Will the Real Davy Crockett please stand up?
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You learn a lot when you are a book editor. In fact, I would categorize the work as one of the top "lifetime learning jobs."
Here are some things I have learned about because I am a book editor
- The deeper meaning of barbecue
- Palmreading
- The twelve gardening zones in Texas
- Craig Biggio
- Davy Crockett
This is not all I have learned, either, believe me. But any one of these topics warrants a lifetime of study, and I am constantly whizzing through the interesting worlds opened up by manuscripts that come to me, trying to become momentarily an expert so I can help each book's text reflect its message in the best way possible. And though I don't ever make it to the expert level, I have the authors to guide me and fill me in on the myriad things I don't know.
Even at the sub-expert level, there is so much to know. Take Davy Crockett, for instance. My Davy, like most people's, materializes in my imagination in a Fess Parker sort of way. He has a coonskin cap. He killed a bear when he was only three. He's King of the Wild Frontier. You know.
For about a year now, we've been working on a series of Texas Heroes for Young Readers. In preparing these little books for publication, I've learned a great deal from the authors and illustrators who are quite expert on the men and women who made Texas great. Mary Dodson Wade and Joy Fisher Hein, in particular, have been educating me recently about this Crockett character. Did you know:
- He never went by the name Davy?
- He never wore a coon-skin cap?
- The persona that most of us know emerged from the stage character Nimrod Wildfire?
Mary and Joy have piqued my interest in Crockett. David Crockett. On beyond Disney. As we wrap up the young readers' books about him, we are beginning to work on an adult book about Crockett's time in Congress. More to read, more to know.
The wise authors of that book, Allen Wiener and Jim Boylston, have already informed me that much commonly held wisdom on Crockett is based more on the legends and lore than on the facts. Now there are newly accessible letters by the man himself that reveal just a little bit more of who he really was.
More books, more knowledge, every day. I'd like to get to know this man David Crockett even better. Maybe I'll get my Gates of the Alamo off the shelf and re-enter that engaging world. Not only could Crockett escape the Alamo, but perhaps he could travel through time and fill me in on who he really was.
King of the Wild Frontier, indeed.
