VV(11): Davy Crockett

[Dave Monroe]

"Now on the radio at the moment was a song about Davy Crockett, which upset 
Winsome considerably."  (V., Ch. 8, Sec. ii, p. 219)

"This was '56, height of the coonskin hat craze." (p. 219)

http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/1486/

http://disney.go.com/DisneyVideos/familyfilm/shelves/davycrockett/_index.html

"Millions of kids everywhere you looked were running around with these bushy 
Freudian hermaphrodite symbols on their heads." (p. 219)

http://vassun.vassar.edu/~crcarp/German272/oppenheim.html

"Nonsensical legends were being propagated about Crockett" (p. 219)

   "David had, in fact, already become Davy to a certain extent.... a number 
of tales that had taken root in fertile soil.... a series of very popular 
Crockett Almanacs that were published from 1835 to 1856.  The early 
fictional Davy was not yet a full-blown 'ring-tailed roaster' in the first 
Almanac, but, building upon the historical David's ability to give vent to a 
humorous boast, Davy became a screamer who could 'run faster,--jump 
higher,--squat lower,--dive deeper,--stay under longer,--and come out drier, 
than any man in the whole country.'  The ante escalated rapidly in the hands 
of the Boston literary hacks who created tall tales for the next six 
almanacs ....  In the 1836 issue, for example, Davy had an epic underwater 
battle with the twelve-foot long 'monstratious great Cat-Fish,' and in the 
next volume saved the United States from destruction by wringing the tail 
off Halley's Comet ....

   "This adventures was but a mild warm-up for America's first comic 
superman.  In later Almanacs, Crockett convinced his pet alligator to bite 
its tail and churn like a paddle wheel so he could ride up Niagara Falls; he 
also became a Promethean figure who saved the solar system by unfreezing the 
'airth' and sun that had 'friz fast' to their axes with hot bear 'ile' and 
then 'walked home, introducin' the people to frsh daylight with a piece of 
sunrise in my pocket...."

Is that a piece of sunrise in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?  
>From p. xii of Michael A. Lofaro's "Introduction to the Paperback Edition" 
of ...

Shackford, James Atkins.  David Crockett:
   The Man and the Legend.  Ed. John B. Shackford.
   Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1986 [1956].

"... all in direct contradistinction to what Winsome had heard as a boy, 
across from the mountains of Tennessee." (p. 219)

"But there was as well a darker side to Davy's 'comedy' which proved a less 
flattering cultural mirror of America's past.  His creators used him as an 
ardent warrior in the cause of territorial expansionism, with Mexico and 
Oregon as only the nearest of his targets.  And perhaps most distasteful to 
modern sensibilities, Davy was the 'humanitarian' who killed and boiled an 
Indian to make a tonic to help cure his pet bear's stomach disorder.  Blacks 
and other 'sub-humans' fared no better."  (Lofaro, pp. xii-xiii)

... referring again to the Almanacs, to Davy vs. David, the myth vs. the 
man.  But note not only the publisher of Shackford's book, which was, 
"simply by coincidence, published on June 2, 1956, near the height of the 
craze" (Lofaro, p. xiii), but also that "the late James Atkins Shackford was 
assistant professor of English at North Carolina State University" (back 
cover).  "Winsome, being originally from North Carolina" (V., p. 126) ...

"This man, a foul-mouthed louseridden boozehound, a corrupt legislator and 
an indifferent pioneer" (pp. 219-220)

J. Kerry Grant (A Companion to V.) annotates ...

"While Winsome's incredulousness at the Crockett legends is well founded, 
his version of the truth would seem to be equally exaggerated.  The 
historical Crocket neither rose to the heights of the legend nor sank to the 
depths of Winsome's characterization." (Grant, p. 111)

Submitted for yr kind consideration ...

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/projects/price/acrocket.htm

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/projects/price/crockett.htm

http://www.infoporium.com/heritage/crockbio.shtml

http://www.infoporium.com/heritage/crockquotes.shtml

http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/crockett.html

But for another contemporary--diegetic, publication--context here, do, by 
all means, see ...

http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.htm

"Now on the radio at the moment ..."  Well, no wonder that "curious sea 
story" was so abruptly interrupted ...

"'I don't think that's a police siren.' Your guts in a spasm, you     reach 
for the knob of the AM radio. 'I don't think'" (GR, p. 757)

Anyway ...
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