When Destiny Comes to a Fork in the Road

By David Cauthen

What is your lifes purpose, your reason for being here, and how do you know what it is? Do you have a destiny, and, if so, how was that determined? How do you reach it? Are there choices, and if so, how does one make them? Is there a power which steers you down the right path toward your destiny, tells you which fork in the road to take? What difference in the grand scheme of things will your life make?

The author asked himself the same questions, over and over, throughout most of his seventy-seven years, and only recently has he learned the answers.

In When Destiny Comes to a Fork in the Road, Demus, the authors guardian angel, describes the authors thoughts, words, and actions as he travels down lifes road, seeking to discover his reason for being, his calling, his destiny. Share with him his happiness and sadness, emotions, indecision, uncertainty, discoveries, accomplishments, failures, his experiences, the people he met on his lifes journey and his quest to learn and to fulfill his destiny, and his eventual understanding of the meaning of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481750677

David Cauthen

David Cauthen received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Auburn University in 1957, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1964. He practiced trial law thirty-eight years in Decatur, Alabama, and specialized in personal injury, domestic relations, and criminal law. In 2001, he retired to write. In addition to Thumbs Down, the second novel in the Penn Roman legal thriller series, he published Absolute Justice, the first in the series, in 2007. He is completing Conscious Disregard, the third novel in the series. It, and his memoir, When Destiny Comes to a Fork in the Road, will be published soon.      He and his wife, Barbara, live near Hartselle in North Alabama on a small horse farm.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1

Guardian Angel

Chapter 2

Life-Image

Chapter 3

The Beginning

Chapter 4

The Early Years

Chapter 5

Early Education

Chapter 6

Moving

Chapter 7

The Church

Chapter 8

New Friends

Chapter 9

Handley High

Chapter 10

The Devil Made Him Do It

Chapter 12

Satan Strikes Again

Chapter 12

Girls And Things!

Chapter 13

Courting Trouble

Chapter 14

Sports And Such

Chapter 15

Roanoke Telephone Company

Chapter 16

Extra Money And Long Workdays

Chapter 17

First Flight

Chapter 18

Higher Education

Chapter 19

The Worst Of Times

Chapter 20

A Giant Step Toward Destiny

Chapter 21

College Life

Chapter 22

Military Introduction

Chapter 23

More Shenanigans

Chapter 24

Study And Socializing

Chapter 25

The Marine Corps Phase 1

Chapter 26

A College Senior

Chapter 27

Flight School

Chapter 28

Love Discovered

Chapter 29

Tying The Knot

Chapter 30

Quantico Revisited

Chapter 31

El Toro And Beyond

Chapter 32

A Glimpse Of The Image

Chapter 33

Detour

Chapter 34

Why You Can’t Go Home Again

Chapter 35

A Reference Point

Chapter 36

Homing In On The Signal

Chapter 37

Law School

Chapter 38

Constitutional Crises

Chapter 39

Where To Hang Out His Shingle?

Chapter 40

Finding A Fertile Spot

Chapter 41

Law Practice

Chapter 42

Other Interesting Cases And Tales

Chapter 43

Extra-Legal Activities

Chapter 44

Taking A Break

Chapter 45

Law Partners

Chapter 46

Alabama Legislator

Chapter 47

Observations And Ominous Truths

Chapter 48

The Inevitable

Chapter 49

Potpourri

Chapter 50

Serenity

Chapter 51

Resuming The True Course

Chapter 52

Fruition

Chapter 53

Judicial Candidate

Chapter 54

Family Law Firm

Chapter 55

A Journey In The Law

Chapter 56

Seeing His Destiny

Chapter 57

Aging And Reflection

(Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, Vol. I, Chapter 7)

Chapter 58

Mortality And The Soul

Chapter 59

The Road Not Taken

Chapter 60

A Difference?

Author’s Comments

Acknowledgments

Each person’s life tells a unique story,

Of love, hate, shame and glory,

One life is famous, the object of envy,

Another, to the world unnoticed, fulfills a destiny.

The Author

Dedicated with eternal love to

my dear wife, Barbara, my soul mate

and a guiding star along life’s journey

to fulfill my destiny.

David Cauthen

FOREWORD

There is in each of us humans an immortal soul, the God-given spiritual essence of each human and which, though having no material substance or form, is endowed with the ability to think, reason, and determine that person’s actions and behavior.

Each person has a calling, a reason for being born, and for living, indelibly etched into one’s soul. They constitute one’s spiritual DNA, the who and what of that person.

Each soul is unique, truly different from any other soul that has ever existed, does presently, or will do so in the future. It, and its characteristics, aren’t solely influenced by physiological, psychological, or environment factors as some mental health professionals theorize; however, they do interact with each other and with that soul’s spiritual DNA, its genius and life-image. The soul’s DNA doesn’t appear on one’s birth certificate, driver’s license, or social security card. It was formed long before the human body they occupy was biologically conceived.

These factors coalesce to portray one’s destiny, the reason for which he was created then born.

Fulfilling one’s destiny is not a certainty. It’s accomplished through that person’s living, determination, imagination, learning, trial, error, and hard work.

Theologians and philosophers believe most people discover their destinies, their reason for being, during their lifetimes. Some don’t. Many pursue destinies which are not theirs. Still others never seek to learn the reason for being born.

God, in His wisdom, provides heavenly assistance to mortals during their lives on this planet mankind calls earth.

Ancient Greek philosophers, among them Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, believed and taught that each soul, before the body of which it is a part is physically conceived, is assigned a guardian angel they termed a daimon.

A daimon, as God’s emissary, knows the ward’s life-image, destiny and spiritual DNA, and psychically accompanies the guardian angel’s ward through earthly life and metaphysically influences the ward’s efforts to fulfill the ward’s destiny.

For ages, mankind has pondered whether each human being has a destiny and, if so, when and how it is recognized, determined and fulfilled.

Many theories abound.

Some believe God, in His incredibly complicated plan for mankind, assigns each person a unique role to play in that plan - a destiny, a life-purpose unlike that of any other person on earth, in history, past, present, or future.

Others believe there are a number of gods in the spiritual realm, each in charge of some aspect of nature, and that the kind of life each person lives, good or bad, depends on whether those gods are pleased, or not, with that person. This school of thought is found in the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, the Romans and some later civilizations in which humans sacrificed crops, animals, even other humans, to various deities in hope of receiving favorable treatment or blessings from those gods.

