6/28/24
Newsletter #625
The Crack of Dawn
It amuses me when people end up being called a name they don’t like. An example from the movies is Ernest Borgnine’s character in From Here to Eternity, “Fatso” Judson. At one point Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) says, “Hey, Fatso,” and Judson replies, “That’s a nickname I don’t like.” Who would? In life, Steve Winwood, formerly of the band Traffic, does not like being called “Stevie,” which is what everyone calls him. It’s undoubtedly based on a confusion with Stevie Wonder, who always was Stevie (first, Little Stevie Wonder). But everyone says, Stevie Winwood. I’ve heard him very politely correct interviewers a couple of times.
Another of these poor, misnamed souls was Davy Crockett, who didn’t like Davy, and preferred David. Sorry, Davy, it’s not up to you.
For those who don’t remember, Davy Crockett was a famous frontiersman, congressman from Tennessee, who was ultimately killed at the Battle of the Alamo. However, two years earlier, on July 4, 1834, Davy was honored by the Whig Party of Philadelphia and given a rifle that he named “Pretty Betsy” (he already had a rifle named “Old Betsy”). But until then – Davy Crockett was born on August 17 (we have the same birthday), 1786, thus making him 48 years old at the time he was honored in Philadelphia – he had never been in a city, and certainly not one anywhere near the size of Philadelphia, which was America’s biggest city at the time. The idea of people living above other people befuddled and unsettled him. Plus, as he was walking around the city, he got lost. He was never lost in the woods. So Davy decided that he would only walk in straight lines, that way he could always go straight back to where he started. Although I didn’t know it, I filed that away for further reference.
Twenty years later, Davy Crockett’s approach to navigating a big city came back to me in a rush when I found myself in Sofia, Bulgaria and all of the signs are in Cyrillic, like Russian, and entirely foreign. Unable to read the signs, my initial approach was to only go in straight lines, just like Davy, and that worked. Although it’s a very old city, Sofia is set up in straight lines. New York City is set up in straight lines, as is L.A. Detroit is like the spokes of a wheel, as is Washington D.C., but all of the spokes are straight.
After a week of wandering, I could find no rhyme or reason as to how the streets and alleys are arranged in Haarlem. Every day I would begin walking on the same street – Grote Houtstraat – which would lead me, eventually, into the Grote Markt. Grote means great. Once I hit that main square, with Brinkmann’s Café, I somehow never exited properly, thus ending up going back from whence I came. I didn’t care because I had nowhere to go. But now I want to go back and see if I can figure the town out a bit better, and maybe even make it back to the train station, and the Empire Coffeeshop, run by an attractive blonde woman named Nikki, which I’ve already mentioned, I’m well aware.
Finally, regarding Davy Crockett, I have a 1955 paperback of The Life of Davy Crockett, which was no doubt reissued due to the tremendous success of the Disney TV show, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1954-55), which was recut into several feature films. But the book is actually three books – The Autobiography of Davy Crockett, which he wrote (probably with help), which sold well. So well that the publisher had a sequel written by a hired writer who simply invented new adventures, and that sold well, too. But when Davy died at the Alamo, well, that had to be included. So, another sequel was written. Since the first two were written in the first-person, as an autobiography ought to be, so is the third section. To make that work it explains that the third part was based on his blood-soaked journal found on his dead body at the Alamo. Nobody believed that the third section was real (nor the second part, for that matter), but both were included in his autobiography from there on out. All three together are called The Life of Davy Crockett by HIMSELF, subtitled, “To Which is Added, an account of his glorious death at the Alamo while fighting in defense of Texan independence.”
And there you have it.