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Letters: Remembering the Alamo and real Texas pit barbecue

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Chris Reynolds has hit the jackpot with me twice in a row. In October, it was Pike Place Market and Seattle [“Beacon on the Waterfront,” Oct. 12]; this month, it was the Alamo and San Antonio, where I was born [“Remember?,” Nov. 9]. I went back to San Antonio and Goliad (down the road a piece) several years ago and had a great low-key time, including arriving in Goliad on a Sunday when they were having a festival I remembered from my first weekend there as a 7-year-old.

Of course, San Antonio has changed a lot since I was little, but I was impressed with how friendly the people were and how the real barbecue tasted every bit as good as I remembered. My companion couldn’t understand why I bypassed several places advertising barbecue and finally settled on a nondescript place. I tried to explain that it was all in the nose; it was the first place that had that special fragrance of real Texas pit barbecue.

Thanks for another great article.

Mary M. Garrison

Los Angeles

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I enjoyed the article on the Alamo. It is a pretty cool monument. But please remember, Texans weren’t against Mexico; they liked Mexico. However, Mexico wanted to tax them, and that is why they wanted to break away. Maybe it’s why Texas does not have state income tax to this day.

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Sean Gerold

Desert Hot Springs

Kudos to LAX

A few weeks ago, I was traveling from LAX to Philadelphia. I am a senior citizen and suffer from a lot of back pain, and I asked US Airways to have a wheelchair available to take me to the gate.

When I was dropped off curbside at the US Airways terminal, a skycap asked me whether I wanted him to take my luggage (which I had paid for online). I said, “Yes,” and I also told him that I was getting a wheelchair. He asked me for my boarding pass, told me to stay where I was, took my luggage and went into the terminal.

Within a few minutes, he’d returned with my boarding pass and receipt for my luggage; behind him was an airport employee pushing a wheelchair. The employee helped me into the wheelchair and took me to my gate, asking along the way if I needed the restroom or wanted to purchase food.

When we reached the gate, the employee locked the wheels of the wheelchair and told me she would be back shortly to help me because I would be boarding the plane early.

Sure enough, she was there when they announced early boarding, and she pushed me as far as she could before I had to board the plane by myself.

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I can’t explain how comforting it was to know that she was there and also how much it helped to make my flight pleasurable.

Returning to L.A. a week later was a different story. When I was dropped off curbside at the Philadelphia airport, the skycap asked me whether I wanted him to take my luggage, adding that there was a charge for it. When I mentioned that I had asked for a wheelchair and an attendant to take me to my gate, he pointed over his shoulder and said, “You’ll have to go inside for that.”

I took my luggage inside, waited in a long line to check my suitcase and told the airport employee that I had requested a wheelchair.

She pointed across the terminal to an area where people were sitting in wheelchairs and told me that I should walk over there and that someone would help me.

I waited for about 10 minutes (no place to sit) and an airport employee finally came, talked to me, left and returned with a wheelchair. He took me to my gate, indicated an empty seat where people were waiting, told me to get out of the wheelchair and left. Quite a different story from how I was treated at LAX.

LAX has been criticized for all kinds of problems, but the difference in how I was treated there compared with Philadelphia was something I wanted to share with your readers.

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Barbara R. Cloud

Santa Clarita

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