The Meaning Of The Alamo     On one of the best afternoons of my life, I drove my five year-old son Ryan to Bracketville, Texas. I'd written the rough draft of a novel about the Alamo, and returned to San Antonio for my third research trip. Ryan expressed interest in seeing where John Wayne's movie had been filmed, so we drove west for a few hours to Happy Shahan's ranch, where Wayne built a full-size Alamo, circa 1836, using more than two million adobe bricks. Tourist season was over, and we had the place to ourselves. We spent the day climbing the walls. We "played Alamo."     The sky was nearly cloudless, deep and blue. We parked, and approached what was supposed to be the north wall. "We're going to climb that wall," I explained, "and go in just like the guy in my book did." My protagonist was a Mexican general. Manuel Fernandez Castrillón was an aid-de-camp to Santa Anna, the commander of the Mexican army. Castrillón was a wonderful character, competent and courageous. And sarcastic (I knew I could write his voice).     "The army had to cross this field, right into the cannon fire. One shot took out almost forty men." Ryan seemed a little too pleased. "I'm telling you this, because I want you to understand how brave it was to charge these walls."     Courage, I told him, is what happens when things go wrong. And plenty went wrong at the Alamo, for both sides. The Alamo garrison tried to arrange terms of surrender twice when the Mexican army first arrived, and probably tried again the night before the final assault. Santa Anna wouldn't offer terms, and Travis wouldn't surrender without them. For his part, Santa Anna devised a plan of attack that would maximize his own casualties. He had access to siege cannon that would have taken the walls of the Alamo down in a matter of hours. He refuse to wait for their arrival.     I wanted Ryan to understand that both sides had heroes. It had to be terrifying to race into the mouths of cannon. "Do you think they were afraid?" I asked.     "No, not much," he said. Then, "Maybe a little."     "A lot," I told him. "A man can't act bravely unless he's afraid. Being brave means doing what you're afraid of." Traditionally, if a third of an attacking force takes casualties, the attack will break. The Mexican soldiers that captured the Alamo took five to six hundred casualties out of an attacking force of eighteen hundred, and they were victorious.     The Alamo was a desperate battle, fought in the dark, covered in black-powder smoke. The screams and the flash and roar of ordnance must have been terrible. It was difficult to make my son understand, standing there under the wide, blue Texas sky.     A year or so later, on another great afternoon, my son tried his first jump off the high-dive at the neighborhood pool. Looking down, he realized how high up in the air he was. He came back down the ladder without jumping.     "Were you afraid?" I asked.     "No," he insisted. Then, "A little."     I wanted to be patient. "Everyone is afraid. Courage is when you do something that scares you."     He decided to try again. At the top, he froze for a second time, and turned to go back down the ladder again. He's just not ready, I thought. Then he surprised me (and the poor spotter down in the water, who assumed he wasn't going to jump). He whirled around, pitched out into space, then plummeted down into the pool, missing the spotter by inches.     I remember these two afternoons together, as if they were connected, not just by the presence of my son, but by a consistent theme. As if the death of hundreds of men in battle could be tied to a young boy on a diving board. Yet that is how the mind works. We string the moments of our lives together on the fragile threads of meaning, assigning special significance to events and places. * * * * *     I once made my family follow me through the Alamo chapel, to the displays in the gift shop, and through the Long Barrack's Museum. My wife paused before a display case to ask, "Is this Davy Crockett's rifle?"     Yes and no. The rifle had the attached inscription, "Presented by the young men of Philadelphia to the Honorable David Crockett." It was more of a show rifle (he called it "My Pretty Betsy") as opposed to his usual hunting rifle ("Old Betsy"), which was probably an old North Carolina Border Rifle. The show rifle was a gift. Crockett spent some time cultivating a chance at the Presidency (which is how he came to be so popular in Philadelphia). After his death, someone modified the rifle, cutting it down and fitting it with a cap and percussion firing mechanism. So yes, Crockett owned it, but no, it wasn't his usual rifle...     "Too much information," she said. Later, she asked, "What does all this mean to you?"     Meaning is a tricky business. We try to find "universal meanings." There are no such things. Sometimes, we share meanings. For many of us, our country's flag symbolizes the last, best hope for liberty. But we go too far when we try to pin down a single meaning in order to control something that frightens us, leaves us helpless, or simply strikes us as complex. News moderators gave us endless takes on the "meaning" of September eleventh. They didn't succeed. How could they? Meaning is personal. Meaning depends on what a person brings to the table in terms of experience and knowledge.     