Thank You Fess Parker, And Farewell

Another legend lost.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Fess Parker, a televison icon to a generation of youngsters as Davy Crockett and later Daniel Boone, has died at the age of 85 of natural causes.

This generation is not so familiar with Parker, or the characters he immortalized for my generation. Although as a kid I loved the Walt Disney Davy Crockett movie series, it really did not sink in until later that I grew up just a few miles from Crockett’s home in Rutherford, Tennessee. Parker donated his now famous coon-skin cap to the museum now housed in the old homestead. Somehow, in his own folksy way, Parker was Crockett to a generation.