Champion Lock & Safe Co.

I was born and raised in San Antonio. We’re famous for our yellow roses, pecan trees, the aloe vera growing wild in our backyards, Lone Star beer, whiskey (whatever you’re pouring), Mexican food, the Alamo, the Riverwalk, my grandma’s house, and our local locksmiths.

Okay, some of the things on this list are more famous than others. This is more like the list of what our family prizes most.

Once my sister and I were downtown and we locked the keys in our car. It was our parents’ car, and we were borrowing it, and while I don’t want to get into specifics, let’s just say that we were teenagers and this borrowing was not entirely authorized.

We tried some tricks with a nail file I had in my purse, things we’d seen people do in movies that magically opened locked car doors, but the nail file got stuck and the door wouldn’t budge. Finally, although we were scared of what it would cost, we looked in the phone book and called the local locksmiths.

They were incredible! And much more reasonably priced than we had imagined.

We never told anyone what happened. But whenever the whole family’s together for a barbecue or something, my sister and I will lift our Lone Stars in toast to our local locksmiths. Nobody knows why we do it. They think it’s just one more inside joke between sisters, but we know better–and should something like that happen again, we know who to call.