Let me use the Alamo as an example. The mission was established in 1718. Named the Mission San Antonio de Valero in honor of the Marquis of Valero, the viceroy of Mexico, Indians from several tribes lived peacefully in the mission, probably because of the threat of Apache Indians. That threat ended in 1749, when the Apaches celebrated peaceful coexistence with the mission priests by burying a horse alive in the plaza of San Fernando. They had good reason to end hostilities. Comanches, even more fearsome on horseback than the Apache, had come down from the mountains of Colorado. Clashes with Comanches, coupled with epidemics that depleted the mission Indians, left the Mission Valero with fifty or so inhabitants by 1793. The Spanish government turned the mission into a presidio, ending the mission period.     The mission priests might have looked with pride on nearly a century of bringing the Word of Christ to more than a thousand baptized Indians. The town of Bexar was certainly a success, the first large settlement in Texas. Yet the mission period ended badly. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Royalist Mexico faced new threats. Americans were expanding west, into the Louisiana territories. And from within came the threat of class warfare. The sight of the unfinished stone church must have served as a reminder of the decline of the once-great Spanish Empire.     For the Indians, the sight of the same stone church might have been a symbol of Colonial rule, and the end to tribal autonomy. Or perhaps the church just meant home.     To Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, the Alamo must have been an embarrassing thorn. His brother-in-law, General Martin Perfecto de Cós, surrendered an army of a thousand men to three hundred Texans in the first battle of the Alamo in 1835. The Mexican Army was allowed to return home after promising to never again take up arms against Texas. The Alamo was the symbol of foreign intrusion and the interference of pirates.     To the Texans who formed an independent republic, sons and daughters of the American Revolution, the Alamo was the western Thermopylae.     To the Mexican Army, the Alamo was the sight of a costly, glorious victory. Sergeant Navarro proposed a monument with the following inscription1:         The bodies which here lie, they live with souls that to the heavens rise         to gain the glory that they won.         The human tribute here they paid,         To the wages of death they did not fear         for death, for the Country received         more than death. It is a step to a better life.     In 1861, white supremacists, helped by a disaffected Southern officer named David Twiggs, took the Alamo and its supplies from the Union army two months before guns were fired at Fort Sumter. It was not the only time the old church would be brushed with the stink of racism (How many misguided souls have interpreted the 1836 battle as a demonstration of Anglo superiority?).     After the Civil War, the Catholic Church began selling the old mission grounds. The long barracks were rebuilt as a grocery store. The south gate was sold to the city and torn down.     Adina Emilia De Zavala (granddaughter of Lorenzo de Zavala, the first Vice-President of Texas) and Clara Driscoll, a wealthy Texas socialite, joined forces to stop the purchase of the Alamo by an eastern syndicate that wanted the land. In 1905, the state reimbursed Ms. Driscoll's money, and gave custody of the Alamo to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, a group of women who could trace their lineage back to the original Texas settlers. Though Ms. Zavala and Ms. Driscoll were both members, they differed on the future of the site. When the Hugo & Schmelzer building was torn down, the original convent walls were discovered, intact. Ms. Zavala realized the significance of the building. She envisioned a museum, commemorating the history of the site. Ms. Driscoll argued for the primacy of the church, wanting to emphasize the spiritual aspect of the site. Her plan called for tearing down the second floor of the convent to provide a better view of the "shrine." Ms. Zavala tried to win sympathy for her plans by barricading herself in the convent, but to no avail. Ms. Driscoll won the legal tug-of-war, and Ms. Zavala was barred in court from any further connection to the Alamo. Another "battle" had been fought, this time for meaning.     Pop culture attempts to characterize the events of the battle reflected their times. Disney's "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" (1955) featured Fess Parker as the hero, mild and decent to the point of naivety. John Wayne's "The Alamo" (1960) was a consciously patriotic effort2, laced with the contradictions of the sixties.     The post-Watergate generation raced to recast the trinity of Alamo heroes, informed by post-modern cynicism. William Travis was a "deadbeat dad." Bowie was a slave-trader. Crockett was a coward who surrendered and was executed.     