Fiesta and The Alamo
Every year the city of San Antonio has a massive party known as Fiesta. If you aren’t aware of it, think Mardi Gras done Mexico style. Lots of food, music and fun. If you are a policeman in San Antonio during one of these you are expected to work amongst all the frivolity to keep people safe. Needless to say I have worked several Fiestas and have had enough beer poured on me to last a lifetime. If you grow up there, as I did, after a few years you stay as far from the downtown area as you can at this time of year.
One of the big tourist draws is of course the Alamo. It is right downtown and the city grew up around it. One of the first things that most people say when they see it in person is that it is much smaller than they thought it would be. Movies and big screens have made the old mission and the legends so much bigger than real life.
Up until a few years ago the Alamo was run by a nice group of ladies known as the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DAR). They took the care of the Alamo very seriously. If you don’t believe me, Google for when Ozzy Osbourne relieved himself on one of the Alamo walls one night after a concert. That event itself is just one of the Alamo legends.
Before I tell you the rest of this story I should let you know about when John Wayne decided he was going to make an epic movie about the Alamo. He asked if he could film in the actual mission. The DAR ladies were absolutely against it and it didn’t matter that the Duke himself was asking. So what did he do? So glad you asked. He built a full scale replica of the Alamo south of San Antonio in Bracketville, Texas. For many years the movie set was open to tourists as well. I heard that the cost to keep it up was too much and they shut the site down some years ago.
OK, so now you know about that version of the Alamo. When I would work the Fiesta inevitably I would be standing in front of the Alamo at some point and a tourist would walk up to me and it would go something like this…
Tourist: Excuse me officer, could you tell me where the Alamo is?
Note that at this point it is literally right behind me. Like I said people were looking for something much bigger.
Me: Well, we have this version of it right here. But you would have to go to Bracketville to see the real one. This one is pretty good and worth the look.
Tourist: Oh thank you.
And with smiles on their faces they would wander in for a look. Then, moments later, one of the DAR ladies would come storming out of the Alamo and shake a finger at me warning me to stop telling tourists fibs. All I could do is laugh and promise not to do it again. Till the next time such an opportunity came up. As my wife likes to say about those days, “Bad Jim, No Doughnut!”
And, by the way, the old stereotype about cops and doughnuts? Not true in south Texas. We all love tacos.