This autobiography covers a life of broad and varied experiences.  It also weaves into the story the history of the times, often with little-known, sometimes startling, facts.  The author’s experience as a lawyer and in doing research for his prior work, Our Colonial Ancestors, was, surely, of great help.  Publisher: Otter Bay Books of Baltimore, MD.

            Through this story we see what life was like growing up on a cotton farm in a remote section of Natchitoches Parish, LA, still recovering from the devastation caused by the Civil War; going to school in a covered wagon, his mother’s death in1926, turning to the world of books, as time permitted, while working on the farm and in timber work.

            As Valedictorian of his class at Marthaville High School in 1934, he received a scholarship that only covered tuition.  When transportation failed, he could no longer attend.  His father then enlisted him in the Civilian Conservation Corps where he helped plant seedlings and build roads in today’s beautiful Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana.

            After that service, he fulfilled his dream of exploring the West by hitchhiking and riding freights.  By then war seemed inevitable.  He enlisted in the U. S. Navy where he served  on the staff of Rear Admiral Calvin T. Durgan, who commanded an aircraft carrier Task Force (CVEs).from the Mediterranean to the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

            He graduated from LSU Law School in 1950, practiced law in Lake Charles, LA, where he was elected head of a Citizens’ Crime Commission.  This led to surprising events that shocked the nation in the summer of 1951, and plaudits from a Senate Subcommittee on Organized Crime.  He and his family came to DC where he served in the Dept. of Justice during the administrations of six Presidents. After years as a trial attorney and Ass’t Chief, Criminal Section and as Ass’t Chief of  the Review Section of the Tax Division he became Deputy Assistant Attorney General.  This book contains his eye-witness account of the looting and burning in DC following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

            After retirement, he practiced law in DC.  He and his wife traveled extensively between cases; both worked pro bono for nonprofit corporations, most notably for The National Huguenot Society, Inc. and she as National President, Daughters of Colonial Wars.  They have four children and four grandchildren and live near the Potomac River south of DC.