Still others believe a person has no predetermined destiny in life on this planet and think happenstance is the major force which dictates the course of each life without design, spiritual guidance, or direction.

My beliefs regarding human destiny were strongly formed by the words and truths of the Holy Bible, through a lot of living and thinking, frequently painful trial-and-error, my theology and philosophy, and extensive reading in widely varying genres.

However, it was not until I read The Soul’s Code, In Search of Character and Calling, by Dr. James Hillman (Random House, Inc., New York [1996]), an internationally renowned psychiatrist and disciple of the Swiss philosopher and psychiatrist, Carl Jung (1875-1961), when I became compelled to write this book, to share with others my life’s experiences and the discovery and, ultimately, the fulfillment of my destiny. I found in Dr. Hillman’s extraordinary treatise the organization of thought on these topics which my mind and pen were heretofore unable to grasp, set in order, and express. My reading of his book was, for me, Providential.

The substance and theme of this autobiography are the products of my recent coming to understand my purpose in life, my destiny, the who and what of myself. These came to me through long-overdue and often painful introspection and extensive retrospection, and considering the many, many things I have experienced and learned thus far.

As you read, you’ll probably ask, "What are you saying? What have you done in your life that qualifies you to tell me about the human soul, destiny, reason for being, essence of life, and fulfillment? What makes your life so special, worthy of reading about, of noting?"

Excellent questions!

My answer is I can speak only about my life and of the happy event of finally recognizing and understanding my life-purpose and how my destiny will be fulfilled.

Every life, no matter when lived, whether past, present, or future, is a one-of-a-kind, unique, matchless, thrilling story worthy of telling, of study. How others may see, feel about, judge or assess my, or any other person’s, life is not determinative of its true worth and value nor is such, in any way, indicative of whether such person’s destiny was, is, or will be fulfilled.

This story of my life is one that can, and probably will, be viewed as crazy, dull, haphazard, troublesome, happy, sad, successful, tempestuous, exciting, non-directional, compulsive, impulsive, and other descriptive terms one may wish to use. My life, at different times, has been all of these.

But I hope to God you don’t find it normal!

Whenever herein an asterisk (*) follows a person’s name that signifies the name is fictitious and is used instead of the real name to protect that person’s privacy or identity.

It is my singular hope that sharing my life’s beliefs, thoughts, and experiences will help you, the reader, realize that your life also is unique and extraordinary. There is not, hasn’t been, and never will be another human being like you or a life experience like yours.

May this book help you discover your reason for being and encourage you along the road toward fulfilling your destiny.

David Cauthen

CHAPTER 1

GUARDIAN ANGEL

I’m Demus, David Cauthen’s guardian angel. He’s my spiritual ward. His life and destiny are my business, the objects of my vigil. I work at it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and have done so more for more than seventy-eight years.

After God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, He created guardian angels to help watch over humans, to accompany each person on his or her mortal journey. We guardian angels are celestial spirits and live forever. This was discovered by the Greeks, the great thinkers, before Christendom, early in man’s quest for answers to the secrets of life and of God’s purpose for mankind. The Greeks called us daimons, not to be confused with our Satanic opposites, demons.

The Hellenists believed a person’s soul pre-existed that person’s biological conception.

Plato, the Greek philosopher (428 – 347 BC) in his Republic, wrote in Book X:

When all the souls had chosen their lives, they went before

Lachesis. And she sent with each, as the guardian of his life

and the fulfiller of his choice, the daimon that he had chosen.

Jeremiah, whose prophetic ministry began circa 626 BC and ended in approximately 587 BC, one of God’s Old Testament prophets, repeated the Lord’s declaration to him:

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and

before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified

thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

(Jeremiah 1:5)

Each person - past, present, and future - is unique and has a mortal life-purpose, a destiny. The body and soul are endowed by the Almighty with the ability necessary to fulfill that destiny. The Creator assigns a guardian angel to spiritually accompany the ward through mortal life and, hopefully, toward the ward’s fulfillment of that destiny.

I, Demus, am part of David’s soul.

The soul doesn’t respond to, nor is it governed by, the laws of physics or any other science. It isn’t guided by the principles of logic or reason. It is not time-sensitive. The soul is eternal, a creation of God and retains its unique identity from spiritual conception, through birth and earthly life to its host’s physical death, and thereafter for eternity.

After a person’s mortal death, the soul resides with other souls in one of two spiritual realms - one for the blessed souls and one for those who are lost.

One may not know or ever see his or her destiny. It takes some growing into, a lot of living and seeking. A person isn’t bound to his or her destiny and may choose to take different pathways through life, depart from his or her life-image, and not fulfill that destiny.

The human spirit, the soul, has a free will and the power of choice. It is up to each person to strive to achieve his or her destiny by discovering, developing, and directing his or her spiritual, mental and physical abilities to blaze his or her unique trail in life. Each person’s thoughts, acts, and experiences are parts of life’s journey toward fulfilling that purpose.

That’s where I come in.

As David’s guardian angel, I serve as a guiding influence, one of his natural instincts working through his subconscious to nudge him toward identifying and fulfilling his Divine destiny.

~~~

When does one discover his or her life’s purpose?

Some discover it at a young age, even before the age of mature thought. Humans often call this genius and describe the person as precocious or gifted.

Others see their life-purpose long after birth. Some learn it shortly before death. Many see a false image of his or her life-purpose and futilely pursue it with abandon, go off on the wrong tangent. Later, the ward may see his or her true life-purpose and change courses toward its fulfillment.

Sadly, some never know their life’s purpose.

How does one discover and fulfill his or her destiny?

By living and learning.

How do I know when I have fulfilled my destiny, my life-purpose? the ward repeatedly asks through life.

The answer comes from within and is called true happiness.

~~~

What components make up one’s life-image?

They are the basic positive spiritual characteristics with which God endows each person: love, truthfulness, sympathy, courage, respect, honesty, motivation, intellect, temperament, talent, and other positive traits which interact to enable fulfillment of one’s life-purpose. They exist in every human being at one time or another and in varying degrees.

