It will be a tragic day in our house if Owen finds out that Fess Parker passed away.
Fess Parker is the actor who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone in those famous Disney series. We discovered Davy accidentally in the Brentwood Library one day, when Owen and I were perusing the free movies to check out. I noticed the silver spine of the special edition DVD of the Davy Crockett box set, which had six movies on it. It stood out from the primary colors of all the usual kids' shows, and I showed it to Owen.
I could tell that, 50 years later, Fess' pioneer gear, handsome gaze and confident gun pose on the cover were working their magic on my then-5-year-old. Of course, we brought it home.
I think we watched the entire thing straight through that day, and were still watching when my older boys came home from school that afternoon. They got caught up in the depiction of pioneer courage, the friendship between Davy and Georgie, portrayed by the always awesome Buddy Ebsen, and intense but not gory battles between Davy and The Bad Guys.
I eventually had to order our own copy of that DVD so as not to deprive the other Brentwood children from their own Davy experience.
Owen wanted go as Davy on Halloween that year, so I ordered him an amazing costume that he still tries to wear around the house. It kind of works, if you like your Davy Crockett to be clad in buckskin capri pants.
The hat, of course, would be the key to the costume, and the fake fur mess that came with the one I ordered looked like a bad toupee when Owen put it on. So I, of course, scoured the Internet for a better one.
Guess what I found? A website for Fess Parker's winery, which happened to sell authentic coonskin caps.
That hat is considered a true treasure in our house, and it will always be a part of Burgin family history.
No comments:
Post a Comment