It was the first surefire fad of the boomer generation. We loved and embraced 'ol Davy like a brother, father, friend. I wore my Davy Crockett (Halco) playsuit with white plastic fringe everywhere I went the spring and summer of '55, which really wasn't very far, just the one residential block I grew up on! Lucky for me, I had plenty of friends there to explore our 'wild frontier' that was the dirt alley connecting our back yards. We even had our own verses to Davy's song, "Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three, And lost his mother at the A & P."
Though I wasn't allowed off the block, my mother would sometimes walk me across the street to the soda fountain / pharmacy where they had all the latest cool Crockett stuff! Display cards covered with "Flip-Up" flashlights; lunch boxes, thermoses, and tool kits by Holtemp and Adco Liberty; Alamo playsets by Marx; the Old West train by Plasticraft; costumes by Halco and Wonderland; board games by Gardner, Whitman, and Harett-Gilmar; tray puzzles by Jaymar and Whitman; buffalo rifles by Hubley; Clicker guns and powder horns by L.M. Eddy; 3-D color slide sets by Tru Vue; bubble gum machines crammed full of Crockett rings and necklaces, and spinner racks crowded with Davy Crockett comic books from Dell, DC, Charlton and Harvey. Then, if that wasn't enough, right next door at the grocery, candy counter were boxes filled with packs 'n packs of Topps Crockett trading cards, the kind with the slab of chewing gum so hard that you'd cut yourself just getting it into your mouth! |
