San Jacinto

It's difficult to believe it has been almost three years since the birth of my first (and only) blood nephew.

It was around that time I decided to begin my first earnest participation in presidential politics. I felt that was the last chance to roll back the State before the Empire took its final grotesque form. And concordantly, though there were (and are) many directions from which the assault on our culture and sovereignty were coming, my biggest fear was the certainty of cataclysmic terrorism. You know the rest of the story.

I realized at the time I was probably deluding myself, but I didn’t let myself believe it, and I didn’t want to say I hadn’t been there for a noble lost cause.

A lot has happened since then that might take the wind out of the sails of an enemy of the State. The 2000 presidential election process could not have been more pointless and puerile – surely it would have shocked the most cynical political analysts, had there been any.

But something Lew Rockwell wrote in his recent column, "Dawn Will Follow This Darkness," I found particularly optimistic:

Our tradition of thought is deeply rooted in European and American history. It flourishes today among students, faculty, and professionals all over the world. Those who seek to stamp it out through intimidation are no match for a body of thought that has withstood every crisis that has befallen it for centuries, survived and flourished, as new young minds join its cause.

I must admit, seeing my beautiful, healthy new nephew certainly inspires new hope, and reminds me how I felt just before he was to be born.

Three years ago, my brother, an expatriate Texan (who I suspect wants to return some day), became fixated upon the idea of his son being born “on Texas soil.”

I wasn’t going to disappoint him. And when I hung up the phone, I had an inspiration. I resolved to go to the San Jacinto battleground, and procure the soil from there.

So the next weekend I went to the battleground, and dug up some soil at the base of the marker where "General Sam Houston was wounded, his horse shot out from under him." Look, that's what the marker said – why would someone lie about a thing like that? (And don't anyone make any jokes about ole Sam being drunk and falling off his horse.)

I took the soil home, dried it in the oven, pulverized it, and put it in a plastic bag. Needless to say, I had far exceeded my brother's expectations – he was thrilled.

At the proper time, when no one was looking, he sneaked it under his wife's birthing mattress at the hospital. A Texan was born.

With the soil, I had enclosed a poem that I intended as a blessing for my nephew, with the hope that he will only find freedom and peace in this world.

Now when I see him, it's a little easier to remember: for every Alamo, there is a San Jacinto.