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FORT WORTH, Texas - He swings into the supermarket, snatches up a small shopping basket, waves to his boss and makes a beeline for the bananas. He has carefully combed his straight, brown hair, shaved his soft, round cheeks and tucked his pink button-down shirt into his jeans - but on this day he is not working.

Instead he is making banana pudding - his grandmother's recipe - and this, like almost everything else in life, makes him smile.

At 29, Austin Underwood is the rarest of creatures: a genuinely happy man.

Against all odds, he has grabbed the brass ring of independence and he isn't about to let go. Never mind that he can't read, or write, or drive a car, or count to 40.

Forget that sometime during the miracle of his beginning one more chromosome added to the mystery of his DNA. That extra chromosome marked him forever as one with Down syndrome, a disorder characterized by flat features, upward-slanting eyes and limited mental capabilities.

The day Austin was born, doctors told his parents he had no future - would never even be potty trained. "Don't get attached," said one. "Put him away."

But Austin has done what many with average intelligence have not; he has carved out a place for himself in a sprawling Texas Metroplex.

He pays his way in the world with money he earns as a supermarket bagger combined with a disability check. His parents have made financial arrangements for his future, but his mother says she hasn't given him money in years.

He shares an apartment with a roommate, cleans, cooks and volunteers at a nonprofit resale shop. He walks to work and to the movies, occasionally takes the train to Dallas to see a girlfriend and sometimes flies to New York City to visit his brother.

He remembers other people's birthdays, worries about his weight, wants to look good in a swimsuit and likes to get dressed up. He would wear a tuxedo every day of the week if he could.

Best of all, he says he gets up happy every day.

Why?

"Because I know I'm going to work. I'll meet people I like and they will like me," he says matter-of-factly in a lilting lisp. He peers over his wire-framed glasses, his mouth stretched into a perpetual grin. "I always have a big smile on my face," he declares.

So how did the baby born with such limited potential become this confident young man, this sweet and innocent spirit that exudes hope and happiness - this beam of light?

His story is both amazingly simple and profoundly complicated.

It began with a dream.

Dream walkers

High school sweethearts Jan and Joe Underwood had always dreamed of having a big family; and so before their daughter, Sara, turned 2 they planned another pregnancy - but this one would be full of surprises.

"Austin was the only baby we planned," says Jan, a businesswoman and mother of three. Anthony was born just 19 months later.

At 26, Jan was young and fit, hardly a candidate for complications. "But I remember when he was born, the nurses swept him away. I could see and sense that something was wrong."

She was right, of course. Something was wrong. Austin was born with Down syndrome. One moment the Underwoods' dream was coming true, and the next, their world tilted crazily out of kilter.

They angrily rejected the doctor's suggestions to give up the child. "That wasn't even a possibility," Joe says. "No. We were going home with him. You have to play the cards you're dealt."

And so the course was set.

When Joe's job as an auctioneer took him back on the road, Jan took time to cry about this baby the world might never love. She cried hysterically, too. "After that I thought, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not doing all this boohooing over this kid," she says.

This family had a life before Austin. It would have a life with Austin - and he would have to fit in. She would help him reach his fullest potential, whatever it might be, but she would not sacrifice her own life.

"I always knew that if something happened to me this kid would have to live. He would have to live," she says.

And that became the Underwoods' new dream, one not so very different from the first. They wanted all their babies to become caring, mature and independent adults.

But was that an impossible dream?

The family plan

Jan wanted Austin to interact with children who did not have his disabilities. She wanted him to imitate "normal" children. She rejected programs designed only for children with Down or other mental handicaps.

She started with a mothers' day out at her church when Austin was only a few weeks old. That was an easy first step, but as Austin grew, so did the challenges.

Mainstreaming children with differences was a rather new concept in 1978 and sometimes not a popular one, but Jan was determined. When others clucked their tongues or shook their heads, she and Joe paid no attention.

