I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up a few things. Jake had gone to Corinth to the dentist and Maureen was minding the store. She had the radio on and was listening to a National Public Radio station. Maureen likes to listen to the classics. When Jake turns the radio on, he is more likely to choose a country station. Jake doesn’t much care to listen to music made by musicians who have been dead a couple hundred years.
I wandered over toward the pot belly stove where Mister Johnson was sitting with my friend Bob Havershold. There had apparently been a fire recently in the wood burning stove though all that remained of the heat was the smell of stale wood smoke. It has been cooler recently though, for the past several days it has been mostly wet. We had a right good shower Monday night and a few trees came down where the thunderstorms became a bit energetic. When I pulled up a stool and sat down, Mister Johnson asked if I had been talking with Charlotte any recently. I told him it has been a couple weeks since we talked last. Charlotte lives off in North Carolina and talking to her long distance can run up the phone bill. Mister Johnson suggested I should try to convince her to move back to this area. After all, she was born in Selmer and lived there until she was mid twenties. Now that her husband is dead she has no family in North Carolina and it would certainly be less expensive to call her up in Selmer. I reminded Mister Johnson Charlotte has a store in North Carolina that she takes a great interest in and I don’t think she has any reason to want to move back here. Mister Johnson suggested it might be she doesn’t move because the right person hasn’t worked up the courage to suggest it.
I thought it time to change the subject and I asked Bob if he saw the recent Alamo film that was out last summer. He had not because he had heard the thing was not all that good. I had heard the same reviews, but had decided at the time to pick up the DVD when it came out because of the performance of the actor portraying Davy Crockett. The DVD showed up on store shelves this past week and I picked up a copy. Interestingly enough, I pretty much agreed with the reviews on first viewing. Then i decided to watch it again and became more fascinated by it. It was Crockett I focused on at the first, but with the second viewing I began to look more closely at the other characters in the film. I asked Mister Johnson if he knew much about Crockett and Mister Johnson asked which one, Fess Parker or John Wayne. Those were the actors that portrayed Crockett in the two most popular previous movies. Mister Johnson said he liked Fess Parker all right but, while he liked John Wayne in most of his movies, he could not warm to Wayne as Davy Crockett.
As I said, I watched this recent Alamo DVD twice this past week end, but my interest in Crockett goes back to the first Disney film with Fess Parker. I was with my parents on a family vacation when we happened upon the Disney crew filming a scene from the Davy Crockett In Congress segment of the original television broadcast. I then saw the movie on the big screen. I later saw the John Wayne version. Along the way I became interested in the actual historical Crockett. In the beginning, Crockett and President Andrew Jackson got on fine, but they came upon a difference of opinion over several issues including treatment of American Indians. Jackson had made his reputation as an Indian Fighter and had led the crusade that exterminated several tribes. Crockett was also involved with the Indian wars, but he soon came to be more sympathetic. His evolved attitude toward the Indian sparked my interest in learning more about the man. While I am perfectly aware no Hollywood product is going to present a historically accurate picture of history, my impression is that the director of the 2004 Alamo went to some effort to make this movie more true to history than most.
My take on actor Billy Bob Thorton’s Davy Crockett was that, in the context of the movie I could believe this man was David Crockett, former congressman from Tennessee. The movie makes the point that Crockett preferred to be called David, not Davy. The arrangement of the language coming out of Thorton’s mouth sounds true to an ear of a man who was born and lived most of my life in Tennessee. This is a man who knows how to tell a tall tale, but also knows the meaning of truth.
With renewed inspiration I went looking into the life of the historical David Crockett. I found a page on the internet taken from the congressional record in which Crockett reprimands his fellow representatives for voting a bill to make a charitable donation. Crockett insists the U. S. Government is not in the business of charity. Crockett proposes that, rather that make a gesture with taxpayer money that does not belong to Congress to give out, Crockett will donate a week of his own private pay to the cause. If every man in Congress does likewise, and every one of them can afford it, the sum total donated will surpass the amount authorized in the suspect bill.
It strikes me this David Crockett is a man I could have liked.
There are moments in the Alamo film, such as Crockett taking a direct shot at Mexican Commander Santa Anna which you would expect to be Hollywood license, but turns out there is historical support to believe something of the kind actually happened. Crockett wrote a biography with help, he was not well schooled with formal education, that I plan to seek out. There are several other books about the Alamo that sound interesting. There are not so many Hollywood movies that inspire the viewer to go investigating actual history. The Alamo is the rare Hollywood product that does. It is a good film and it will teach you something.
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