The soul is susceptible to negative influences and obstacles to the fulfillment of its life-purpose. Some of these are hate, fear, cowardice, doubt, deceit, jealousy, greed, anger, distrust, and vengeance. Some humans refer to these influences as sins or believe they are the products of sin. These factors can, and often do, interfere with fulfilling one’s destiny by obscuring the individual’s view of his or her life-purpose or by diversion from the true course toward fulfillment.

Human science has a means of identifying and codifying a human being’s physiological identity. It is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a unique combination of the various nucleic acids which form the molecular basis for human heredity. A separate DNA code or profile is assigned to each person, and its unique characteristics physically distinguish its owner from all others - past, present, and future, and is currently scientifically accepted to identify a person to the mathematical exclusion of all others.

It is the same with the soul. Its spiritual DNA consists of and is identified by a human soul’s unique combination of God-given character traits. There are no clones, patterns, or copies. Each human soul has its own special and unique spiritual DNA known only to God.

~~~

We humans put forth many excuses for not fulfilling our destinies.

Genetics, the physiological method by which physical and mental characteristics are passed down through generations, are sometimes used as justification for not pursuing or fulfilling one’s destiny. When a person is born with physical or mental conditions which depart from those considered normal or healthy, those characteristics, when viewed from a human perspective, are often considered insurmountable barriers to a meaningful and productive life; however, those conditions alone don’t preclude the ward from fulfilling his or her destiny.

The social environment into which a person is born and lives often creates difficulty, even impediments, in identifying and successfully striving toward the accomplishment of one’s life-purpose and is frequently used as justification for not pursuing or fulfilling that destiny.

Lack of a formal education is frequently posed as a reason for failure to realize one’s life-purpose. History and experience abound to refute that premise.

Whether one fulfills his or her destiny is not a subject which can be charted or graded or even determined by others. Only God, the person’s guardian angel, and the person know.

Nor is there a certain minimum intelligence quotient (IQ) necessary to fulfilling one’s destiny, one’s life purpose.

There are always means by which to fulfill one’s destiny. They require imagination, spiritual receptiveness, understanding, sometimes non-conformity, a strong will, thought, preparation, hard work, faith in God and in self, persistence, and courage.

Life is a work in progress for each person, a process of learning, discovering, becoming and remaining attuned to God’s plan, and keeping an open attitude and mind directed toward discovery, toward learning and spiritual growth. Fulfilling one’s destiny requires imaginative use of one’s unique mental and physical abilities.

Wrong choices can, and often do, frustrate or even prevent realization of one’s life-purpose, fulfilling one’s destiny.

Loss of the desire or quest to identify, understand and fulfill one’s destiny often results from denial of its existence, defiance, condemnation of, even mocking, God’s plan for a person.

These problems make a guardian angel’s job more difficult.

I live and feel David’s experiences and emotions, positive and negative, constructive and destructive.

Well, you may ask, if you’re a guardian angel, why don’t you take your ward in hand and lead him through the magic gates to fulfillment?

A logical question!

Although I am part of David’s soul, I can’t control his actions and thoughts. I can only suggest, through his subconscious, the right direction for him to travel on life’s road. He, as does every other human being, has a free will, the power to choose. It is up to him to use his God-given capabilities and character traits in living to find his way.

Not all humans believe in guardian angels or the soul. Many don’t accept there is such a thing as human destiny. They think a person’s ability to think and reason in varying degrees of competence defines that person and whether he or she is successful or capable of being successful.

Others believe a person’s life has no purpose, theme, or distinctive characteristics which isn’t determined by randomness or chance. Little or no credence is given to a person’s God-given uniqueness and value. To those who believe such, the soul doesn’t exist. They see the parameters of a person’s life as mortal birth, life’s struggle, and death, …and that’s it! Bumper stickers that announce, Life’s a bitch, and you die! is a twenty-first century snippet of this philosophy.

This belief is distressing to us guardian angels. It totally discounts the essential uniqueness and worth of each human being. It doesn’t take into account that each person has an eternal soul that seeks out its reason for being, its raison d’etre. It relegates a person’s spiritual identity to the random result of heredity, the fickle influences of environment and chance. It would make one a helpless victim, a pawn, rather than the noblest of God’s creations.

Enough of explaining my existence and purpose. I have a story to tell, one of a continuing journey which is unique, exciting, and confounding in every respect.

Following is the remarkable seventy-seven years plus of the life story of David Britnell Cauthen.

CHAPTER 2

LIFE-IMAGE

After I was assigned to be David’s guardian angel and viewed his life-image, I knew I had my work cut out if I was to be successful in helping guide him to fulfillment of his destiny. I saw many obstacles he would encounter which could block the way.

There were large doses of anger, despair, fear, hate, explosive temper, regret, sorrow, lack of confidence, impulsiveness, jealousy, vengefulness, depression, anxiety, irrationality, indecision, an unusual susceptibility to psychological stress, hypersensitivity, an almost effortless and oft-exercised propensity to get into trouble and conflict. His life experience has demonstrated an uncanny ability to simultaneously invoke several of these obstacles. Just one of them made things difficult for him (and me). In combination they often made matters virtually impossible.

As you’ll learn, he developed into an art form the tendency to let his emotions get the better of him which, if unchecked, often led him toward disastrous consequences.

These barriers fragmented and obscured my view of David’s future which frequently looked like a partly-completed jigsaw puzzle. What the puzzle would look like when completed remained a mystery. I couldn’t place the pieces in their proper places to make the picture whole. That task would ultimately be up to David, with what assistance I could offer, as he and I journeyed together along his life’s road.

With all these obstacles and uncertainty, I wondered if I had performed so poorly in my last assignment. Was I chosen to be David’s guardian angel as punishment? Ultimately, I decided I was selected for the task out of the utmost confidence that I was the only guardian angel who had a chance to successfully steer him on the right course through his life and toward fulfilling his destiny.

I was encouraged that his soul was well equipped to succeed in this quest, accepted my assignment as a challenge, and warmed to the task.

David’s life-image showed him to be endowed with dogged determination, a keen sense of humor, a native intelligence which isn’t off the top of the scale but, when coupled with his tenacity, signaled an ability to accomplish the unusual and the difficult. He’s blessed with a keen sense of competition, honor, love of his fellowman and country, fairness and justice, of right and wrong, and a trust in people’s basic honesty, truthfulness, and fairness.

He is blessed with a strong, healthy body in which to carry his soul along life’s road. That trip, so far, hasn’t, for the most part, been level, smooth, straight, or dry. There would be much bulldozing, clearing, cutting, filling, grading, stump-pulling, and paving along the path of his life’s journey.

However, I was mightily encouraged when I saw that David’s life would be centered around and built upon a strong faith in Almighty God.

I cinched my belt for the hard trip ahead and wondered in which direction David would travel.

Were he and I up to the test?

CHAPTER 3

THE BEGINNING

The beginning of David’s journey was not long in coming. When he was conceived in 1934, I immediately began necessary preparation for accompanying him. In beginning our acquaintance, I viewed each component of his soul. He and I would, after his birth, learn how to talk to each other about what I can and can’t do and of what each of his soul’s parts was capable. That was, and continues to be, a learning process. I speak to David in a still, small voice. He hears me only if he attunes his mind to listen for me. He speaks to me through both the subconscious and conscious parts of his mind. I monitor both. I can read them even when he talks to others, even the Evil One. I can’t hear Satan’s voice, and can only monitor the thoughts going through David’s mind, but I know when he listens to Beelzebub.

I can see into David’s future. As a guardian angel, I am divinely endowed with the knowledge and perspective required to follow and assess his progress in his life’s journey. The state of David’s mind is a vital source of information, one I must be able to monitor in this assessment. This ability enables me to foresee his problems and communicate warnings, directions and other helpful influences to him. If he’s not attuned to me, I don’t get through.

I hear his prayers. They are accurate indicators of his progress along the right path toward fulfillment of his destiny.

How quickly a ward discovers his or her life-purpose, his destiny, is critical. Such discovery is, by no means, inevitable.

The soul knows its life-purpose but can understand and see it only through the combination of the ward’s living experiences, an attuned mind, and attention to the Divine impulses drawing the soul in the direction of fulfillment.

Although I know his destiny, I can’t direct, order or compel David to fulfill it. I can only call upon his soul to utilize its numerous characteristics and abilities to aid or assist him in staying on course. There are literally trillions x trillions x trillions of interactions of the different parts of the soul which prompt the ward, at times consciously and at other times sub-consciously, to intellectually and physically act to move on one’s course toward fulfillment.

