alamo heightsPublished Monthly by Neighborhood News, Inc.Published Monthly by Neighborhood News, Inc.Published Monthly by Neighborhood News, Inc.

alamo heights

ad ocateN E W S L E T T E R o f t h e A L A M O H E I G H T S N E I G H B O R H O O D A S S O C I AT I O N

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 vol.2, no.7

H SN E W S , A D V I C E , R E C I P E S a n d U P D A T E S f r o m y o u r F R I E N D S a n d N E I G H B O R S

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Build Community: Meet Your NeighborsBuild Community: Meet Your NeighborsOctober 5 in the eveningOctober 5 in the eveningOctober 5 in the evening

page 3October 5 in the evening

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Build Community: Meet Your NeighborsOctober 5 in the evening

Build Community: Meet Your Neighbors

What’s Your Home’s Heritage?page 4

but ne’er a drop to drink...”page 5

ocateN E I G H B O R H O O D A S S O C I AT I O NN E I G H B O R H O O D A S S O C I AT I O NN E I G H B O R H O O D A S S O C I AT I O N

ocate

2 www.myahna.com• alamo heights advocateAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010

M ission state M en tTo encourage and secure the preservation of

the distinctive and unique beauty of the Alamo Heights community by being an active force in the

planning processes and problem-solving efforts of the city while promoting community education and safety in a cooperative, progressive manner.

Name Age Phone Babysit Lawn Care

Petsit/Walk

House/Plant Care Other

Jai Boatman 17 241-6910 x x

Davis WilDer 15 860-2904 x x x

The Alamo Heights Teen Services Directory is a free service for teenage residents of Alamo Heights ages 13–19. Ages are updated automatically and names are removed at age 20. To add, remove, or update your information in the directory, please send an email to Jodie@NeighborhoodNews.com and include the following information: Subject: Alamo Heights Teen Services, First and Last Names, Age with Birthday MM/YY (birthday is for maintenance only and will not be published), Services (babysitting/lawn care/pet walking & sitting/house & plant care), Phone #, Other Services or Information (optional). Directory updates cannot be taken over the phone.

Classified ad information: Classified ads are a free ser-vice for the residents of alamo Heights. ads are for goods only (no services). You may place, edit, or remove an ad by emailing Jodie@neighborhoodnews.com. You must put “alamo Heights resident - Classified” in the subject line of your email. Restrictions: one ad per resident. ads will run for one month. ads may be edited for length or clarity. The deadline to submit an ad for the next issue is sept. 31.

Commercial ad information: This newsletter is pub-lished and printed courtesy of the advertisers within. Please support them whenever possible and let them know you saw it in The ADVOCATE. For commercial advertising rates, sizes, and availability, contact neighborhood news. sales@neighborhoodnews.com

www.neighborhoodnews.com(210) 558-3160

Articles that appear in The ADVOCATE do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Alamo Heights Neighborhood Association, Inc. and/or Neighborhood News, Inc. and their publication does not constitute an endorsement thereof. The appearance of any advertisement in The ADVOCATE does not constitute an endorsement by Neighborhood News, Inc and/or Alamo Heights Neighborhood Association, Inc. of the goods or services advertised. Neighborhood News, Inc. is not responsible for errors beyond the cost of the actual ad space. Any publication of Neighborhood News, Inc., whether draft or final is the sole property of Neighborhood News, Inc. and cannot be reproduced or distributed in any way, whether in print or electronically, without the express written consent of Neighborhood News, Inc. © Neighborhood News, Inc.

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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010www.myahna.com 3alamo heights advocate •

The “27th annual national night out” (nno), a unique crime prevention event sponsored by the national association of town Watch (natW), is scheduled for Tuesday, October 5, 2010 throughout texas. over 36 million people participated in the 2009 national night out campaign worldwide.

invite your neighbors to join together for block parties, cookouts, or potluck picnics. organize flashlight walks. meet and greet! strengthen community spirit and police-citizen partnerships: the aH neighborhood association encourages participation in future 2011 alamo Heights Police/ems/Fire Dept. programs for citizens (a special story is scheduled for our november 2010 Advocate issue).

share information with your neighbors about “block watches” to support anti-crime programs. make sure everyone has the alamo Heights Police Department’s non-emergency number (822.3321) for reporting any concerns. learn about aHisD programs (main number 824.2483) that promote drug prevention awareness. Know your child’s principal and school phone numbers: aH High school, 820.8850; aH Junior school, 824.3231; Cambridge, 822.3611; Howard, 832.5900; and Woodridge, 826.8021. an organized neighborhood is a safe neighborhood.

