Davy Crockett, dead again at 85

My hero Fess Parker died today at age 85. Back in the 1950s, Parker was television's Davy Crockett to millions and millions of youngsters, me included. The first installment of "Davy Crockett," with Buddy Ebsen as Parker's sidekick, debuted in December, 1954 as part of the "Disneyland" TV show. I am pretty sure I was watching.

Parker, as Crockett, was handsome, brave and definitively cool. He was what an American should be -- a genuine good guy. He was a tall man, 6 foot 6 inches, and he spoke with a slow, smooth, southern drawl that I can still hear in my head.

He made coonskin caps famous. I had one. All my buddies had one. Heck, every kid had one. I had a Davy Crockett lunch pail, too.

I'll never forget how sad I was when Fess Parker's Davy Crockett died at the Alamo. Fess Parker put the Alamo on the map.

And now my hero Fess Parker is really dead, not TV dead. All my childhood TV idols are gone -- Hoppy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger. Those guys should never have died. They were too big, too strong, too brave, too famous. . . too "everything."

Reality strikes again, and I am sad.

Motorhome is a dinosaur

Wow! How long is this Bounder motorhome? My guess is 38 feet, but it looks longer. Could it be 40 feet? I spotted it in a Sacramento RV park while talking my evening walk. The motorhome has no slideouts. Who would want such a motorhome anymore? You wonder why it took so long for RV manufacturers to make slideouts -- so RVs could be wider at the push of a button rather than just longer and longer and longer. Can it be that hard to make a slideout?

Did anybody even think about making a slideout 20 years ago? If not, why not? Nowadays, RV makers don't keep making RVs longer and longer, they just keep adding slideouts. Five slideouts is no big deal. I bet you will see six before long. This Bounder motorhome with no slideouts is a dinosaur. My guess is that a super long motorhome like this with no slideouts worth a pittance. What do you think?