David was born in the little town of Bradfordsville, Kentucky. When he was young, he used to watch his grandfather shoe the horses on the farm. At a young age, he had already decided what he wanted to do in his life, but it seemed like it might take a million years to accomplish a trade like being a blacksmith. He had to get through school, and the thing that helped him the most back then was having access to horses, and learning how to ride. When David got old enough to quit school, he went to Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, Kentucky, and went to work exercising horses. He worked there until he turned eighteen vears old, and Norma was seventeen. They got married, and stared their journey in life. While he galloped horses to make a living, he learned everything that he could about shoeing horses. There were things
that he knew, though, about being a blacksmith, before he ever did them.
Once he conquered the blacksmith trade, he worked at it for the better part of fifty years. At the end of his career, he had to quit work because of his health. He was in bad shape for a while. One of his daughters gave him a paint set, and it was a life saver. That and the YMCA.