~~~

Mortal life began for David in a tumultuous way, and it would continue thus during most of his earthly life. He made a painful entry and kept things stirred up thereafter.

He is the younger child of Frank Merriman Cauthen (Big Frank) and Lucy Britnell Cauthen (Miss Lucy). At the time David’s soul was joined with his earthly body and appeared in this world on March 25, 1935, his parents and older brother, Frank, Jr., lived in the small town of Roanoke which then boasted a population of four thousand. The town is situated in Randolph County in the east-central region of Alabama five miles west of the Georgia state line.

Miss Lucy nearly died during his birth. Her physician, Dr. Gerson Bonner, advised she could never have more children. As would be the oft-repeated theme of her rendition of the birth of his brother, Frank, compared to David’s was like comparing a stroll in the park to a marathon.

Suffice it to say, from birth, David was considered as the hell-raiser of the Frank Cauthen family.

Obviously, Lucy and Frank Cauthen had a sense of dramatic irony when they chose David as his name. It means beloved.

Roanoke was Big Frank’s birthplace. He was the oldest of five brothers, the off-spring of Herbert Hamilton Cauthen and Ethel Oldham Cauthen (Miss Ethel). They were the early twentieth century owners and operators of the Roanoke Telephone Company (RoTelCo), a business that would play a pivotal role in David’s life.

Big Frank was involved in the management of the telephone company after his father died in 1923 and left Miss Ethel to run the company into, during, and after the depths of the 1930s Great Depression. Big Frank’s brothers, George, Herbert, and the twins, Frederick (Peck) and Joe, were barely grown, the twins teenagers. Times were hard, and the company’s subscribers or customers didn’t always have the money to pay their telephone bills. Vegetables, milk, butter, and other commodities were often used as barter to satisfy these charges.

There were others in the family to help in the operation of the Cauthen household and RoTelCo. Miss Ethel had three sisters: Mary, Emily (Em) and Elizabeth (Bess), all of whom lived in Roanoke when David was born. Mary and Em, the latter a spinster, worked as RoTelCo switchboard operators.

Education beyond high school was difficult to pay for in those days before the advent of scholarships, grants, and other college stipends. College graduates were rare. Big Frank had an opportunity to earn a degree, with initial attendance at Washington & Lee University, then the University of North Carolina, and later the University of Georgia. He didn’t apply himself to academics and returned home to Roanoke to work for RoTelCo.

George was the only one of the brothers who graduated college. He later graduated dental school and practiced in the small town of Blackshear in South Georgia.

Peck attended the University of Alabama for a short time but dropped out because of World War II during which he served in the U. S. Army.

Joseph Jennings Cauthen (Joe), the other twin, never completed his formal education and served in the Army during that war. His early education was hampered by undetected eye problems. Joe was one of the hardest working of the Cauthen boys as they were fondly known in and around Roanoke. His early work eventually landed him as a lineman with Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company in Opelika, Alabama, which he so affectionately called Ma Bell, and from which he would later retire.

Herbert Hamilton Cauthen, the third of the sons, also worked for RoTelCo and, as will be later described in more detail, proved a powerful, far-reaching influence on David.

CHAPTER 4

THE EARLY YEARS

David’s toddler years did nothing to foster his discovery of his life’s purpose. He displayed no precociousness or signs of genius. He doesn’t recall many events and thoughts during that time. Stories of those years were passed down to him by his parents, by Frank, and the rest of the Cauthen family. Those stories, in addition to the events he and I recall, form an important sketch and part of his early years.

His first tenure in Roanoke lasted one year after his birth. Big Frank’s job at the telephone office ended in 1936, and his family moved to Birmingham where he was employed by Moore & Handley Hardware Company for the greater part of the rest of his working life.

Their first home there was on Manhattan Street in what was then Edgewood, now part of Homewood, a community south of Birmingham’s Red Mountain upon which the iron statue of Vulcan, the god of fire, stands and surveys the city in which iron, steel, and coal industries then thrived.

Shortly thereafter, the family moved to 1009 Greenwood Terrace, also in Edgewood, and lived there during many of David’s formative years.

