for the cowgirl’s “San Antonio Song.” You care about art and artists of San Antonio, even when the art is tiny, and cherish San Antonio’s Fiesta traditions, even when raucous. And you tolerate family stories and postcards from our travels. All of these are therapeutic breaks for the blogger struggling to complete the story of the Coker Settlement.

The numbers in parentheses represent the rankings from six months ago:

  1. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (1)
  2. Artist Foundation unleashes another round of creative fervor, 2015 (2)
  3. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (8)
  4. Weather Forecast: 11 Days of Confetti Ahead, 2015 (10)
  5. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (7)
  6. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Favorites on the food front, 2015 (12)
  7. Take pleasure in little unauthorized treasures along the River Walk before they vanish, 2015
  8. Playspace of Yanaguana Garden bursts into bloom October 2, 2015
  9. Photographs from the 1800s place faces on the names in Zephaniah Conner’s Bible, 2014 (11)
  10. Cornyation strips down to bare kernels of comedy in current events, 2015
  11. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: More street art and signs of protests, 2015
  12. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Tattooed Museum Walls, 2015

Thanks for dropping by every once in a while. Love hearing your feedback.

Biannual round-up of what postcards you read most

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

cathedral6Every six months it’s good for me to check back to see what type of post you have been reading during the past 12 months. As usual, you are all over the map, leaving me free to continue selecting topics arbitrarily.

It makes sense that blog-readers love libraries; the most read post expressed concerns affecting funding of the San Antonio Public Library. The mystery surrounding the murder of Helen Madarasz in Brackenridge Park rose to second in popularity, and there are those who pine to hear the San Antonio Song. A few new posts pushed aside several long-time favorites, and, for some reason, you dug deep in the archives to resurrect a couple that had not been read for quite a while.

The number in parentheses represents the rankings from six months ago:

  1. The danger of playing hardball with our Library: Bookworms tend to vote, 2014
  2. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (7)
  3. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (5)
  4. The Tragic Rule of Maximilian and Carlota in Mexico, 2014 (10)
  5. Remembering everyday people: Our rural heritage merits attention, 2014
  6. Picturing the City’s Past Just Got Easier, 2014
  7. Seeing San Fernando Cathedral in a new light…, 2014
  8. Postcard from San Miguel de Allende: Sun rises again at La Aurora, 2014 (9)
  9. “Nuit of the Living Dead” (8), 2010
  10. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011
  11. That Crabby Old Colonel Cribby Condemned the River to Years of Lowlife, 2013
  12. Postcards from San Miguel de Allende: Redirecting Graffiti Artists, Part Four, 2014

Thanks for dropping by every once in a while and for giving me permission to keep rambling on about whatever I’m currently pondering.

And best wishes throughout the coming year.

Sam Maverick’s bell is still there. Melt more guns.

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stmarkstemp

Don’t know why I have been so worried. But every time I pedaled by St. Mark’s Episcopal Church while it was undergoing renovation, I fretted the bell would disappear when the scaffolding was removed. The bell and an old image of the church inspired me to make “Peace be with you” in 2005.

Hanging in an arch on Jefferson Street, the bell’s past was not peaceful. Legend says it saw service during the Battle of the Alamo. According to the church’s website:

The church bell was cast from a bronze cannon found buried near the Alamo on the grounds of the home of founding members Samuel and Mary A. Maverick.

Abe Levy writes in the San Antonio Express-News the completion of work on the sanctuary will be celebrated on February 3:

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church has had a storied past with the likes of Robert E. Lee among its flock, and Lyndon Johnson marrying Lady Bird inside its native limestone walls.

Among the city’s oldest Protestant churches, it is a downtown landmark with a rich history, especially for generations of Episcopalians.

After 15 years of studying plans and raising money for a campus-wide  restoration, St. Mark’s is celebrating its $15 million overhaul. Its most recent phase is a $2.6 million facelift of its sanctuary, originally completed in 1875….

Established in 1858, St. Mark’s is considered the flagship congregation of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, producing many bishops through the years and lending the most financial support to diocesan operations among the diocese’s 90 congregations in South Central Texas….

Led by architecture firm Ford, Powell & Carson, renovation work included repositioning the altar to face the congregation. Care was taken to use original colors in plastering and paint, said Father Mike  Chalk, rector.

“We took our history very seriously,” he said. “We went back to early pictures of the building, and as we did the restoration, we noticed some colors associated with the original colors of the building…. We’re really trying to  reclaim the beauty of the building.”

The entire project was aimed to enhance the original architecture by the celebrated Richard Upjohn, who designed Trinity Church on Wall Street. St. Mark’s is a rare example of Upjohn’s work west of  the Mississippi River and is believed to be his only design in San Antonio.

From my print:

They say Sam Maverick forged the bell for St. Mark’s from a cannon used during the Battle of the Alamo.

If only the concept proved contagious….

That bell means a lot to me.

As I pedal by, often with the melody of some ancient hymn echoing in my mind from the carillon at St. John’s Lutheran Church, I wonder how all those semiautomatic assault rifles would sound ringing in church towers throughout the country.

Certainly a lot better than the sound of parents crying.

Note: Apologies for such a low-resolution image. Many of my print images temporarily are trapped in my old computer. My website is also in transition and in somewhat of a state of decomposition, but “peace” is there, albeit in equally low resolution.