Two months into 2012 and already this year seems determined not to play nice with celebrities.

Over those past two months some of the best have been taken away from Etta James to Whitney Houston…and now “The Monkees” Davey Jones.

I have to smile when I type his name next to Houston and James because, certainly on a vocal level, Jones didn’t have quite the pipes like Etta or Whitney, but still he was a music maker in his own right.

I have to smile again when I think of Jones because as a child I thought he was the next best thing to my Cabbage Patch Kid named Darcy.

That’s right. I am a child of the 1980s-90s, but for at least a few years during my childhood I was magically transported back to the 1960s via Nickelodeon.

Before Hannah Montana and all the “tween” shows started popping up on the channel, Nickelodeon was committed to airing game shows that dumped slime on people’s heads and re-running old television shows such as “I Dream of Genie”, “Bewitched” and “The Monkees.”

It was on that latter show that I “discovered” Jones. As a six or seven year old, the show was timeless for me. I never realized for a second “The Monkees” was filmed 20-plus years before I was even born and the man in front of my very eyes was old enough to be my father with a 37 year difference in our ages.

Jones, with his dark hair, brown eyes and English accent, was my ultimate crush from that time in my life. Well, actually he had competition from Burt Ward who played Robin on “Batman”. They played those television shows back to back—a period of time during which I never moved from the living room floor.

I owned a “The Monkees” cassette tape that I faithfully played listening to Jones belt out such hits like “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”

Those memories are now lost in childhood delirium. I cannot tell you the last time I even heard a Monkees’ song. I haven’t thought about Jones in years, but still I was just as shocked and saddened to hear about his untimely death at age 66.

In our childhood we build our idols up to near immortal standards, but in the end we often forget how human they are.

Amanda VanDerBroek is a Staff Writer for the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald. For comments and column suggestions email: amanda.vanderbroek@r-cnews.com or call (252) 332-7209.