Episode - 073 - Be Strong Davy

In this episode, we continue our look into the text and the subtext of a few portions from my memoir called, "Wilt, Ike and Me." Again, the text relates to the written words and the subtext relates to the meanings behind them.

The last episode dealt with the subtextual theme of impermanence and it took place during my tenth-grade year in high school, when Wilt Chamberlain was living in our home during the 1965 NBA season. This next episode begins a decade earlier in 1955, when I was an extremely impressionable six-year-old.

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We lived in a neighborhood of row homes and were a typical family for the times - a husband and wife, two boys, one girl, a dog and a bird, and of course a television, which was still kind of new. Less than 35% of the homes in the country had one.

We watched it all the time and in my young mind, our world was an extension of what was on it. Our home life seemed like just one more happy show. The times were ordinary, and I thrived on the normality of it.

The only unusual character in my life was my father's father, Zayde. who was the undisputed spiritual authority of the family. Besides being trained as an Orthodox Jewish cantor, he was also quite a mystic.  You could see it when you looked at him. There was a twinkle in his pale-blue eyes and half the time, he looked like he was ready to burst out laughing. And the other half, crying.  

He had some interesting theories about God, saying there are always highly evolved people living on Earth, to help bring about the Divine Plan. And one day, to my delight, he decided that the TV character, the Lone Ranger, was such a one. It was a great development for me because he was the star of my favorite show, and if he had something to do with God, all the better. In my book, it was a million times better than going to services.

Zayde would watch each episode with total focus, and after it ended, he would give a short teaching on the moral of the story. In the origin show, the Texas Rangers were ambushed and left for dead by the bad guys. Tonto, the Ranger's future Indian companion, comes upon the scene, realizes that one of the rangers is still alive, and nurses him back to health. Since he's the sole survivor, Tonto calls him The Lone Ranger.

A few weeks later, they find a big white stallion lying near a bush bleeding to death, apparently gored by a bull. The Ranger and Tonto spend weeks caring for it.  Once it fully recovers, they tie a rope around its neck and lead it into an open pasture.

"Your horse was killed, and now Great Spirit has given you a new horse," Tonto says, appreciating the synchronistic workings of the universe.

"He's not my horse yet, Tonto," the Ranger replies.

As they stand in the field, the horse feels its strength returning, and with its nose twitching, senses the call of the wild. The Ranger pats it on the head and slowly removes the rope. Then, he suddenly gives it a sharp slap on the rear.

The horse bolts forward and breaks into a mighty gallop, charging full speed to the top of a hill.  It rears back on its hind legs, neighing in triumph, standing tall against the sky.

But when it comes back down on all four legs, a change comes over it. It tilts its head to one side, and then, as though sensing a call beyond the wild, it trots back over to the Lone Ranger and just stands there next to him.

 "There, there, Big Fella," the Ranger murmurs to him, gently stroking its muzzle. Then he turns to Tonto, and in a calm voice of certainty says, "Now he's my horse."         

The show went to commercial and Zayde turned to me, his face glowing like he had been staring at a burning bush.

"You see?" he asked me. "It's all about free will. God will never force you. He's just waiting for you to choose to be with him. You can do it whenever you want, but it's really up to you. Understand, Davy?"

Davy—now that was a magical name for me. To my grandfather, it was just short for Dave-a-lah, an endearing Yiddish nickname meaning "little David." But for me, it was the doorway into the realm of heroes.  

That was because I used to watch a TV show every afternoon called The Mickey Mouse Club. Probably every other baby boomer in the country with a TV did the same thing. It was our own private club, with a special membership cap that had mouse ears. Everyone seemed to have at least one. 

It was an enormously popular, national phenomenon, but one day, they introduced a new character that took it to a completely different level. His name was Davy Crockett and he was The King of the Wild Frontier. It immediately became an unprecedented success and within weeks, Davy was the number one TV kids' hero in the country. 

Disney launched a massive merchandising campaign that turned into a major profit center for them. The more popular the show got, the more stuff they sold. And the more stuff they sold, the more popular the show got. There was no end to it. I had three coonskin caps. Disney was selling over five thousand a week. I probably had six different styles of Davy Crockett T-shirts and a toy rifle; a replica of the one Davy always carried that he called Old Betsy.

Brave, but light-hearted, always fighting for what was noble and right, Davy became the embodiment of the true American hero, and we all loved him.

Now, all my life I had been called Davy. I was Davy Richman. Our new hero was Davy Crockett, and everybody called him Davy, as well.  As if the line between fantasy and reality wasn't already blurred enough for me, now whenever I heard my name, I felt like a mythic hero. Every other six-year-old Davy in the country who was glued to a TV set probably felt the same way. 

