New Year Connections

New year, new beginnings. After being off from work for two weeks its back to work today....not that I'm complaining....with daily news of layoffs and shutdowns, it's good to be employed! But it was good to be away from the daily grind. Nothing like some down time, especially during the holidays, to reconnect with family and friends and recharge your spirit.

Speaking of the spirit, we went to church this Sunday. Thought it might be a good idea to start the new year by connecting with the Good Lord. It was also good to reconnect with the two people who are the soul and most likely the the heart of this particular congregation....the preacher and his wife, Gordon and Jeannene. Actually, both of these folks are preachers...... Baptist preachers as a matter of fact. Gordon is the preacher in charge while Jeannene served as a hospital chaplain for several years until she decided that home was where she needed to be. I worked with Jeannene for about a year and I always enjoyed our conversations about religion, hospital work and how tough it is to work in health care. She also encouraged me to start writing a blog.....it took a awhile but the seed she planted finally took root. When we moved into our "new" old house, Jeannene did our house blessing. As is often the case, we didn't keep in contact with each other as our busy lives consumed our time. It was good to reconnect with these folks after not seeing each other for awhile....besides, it doesn't hurt to know a Baptist preacher or two.

The point of this ramble: take the time to connect or better yet to reconnect with something or someone that stirs your spirit.

End of Year Ramblings

Some of End of Year Ramblings to Close Out 2008:

Had breakfast at Tommy Moore's place this morning. Tommy's is on the Eastside near downtown. Nice place, good food and excellent service. Because of our work schedules it's a little tough for us to visit Tommy's Cafe and Deli on a regular basis. But each time we go there Tommy and his staff always treat us like royalty. Tommy seems to remember who you are even if you haven't been in for awhile. Great customer service but even more important, you feel like friends every time you walk into Tommy's place. That's nice.

One whole year of living in this old house. One year of living in Dignowity Hill. Looking back, the blessings out number the negatives. Saving and restoring our old house has made us realize that community matters. Because of this old house we've made new friends, strengthen old friendships and hopefully brighten our little corner of the world.

Dignowity Hill Watch List for 2009: Ft. Sam Houston and the BRAC impact on our neighborhood, the newly ordained Arts and Entertainment District, city elections and new council person for our district....all of these have great potential or they could be a great bust!

Dignowity Hill Wish List for 2009: better lighting for our streets, repave our streets, a stronger sense of pride in our neighborhood, less trash in yards and streets, stronger code compliance, improve our bike lanes, slow down the traffic on Pine St, get the Hays St bridge project going!

One last thing, someone once wrote that "change is the law of life".....well, 2008 certainly brought many changes not always good ones but change none the less. I think that 2009 will bring even more change to Dignowity Hill and our surrounding neighborhoods. Change by itself is a given. The real challenge is to move from change to renewal and transformation.

Happy 2009!!

Hope on the Hill

Man, where has 2008 gone! Is it me or is time really accelerating! I have to say that 2008 has been a tough one for many of us. With the economy tanking out, folks losing their jobs, our leaders (read: politicians!) letting us down....it's no wonder there seems to be a general gloominess about the future. But I feel hopeful. I know, I know....I may be going against the grain with this but I really do feel hopeful. We have a new president, the Bush era is finally ending and expectations are running high that things will get better....I have to believe that things will get better. But it won't be easy.....nothing worth fighting for making life better is ever easy. There an old Mexican "dicho" (saying) that goes like this: " La lucha es vida" (The struggle is life). How true is that! Its hard work making things better! Hope and struggle go hand in hand. It happens everyday and sometimes so close and in front of us that we can easily miss the good the comes from hard work, a little vision and hope.

Across the street from our house, on a little strip of property that belongs to the elementary school, is a little garden area. I see it everyday from my back porch. When we first moved into the neighborhood, the little plots of what once were apparently thriving gardens were neglected and overgrown with weeds and grass. Sometime last spring as the school year was winding down I approached the Principal with the idea of letting me work the gardens over the summer. She was gracious and agreed but because of my work schedule it was little tough to get to the gardens and work in them. So the summer past and it looked like the gardens were to be neglected for another year. Then one day shortly after the school year began my wife and I noticed someone working the gardens plots. It turns out that the Principal had contacted a local community volunteer group to work the gardens and was able to secure some grant funding to offset the cost of restoring the gardens. WOW! Since then the gardens have come back to life. It amazing what a little elbow grease, compost and manure can do to renew tired soil! So here we are, almost the end of December and winter veggies and flowers are growing and thriving in soil that was terribly neglected for who knows how long. The school kids love it and so do I!

