The author shares a record of his life's footprints with future generations of his family who can never know him or witness historical events and paradigm shifts as he
has over the past eight decades. He describes the hardships of growing up on a working farm in rural
Alabama in the mid-twentieth century and later his
educational and professional accomplishments after
overcoming the disadvantages of poverty and other
adversity. He honors his colonial ancestors and their
descendants, including Revolutionary War soldiers, by remembering and writing about them and includes extensive family trees for his Walkers,Whites, Smithsons, Slatons, and Paynes. His military exploits are more properly described as escapades. He talks about his brushes with the technological and scientific innovations and reaction to major social and cultural shifts as one who understands the historical import of this most unusual age in our country's evolution.