Killed a Bar When He Was Only Three

I don’t have that much time, let’s see if I can write a quick edition of Wise Madness. I asked you to remind me to write about Davy Crockett; Nobody did. Good thing I remembered anyway; not bad for an idiot.

I have Disney+. As you probably guessed I am obsessively watching Marvel films. Yesterday I went a different direction and went for nostalgia, Davy Crocket: King of the Wild Frontier. I am not the prime age for that; it came out two years before I was born. I was not part of the coon skin cap generation. But I’ve never been one to follow the fads, I love what I love. I saw that on Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, on my black & white TV, and was hooked. There were three parts, Davy Crockett Indian Fighter, Davy Crocket Goes to Congress and Davy Crocket at the Alamo. There were LPs made of each episode, before the days of VCRs that’s how we could keep experiencing out favorite stories whenever we wanted to. Unfortunately, I never got the last LP, The Alamo, as my parents could only find it in stereo, and I had a mono record player. I listened to the first two parts countless times. I also had LPs of Robin Hood, not the Disney version, William Tell, King Arthur, and the Three Musketeers, not the candy bar. I obsessed on all of them and in my mind, each is the definitive version, other than Davy Crockett. The TV episodes were replayed often enough they were canon. I never missed them.

Before I watched yesterday, I was worried that I’d find the racial attitudes so offensive that it would ruin it for me. The title of the first episode, Indian Fighter, made me pessimistic. I’m delighted to say that while the attitudes were dated, they were remarkably progressive for their time. Crockett had just one fight with an Indian, Red Foot, and he’s portrayed sympathetically. When Red Foot says that he can’t trust the white man’s word, Davy agrees with him. The show fully acknowledges the mistreatment of the Indians. Davy said that Red Foot can’t trust the government, but he can trust Davy. The rest of the episode Davy is fighting for Indians. When a settler drove an Indian and his family off their land Davy challenges the bully. He explains that Indians have rights just like whites do, they he kicks the racist’s butt, and drives him out of town.

Oddly the film makes Crockett an acolyte of Andrew Jackson, but the reality is that they were political enemies. It does she that Crockett strongly opposed Jackson’s signature legislation, the Indian Removal Act. That’s what drove the Indians off their lands in the southeast and sent them on the Trail of Tears into Oklahoma. Crockett was the only congressman from Tennessee to oppose it. It cost him his political career. Jackson is of course Trump’s favorite president. Davy Crockett would not support Trump.

I loved the entire film as both nostalgia and on its own merits. It’s corny but I love that kind of corn. I have been singing the song over and over. Did you ever notice that it’s almost exactly the same as the Ballad of Jed Clampett? I always go from one to the other when I sing them.

I got this written as quickly as I needed. I’m off to therapy. I made my breakfast before writing, more for the coffee than the omelet. I should do that more often; my brain works better when the wheels are greased with caffeine.