So am I hopeful? Will 2009 be a good year? Yes....if this little bitty garden can make a comeback with a little bit of hard work, a little vision and hope....then think of what we can do together as neighbors and friends to transform our neighborhood!

Short Takes

It's been awhile since I posted anything....been a little busy. Some short takes from the Hill:

The other day I came across a web site called walkscore.com, it ranks the 40 walkable cities in the USA and calculates the walkability of an address or neighborhood or city by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking. Not sure how old this data is but San Antonio ranked 32 out 40. We were right behind El Paso of all places! Austin, Houston and Dallas all ranked ahead of SA in walkability. On the web site you can drill down to specific neighborhoods in a city. The downtown area of SA had the highest walkability score at 94 out of 100 and was ranked # 1 out of 197 SA neighborhoods scored......no surprise there. Dignowity Hill came in at #14 out of 197 with a score of 65....not bad....which makes Dignowity Hill one of SA's most walkable neighborhoods in a city that is very car dependent. Time to put on your walking shoes!

Speaking of downtown, if you haven't had a chance, I highly recommend taking a walk, drive or bike ride up or down E. Commerce Street between the old cemeteries and Sunset Station. The city did a nice job of sprucing up the street with new lighting, cobble stone intersections and some nice artful benches. If you come down from the east you get a great view of SA's skyline.

The presidential election is shaping up to be one of the most interesting and entertaining if not historic in quite a long time. I'm not affiliated with any political party...yes, I'm fiercely independent.....but I must say that a new national direction is sorely needed. Is that Russia I see across the street?

Locally, term limits are a big issue. Read an article in the paper recently proposing that extending terms for our council reps would result in better government.....seems to me that good leadership would result in better government.

The state of the economy is THE topic lately with Wall Street having a meltdown, Congress members and the President bickering, and credit drying up. What a mess! Guess I'll be working past 65!

Meanwhile, Dignowity Hill continues to revitalize and life goes on in spite of what the gloom and doom headlines are telling us. The ice cream van still passes by our house every day, the old house across the street from us is being restored back to life, and the old pharmacy building on the corner of Nolan and Pine is getting a face lift. Most importantly, neighbors and folks just passing through the neighborhood wave hello or stop to chat when I'm in out working in the gardens. That's nice.

Graveyards and History

The other morning I went for a walk among the dead. Within walking distance from our house is a complex of cemeteries that date back to the 1850's. The cemetaries are on the National Register of Historic Places and cover over 100 acres on the city’s near Eastside. In the early 1850's San Antonio was running out of burial space and needed to find land to bury folks. In 1852 the city designated a plot of land known as Powder House Hill as a city cemetery. This land was a part of San Antonio’s original town tract granted to the municipality in the 18th century by the King of Spain and was named for the ruins of buildings apparently used as weapon and gunpowder storage by the Spanish. The land overlooks the city on some relatively high ground, which provides some great views of downtown San Antonio and I suppose makes one closer to the heavens if you're buried up here. Over time, plots of land were sold to families, fraternal groups, ethnic groups and religious organizations for burials.

Cemeteries fascinate me, not in a morbid way but because of the rich history that is in them. It's amazing what you can learn from these old graveyards. For instance, there is a National Cemetery for veterans of frontier campaigns, Indian war battles and WWI. It includes the remains of 300 Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers were African-American soldiers that served during the Indian war campaigns of the 1870's and 1880's. There is a memorial dedicated to these soldiers else where in the cemetery complex.

There's even a Confederate soldiers cemetery, which I found a little ironic given that it's not far from the National Cemetery. What was even more surprising was the Confederate flag flying over the burial plots.

How about some Texas history. Clara Driscoll is buried here among the ancient oaks trees that dot the landscape. She's known as the Savior of the Alamo for putting up several thousand dollars of her own money to rescue the Alamo convent from being sold back in the early 1900's. She rests in a family mausoleum in the old San Antonio Masonic Cemetery.

