Biography

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The novel hints at the beginning of a dark secret that hung like a dark cloud over the picturesque farm where the trucker was born. The Book then cleverly portrays what the dark secret is.

"The Winds of Destiny" is reminiscent of the movie, "Eve's Bayou" with real life characters similar to the protagonists and antagonists in the movies, "The Color Purple" and "Beloved". The books reveals beliefs in voodoo or witchcraft by blacks in the rural south during the nineteen fifties. Some blacks believed that witchcraft or voodoo could cause death and a wealth of other illnesses. The book begins with the true story of the death of the author's uncle in a modern day trucking accident and the effects that it had on his family. From the visit of his nearly century year old mother for the trucker's funeral, to scenes of his previous brushes with death, and a voyage back into time during the nineteen fifties of events that shaped the trucker's destiny; this book is a roller coaster ride. The main characters of this book are well described and will be etched forever in the reader's minds as larger than life characters.


The novel hints at the beginning of a dark secret that hung like a dark cloud over the picturesque farm where the trucker was born. The Book then cleverly portrays what the dark secret is. The readers will have to decide if the person in this novel is a villian or just someone caught up in a situation that spun tragically out of control. Perhaps the tragedy was destined to happen, and thereby change the course of many people's lives.

With picturesque descriptions of rural life on the farm and the interplay between the main characters of the story, this book delivers well.

This book, about the true-life events that involved the author's family, will be the topic of many discussions and its appeal to readers will be atsronomical.  

Excerpt
Pa Daddy then pointed out to Granny that it was already very late at night, and his son-in-law was suppose to have returned Aunt Della home by now. Pa Daddy then pointed out that he was sick and tired of the way that his son-in-law and mother did things. He felt that his daughter’s marriage to his son-in-law, William, had been the source of problems.
Granny commented that it was late. She suggested that Pa Daddy retire for the night. Pa Daddy became more conciliatory or it seemed, and stated, “Well, I will just doze off here by the television. I will let you know when our daughter comes home. Helen, you go ahead and get some sleep.”
The sky seemed darker that night and the wind more intense than usual. There were dark foreboding clouds in the sky and it seemed a storm was approaching. Suddenly, the porch light was extinguished. The front door of the house creaked. A shadowy phantom crept out and sat on the porch’s rocking chair. The phantom sat concealed and veiled in darkness. Suddenly, rolling thunder broke the night’s silence and bolts of lightning lit up the sky. As bolts of lightning illuminated my grandparent’s house, a metallic shotgun could be seen on the phantom’s lap. The rear door of the house was pushed silently open and a shadowy figure with his heart pounding and his luminous eyes wide crept from the rear of the house. He dropped to his knees and then stealthily crawled under the front porch. He cringed and sucked in his breath as the rocking chair creaked back and forth on the timbers of the porch above him. As the chair continued its rhythmic rocking, the person under the porch slowly released his breath and began to breathe quietly.
When things did not appear promising at the hospital, William and his mother, Erdell decided that they needed to travel to South Carolina. It seemed that Annie’s sickness was the result of witchcraft or voodoo. They left Aunt Della in charge of William’s and Annie’s two children, Helen and Willie, at their house in an adjacent county. Afterwards, William and his mother departed their residence. They stopped before traveling to South Carolina and picked up two other men relatives, William’s uncle and cousin. They then traveled to South Carolina.
There they paid a practitioner of the black arts a considerable sum for a talisman that was guaranteed to correct my mother’s illness.
My father, William, his mother Erdell, and the two men relatives returned to the house in the adjacent county and picked up Aunt Della, my four year old sister, and me. My father drove the 1957 Chevrolet and his mother was sitting in the middle of the front seat with my father’s Uncle Jesse sitting on the front passenger seat closest to the door. The other occupants of the car were in the back seat. They then proceeded to the adjacent county to drop Aunt Della off at her parent’s farm.
The phantom sitting on the rocking chair cocked the shotgun, when he spied a lone car with its luminous headlights pull onto the long dark road that led up to the house. The weakened catch and spring on the cocking mechanism of the shotgun began to creak and groan and the hammer of the shotgun seemed to inch slightly forward on its own. The car continued on towards the house and pulled to a stop in front of it. The several occupants of the car saw the phantom stand up with a shotgun in his hand. They glanced at each other and were confused. Like in a bad dream, the phantom hurried down the steps of the porch. Swearing loudly, he walked to the driver’s side of the car and pointed the shotgun at the young man, William. He ordered the young man to get out of the car, but the young man refused.