An event on Greenwood Terrace demonstrated David’s early awareness there were forces of evil at large which waged war with the good in him. Little did he know the voice of good, his conscience, included me, Demus, speaking to his subconscious. What particular struggle was going on within David I don’t recall, but he verbally evidenced being caught in a powerful dilemma, deciding between right and wrong.

He stood alone in a corner of the living room pondering which course of action he would take in the situation, when the maid heard him shout, Shut up!

Who you talkin’ to? she asked.

The devil. He’s trying to get me in trouble!

David was then three. As you will read, there were many more conversations between him and Satan, the outcome rarely predictable.

Occasionally, when he did something particularly bad, Miss Lucy warned, If you do that again, the police will come and take you to jail in the paddy-wagon. The last thing we’ll see of you is your little face peering between the bars as it drives away.

All they’ll feed you is black-eyed peas and cornbread, the maid added.

But I like black-eyed peas and cornbread, David answered, effectively ending that ploy.

Such threats, though innocently and jokingly made, formed an indelible mark on David’s psyche and, in his youth, caused him to fear policemen and those in authority.

~~~

It was on Greenwood Terrace where David first experienced the love of friends, the thrill of the exploration of nature and other unknowns, a few of the differences between girls and boys, early vestiges of an education, and sports.

Thankfully, the neighbors were kind, loving, outgoing people.

There David saw the wonders of nature, fought bullies, had fun, cultivated a desire to excel, ate maypops and persimmons (even the unripe ones containing alum which made his mouth shrink for a while). He played flies and skinners on the vacant lot and had to be careful not to let the baseball roll into the cement-lined drainage ditch next to the lot, and lived other adventures which began to form him.

Kitty West was his favorite adult neighbor and friend because she treated him like a grown-up. She teased him in a kidding and friendly way. The vivacious blonde-haired, cobalt blue-eyed rapscallion often referred to herself as an ole Tennessee hillbilly. Her face expressed the purest frankness, honesty, and mischievousness David had seen and rarely encountered since. She was David’s friend and quickly became his ally.

Kitty was warm and often hilarious. She laughed heartily and infectiously and loudly slapped her knee and filled the room with her patented explosive laughter when she told a funny story, explained some bit of devilment she had recently committed, or when she caught the punch line of a joke.

There was always time for her to spend with and listen to David, and Kitty West really listened!

She had a signal influence on David’s appreciation for and the love of humor and in understanding human nature. Her home was a frequent refuge for Miss Lucy and one or both of the boys when Big Frank was drinking, sick as David’s mother would say.

Often, during the warm months, when Kitty visited the Cauthens, drinking coffee and smoking the ever-present cigarette, she’d wink at David when she heard the inviting clanging of the bell rung by Sam, the vegetable man. Monday through Saturday, Sam Petros drove through the neighborhood, his truck laden with fresh vegetables and melons, and various sweets and goodies. David’s favorite was the five-cent Merita devil’s-food cake. As Lucy and Kitty walked out to the truck to inspect Sam’s offerings, David begged for a cake or popsicle. Money was scarce. If Miss Lucy refused, Kitty usually came through and slipped him a cake behind Lucy’s back and a conspiratorial wink without a word. It was, to David, the ultimate in kindness and love.

Kitty gave David his nickname, Mr. D, which followed him through college and much later in life.

She died long after the Cauthens moved from Greenwood Terrace, but Kitty West is as alive today in David’s mind and heart as she was during his childhood.

~~~

Kimber Barton was the only neighborhood child with whom David didn’t get along. They were the same age, but Kimber was considerably taller though gangly. David thought him a sissy and a mama’s boy because he didn’t play in the vacant lot baseball and football games or in the twilight basketball tournaments in the Cauthen’s back yard. He didn’t skate, play Tarzan, or join in the mud ball battles at the creek’s mud forts in the woods and wouldn’t shoot B-B or rubber guns in the games of cowboys and Indians. He was an excellent may I? and hop-scotch player and occasionally played hide-and-seek. New braces caused him to drool and lisp.

I knew trouble between the two was inevitable.

One day Kimber was in the Cauthens’ front yard with several neighborhood boys throwing darts at a paper target pinned to a pine tree. The darts were the real ones with sharp, lead-weighted metal points and feathers to guide their flight.

An argument arose about whose time it was to throw, and Kimber voiced his opinion it wasn’t David’s turn. When Mr. D turned to challenge that opinion, Kimber started running toward his house. Before I could attempt to intercede in David’s thoughts, he took aim and threw a dart at the fleeing boy who, as he reached the other side of the driveway next door, collapsed with the dart dangling from the calf of his left leg. He went down like he’d been hit with a sledge hammer.

By the time Kimber’s doctor bills and the expense of the tetanus and other shots were paid by the Cauthens, David needed a shot of novocaine in his rear. He couldn’t sit for a week, and there was no allowance for longer than that. It would be the closest David came to having it out with Kimber, probably luckily so. He was a lot bigger.

Kimber matured and is successful in life, a lesson well-taught to David: early impressions are often inaccurate.

~~~

Another source of David’s early practical education was the Howard family who lived around the corner on Forrest Drive.

Mr. Howard worked at the post office in Birmingham. Mrs. Howard was shy and didn’t have much contact with the neighborhood children. The Howard children - Thomas, Paul, Elizabeth, and Judy - were mannerly, polite and intelligent. Thomas, several years David’s senior, was an accomplished craftsman and could build wonders with his hands. Paul, a year older than Mr. D, was a nature lover.

During the summer months, Paul and David spent countless hours, sometimes from early morning until after dark, in the nearby dense woods and wide creek that meandered behind the houses along Greenwood Terrace. Because of these frequent forays into the woods from which Mr. D emerged filthy and smelly, Big Frank labeled him, Pismo, the Swamp Angel. It was one of the many nicknames with which he tabbed his younger son.

Thick vines in the pines and hardwood trees behind the Cauthen home and others on the same side of the street provided Tarzan-like swings from one side of the large creek to the other and from one tall tree to another. The boys didn’t flinch at the danger that a fall into the creek swollen by heavy rains would have likely taken them on a fatal journey to Edgewood Lake, a rocky, winding, swift, treacherous mile or more downstream.

Watching squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, an occasional beaver, all kinds of birds, hawks, owls, and all manner of other wildlife was David’s and Paul’s daily delight. Hunting frogs, locusts, lizards, grasshoppers, lightening bugs, and bees occupied much of their summertime. On occasion, barefooted and in short pants, Paul and David narrowly escaped the bite of a water moccasin or copperhead in the creek bed or brush piled along its banks.

It was Paul who got a job at Hamburger Heaven, a drive-in restaurant on Oxmoor Road between Edgewood and Homewood that inspired David to his first employment as a car-hop. He was barely thirteen and worked for just a few weeks before the family moved back to Roanoke in the summer of 1948.