I found Dignowity Cemetery. It took me a while but I was able to locate Dr. Michael Dignowity's final resting place. Actually, just about all his relatives are buried in this small cemetery, which isn't very far from the good doctor's old homestead on Dignowity Hill and it comes with wonderful views of downtown.

If you take the time to explore around the cemeteries you'll find some interesting grave markers. The one's I like are the markers telling us that the person buried was a member of the Woodsmen of America. They're the ones that look like tree stumps.....yes, tree stumps. Other markers are, well, just interesting.

It's nice being able to walk or bike from our house in Dignowity Hill to these historic burial grounds. What's really great is that they are very close to the eastern edge of downtown. From Sunset Station or the Vidorra you can walk or bike or take a short bus ride up Commerce Street to these old cemeteries and take a walk through history.

Derby Day

The annual neighborhood gathering known as the Dignowity Hill Pushcart Derby took place the other day. Only in San Antonio and definitely only on The Eastside! Local artist and Dignowity Hill resident, Cruz Ortiz, came up with the idea of bringing together artists and other creative minds for a day at the races on Dignowity Hill Park. This was the fourth year that the Pushcart Derby has been held and it was bigger than last year's pachanga. In case you haven't attended this great race....well....it's not exactly NASCAR but more like PUSHCAR. You see, if you want to compete in this race you have to design and build your own "pushcart, which is powered by two team members pushing the cart down the course. Oh yeah, some one has to steer. Entries are also judge on artistic and creative appearance of the pushcart with engineering pretty much kept to a minimum. My favorite entry was the Mad Cows. Nice set of horns but not very aero dynamic!
Apparently, the the team that won this year's race has also won it for the past 3 years! Might have to check what's under the hood of that cart at next year's derby, which, by the way will be held in March.


Cruz likes to say that this kind of event is "art intervention" to save the neighborhood from hungry developers and drug dealers. I haven't run into any hungry developers but I have seen some of the drug activity and the prostitution that surrounds our neighborhood. I like the notion that art can play a part in saving communities or at least that art can make us aware that we all have a part in making a community safer, better, and good. It was nice to see more folks attend the derby this year because it means that walls are beginning to come down....it's OK to come to the Eastside...the people here are good. The derby also helps build a sense of pride and hope for the residents of Dignowity Hill and the Eastside. In spite of all the challenges, it can only get better! See you in March 2009!

An Old Bridge

There's an old bridge in our neighborhood. Looking down Hays Street from Dignowity Hill one can glimpse at the trusses of iron of the old Hays Street Bridge. If you're into bridge engineering and history, the bridge is actually two different iron truss bridges linked together, a “whipple” and a “phoenix” style trusses. Records of the Phoenix Bridge Company show that the Whipple truss dates from 1881 and was reconstructed from one or more salvaged spans over the Nueces River west of San Antonio. Sometime between 1908 and 1910 the bridge was moved and reconstructed as a viaduct over the railroad tracks to allow residents of the Eastside to cross over the railroad tracks safely into downtown San Antonio. As a kid growing up in San Antonio I remember riding across the old bridge in Pop's '55 Chevy station wagon. Time and neglect took their toll on the old bridge and in 1982 the bridge was permanently barricaded and closed to vehicular traffic. In 1983 the city came up with a plan to replace the structure with another bridge, fortunately for the bridge and us, the plan fell through. In the late 1990's Nettie Hinton, a long time Dignowity Hill resident, circulated a petition to help save the old Bridge from being dismantled. The Hays Street Bridge Restoration Group has worked diligently to help save the old bridge and find funding for the project.

Today the old bridge proudly stands ready for its next life as a restored link between downtown and the Eastside. In 2001 $2.89 million federal funds were committed to rehabilitate the bridge as part of a hike and bike trail and restore the bridge as a key link to our neighborhood and downtown. In late 2007 the city and Union Pacific reached an agreement allowing the city to take control of the historic bidge. Well, here we are July 2008 and the old bridge still sits waiting, waiting and waiting for restoration to begin. What's the hold up? I'm sure there are legitimate reasons why this project hasn't moved but come on.....lets get serious. With all the hotel and condo construction going on a few blocks south of the bridge as well as increased revitalization activity in the Dignowity Hill area, I think its time that this project show some visible life. So if anyone in charge of this project should read this posting please shoot me an email or post a comment it would be nice to hear from you. I really would like be able to walk or ride my bike across the restored old bridge in my lifetime.