You can ask my mother. She’ll be glad to verify it. As a child I was a Monkees fan.

I credit that group with instilling in me a lifelong love of rock and roll music and a zany, if not off the wall, sense of humor.

That’s why when the first post came through on Facebook that Davy Jones had died, I didn’t want to believe it. It was a TMZ post and I figured they, in a rush to be first, had screwed it up so I waited, took care of some business matters, talked to the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office and waited for news from a more reliable source than a tabloid website.

When the legitimate press began reporting within the last hour the sinking feeling struck me. The Monkees were my childhood, my fascination with things mod. Yes, as a youngster, I had mod boots like the Monkees, a mod hat, shirt and pants.

About the only thing I didn’t have mod was the hairstyle. My father wouldn’t let me have hair that got anywhere near my ears. I’m really surprised he or my mother tolerated the music, but they were music fans themselves in a house that always knew music.

I never missed their show, had all their records and was led early into the appreciation of rock and roll.

Sure, there was the initial controversy about them being only musicians for a TV show but I think they proved their value, certainly not on the scale of their contemporaries but proved themselves.

Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork were always my favorites perhaps because they were the seasoned musicians of the quartet and I always thought Nesmith’s trademark ski hat was cool.

While many people will be thinking of Daydream Believer in the next few days, I’ll be thinking of What Am I Doing Hanging Round, almost a forerunner to the alternative, roots Americana music I listen to today.

While he wasn’t my favorite Monkee, Jones to many was the face of the group and I can’t argue with that.

A British lad with a winning smile and infectious personality, he made many ladies swoon, even on that one Brady Bunch episode where Marcia was mesmerized by him.

It becomes a gloomy day when one of the parts of your childhood passes. I remember at my first newspaper job writing an editorial about Mr. Green Jeans from Captain Kangaroo dying.

These are when celebrity deaths hit me the hardest because I identified with them, had a bond with them and appreciated them for how they influenced me.

They forged in me a love of rock and roll, a love of music and a love for things like their shows which there is nothing really to compare to these days, in this age of mindless reality shows about people who like to spend their time in tanning salons and talk bawdy.

There is a long connection there, one that certainly made my parents go crazy for a while but I guess they figured there could be worse things I could have been getting into.

I wish I still had the mod clothes to remind me of this part of my childhood, a young boy obsessed with his vision of what he thought cool was supposed to mean. I only have fleeting memories that flash now and then through my head like a dream.

That’s why you can ask my mother about this phase I went through and you can ask me about the music and how it was the beginning cell in what has now become a still changing evolutionary musical progression.

Thanks for the music and rest in peace Mr. Jones — Lance Martin.