You talk about a real life hero

David Paschall wrote in my seventh-grade yearbook, “As you slide down the banister of life, remember me as a splinter in your ca-rear!”

I’ve written many stories over the years that revolved around me. But they were never actually about me. I was trying to make a point about something or somebody. I was telling a tale I hoped would strike a chord with the reader. I wanted people to say, “I had an uncle like that;” “That exact same thing happened to me once;” or “I remember that song, or that car, or that place.”

This story is entirely different. This one is just for me. It is very personal. And I do not apologize for my selfishness.

David was two years ahead of me in school. He was the best all-around athlete that I have ever seen. He was strong, powerful, and lightning-quick. And he was a better person than he was an athlete. Life seemed to come easy for him. And he lived it with the most incredible energy I’ve ever seen in one person. 

He played on the high school football and basketball teams as a freshman. If we had had a baseball, tennis, soccer, or track program that year, he would have been on those teams also. He was that good! Now understand, he didn’t act like it was any big deal. He was just as humble and regular as anyone you’d ever meet.

But believe me, there wasn’t anything ordinary about David Paschall.

He ran over me at football practice every day. He’d help me up with that wonderful grin, “Kes, you hit me pretty hard that time.” He’s smiling to beat the band, I’m seeing stars, my legs are wobbly, I’m sure my sacroiliac is bent, AND he thinks I hit him?

In my first year on the basketball team, he would dribble around me like I wasn’t even there. But, even as the senior star, he would stay every day after practice and help out a struggling sophomore like it was the way life was supposed to be. I’m telling you with my heart, you never forget something like that!

Of course, he was the valedictorian of his class. His brilliant mind was always taking us places that we had never been… or even thought about going!

I was working at the swimming pool in the summer of my sophomore year when David hobbled in on crutches. It was the first of many knee problems that would follow. He had hurt it in an American Legion baseball game in Paris. “Kes, my season is over. But Coach King is looking for a catcher. I told him you were the best catcher in West Tennessee. He wants you to come over and play for him.”

David wasn’t dwelling on his problems. He was too busy helping me.

His thoughtfulness allowed me to play 50 games a summer for the next three years in Paris. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Coach King taught me more baseball than anyone I’ve ever met, and a covey of players from all over the area became lifelong friends.

I was working at Tommy Hill’s DX Station when David pulled in a couple of years later. He and his older brother were attending the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. “Kes, you’ve got to come to Sewanee. You can play ball with us. Get an excellent education. Sewanee would be just right for you.”

 I never looked at another college. If David thought it was the place for me, anything else would have been a waste of time.

They called him “Blue Steel” at the University. They had figured out his unique power, courage, smarts, and raging zest for life way before I got there. He took me under his wing and pointed out which courses and teachers I needed that first year.

He played football, basketball, and baseball. And to do that, and maintain his excellent grades, wasn’t for dummies or the faint of heart. He made just as big an impression at Sewanee as he had in high school.

I saw him crash into a running back in a football game head-on at 40 miles an hour! The lick knocked the ball flying and laid both players out. Medical people and coaches surrounded each one. They finally helped them over to their respective sidelines.

I got to David as quick as I could. He was a mite “out of it” but he pulled me down close to where he was sitting, “Kes, tell me I got up off the ground before the other guy did.” 

He hit the longest home run I’ve ever seen against Lipscomb University in Nashville. It landed in a parking lot and rolled on forever. He found me in the dugout and picked me off the ground, “Kes, have you ever seen a ball hit that far?” I’m telling you, he loved every moment of every day!

And no, I hadn’t.

He called me once from Jasper, laughing, “Kes, I got caught speeding (he drove sometimes like he lived life). Can you bring me 50 dollars?”

He came in one day with two tickets to see James Brown at the Apollo Theater in Chattanooga. Thirty thousand people were there. David and I were the only two white ones. It was possibly the greatest concert of all time!

I could go on for hours but you catch my drift.

I was working on an old clock when Cathy came out to tell me of David’s passing. I had to sit down. He had wobbled my legs one last time.

David Paschall missed the mark in my old yearbook by a country mile. He was way more than just a splinter in my career. He was more like a plank, or a giant two-by-four, or how about a 50-foot wooden ladder… and he kept pulling me up rung after rung….

Rest in peace, my friend.

Respectfully,

Kes