A recent LinkedIn post and the recent 186th anniversary of the battle brought The Alamo to mind. I love to find great lessons woven into locations we can actually feel and touch.
Growing up in the Oklahoma Panhandle, the Alamo was a special place. Our small town was several hundred miles away to the north and west. I’d never seen the Alamo, but that wasn’t a problem because our small, downtown movie theater with the power of cinema, brought it to us.
All of us imaginative young boys were right there. In reality sitting in the lightly cushioned, faded, foldup seats of the old, popcorn-smelling movie theater. But figuratively, we were dying with Davy Crockett, Col. Bowie, and the other 187 Patriots in that dusty fort we came to know as the Alamo. It was sometime later we learned it was not a fort, but in reality a mission with its main building being a church.
Legend has it that in the last days of the thirteen-day battle, the mission was surrounded by Mexican troops and defeat was certain. Col. Travis had been told by the enemy commander to surrender or else his entire force would be killed. Knowing this, he gathered his men, took out his sword, and drew the famous line in the sand. He asked his men to choose their fate: surrender and leave the Alamo, or cross the line and join him in defending the compound to the death, no turning back. According to legend, all but one of the defenders joined Travis, on the other side of the line in the sand…and died later that day.
I can still hear theme music playing as Col Travis drew that line and one by one, each member of the surrounded and beleaguered mission’s defenders stepped across the line to certain death, but with their honor intact.
When we saw the movie at our old downtown theater, we couldn’t wait to get home, grab our cap pistols and defend our own Alamo, (Mom’s chicken house) against Santa Anna and his army.
Consequently, The Alamo, had always been an exotic place in my mind. Imagine my surprise as a businessman on my first trip to San Antonio to attend the ENTELEC conference many years ago. to find the Alamo just down the street from the Marriott.
It was later I began to see the lessons, lessons on freedom, liberty, sacrifice, difficulty, making do with what you have, the importance of character and principle.
On a subsequent trip, I learned an Irish immigrant, Lt. Edward McCafferty, had traveled to the Alamo with Col. Bowie and died with him there. Lt. McCafferty’s name is engraved on the monument out front along with Cols Travis and Bowie, Davy Crockett, and the others. I’m certain Lt. McCafferty is a distant cousin of my Scottish wife whose mother was also a McCafferty. My wife, however, is not so sure.