Guest Presentation

On Wednesday, October 10th, 2007, our Humanities class had the privilage of welcoming Dr. Heywood Sanders into our classroom. Dr. Sanders gave an interesting presentation on how and when the city of San Antonio began to unravel into the city that it is today. He spoke of how San Antonio was basicly built on a minimal amount of financial funding. Our lovely city at one point in time was simply a mere piece of land waiting to be molded into what it is today.

Dr. Sanders expertise in studying and researching the facts about the city's development and modernization, was well worth listening to. I never actually gave much thought about how and when my lovely hometown began to evolve, only until after listening to what Dr. Sanders had to say. His information, charts, and graphs that he presented to the class were mind boggling. Although most San Antonians may now have the commodities needed to live life comfortably, it wasn't very long ago when this city was basicly living in the stone ages.

Life as a San Antonian, was easier and most comfortable if you had the sufficient finances to live so. For instance, a most neccessary commodity such as indoor plumbing did not become easily accessible by most everyday folk up until the year 1960. Prior to this most humanity was subjected to using mother nature's facilities. Where you decided to go to take care of natures call was referred to by Dr. Sanders,as a pit privie. Due to this, Humanity was subjected to unfortunate mishaps, such as inhaling the bad odors which came from the pit privies. Diseases and illnesses also came with the territory. Why should any living Human being be subjected to such unfortunate events. Just because they are not of a certain finacial economic status? It simply seems unhumanitarian. This information presented was quite alarming.

Dr. Sanders also showed the class various charts and graphs that make San Antonio out to be a very divided city. Race, and economic status is how our city is divided and this is really heartbreaking to me. Why should this matter? Well it simply says alot about what money and status can do for a human being. As you have heard before, money makes the world go round. Therefore, if you want to live a comfortable life and be offered the needed commodities to do so then becoming educated and informed can be a big step to attaining the unattainable. This is just some food for thought.