J o H n J o s e P HPresident

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT national night out is the perfect opportunity for you to show your love of our wonderful “city of beauty and charm” – let’s celebrate alamo Heights together! Join with your friends as a community on tuesday evening, October 5. enlist your neighbors’ help to meet in someone’s home or yard and talk. Choose a convenient time that evening, before or after dinner. make some lemonade or bake some cookies and visit. if you don’t know all your neighbors, knock on their doors, introduce yourself, and ask them to attend. ask them to contact others; ask for their ideas for activities. share names, numbers and emails or any other information or concerns among yourselves. afterwards, please email me (aHnaadvocate@gmail.com) high resolution photos or a brief description of what your block did, for publication in the november ADVOCATE.

MEETING NEWS Fernando Centeno, who wrote last issue’s op-ed piece, will be aHna’s special guest at our members-only Brown Bag (BYo) lunch Tuesday, October 5, noon to 1:15 PM in the Community room (upstairs) at Central market. He’ll lead a meaningful, lively discussion on where aH is headed. i urge aHna members to attend this free meeting. Join us for this important discussion. The energetic CEO of VIA Metropolitan Transit, Keith Parker, will speak at aHna’s sunday, october 24 General membership meeting at 4:00 Pm at Central market on the future of transportation in san antonio. He is a real visionary. Don’t miss it! our republican members will especially want to watch for an announcement about a really big guest speaker (or two!) in December/January.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST if you’re not already an aHna member, join now. memberships start at only $20. This is your opportunity to be a part of our dynamic organization. The ADVOCATE lately has been slightly behind schedule for various reasons and we should be back on track by next issue. We’re requesting some helping hands from any of our talented members. Hv ur ppl ctc my ppl! This issue was made possible through the unique combined efforts of many creative volunteers who unselfishly help. Kathryn Legendre and Mark Harlien at IdeaWire did another knock-out cover. others who contributed in many varied ways to aHna and The ADVOCATE include Fernando Centeno, Tom Harmon, Jon Kimmel, Sarah Reveley, Laura Theurer, Marcia Goren Weser, Jeff Wood and numerous others without whom this publication would not happen. We’re eternally grateful to our advertisers and to the team at Neighborhood News, particularly Susan Schopp, Ariel Vongdara and Jodie Petry. They are the very best at what they do. John Joseph can be e-mailed at AHNAadvocate@gmail.com.

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recent articles in the North Central News about the mcnay connection to a home on Joliet avenue (the street next to starbucks), and the ensuing negative comments on myalamoheights.com were unfair. as a family historian, genealogist and general snoop, i was intrigued by this story and have since done a considerable amount of research on it. i'm quite familiar with family stories that are passed on that do not always exactly match all the facts. it happens to everyone. The key players pass away but their stories live on, and as they are retold, details change. in the Joliet instance it is still safe, in my opinion, to call it "the cousin of the mcnay." my experience in this type of research allowed me to fairly quickly search the internet for the facts, and when i have some time i plan to put it all together for the owner, who was astounded at what all i found. i explained that it really isn't that amazing, you just have to know where to look. Thanks to the research talents of a couple of friends, i have added a few more websites to my list of shortcuts. i'm revealing some of my favorite shortcuts here so everyone in alamo Heights who is interested in learning the "family secrets" of their home can do it. in doing so you will be putting meat on the bones of the former owners. remember, these are my methods and may not always agree with traditional approaches. to get started, look at your deed to get all the names, numbers and exact legal description of your property. Depending on what you know, you

can go to the following sources and just keep building. as you gather information, always stop at some point and re-read what you have. Things you did not notice before will pop out at you as your brain starts soaking up more. The first place to always look is https://www.ancestry.com which i believe allows free trial subscriptions for just long enough to get you hooked. Check out the amazing variety of sources they offer. The last census is 1930, and it will give you names, ages, occupations and more on the residents. You can also learn all about the neighbors. Bexar County appraisal District's website lets you search by either street address or owner name. Go to http://www.bcad.org and click on the "Property search" tab on the top right hand side. Bexar County land records' site at https://gov.propertyinfo.com/tX-Bexar/Default.aspx has a wealth of information, but is very tedious to use so don't go there first. once you register, go to "applications and land records". For earlier records go to "1837 - 1963 Historical records". i am not going to explain it--figuring it out is part of the fun. Familysearch has a beta site at http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start with death certificates that will give all kinds of clues to personal info and sometimes even actual images. Click on "death/burial". Finally, a veritable treasure chest is http://www.newspaperarchive.com/advancesearch.aspx. it is like a Google of newspaper articles. You can put in keywords, date ranges, location ranges and it will go back into the 1700s if the paper is in their database. You name it--society pages, police reports, divorces, gossip columns, real estate ads—are all there. This site is also by subscription, but i think you can search, just not access the result. This should help to get you started. i hope you have fun researching your home in "The City of beauty and charm". The author may be emailed at sarah_reveley@att.net .

