First thing you ought to know about Davy Crockett is that he warnâ??t born on no mountaintop in Tennessee. Fact is that Tennessee warnâ??t no state in 1786, the year of Crockettâ??s birth. He also preferred to be called David.
But Davy is a good word to use in a song, and itâ??s that damn song â?? â??The Ballad of Davy Crockettâ? â?? thatâ??s the problem. America knows it all too well. Readers of a certain age hearing those words will have it spinning in their heads, complete with visions of coonskin caps and buckskins. It is also the inspiration for Bob Thompsonâ??s droll new book, â??Born on a Mountaintop,â? in which the author visits sites associated with Crockett to discover the man behind the legend.
If Americans remember Crockett today, they remember him because of that song and the Disneyfication of his legacy, which was, according to Thompson, a former Washington Post staff writer, considerably Disneyfied before Walt Disney was even born. From the distance of nearly two centuries, we are not really sure who Crockett was (he is often confused with Daniel Boone). A legendary frontiersman, hunter, scout and Indian fighter who liked to jaw and pull a cork, Crockett did not have much education. He got into politics, first locally and then serving three lackluster terms in the House of Representatives. His most significant career move was dying at the Alamo in the company of Jim Bowie (he of the knife) and William Barret Travis, holy figures in Texas history. He was 49.
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