A Texian Yankee Doodle ​

"Of San Jacinto let us sing...."

I generally dislike poetry but... Once in a blue moon, I run across a rhyme that makes me grin. After reviewing all the verse I could find about San Jacinto, parts of this poem lodged in my brain.    I've been humming Yankee Doodle Dandy for ninety minutes now - with vigor - so I've got that going for me. If the verse doesn't stick with you, the jaunty tune absolutely will. You're welcome!   Written at Velasco in December 1836 by a San Jacinto volunteer simply identified as "J. F.", it opens strong, with memorable opening lines: Now Houston, Fannin and Bowie enter the scene. Glancing references to the battle cries on the field at San Jacinto. Travis! More Fannin! King! Crockett!    The names of the slain are answered by Sherman, Millard, and Burleson who "rush'd to fight like rockets." Here's the well-placed reference to the Alamo we were missing before.  We have Lamar and Karnes on the field now. Cue the ringing steel of cavalry swords.   Pleased to see G. W. Hockley and the Twin Sisters referenced, the latter indirectly but with pleasing words, "certain aiming thunder." Rusk. Jefferson. Get it? I read it twice before I got it. I'm a little dense at times. Well played, anonymous poet! Well played!   Alas, the "keenest blade of San Jacinto," John Wharton does not make an appearance. Perhaps I ask too much from our anonymous Texian poet.  A barb at Santa Anna's opportunistic relationship with the Catholic Church in Mexico. Smart pivot, sir.  This is where I'd normally tell you how I figured out who the anonymous author is. But I didn't. I looked at the muster rolls and found several volunteers with those initials. I tried to reverse engineer it based on who he chose to include and who he left out, but that didn't help me lock in on any particular "J. F."    The anonymous poet writing about the Battle of San Jacinto at Christmas 1836 has beaten Michelle and her many archival resources 190 years later. I happily concede defeat.  As I searched for and read a trove of mostly dreadful but well-meaning poetry, I couldn't help but see a line of demarcation between a time when San Jacinto Day was celebrated and the time that it wasn't. It seems to have slowed after WWII, then stopped entirely.   The easier human existence became, the less we needed to reflect on harder times. The more comforts we had, the less we thought about the evolution of those comforts.   Who needs the past when we have this comfy present?   Public celebrations and get-togethers dwindled to a few newspaper articles, then nothing.   Surely that kind of thinking doesn't send a people in a good direction. I think if we look at the forced and flaccid San Jacinto Day posts we'll see today on social media and the absurd responses they receive, we'll see where that thinking got us.    I won't tell you what to think about today, but I will ask you to think today. Take a quiet moment to ponder the past. Put yourself on the battlefield, on either side. Your choice. Place yourself on a boat with your babies, fleeing but still close enough to hear the Twin Sisters roar. Put yourself in the shoes of Jimmy Curtis hollering about Wash Cottle or in the place of Santa Anna, making a run for a bridge that is no longer there to be crossed. Or imagine being a San Jacinto veteran trying to find anything that rhymes with "Texian" because you want to share what you saw.   Spend a moment of your day with the past in your mind and, no matter where you choose to go, know that we're here with our problems because they were there dealing with theirs.  Then go hum Yankee Doodle Dandy.  God & Texas, Michelle

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