following his legend right into the west

I had to look it up, we were ten years old, Disney had us in the palms of his money grubbing hands, there was the Mickey Mouse club every evening, and I think it was Wednesday or Thursday was the Disney show, so cool. And then along rambled ol’ Davey Crockett. Never heard of him before. They used to talk about pioneers in school, how they made soap out of fat (WTF) and lived in these sod houses. Boring. There was that Dan’l Boone character, but he was square man, square. When Davey was shooting himself a bear (barr) when he was only three, ol’ Dan’l was probably sitting in his sod house making soap.

It was a whole big deal, there were the shows, there were those cool coonskin caps, that wonderful song that I would play over and over. I broke it twice and had to get a new one. I believe it was on the Hit Parade. Snookie Lanson might have sang it. I have no idea on that last thing, but I loved the names of the singers on that show, Gisele MacKenzie, that hot little French number, even if I was a little unsure at that age, about what hot was, she was.

And the toys. Sometimes Davy had his whole aisle in the toy section, nothing but cool Davy Crockett stuff, so cool. I can’t quite line this up with the facts, but I think here is where American industry realized that they could make a lot of dough selling stuff to kids, and here was this big baby boom bulge coming right up, so they advertised to us, not our square parents, made us think we were something, told us we were the leaders of tomorrow and swelled our heads and made us think that we were so important that we could stop the war that was trying to draft us. So maybe it wasn’t the Beatles, maybe it was Davy Crockett.

But it didn’t last long. I was only a few years from my teens, and then the girls, those very icky girls that we had gone to school with for all our lives as long as we could remember, that were always playing hopscotch or jumping rope or something stupid, began growing breasts. Oh my. And then there was high school, and then when when my parents drove me to my first college dorm room I casually opened a desk drawer and there was an old Playboy issue that somebody had left behind. I couldn’t get rid of my parents fast enough, and then, well some things are better left unsaid.

Hugh Hefner big time hero among us college men. They always called us men, probably in a misguided effort to prod us into acting mature. Since he had gone to the U of I he was particularly big there. We all bought pipes and smoked some awful stuff called cherry blend which smelled like a French whorehouse, and were cool man cool. Not that it did us any good, but what the hell, we weren’t Hef. What we needed to do was read more Playboy, find out what was cool to wear, what was cool to drive, what was cool to drink, soak up that deep, deep, Playboy philosophy, and maybe there was something else in that magazine, anymore I forget what.

But probably you shouldn’t take any of those Playboys into the blind with you or certain fluctuations in heat and noise might spook the deer. Still no deer? isn’t time running out? Are the deer inscribing Elmer Fudd graffiti on the blind when you are away. Do you find yourself muttering “Dagnabbit?”

it seems to be part of The Plan.

The Plan. Oh you guys, you wishy washy I’m not really religious, but let me drop a little reference to Him every now and then, maybe it will smooth out a little rough spot when St Peter is drawing his finger down the book (Or maybe I should say St Finger is drawing his... Oh never mind, all that talk about that magazine has discombobulated me a bit) and I am trying to sneak Old Betsy into the pearly gates with me.

Everything that happens is the plan, if it doesn’t happen that is the plan too, it’s circular reasoning, it doesn’t make sense, I almost think you just threw it in to piss me off.

Oh.

Well you win that one. But you still haven’t bagged a deer. Dagnabbit.