Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett died last week. Well, not exactly. Fes Parker, who played Davy in the 1950s feature films, died. He was 85.

Davy was my first hero – not only because of the ’50s shows, but because of a popular youth biography (remember those orange covered books), and, of course, there was John Wayne’s The Alamo, the 1960 film where the Duke himself played the legendary Tennessian.

Crockett embodied all that I loved about the American frontiersman: the sense of optimism, courage, sacrifice and belief in liberty for all. The latter was evidenced in 1830 when U. S. Senator Crockett argued that squatters should have the right to own land, and when, in 1834, he opposed the Indian Removal Act, which would (and eventually did) expel all Native Americans from land east of the Mississippi.

Sticking up for his Indian friends got Davy unelected in 1835. His subsequent message to his constituents (which he shared in his autobiography) is my favorite Davy Crockett quote:

“You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”

We Texans are profoundly grateful that he did.