~~~

David’s first encounter with a child who was not like him and other children, handicapped if you like, was on Greenwood Terrace. Lisa*, a little girl who lived across the street, had Down syndrome. In that day, such unfortunate people were ignorantly and cruelly labeled Mongolian Idiots because they possessed some outward physical characteristics of the Mongoloid race. Lisa exhibited different personality traits and modes of expressing herself from other neighborhood children. She communicated her disapproval by grunts and physical aggression. Her signal of approval was a bright, wide smile. Her condition was not openly discussed among the other neighborhood children. Many were afraid of her.

While playing marbles in the dirt driveway next to her house, the neighborhood children scattered like dandelion seeds in the wind when she tried to join the game. She brutishly crawled into the ring of marbles and scattered them asunder while grunting in protest. David and the others didn’t know why she acted so angry. Later, it became apparent to him she was frustrated and confused because she couldn’t play like the other children.

It was the eventual understanding of Lisa’s actions that provided David the beginning of sensitivity and compassion for profoundly handicapped people he would come to know. Many times I overheard him catch himself criticizing or disparaging a handicapped person when he remembered Lisa and her frustration. He felt ashamed and sympathetic and tried to treat these special people like he wanted to be treated.

David early realized the handicapped are God’s people, too, and each has a life-purpose, a destiny.

~~~

Profanity came early and easily for David. There is a photograph of him taken during his early years in Edgewood. It portrays three-year-old David dressed in his daily uniform of shorts, cowboy boots, cap pistol and belt, and a tall Johnny Mac Brown ten gallon cowboy hat that swallowed his head and fell over his eyes. He traveled far and wide on his trusty steed, a battered tricycle. According to witnesses, when the photo that appears at the end of this chapter was taken, the only understandable sounds which came from under David’s cowboy hat formed a steady stream of baby-talk profanity.

To his family and my chagrin, his dexterity in cussin’ was a fast-developing art, a trait of his younger and later years which would frequently ensnare him in serious trouble. Many times, in a fit of anger, he screamed a profanity, the meaning of which he had no idea, at Frank, another child in the neighborhood, sometimes at an adult neighbor, usually with painful repercussions at home.

Lying, but when referring to children humans used the lesser harsh word, fibbing, was a necessary and inevitable by-product of David’s bent for getting into trouble and was coupled with a mischievous, disobedient, often-defiant spirit.

He was in constant trouble for his misdeeds, most of which were intentional. Others were the natural result of his proclivity for mischief. Fibbing frequently got him in deeper difficulty. His just reward included a whipping on the behind and bare legs by Big Frank with the thinnest of leather belts. He held David with one hand and flailed away with the belt in the other as David danced, spun, high-stepped and screamed. The process was the same with his mother’s long-handled hair brush or thick privet hedge switch. He never believed the words unconvincingly spoken by his mother or father while dispensing David a sound thrashing, This hurts me more than it does you! The remark was invariably made when the one who was punishing was angry and not the one in pain.

If a little fib would avoid such mayhem, it was a cheap price to pay; however, as will be expanded upon later, these doings and fibs, aside from the physical punishment, took their toll in the form of an over-sensitive, hyperactive conscience.

In monitoring David’s dreams and thoughts, I detected, even in his adult years, his painful recollection of his childhood mischief, cruelty, lying, and other things which adults pass off as childish behavior.

~~~

David did several other things in his formative years that evidenced his bent for heading in the wrong direction, away from the one in which I attempted to steer him.

One of these incidents caused unending trouble between him and Frank, who was the more constructive and productive of the two due both to age difference and disposition.

Frank, when about ten or eleven, built model airplanes, the kind sold in kits of balsa wood with patterns for the parts stamped on a balsa sheet and which he cut out with a single-edge razor blade, Xacto knife, or sharp pocket knife and tediously assembled them.

He patiently built each plane with glue and pins and applied the tissue paper skin, being certain to precisely place the military insignia on the wings and fuselage. Every detail was just so. Frank proudly hung the finished product by sewing thread scotch-taped to the ceiling of the bedroom he shared with David. With the beginning of construction of another model, he soon lost interest in those he’d completed.

To my horror, in Frank’s absence, David, one by one, took down the completed models, struck a match, lighted the nose of each model plane and launched it from the upstairs bedroom window. The model gracefully spiraled in a flaming descent to its incendiary grave, its remains a pitiful pile of smoking ashes on the driveway of the house next door. During the fatal flight, David gleefully shouted his best sound effects to imitate air-to-air combat - machine guns, whining aircraft engines, and the death-rattle of the doomed plane in its fatal, final dive.

When Frank learned of this, to his credit, he didn’t immediately clobber his little brother and, instead, tried to find out why he did it. David was defensive and didn’t want to talk. Usually the inquiry deteriorated into a knock-em-down and drag-em-out fight with Frank doing most of the knocking down and dragging out. Mr. D still carries a large, bony knot on the top of his right hand he fractured during a fracas about the model airplane fires. David swung at Frank who ducked, and David’s fist struck an unyielding door frame. The knot serves as a vivid reminder of the thrashings he justly received because of the flaming airplane models.

