Tag: postcards

Biannual roundup of your blog-reading habits

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century-ago-18

Thanks for once again being so predictably unpredictable in your tastes. While postcards sent “from” and about San Antonio (“San Antonio Song” soundtrack) are still your favorites, you also seem to relish postcards sent “to” San Antonio from places we travel. Oh, and you like food from anywhere.

This list represents the most-read posts during 2016. The numbers in parentheses represent the rankings from six months ago:

  1. Don’t Let Battle Zealots Overrun the Crockett Block, 2016 (1)
  2. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (2)
  3. Postcards from San Antonio a Century Ago, 2016 (6)
  4. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (5)
  5. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Settling into La Biznaga, 2016 (12)
  6. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (4)
  7. Postcard from Parma, Italy: City’s cuisine living up to its namesake ingredients, 2016
  8. Postcard from Ferrara, Italy: First tastes of Emilia Romagna, 2016
  9. Postcard from Sintra, Portugal: Masonic mysteries surface at Quinta da Regaleira, 2014 (11)
  10. Postcard from Puebla, Mexico: Uriarte ensures talavera traditions endure, 2016
  11. Introducing Otto Koehler through a Prohibition politics caper of yesteryear, 2016
  12. Postcard from Guanajuato, Mexico: Wishing these dining spots were not 600 miles away, 2016

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

dscn3233

 

Biannual roundup of an ad-free blog

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alamoplaza2

This blogger has blogged so prolifically she has used up all the free space WordPress has to offer. This is good news for you because ads will no longer pop up at the bottom of posts, but it was bad news for me because I actually have to pay a small amount to engage in this form of therapy. I’m not complaining though, because I have never understood how WordPress can afford to offer this service at no charge. I’m grateful for enjoying a free ride for several years.

This list represents the most-read posts during the past 12 months, and interest in the Alamo and its plaza rose to the top once again. But thanks for continuing to give me the freedom to wander around the globe and send postcards back to San Antonio as well.

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

  1. Don’t Let Battle Zealots Overrun the Crockett Block, 2016
  2. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (1)
  3. Take pleasure in little unauthorized treasures along the River Walk before they vanish, 2015 (7)
  4. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (3)
  5. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (5)
  6. Postcards from San Antonio a Century Ago, 2016
  7. Playspace of Yanaguana Garden bursts into bloom October 2, 2015 (8)
  8. Postcard from Madrid, Spain: Flavorful food memories, 2015
  9. Postcard from Puebla, Mexico: An unlikely trio of favorite restaurants, 2015
  10. Reviving Dia de los Muertos, 2015
  11. Postcard from Sintra, Portugal: Masonic mysteries surface at Quinta da Regaleira, 2014
  12. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Settling into La Biznaga, 2016

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

mandarezpark

 

Postcards from San Antonio a Century Ago

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San Antonio is so different from Dallas, Houston, Austin…. Probably because those other major Texas cities were not even dots on the map before the fall of the Alamo. San Antonio just kicked off its planning for the city’s tricentennial events.

San Antonio was part of Mexico. It’s in her genes.

That is what drew me here from Virginia Beach, a city so far removed from Mexico that it did not even offer a taco for sale until I was 17. Well, that and the Mister.

I’ve been sitting on these postcards, widely available, for a long, long time for many reasons. They are controversial.

They illustrate how Mexican San Antonio was. Some of these snapshots can be viewed as showing our affection for that connection:

Mexican Chili Stands. For the sake of olden times the Mexicans are allowed to set up their tables and camp stones on the Plazas and serve their native dishes in the open air; such as Chili Con Carne, Tamales, Enchiladas, Chili Verde, Frijoles and Tortillas, etc. As day dawns and the lamps show dimmer, these queer hotel keepers put out their fires and folding their tables “silently steal away” until another night.

But, unfortunately, many of these postcards illustrate the prejudice that arose in us after the Texas Revolution:

Mexican mansions showing the primitive way of the peons, who are supposed to be the happiest people on earth.

Even Tejanos born and raised in San Antonio who supported the Texas Revolution found themselves viewed with condescension by newcomers flooding into the Republic of Texas, immigrants from the United States. Natives were regarded as foreigners.

Painful periods of prejudice should never be erased from our history books. Sometimes looking in the rearview mirror keeps you from veering off in the wrong direction. Some of today’s politicians need to do that because the rhetoric indicates a failure to learn from our past mistakes, a willingness to repeat them.

The historical connection of San Antonio and Mexico embedded in the city’s DNA is cherished and celebrated, particularly as we head toward our tricentennial commemorations. It’s a flavorful recipe unduplicated and a major ingredient in what makes San Antonio such a remarkable place to live.

(I’d incorporated some of these images in collages a while back: http://www.postcardssanantonio.com/tex-mex.html.)