Just after I’d posted Sunday night about the giant penguins, I realized I really should have hit two other big anniversaries for this early October. Running on the theory of “better late than never” augmented by “better a little late than 6 months from now”:
-October 2 marked the 175 Anniversary of The Battle of Gonzales, the first battle of the Texas Revolution. Short version: The Anglo-Texian settlement at Gonzales, in the Green DeWitt colony, had a cannon. The Mexican government, fearing revolt (from Texas and multiple other Mexican states) came to take said cannon back. The Texians weren’t having any of that (because, Comanche = bad news and cannon = answer). First the settlers buried it to hide it, and then they dug it up and used it against the Mexican troops sent to retrieve it, while flying a flag with a picture of the cannon and the words “Come And Take It.” So just in case you think that the near-fanaticism over the right to bear arms is a new thing to the fabric of Texas, it’s not. And neither is being a little bit of a smart ass to one’s enemies. The Texans won, the battle, and eventually, the revolution that followed from it.
-October 3, 20th Anniversary of German Unification: A scant 4 years before Oct. 3, 1990, my Dad had been going through a map of the two Germany’s with me and trying to help my 6 year old brain understand the whole Iron Curtain thing, and painting a bleak picture of life on the other side, with particular focus on Germany. I asked Dad if maybe there was a chance that one of these days they might put Germany back together. His answer was, “No, I don’t think so. Not in my lifetime and probably not in yours.” It’s still one of the clearest memories I have before age 10. Just as clear was my memory of standing in front of the TV watching people rip up the wall about 3 years later and Dad simply looking at me and saying, “Cammy, I can’t believe it, but I was wrong”–both of us knowing exactly what moment he was talking about. But even the wall tumbling wasn’t the complete repair. That didn’t happen until 3 October of 1990 when, at the stroke of midnight, East Germany didn’t so much turn into a pumpkin as cease to exist.
With two events like this? I’m beginning to think early October is apparently a ripe time if you want massive political upheaval of one sort or another.
(It’s also a good time to drink beer).
