The date that the Alamo fell, March 6, 1836, has been burned in my mind since I was a small boy. And to tell you the truth, at our house it seemed to be March 6 very often. I was a bit obsessed with the famous battle, and I often constructed the mission out of blocks in my room. Around the age of eight, I also liked to run around in the coonskin cap my dad bought me on our vacation in San Antonio thinking I was Davy Crockett. Later on, when I was in high school, I even wrote lyrics for an Iron Maiden-style Alamo song, though (fortunately for us all) the song never made it beyond my desk drawer. So, yes, the Alamo played a fairly large role in my formative years.
In high school, my history teacher told us about being an extra in John Wayne's "The Alamo." He played a Mexican soldier, and he told us that extras who fell off of horses made more money than extras who didn't. I can't remember whether he fell off of a horse or not, though I don't think the difference in pay was enough to warrant flopping off of a running horse and crashing to the ground. My teacher also told us about the scene with the school bus in the background. I always liked my teacher's story, and clearly I always remember the Alamo.
Here is a short scene from the 1960 version of "The Alamo."
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