Still, though, he steadfastly rationalizes, There are very few sights more graceful than the flaming, spiraling descent of a model plane, especially if I didn’t build it.

~~~

Most Greenwood Terrace parents smoked. It was natural for the children to imitate them, usually with rabbit tobacco wrapped in toilet paper or a scrap from a brown paper sack, and sometimes newspaper. The homemade cigarettes were smoked in watchful groups of six-to-ten year old youngsters hunkered down in the woods behind the hedges separating most of the back yards from the woods. Too, David often filched one or two Camels from Miss Lucy’s pack and sneaked a couple of houses down from his to the concrete drainage ditch where there was a cross-walk. There he sat and puffed until only the butt remained. The cigarette tasted a lot better than rabbit tobacco but made him dizzier.

Eventually, Idell, one of a procession of the Cauthens’ maids, saw David smoking and dutifully informed Miss Lucy. When quizzed about smoking, he reluctantly admitted it. Certain her punishment would cure him from smoking, she opened a new pack of cigarettes and ordered David to smoke the entire pack. She sat with him while he puffed. Much to her chagrin, he glibly smoked the entire pack without coughing once. For one of the few times in her life, Lucy Cauthen was speechless.

After that episode, David lost interest in the adventure of smoking and never developed the habit. Maybe his mother proved her point after all. He did, however, much later in life, smoke a pipe and puff cigars over several years until he burned so many holes in his clothes he stopped smoking completely.

~~~

Sometime during every young boy’s early life, the natural hunting instinct takes over.

David’s surfaced early-on, and he spent countless hours with Paul Howard and steel rabbit traps and wire bird snares. Then he got a BB gun and began stalking birds and became a deadly shot. The thrushes, red birds, blue jays and sparrows were numerous. David did his part to reduce the neighborhood bird population.

Why he shot the birds was a mystery. He would pick up the dead bird and rub its smooth feathers, look at the lifeless body and glassy eyes, and cry. He hated himself for hurting these helpless creatures and dug a grave for each one, made a cross, and had a funeral service.

In this way, he came to realize how delicate life is and how quickly it can be snuffed out.

~~~

Being three years younger, Mr. D had a hard time keeping up with his older brother and doing the same things but tried his best to tag along wherever Frank went. In those days, it was safe for young children to ride bikes, skate or walk several blocks from home by themselves to play at friends’ homes. Frank was not understanding about having David under foot. A scuffle often followed, and the younger one usually returned home bawling. The same scene was repeated the next day, and the next, during pre-school and the early grammar school years.

David fought hard and often, trying to win his place with the older boys. The best he achieved was tolerance. He had to try harder to keep up with the older boys in the baseball, touch football and basketball games, and went all-out full time just to do his part. This ethic helped him in many ways later in life.

To my shock, Big Frank began to call David, Demus B. McSnazzy. It was so similar to my name it chilled. Where or why David’s father got this nickname for David I don’t know. If a coincidence, it was a real long shot. Gradually, the name was abbreviated to Mr. D by Kitty West, then further shortened to simply D.

~~~

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. There was no television then, and radio reception was not very clear. David was six and in the first grade. He didn’t understand the import of the attack. There were much sadness, anger, and fear expressed by the adults during the ensuing neighborhood gatherings. Then came the rationing of gasoline, tires, automobiles, sugar, wool products, metals including toys and other necessities such as chewing gum and candies. The war news became an important part of the Cauthens’ daily lives. They gathered around the radio each evening to listen.

Big Frank was too old to be drafted, but all of his brothers, except Herbert for medical reasons, were drafted or enlisted for the duration of World War II.

~~~

David had sort of a double life as far as activities in the Greenwood Terrace - Forrest Drive neighborhood.

With the girls and boys his age, hide-and-seek, May I? and tag were the games they played most. There were many places to hide in the thick woods behind Greenwood Terrace, under the front porch at the Clayton Andrews’ house on the hill, in the Cauthens’ basement, in the concrete drainage ditch and six foot wide drainage pipe crossing under the street or in the abundant neighborhood hedges and shrubbery. The high, dense weeds at the dead-end of Greenwood Terrace was always a good place, but it was used so much in these games there were well-trampled paths to the burrows in which the children often hid.

Sandy, the Cauthen’s loyal and lovable Spitz-Chow, usually gave away David’s hiding place by running to it and barking, gleefully joining in the game. As proficiently as the best birddog would point a covey of quail, Sandy stood outside the hiding place and wagged his fluffy tail and alternately barked and plunged into the lair to lick David in the face, then run back out to see if anyone were watching.

Chiggers and red-bugs were constant itchy companions during the summer months. In hide-and-seek, scratching a bite often gave away the hider’s location. Or an occasional snake or buzzing bumblebee broke up the game and sent youngsters running.

~~~

Somewhere in here, David noticed the difference between the sexes.

In those days, there were no televisions, skin magazines or widely disseminated information about the birds and the bees. The primary source of learning about the points of male and female dissimilarity came by way of instruction from pre-pubescent, self-acclaimed neighborhood experts, usually two or three years older than David and the other children.

Many rainy days passed discussing the distinguishing characteristics between girls and boys. The whys didn’t seem to draw much interest. A lot of bad information and misdirected effort were expended in the name of sex education. The older boys crudely explained the purpose of the different anatomical male and female sexual components. The younger ones, including David, were suitably enthralled and impressed with the experience and knowledge of the older boys. Gross exaggeration and misinformation abounded. Imagination and actuality were indistinguishable in these sessions.

~~~

It was on Greenwood Terrace where David’s competitive spirit, love of sports and his athleticism began developing.

The other neighborhood children his age didn’t want to play baseball or football, but David did. The older boys chose up and played on the vacant lot beside Fletcher Allen’s house on the corner of Greenwood Terrace and Forrest Drive or baseball on the vacant lot across the street and next to the concrete drainage ditch mentioned earlier. A basketball goal and dirt court in the Cauthens’ back yard saw duty year around, rain or shine, day and night.

Dribbling a wet, muddy basketball on a water-slicked dirt court and executing a sweeping hook shot against a rickety goal while Sandy gleefully barked and darted in and out of the way occupied many hours of David’s young life. Sometimes he played alone and won almost every game with a long, last-second shot which predictably rattled through the hoop as the imaginary game-ending horn sounded. The pressure of the absolute mandate to make the last-second shot was as real to him in his games as to any player attempting a buzzer-beating winning basket in the final game of NCAA Final Four.

This self-imposed pressure of time running out and the difference between winning and losing helped David in sports in later years. Not only did a strong competitive spirit dwell and develop in him, it overlaid his relationships with other children in most every other type of endeavor.

He was, and is, always competing.

Mr. D was usually the smallest in any game the older boys played. He literally had to scrap for each opportunity to play. Trophies of these hard times were shiners, skinned knees and elbows, knots on the head, fat lips, and cuts and bruises, some accidentally incurred and others intentionally inflicted in the heat of battle.

Other than to Frank, David has another person to whom he is thankful and indebted for his athletic development before he enrolled in school. Five years older than David, Fletcher Allen, pronounced Flutcha by Mr. D, was a neighbor whose father worked for The Birmingham News. Flutcha often saw to it that David was chosen to play on his team. If he was on the other team, Fletcher dealt him misery but was never bullying. Fletcher went on to be one of the area’s outstanding high school athletes at Shades Cahaba High School and was one of David’s idols, and later a college fraternity brother and close friend.

Competing with older boys, I believe, is the reason my little friend learned to run so fast and side-step so well. Particularly in the game of flies and skinners did he painfully learn the value of becoming good at hitting, throwing and fielding. The game was played where the batter was against the rest of the players and continued batting until he hit a ball which was caught on the fly. The fielder who caught the ball took the batter’s place, and the process began anew. David learned how to hit so the ball was a skinner or was hit between or over the fielders’ heads. When in the field he learned how to catch well. Otherwise, he (girls weren’t welcome) wouldn’t have had a turn batting.

There was another game, although make-believe, that helped develop in David a love of competition. Greenwood Terrace was about a block and a half long and had a small rise that topped in front of the Cauthen home midway down the street. For hours on end, David used a toy Louisville Slugger baseball bat to hit a golf ball as far as he could, sending it almost out of sight and far up the street where it landed near the intersection with Forrest Drive. He fantasized coming to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning with the bases loaded. His team, always the New York Yankees, was three runs behind. He tossed the golf ball in the air and hit it far out of the imaginary ball park to win the game. He could hear the crowd’s roar and imagined the wonderful trot around the bases. This image and its excitement are still with him.

