Carlton Davis on Carlton Davis

Number three Carlton Davis was very interesting. He doesn’t really exist. He is a simulated baseball player, who relief pitches for the Brooklyn Legacy.  Carlton retired in 1958 after a less than stellar career. The velocity of his pitches is/was rated at only a B-, his endurance, a D-, and his power against right-handers, a D-. Carlton is/was good at bunting. He got an A-. I thought this a vaguely intriguing prospect. How do you play simulated baseball? I didn’t pursue the matter as there were so many more Carlton Davis’ to review, but this Carlton did remind me of my own undistinguished career as a baseball player. I was a left-handed pitcher with enormous velocity and no control. The story of my life was played out on the diamond as a twenty year old. I was on a semi-pro team learning how to control my god given ability, when I injured my arm throwing too hard. Like my computer created compatriot, I retired from the game.

Number five Carlton Davis is me, the Author, Architect, and artist. I was pleased to find that my billing was not exclusively my fifth position, but I had numerous other entries in the top twenty Carlton Davis’s, 8^th, 11^th, 12^th, and 13^th. There was my book, my expert click registration as a speaker, and several of my interviews on Blog Talk Radio.

Carlton "Santa" Davis

Number six Carlton Davis is Carlton “Santa” Davis, the reggae and ska drummer, who has played with Black Uhuru, the Wailers, and Ziggy Marley. Why he is called “Santa” was not explained. He is not a fat white man with a white beard. He is a Jamaican of African descent with a bushy black beard. I found many Carlton Davis’s, who are of African descent. The name is popular amongst new world blacks. I am happy to share the name with a musician of reggae, one of my favorite forms of music.

Number seven Carlton Davis is a different matter. This Carlton Davis became famous as the toe sucking purse robber. In 2007, this Minnesota man was charged with stealing a cell phone and purse from a woman, whom after he robbed her demanded she, take off her shoes. Carlton declared “Now I am going to suck your feet.” The woman removed her shoes and Carlton sucked her toes. Carlton’s mug shot got displayed all over the internet. He is one crazy looking guy.

Subsequent Carlton’s listed on the internet are more distinguished. Carlton Davis is a professor of Food and Resource Economics at the University of Florida. He was recently inducted into The George Washington Carver Hall of Fame at the Tuskegee Institute. This is another intersection with my life- minor though it is; I was once offered a job to teach at the Tuskegee Institute. I choose instead to go to the University of Wyoming. Carlton Davis is a VP in Nashville, Tennessee for Parthenon Publishing. They print niche magazines and newsletters as well as designing websites. Carlton’s are also: a student of law at the University of Virginia., a visionary entrepreneur, a business analylist and spiritual guy, and a PhD in Canada, who is an expert in computers. His thesis, “Security Protocols for Mobile AD Hoc Networks” was recently published. I doubt I would understand a word of this thesis.

Carlton Davis is also dead. He died in Richmond, Virginia in February, 2010 leaving a large family. He had a wife, two sons, a daughter, four grandchildren, many uncles, and “a host of nephews.” I am not so lucky to have big family to grieve my loss when I am gone. I have my wife, my daughter, and my sisters.

I had my father until 2006 when he passed on, but lo and behold I found him on the internet. Carlton Davis, senior- I am a junior- was listed on page five of the Google listing. http://minrec.org/labels.asp?colid=1044&page=1  There he was with a picture as I remember him on a site about minerals. My father’s great interest in life was his mineral collection. I found out he was well known in “rock hound” world as he called it for his fine collection of thumbnail mineral specimens.  Dad and I did not get along for reasons I go into in my book “bipolar bare.” I was never happy being a Carlton Davis. For years I thought of changing my name. I would call myself Darius Davis- after the Persian king, or Jackson Davis, after the 19^th Century American architect of the same name.

Today I have embraced the name. Praise the lord, it’s no longer Junior and I have even made peace with my gone father.  There are many distinguished person who have the name. Maybe I will take up drumming, or get interested in resource economics. Foot sucking I will leave to my Minnesota name sake, but I shall remain on alert for those who misuse a good name. There is a Carlton Davis, two years in the slammer, for cruelty to animals and dog fighting. Never trust a Carlton Davis, who treats dogs badly.