I was working on trying to tie this into one of my horoscopes but the idea kept bothering me, at the back of my brian.
It’s about a sense of place. A sense of where someone feels like he or she belongs. I have a list of livable — by my definition — cities in the world. Places where climate, population, arts, culture, access to fishing, indoors, outdoors, where everything comes together.
Recall, this is livable by my definition.
In that original list, San Antonio never figured in. One of my fishing buddies, a Virgo, rated San Antonio quite high. I didn’t get it.
Ft. Worth is OK but the winters are a bit harsh. Corpus Christi certainly works, airport, fishing, but the hurricane thing, still, not a deal breaker. Of course I love El Paso, and as a frequent guest, I can claim it as an alternate. Austin is perfect, and there’s not much else on my list.
San Antonio has had, according to a historical marker, 9 governments. Spain, provisional Mexican, Cohuila y Tejas, Mexican Monarchy, Republic of Texas, United States, Confederate States, United States.
That’s with no resources, just off the top of my head and not peeking. There is, I think a French one missing as well as one or more provisional Spanish/Mexican government entities.
Marker said nine different governments and that doesn’t cover the Clovis artifacts that would date back 10,000 years — or more with recent scholarship and new findings.
The place, the people, the land itself, it keeps on giving life. San Antonio is situated on the Southeast flank of the Edwards Aquifer, and part of the history includes immigrants locating here for the water.
Lone Star and Pearl Beer, both chose locations originally adjacent to downtown, for the water source. Neither beer is brewed here any longer, but that was mainstay of the economy at one time.
Having lived throughout the Southwest, and located in mobile, metropolitan conurbations from time to time, I’m used to the idea that a city is fluid and dynamic, along with the populations.
Which is what makes areas, places and people of San Antonio so much the stranger, at times.
Imagine being born, raised, and living and pursuing a career and never leaving the immediate environment. Yet I’ll encounter that in San Antonio, “Puro San Antonio.” Say it with pride. Born, raised, educated, worked, lived, and never really ventured further than a two or three square miles.
South Side, East Side, West Side, neighborhoods get broken down into further geographic and political lines, frequently tied to a school district.
It’s more odd to me, having traipsed around the globe a time or two, the completely provincial sentiment.
However, as I was wandering one afternoon, as I am wont to do, I kept thinking about that number, 9, as in nine different governments, and yet the land — and people — remain the same.
It’s a place and a pace, more so than most of my destinations, that is defined by a sense of place. Rather than the transitory nature of place like Austin, San Antonio de Bexar, it’s not going anywhere. The native, the people and the land, has been defined as who they are, long before any of the current governments showed up.
What was important was how the sense of place played into this definition.