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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010www.myahna.com 5alamo heights advocate •

The first public water policies in texas history regarding allocation, rights and management were made in san antonio by the spanish settlers beginning in 1709. as the mission era started along the san antonio river in 1718,

water became the classroom for diverse people to learn how to live together in community. These early spanish water policies were the foundation for much of our current water law and management practices. as spanish civil law changed to english common law after the adoption of the Constitution of 1840, water morphed from spanish water (a natural resource available to everyone free of charge) to anglo water (a commodity to be bought and sold by those who were able to afford it).

san antonio’s acequia system, which eventually comprised some 50 miles in combined length, became the first municipal water system in the future United states. as our city grew, however, the acequias became a source of water-borne diseases, such as much-dreaded cholera.

after the mexican War of 1848, and especially after the american Civil War, san antonio’s population growth completely overwhelmed the old open-ditch system of water delivery prompting the city to contract with a private company, san antonio Water Works Company, to install the first underground pipe water infrastructure to deliver water from the river to the citizens and businesses. George W. Brackenridge, owner of san antonio national Bank (the city’s first nationally chartered bank), eventually became the controlling shareholder and President of the new water company.

By 1890 the river ceased to have the capacity to provide enough “pure” water for the city’s burgeoning population. to comply with the city contract, Brackenridge drilled the first deep wells into the edwards aquifer. although the first few wells he drilled proved inadequate, in 1891 two powerful artesian wells were successfully drilled by Brackenridge’s contractor, m. C. Judson. Brackenridge’s wells fulfilled the obligations under the city contract, but with many unintended consequences, especially for his own homestead property. By 1920, over 120 deep wells had been drilled into the aquifer by the water works company and other businesses and individuals. Source: Charles Porter, adjunct professor at St. Edward’s University in Austin, and Edwards Aquifer Authority.

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6 www.myahna.com• alamo heights advocateAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010

mulching is the single most important thing you can do to benefit your summer landscape. Here are some of the things mulch can do for your plants.

• Reduce evaporation by conserving soil moisture• Promote plant health by cooling root systems• Suppress weed growth• Improve soil quality by adding humic acids and nutrients• Provide essential beneficial life to the soilWe most highly recommend living mulches (those containing

multi-sourced mulch with compost added) because they provide more organic material and beneficial organisms.

TWO WARNINGS!Be forewarned—unbelievably, mulches are being sold locally

that contain damaging herbicide residues. an alarming number of gardeners have reported herbicide damage immediately after using lower quality mulches. Close inspection reveals a warning on the bags that the mulches "should not be used around shrubs and trees." This is both real and serious.

another product to avoid completely is Cocoa shell mulch as it can be deadly to dogs!

FOCUS ATTENTION INWARDThere are many fun things to do in the garden during the cooler

mornings and evenings, but during the hot parts of the day, we tend to retreat indoors. Properly selected and placed houseplants can create cool, soothing and serene interior spaces.

However, houseplants are more than just beautiful additions to your indoor environs. The ePa has identified indoor air pollution, highest in summer months, as a major health threat. This is a fact. Benzene, formaldehyde, toluene and other toxins are released from building materials, carpets and fabrics.

Here is the good news—green plants are scientifically proven to be the most effective air purifier known.

BE A DEADHEADERDeadheading (removing spent flowers before they form seeds) not

only improves the appearance of some plants, but also helps them to rebloom more quickly. Plants that benefit from deadheading include dianthus, marigolds, large flowered zinnias, cosmos, roses and crape myrtles. note: seed pods of coneflowers and zexmania provide valuable food for many birds and should be left.

Article courtesy of Shades of Green NurseryMULCH TO PROTECT & CONSERVEGardening

Speaker Rescheduled for Oct. 5Due to the severe winds and rain on tuesday, september 7, 2010 caused by tropical storm Hermine, the alamo Heights neighborhood association’s monthly luncheon was canceled and rescheduled for tuesday, october 5 at noon in the Central market Community room. our speaker will be Fernando Centeno, whose op-ed piece on citizen participation in government was featured in the last issue of The Advocate. all aHna members are invited to attend this Brown Bag lunch and discussion.

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