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I
guess everyone knows that I'm originally from Texas,
and that even though it's been several years since I was last "home",
I am still a devoted and dedicated Texan. This shows up in a good
many ways, the most obvious is the fact that I'm a "history nut" who
enjoys reading and researching events, particularly historically related
ghosts and hauntings from my native state.
Texas is a very old place, by American
standards, having once been a Spanish colony, part of "New Spain",
and, therefore, settled long before the rest of the United States.
Aside from Saint Augustine, Florida, the cities of San
Antonio and Nacogdoches,
Texas are the oldest permanent cities in the United States.
The city of San Antonio,
in particular, has a number of buildings known to have spirit entities
present and to be the subject of active hauntings. One of them, by
far the most famous of the lot, is the Alamo.
Everyone who visits the Alamo,
especially native Texans,
has some kind of "experience". Most of the time, it's simply a sense
of awe, or an overpowering sense of the immensity of what took place
on the spot. In my own case, being a natural sensitive, it took a
slightly different tone. |
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The
Alamo
Photo courtesy Chia-Wei Wang, August 2006 |
In
the summer of 1990, I took my children, Erich, Megan and Heather to
see the Alamo and the
other sites in San Antonio.
I had waited until I thought that they were old enough to understand
the significance of the place, or at least the two oldest were. Erich
was eight years old at the time, Megan was six, and Heather had just
turned four. It was not the first trip to the Alamo, for me, by any
means, but, it was, as usual, an awe-inspiring experience. No one
who has ever heard the story of the Alamo, let alone seen any of the
movies made about it, can ever forget it.
At first, it looks a bit small, tiny, in fact, in comparison to the
modern skyscrapers
that surround it. That's because only two of the original structures
remain, and they are of Spanish Colonial construction, low and compact,
dwarfed by their present surroundings. Not so, a century and a half
ago, when the sprawling old mission dominated the area to the North
of what was then the city of San
Antonio. Much of what was once inside the walls of the Alamo
is now under pavement, or inside the walls of buildings which have
sprung up around it (many of which are said, by their inhabitants,
to be haunted by spirits from the famous battle), as San
Antonio spread to take in the area in which the Alamo is located.
One must remember that in 1836, the Alamo
was not actually "in" San
Antonio, at all, but rather, on the outskirts of the, then, sleepy
little town, over a mile from the center of the city, across the river,
past "La Villita" the nameless "little village" that bordered San
Antonio, in open country. |
I had a pretty
full schedule lined up for us, so we arrived at the Alamo
fairly early in the morning, wanting to see it first, then go on and
tour the other old Spanish missions and then go down the famous "River
Walk" and see the other historic sites in the old section of San
Antonio before going to the Tower of the Americas and the Texas
Folklife Center, and, of course the San Antonio Zoo and Busch Gardens.
In any case, the kids enjoyed the "tour", especially Erich and his
oldest sister, Megan, who seemed to be totally spellbound by everything
around her. She was completely silent for the entire hours that we
were in the Alamo, which is completely out of character for "Miss
Marching Through Georgia", who has never, to date, held still for
over five minutes in her entire life. Megan, at that age, could, in
fact, create more raw havoc in a totally empty room than a Viking
raid or Sherman's March to the Sea (where she got the nickname.) and
I should have suspected something when she showed so much interest
in something as "dull" as history. But Erich is my "sensitive". He
always has been, and still is. He is the one who seems to have inherited
my "talent". Up until that time, while not doubting it, Megan had
simply seen it as "interesting" and something that "daddy" and "brother"
had. and she didn't. Nothing to worry about or get upset over.
As we were leaving the Alamo,
Megan looked behind her and waved, then softly and very somberly said
"goodbye Jamie" (she pronounced it "Hymie" as in Spanish). which is
something that she had no way of knowing, at the time. I looked around
to see who she was waving to, thinking that she had met some new little
friend on the tour, and to my surprise, no one was in sight. When
I asked her who she was talking to, she said "Jamie". There he is,
right there. She pointed to a spot directly in front of the Alamo's
doors. No one was there. I told her that I didn't see anyone, that
he must have gone back inside. Then, she said, no. there he is, and
pointed. I still didn't see anyone. She then described him to me:
a Mexican boy, about fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing cotton
pants, a white cotton shirt, sandals and a tall black hat. She said
that he had stood beside her the whole time we were in the Alamo,
and told her about the battle. "He said that he was there. He said
that he's been here an awfully long time and can't go home. "He was
sad, but he was glad that he found me to talk to". |
Now, my daughter
does not have an imagination. If she says she saw something, she saw
it. Being a sensitive, myself, I had no doubt that she had seen the
Mexican boy, just as I had no doubt, from the way she said he was
dressed, that he had been a soldier in Santa Anna's army, and that
he had, most likely, died on that long ago March Sunday morning in
1836. I can't help but wonder how many other little children he has
befriended over the years, and if it helps him pass the long days
that must hang over him terribly. I have also often wondered, why,
someone so young, did not pass on. Is he somehow tied to the spot
where he died, so young? Is he somehow "lost" and trying to go home
to some long gone and forgotten village in Mexico?
That was the beginning of what turned into a substantial paranormal
interest in the Alamo,
on my part. For close to fifteen years, now, I have collected stories
of the paranormal associated with this particular place, and filed
them aside from my usual investigations. It seems that every six months,
or so, I come up with a new incident, or at least "new" to me.
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