~~~

Also on Greenwood Terrace David received first-hand exposure to the ravages of the beasts, alcohol and fear. His mother, Frank, and David were terrified when Big Frank was intoxicated.

Trouble was inevitable when he came home drunk, sullen and red-eyed. Lucy usually led the boys upstairs to their room to play. Big Frank angrily and loudly complained about his job and how he was treated at work. He didn’t like his job in Birmingham and felt his family unfairly ousted him from his job as manager of RoTelCo. Nights were often spent with the boys huddled in the upstairs bedroom, their father shouting about his bad luck as Miss Lucy tried to appease him.

I looked on many times as Lucy sadly told the boys, I had rather see each of you dead than to know that you would ever take a drink of whiskey.

Fear of alcohol became part of David’s life.

In fact, apprehension became the backdrop for much of his behavior, or more properly, misbehavior. There were dark clouds of fear and dread in his subconscious which, if I couldn’t help dissipate them, would permanently and seriously overshadow his life.

I wondered if and when his soul’s positive components would show themselves and help him turn in the right direction. I would have gladly dispelled his fright and given him more confidence had I the power.

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CHAPTER 5

EARLY EDUCATION

When David was six, Edgewood School, located just off Broadway and about half-a-mile from Greenwood Terrace, became his home away from home. It was here he began the long and difficult trek toward an education and formed his first lifelong friendships.

The school was a neighborhood school in the truest sense. It served the community surrounding it within an estimated two mile radius. The building was a long, low, one story red brick building with white wooden trim windows and dark, oily wooden floors which became extremely slippery in hot weather before air conditioning in the schools.

About a block from the school up Broadway was the small business district named Edgewood which developed at the intersection of it with Oxmoor Road where a drug store, A&P Grocery, and several other stores were located. The proprietor of the Timmerson’s Drug Store was the owner and pharmacist fondly called Doc. It was an old-style drug store with a soda fountain, tasty ice cream and thick chocolate shakes. True to its generic name, it was a also place where castor oil was served to cure all kinds of childhood maladies from an upset stomach to chickenpox.

Many times, David extracted serious bribe money from Miss Lucy to persuade him to drink castor oil poorly disguised in orange juice, milk shake, coke or lemonade. More often than not, the greasy mixture hit the bottom of his stomach and abruptly bounced back up and all over the ebony Formica-covered table, the booth and its scrambling occupants.

One of the favorite pastimes and sports activities of the students at Edgewood School was yo-yo twirling. Twice a year there were yo-yo demonstrations featuring all kinds of wonderful tricks with the magical toy which took place on the sidewalk outside Timmerson’s. More often than not, the demonstrator was Freddy, the Filipino. He had on display what seemed like more than a hundred yo-yo’s of all kinds, sizes, and colors. For a price, he carved exotic and intricate designs on the bright red, blue, yellow, or green wooden toys. A tropical scene with palm trees on a wave-washed beach was his specialty. If one asked just right, Freddy expertly carved the owner’s initials on the side opposite the Hawaiian scene.

Large crowds gathered outside the drug store on Saturday mornings to cheer for their favorites in the yo-yo contest. The prize was a free yo-yo complete with carvings and initials.

~~~

Edgewood School had a large playground behind it that served as the athletic and activity field during recess and after school. There were often arguments, sometimes fights. The playground surface was a rough combination of packed red clay and gravel. Only the corners of the field had grass, and that was sparse. One learned quickly to stay on his feet while playing or fighting. Otherwise, there were painful scrapes and cuts crusted with red dirt and which oozed for days. And fighters got paddle licks.

The school building was long on the front with right angle wings extending from the center and from each end from the rear of the building and toward the playground. From above, the school building formed a giant letter E.

A large brownstone and cement water fountain was located in the courtyard formed by the bottom half of the E. This was the place where most of the Edgewood School’s outdoor social life took place. Here romances began, tricks were played, and after-school plans discussed. It was the only area at the school where there was a student-imposed off-limits for fighting.

The seven years David spent at Edgewood School helped establish a foundation for his moral, social, scholastic, and athletic development. The experiences there complemented so well the love and guidance he received at home from his mother and brother, and, at times, from his daddy.

~~~

Studying, being quiet, still, and attentive didn’t come easy for Mr. D.

Early in school, he learned he would always be compared to Frank’s superior performance in grades and sports. His brother was an excellent student and natural athlete.

When David began at Edgewood School, Frank was in the fourth grade and already popular with the students and teachers. Mr. D quickly discovered that in school he couldn’t tag along behind Frank.

Fortunately, he quickly realized he had a separate identity and had to fend for himself.

At first, school was strange, and he was confused, even homesick. It was so different from