Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
Back when Disney was new to cable (and unscrambled if you had a backyard dish – which we did), and more interested in its own back catalog (and less embarrassed by it) for a time they broadcast these episodes, and I watched every one I could. I don’t know if they’d still hold up for me now, but at the time they painted an image in my head of a more dangerous and adventurous America than my own backyard could provide. And of course, long after they had gone out of fashion, I wanted my own coonskin cap.
Yep, the winner gets to choose the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs used when recounting history. We in the South have been dealing with it for 155 years . . .
This recently appeared in my Spotify recommendations:
The Ballad of Davy Crockett was a favorite song in my Dad’s repertoire. Hearing it again reminds me of all the hikes up and down the Stony Creek trail that I took with my Dad when I was “knee-high to a grasshopper.”
I remember having a plastic version of the “coonskin cap” back then, and used it for Halloween. I outgrew it quickly, but kept it for a few years.
Join other Ricochet members by submitting a Quote of the Day post, the easiest way to start a fun conversation. There are many open days on the March Signup Sheet. We even include tips for finding great quotes, so choose your favorite quote and sign up today!
I’m glad! I love it when posts (mine, or others’) evoke memories like that.
Speaking of Bill Hayes, we’ve talked about him before here because of his appearance(s) on The Tonight Show, including here with Jimmy Fallon.
https://youtu.be/KVA89DT2j2M
My mother was charmed when he turned up on her favorite soap opera, Days of Our Lives.
Somewhere in my home library I have his autobiography.
Still have a photo of me as a 4 year old wearing my coonskin cap.
We sang that song all the time as kids, and so many of the boys wore their coonskin caps to school.
Boy, that has to be the worst version of the song ever. I wonder why the lyricist didn’t end with Crocket’s heroic death.
And that reached number 2 on the British charts? The Brits have a tin ear for music, a tin tongue for food.
I loved your post and your prose, She, as usual. I sometimes think that you’re like one of those “mute inglorious Miltons” that Thomas Gray mentions in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard — though you’re not buried and you’re not a male, and you’re not mute. Hell, I don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ll have to sort it out for yourself.
I think of myself more as a “flower born to blush unseen.” Thank goodness there’s no desert air around here, though. And no waste.
Thanks @kentforrester (I think), in spite of your animadversions (!) on my countrymen’s musical and gastronomic inclinations. No bubble and squeak for you!
PS: “Mute” is an adjective that is rarely applied to me. You can ask around, friends and foes alike, and I doubt you’ll find a single instance.
Here’s the full set of lyrics for the song, on Walt Disney’s site: https://genius.com/Walt-disney-records-the-ballad-of-davy-crockett-lyrics. Those of you who aren’t fans (@kentforrester, I’m looking at you, should be glad that the popular version was abbreviated.
I suspect the worst “ever” may have been the recording by Pinky and Perky, two pig puppets from a British children’s television show in the 50s. I think they slightly pre-dated Alvin and the Chipmunks.
I can’t find them singing Davy Crockett anywhere, but here’s a sample. You’ll get the idea:
I’ll have to admit that the British have better names for their food than we do. By the way, She, I’m trying hard to keep up with you in Likes. Right now you’re ahead by five, but yours has been up longer than mine. Despite my competitive spirit, I was forced, by my sense of fairness, to give you a Like.
Is it true that you used to dip their coon tails in the inkwell?
She, I think that’s very animadversional of you to deny me bubble and squeak. I don’t think that made sense. I just wanted to use all three funny words in the same sentence.
Everything in French sounds edible; in British English not so much.
My English husband’s parents came to Atlanta to visit us the Christmas after we were married. One night we were out to dinner and the subject of the American Revolution came up. I said (only half-) jokingly that the colonists had won because “God was on our side.” My mother-in-law said with a sweet smile, “It’s so interesting to hear things from another perspective.”
I think there was some kind of minor Davy Crockett revival during the 80s, I also have memories of that coonskin hat, as well as watching reruns of the old black and white TV show.
In checking a few dates and facts for this post, I ran across several references to the fact that Davy Crockett didn’t particularly like his coonskin cap. Yet somewhere, I’m pretty sure I saw a quote from his sister that (perhaps the last time she saw him?) he was trundling off somewhere in his frontier outfit and his coonskin cap. I can’t find it right now, but it makes me think that perhaps the coonskin cap isn’t an apocryphal part of the legend.
Wow – that brings back memories. I remember watching the series and at one of my father’s company picnics, I returned home with a treasured coonskin-cap. I wore it for days.
p.s. You can get them from Amazon now
LOL.
I will find a way to force this into a conversation, somehow.
Verizon gave me a year of Disney+. When I dug into the catalogue, I found the old DC TV shows stitched together into several movies. Fun to watch after all these years.
He was a hero in my youth, clearly in part due to the Disney series. Still is, in many ways. I have his autobiography around here, too.
He hated the nickname “Davy.”
One of his most memorable and still – applicable quotations: “Remember these words when I am dead: First make sure you’re right. Then go ahead.”
This post just made for a lovely bedtime story for my girls, with music and poetry as post scripts. Thank you!
One of my favorite songs as a kid was Remember the Alamo by the Kingston Trio. It starts out with a bang:
A hundred-and-eighty were challenged by Travis to die.
By the line that he drew with his sword when the battle was nigh.
“The man who would fight to the death cross over but him that would live better fly, “
And over his line went a hundred-and-seventy-nine.
Wow. But you wouldn’t want to base your historical knowledge on this song:
And young Davy Crockett was smilin’ and laughin’, the challenge was fierce in his eye.
Mr. Crockett was 49 years old-a little long in the tooth even now. (Unless you’re running for president.)
I think they still considered themselves to be British at that point. It would have been rather odd.
Oh, and Captain Kangaroo used to play a song on his TV program that went something like “Skiddle de – dum boom hot pot bubble and squeak.” was that a British folk song?