S.A. Founders Day: tomorrow/mañana

Yesterday evening, as on many Thursday evenings, I found myself at the closing portions of the weekly San Antonio City Council meeting. I was there specifically to hand over some information to a Council Member, Elena Guajardo, who like me has been involved in Kairos Prison Ministry, and who had offered to assist me with the very first Kairos Weekend to be held in the Dolph Briscoe Unit outside Dilley at the beginning of December. After giving her the info she needed, I stayed around for the ceremonial recognitions-proclamations and the Citizens to Be Heard.

There were several recognitions last evening. The most notable proclamation was to a group of folk in a variety of historic costumes, about two dozen (maybe three), who represented that which will transpire on Saturday at the location of the founding of permanent settlement for San Antonio. The location will be San Pedro Springs Park and McCreless Auditorium across San Pedro Avenue, on the San Antonio College campus. The event is San Antonio Founders Day.

Founders Day is a fairly new celebration for this city whose middle name is "Party". But it's long overdue for a celebration of this type! It recognizes not only the Franciscan missionaries and accompanying Spanish troops, their families and other settlers from interior Mexico who established Misión San Antonio de Valero on 1 May A.D. 1718 and Presidio y Villa de San Antonio de Béxar four days later. It also recognizes the Canary Island settlers who arrived in March of 1731 and founded San Fernando de Béxar between the mission and the fort (presidio), both of which by that year had been moved from the vicinity of San Pedro Springs to the current sites of Alamo Plaza and Plaza de Armas (Military Plaza, or City Hall), respectively. And furthermore, Founders Day recognizes the other some 20 ethnic groups who have had a strong hand in making San Antonio what she is today: the eighth largest city in these United States, one of what are called the "four unique cities" thereof, and a city of remarkable cultural diversity amid civic unity!

Oh, and also THE city whose middle name is "Party"! (See my posting of 23 August for further comment.)

As you may guess, I attended this celebration of those who made San Antonio what she is, last October. And I'm eager to be there again tomorrow. A childrens choir and a childrens orchestra will entertain in McCreless Auditorium, after which everyone will go in procession across San Pedro Avenue to the park where there will be exhibits and mor entertainment. San Pedro Springs Park, BTW, in addition to being where the city truly began as a permanent settlement (the Coahuiltecan tribes previously had a movable encampment, or ranchería, called Yanaguana), this picturesque and historic public space is the SECOND-OLDEST such public space, or park, in the USA, after Boston Common!