In the last decade, dozens of groups have borrowed (or coopted) accumulated symbolism to promote their viewpoint. Native American groups wanted to emphasize the Indian burial grounds under the plaza. Felix Almaraz Jr. (author of the wonderful "Tragic Cavalier") argued for emphasizing the Alamo's mission years. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas came under attack for everything from commercialism to historical inaccuracy3.     The League of United Latin American Citizens lobbied for custody of the Alamo, arguing that the role of the Tejanos had been ignored, and that the Mexican Army had been depicted as oppressors. How does one sort through the meanings of such a demand? The role of the Tejanos was limited, but it was limited, in part, because of the racist attitudes of the defenders4. The Mexican Army has been depicted as the oppressor, but wasn't the Alamo put under siege? Weren't the defenders killed? Pop imagery hasn't been monolithic in its treatment of the Mexicans— McArdle's painting, "Dawn at the Alamo" depicts grinning bandits, but John Wayne's "The Alamo" depicts what Don Graham5 called marching "choir boys." Where is the middle ground that can celebrate the eventual triumph of Democracy without teaching Latino children that they "murdered Davy Crockett?" * * * * *     As I said, meaning is personal. And I have meanings of my own to add. We are complex, ambivalent creatures. The cynic inside me sees photos of a hundred elementary-school children in coonskin caps at the Alamo, and for a moment, I find myself cheering Ozzy Ozbourne6. Yet I bristle at the notion that Davy Crockett was cowardly.     I spent the first part of my life having a family, working, drinking, playing music, and postponing the hard work of writing. At the age of forty, I found myself in dire financial straits, and I began to rethink myself. My first trip to San Antonio was a revelation. I sat inside the DRT Library, browsing research materials, and I thought, "This could have been my life. I could have been a writer." I resolved to do what I perceived as my life's work. I left my job and went back to school to learn my craft. The Alamo became a symbol of that decision.     I chose the Alamo as a subject because of an interest in the battle that dated back to my first encounter with Disney's Crockett movie. Astoundingly, it wasn't until the last few years that I noticed how much Fess Parker looked like my father, also a mild, decent hero. (No wonder the idea of Crockett's surrender offends me!)     In the process of starting my book, I read what other novelists had done with the subject, not wanting to trace other's steps. I saw a huge hole in the narrative. No one had done the story from the exclusive point-of-view of the Mexican Army. The idea of filling that hole had great appeal to me. I hate racism and exclusion. Perhaps the middle ground I'd hoped for could be carved out in a book. My novel, "The Breach," is the result of my efforts.     And then there's that afternoon I spent with my son. After our day in Bracketville, we returned to San Antonio to get another look at the Alamo, the real one. We sat in the courtyard, the site of the old corral, next to an ancient tree whose trunk crawls over the grounds, wrapping up the well like a mother's arms. The noise of traffic, nearest to the north, didn't seem to penetrate the sweet, quiet air of the courtyard.     My son was tired. I said, "This is peaceful." Ryan agreed, and asked to rest a while longer. I was content. It doesn't happen often.     For anyone who might wonder, as did my lovely wife, what the Alamo means to me, there is my answer, complete with the various twists and turns one should expect from any attempt to trace meanings. It may seem odd that I equate the sight of the old church with lost chances, redemption, fathers and sons, and a brief moment of peace, but that is how we find our answers. We bumble. We meander. And we remember.   1. The poem comes from "The Memoirs of Captain Navarro," translated by C.D. Huneycutt. Available from Gold Star Press. 2. The movie is ham-handedly respectful of race and gender, yet the narrative stepped outside of historical accuracy to exclude Tejano characters, both defenders and female non-combatants. Designed to celebrate Democracy and Capitalism, the movie steps outside of the traditional myth to dismiss the quintessential Democratic moment, "crossing the line," emphasizing a collectivist version of a "call to service." 3. The DRT had publicly rejected turning the Alamo into a tourist trap, yet the museum was basically a gift-shop with displays. No matter to the critics that the DRT did not ask for state funding, and preserved the grounds partly through gift-shop sales. 4. Travis advocated declaring the Tejanos of Bexar as "public enemies" for their lukewarm response to his command. Fannin warned that Texas "must not rely on Mexicans." 5. Graham, Don. "Remembering the Alamo: The Story of the Texas Revolution in Popular Culture." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 89.1 (1985). 6. In 1982, the heavy-metal musician urinated on the cenotaph.