Con-Fess-ions of a Boone Companion

Me as a boy with the ever present coon skin cap

and fringed jacket. I still have a buckskin jacket.

I'm not sure it has actually quite hit me yet. Fess Parker passed the other day and I'm a bit numb, but the full force, which I have no doubt is lurking inside me, of this event will most likely descend on me all at once.



Why would the death of this one man so affect me? The more I think of it, this one man was perhaps the biggest influence on me as a role model, bar none. My earliest heroes, before I discovered Tarzan and Robin Hood, were Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. As the above picture demonstrates, I was not shy about dressing the part as a kid -- We were on a trip through Kentucky on one of my birthdays, on the way to Boonesborough, and I was more embarrassed that my mom brought my presents into Kentucky Fried Chicken than I was to wear my coon skin cap there! I realize now that I may claim the two woodsmen as my heroes, but what I really mean is Fess Parker, who played both of them in movies and TV, was my hero.



My ideas on who Boone and Crockett were, are definitely colored by Fess' portrayal, and it was actually his gentle-yet-fierce, good hearted, kindness to strangers, twinkle-in-the-eye, optimistic, confident, talk-first-fight-only-if-you-have-to, fun lovin', adventurous, honorable mannerisms that fed my childhood notions of what it meant to be a man, and even now that I have reached manhood, I still feel those undercurrents flowing through my personal mythology and setting the bar for who I am and who I want to be. His are the standards I still strive to live up to. In a way he is who I want to be when I grow up.



So, yes. With him leaving such a deep-seated finger print on my soul, I know I will grieve. Thank you Fess. I really am who I am because of you.



...and I just got over Charles Schulz' death too...

My coonskin cap placed prominently on my home altar to honor Fess Parker's passing