I sat my alarm for 5:15 a.m. Normally I don’t set an alarm. My old-man sleep pattern wakes me up at 5:00 sharp. But I didn’t want to risk being late. This was going to be a special hike. Ben and I were going to re-create the trip that Sam Houston took 178 years ago, to a spring near where White Rock Creek enters the Trinity River. Here’s Ben’s 2012 account of the spring and why it deserved to be preserved.
So I got up, filled my water flasks with cold water, made coffee, and headed to Big Spring. I got there before dawn and walked down to the spring. It was dark! I made my way across the former pasture, which is now covered with native grasses, flowers, and trees planted by North Texas Master Naturalists. I could see the faint lights of downtown Dallas in the distance. As I neared the spring, I could see a light across a small pond. I could hear the water pouring through the PVC pipe that directs water from the spring on its way to Bryan’s Slough. The light came from Ben’s stove, where he was boiling spring water for coffee. There’s something really special about using the pristine waters from this natural spring. Ben was joined by his lovely girlfriend Carrie. I hadn’t seen Carrie in a bit because she’s been recovering from a foot issue. It was great to see her!
We poured steaming coffee with chicory into cups and drank while we talked. Ben treated us with some words about Sam Houston’s documented sojourn here 178 years ago. He was here to seek a peace treaty with the indigenous people in the area. Houston had a strong interest in maintaining peace and had a deep respect for native people. Sadly, his influence was not followed my Mirabeau Lamar and other Texas leaders who were more interested in genocide. And, of course, Ben directed us to history that I’d never heard. He told us about Luis Sanchez, who was a guide for Houston and also a translator of native languages. Sanchez was apparently greatly respected by Houston and could speak several languages of Native Americans. He was of mixed Native American and Mexican background, a contemporary of Jesse Chisolm, of the Chisolm Trail, another well-known pioneer who was involved in seeking peace with the native peoples.
I’m thinking a lot about history these days, especially because our so-called state leaders are making it difficult on teachers to teach history. History is nuanced. Houston was a slave owner. That’s a fact and something that mars his reputation. Also, though, he opposed secession and lost his place as governor because of that opposition. We should study all aspects of hislife.
I just read Forget the Alamo. It points out the complex motives of those fighting for Texas independence. It’s impossible to ignore the idea that one of the things our state’s founders fought for was the right to own slaves. We shouldn’t celebrate the founding of our state as an unvarnished good thing. There was White supremacy from the beginning.
We finished our coffee and began walking. We walked down an old ranch road, through a forest of Hackberry and Ash and then across an old pasture. The pasture was filled with plants, which makes for slow walking. We’ve learned over the years that by tucking into the woods, we find smoother walking through now-dormant Wild Rye Grass, and that’s what we did. We made our way to a low water crossing of Bryan’s Slough, where we found that Beavers had been hard at work building a dam. We crossed on mostly dry pavement and watched an Indigo Bunting sing and fly off. We then connected with the Holland Trail, a trail built and maintained by Iraqi war vet Jeff Hensley and named after Dan Holland, a fellow veteran who died in Iraq. Ben and I commented on how much we appreciate this trail as these woods are not easy to find your way in. We’ve spent hours finding our way in those woods, crossing sloughs and fighting thorny Greenbriar.
It was a really great summer morning, relatively cool. The woods are beautiful here. There is lots of Hackberry, Ash, Swamp Privet, and some towering Elms. The woods are filled with now-dormant Virginia Wild Rye. We made our way to the spot where White Rock Creek enters the Trinity, one of my favorite spots in the Trinity Forest. We walked down to the creek edge. The creek had a lot of flow and it made a delightful spot to take a water break. I needed to be back at my car, so we decided to walk over to a pond as a turnaround spot.
We stood at the pond where we’ve often seen Red Shouldered Hawks and Herons and heard the calls of Pileated Woodpeckers. Then we started walking back. As we always do, we talked as we walked. We talked about Ben’s great efforts to protect the habitat at the Trinity Audubon from efforts to build a solar energy project there. We got back to the spring, and I could hear my good friend Becky Rader’s voice. Becky is one of our environmental heroes. She was a big part of the preservation of the native prairie at White Rock Lake. I hadn’t seen her since the pandemic started. But first: my ritual of washing my entire head in the chilly spring waters of Big Spring. I think this adds years to my life every time I do it. This is such a special place, which has now been preserved as a landmark. We stood beneath a towering Bur Oak that was very likely there when Sanchez and Houston camped here.
I walked with Becky back to our cars. There I changed my clothes and headed to an event in Fort Worth commemorating the massacre of Congolese Tutsis in a Burundian refugee camp. This event also is a part of history. It’s another place where justice has not been done for people and an event unknown to most people in the world. I heard the testimony of survivors who told of militias setting this refugee camp on fire and hacking people to death with machetes.
Saturday was a good example of what my life is like. I move from a tranquil walk in a forest, remembering ancient Texas history, to an event calling for us to recall a more recent history. It can be jarring. But it’s important. Our agency has represented many asylum seekers from Congo for the last 20 years. And that history is ongoing. As Faulkner once said: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