My life was deeply intertwined with Crockett's and I was having a great time, until the day my mother came home from the supermarket with a new comic book about him. It had great artwork, and I was enthralled by every part of it until I got to the end. The last few pages went into a dramatically realistic portrayal of Davy's death at the Alamo.

Disney had touched on the death briefly on TV but had just glossed over it, probably for advertising reasons. They didn't want you to feel too bad before their sponsors sold you candy and cereal, which was their bread and butter.  

But this comic book was no Mickey Mouse job. The colors and the artwork were haunting, with noble, idealized writing. And unlike TV, it was static. It didn't move. You could just sit there and stare at it. Which I did. 

And it really brought the death alive. They took you inside the Alamo, where Davy and his men were being defeated at every turn. One by one, all his companions are killed. Finally, Davy is surrounded by dozens of Santa Anna's soldiers, their bayonets bared, ready to tear him to shreds. Knowing he is out of ammo, he turns Old Betsy around, bravely swinging it in the air by the barrel, ready to go down fighting.

The last panel was just his silhouette, swinging his rifle against the backdrop of a dark crimson sky. The caption read, "With no hope left, Davy fought on, and as the sky turned blood- red, The King of the Wild Frontier, the noble champion of truth, virtue, and all that is right, finally was no more."

I couldn't look away from that last panel. The color pictures saturated my mind and the truth sunk into me like a thousand-pound weight - Davy was dead. For the first time in my young life, I tasted the finality of death. And it took the life right out of me.

I sadly closed the comic book and decided to go outside. I put on my favorite Davy Crockett T-shirt and my coonskin cap, picked up Old Betsy and walked out to our small front yard. Everything was the same as always, but I didn't know this world anymore. The light had gone out of it.

It was already late afternoon. I stood on our little hill and looked out at the sky. As the sun began to set, it turned blood-red, just like the end of the comic book. The deep color made my grief a hundred times heavier.

It was unbearable, and I closed my eyes and started to cry silently. Then, somewhere in the depths of my imagination, I thought I heard a deep voice talking to me from far away saying, "Be strong, Davy. It's time to be strong."

For a moment, I didn't know where I was. Then I heard another voice. "What are you doing?" it asked me. I realized it was someone in the real world.

I opened my eyes and saw my father standing there with his briefcase in his hand. He had just come home from work. He looked me over for a few seconds, dressed in my Crockett gear. I don't know if he was picking up on the fact that something profound had just happened to me, or if he was picking up on the fact that you could move a lot of merchandise on TV. Whatever it was, he gave me a smile, picked me up, and carried me into the house.

As soon as we got in the hall, I smelled spaghetti sauce and knew we were having one of my favorite dinners. I immediately felt better. He said something to my mother in Yiddish and she started laughing - my favorite sound in the world. It made me feel even better than the spaghetti sauce.

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So much for the text of this excerpt, now let's take a look at the subtext. For me, there's a lot to unpack here. For one thing, with my grandfather you have the presence of a mystic which, according to the dictionary definition, is someone who seeks enlightenment in ways that are beyond the scope of pure intellect, the idea being that there is a deeper understanding of life that transcends the limitations of the ordinary mind. Or to put it in a nutshell, there's more to this life than meets the eye.

Furthermore, it's not bound by time. My grandfather grew up before there was widespread electricity and spent much of his life studying ancient texts that were thousands of years old. Now he's getting the same teachings from a character on a TV show. Go figure.

Then you have the element of free will as represented by Silver, the great white stallion. The Ranger could have saddled him up and forced him to be his horse, but instead, he set him free. And the horse could have run off into the wild, but instead he chose to serve the Ranger. Although it may be a simple allegory, it's filled with profound meanings.

And finally, there's the Davy Crockett comic book, which presented me with my first encounter with death itself. Even though it was only about a fictional character, this was my biggest hero, not to mention my alter-ego, and the ultimate finality of it completely obliterated my young world and I was utterly devastated.

Now I don't care how talented a writer you may be, the profound sadness and despair that the death of a loved one brings can never be adequately communicated, and anyone who's felt it knows exactly what I'm talking about. For me back then, as well as for all of us when we're children, as immense as it seemed, it was nothing compared to the real thing.

But then, I quickly stabilized back into my natural state of joy when my father scooped me up and took me inside and I heard my mother's laugh and smelled her spaghetti sauce.

Even this small moment carries some deep subtext for me because according to today's neuroscience we each have been made with the built-in capacity to come back from pain and anguish. No matter what may happen to us, we can always find a way to recover. It's a natural part of our survival mechanism.

Lincoln put an interesting additional spin on it when he said that nearly all men can handle adversity, but "if you want to test a man's character, give him power." How's that for a short statement that carries many layers of major subtext? 

Well with that, we'll close this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open and let's get together in the next one.