And so it was that Austin moved through the school system, blending special-education classes with hours in a classroom filled with average children. Once a good friend said, "Jan, one day you'll regret this. You're normalizing him too much, and he's not normal."

Jan shrugged off the concern. She became a pioneer in the mainstreaming approach to education.

At home, the Underwoods treated Austin just as they did Sara and Anthony. Yes, he was slower to learn the rules, she says, but she was persistent.

"I remember he spent a lot of time in the time-out corner," says his sister, Sara, now 32.

As he grew, Austin amazed even his family. He joined a swim team. His grandfather Bob Underwood taught him to play golf. His granddaddy John Beneventi made a weekly ritual of taking him to Kiwanis Club meetings. They stayed for pancakes afterward.

Austin begged to take piano lessons so he could play the "Aggie War Hymn" for Beneventi.

"He learned to play something," says Jan. She laughs.

By then laughter was a familiar sound in the busy house.

School Daze

When Austin was about 14, his IQ tested a dismal 41. "He shouldn't have been able to do anything," Jan says. But Austin confounded the experts. He could do a lot. The family moved to Aledo, a small community west of Fort Worth, Texas, and Jan got involved in the special-education program.

Austin rode the bus to school each morning while Jan hurried off to Fort Worth 25 minutes away, where she owns a shop that sells school uniforms. Austin came home every afternoon, let himself in, called his mom to let her know he'd made it, then drove a little off-road vehicle up to the mailbox.

"He really had to take care of himself out there and make decisions," Jan says.

When Austin went to high school, he was mainstreamed in physical education, theater, art and cooking classes. As manager of the basketball team, he even got a letter jacket.

"I was always known as Austin's sister," Sara says.

But Austin remembers that it wasn't always easy. "Some kids make fun of me. It makes me sad, but I get up happy," he says. He's learned to live with his differences in a world that is both accepting and sometimes hostile.

Sara was the first to graduate and go away to college; younger brother Anthony was next. Austin wanted to go, too.

Jan found a vocational program at Eastern New Mexico University. "They had to be able to get up with an alarm clock and do their laundry," she says.

They went for interviews. "If you could have seen Austin's face when he was accepted, it would melt you," says Anthony, now a producer with "Good Morning America" in New York. "When I think of Austin, I think of happiness. It's infectious. He's the biggest optimist I know."

Anthony is dismayed that Texas' rich university system does not offer such a program. "Every state should have something like that," he says. At 27, he focuses on his career, but one day, he says, he might take up that cause.

"I don't think Austin could be living on his own if he hadn't gone to college," he says. "It gave him so much confidence."

Austin's university classes were all about cooking. He learned to flip an omelet and worked in the school cafeteria as the stir-fry cook. He learned that he could do something valuable.

Austin flew home for holidays by himself and when it was time for him to return to school, his mother would take him to the airport, walk him to the gate and wait until he boarded.

Soon he wouldn't allow such coddling. "I had to let him out at the curb," Jan says. "That was hard."

The next challenge was even more difficult.

The next chapter

While Austin was away at school, Jan and Joe built a new home in Fort Worth with a room and private bath just for him. After graduation, he moved in but quickly grew restless. He got a job in a supermarket and then announced that he wanted his own apartment.

He would not be discouraged, and so the family found a place less than a mile from their home. His roommate has Down syndrome, too. They met in high school and together they keep the apartment spotless. Austin does the cooking. "I make hamburger, mashed potatoes, green beans, sometimes meatloaf," he says.

An air hockey game fills a corner of the living room. There is a big sofa, a TV, family pictures on the mantel. On New Year's Day they had another friend with Down over for hamburgers.

In his bedroom, Austin has stacks of movies: "The Little Mermaid," "Stuart Little," "Aladdin."

"I went to see 'Alvin and the Chipmunks.' It's a real good movie," he says. But he and his girlfriend are the stars of his favorite film. He snaps on the video. He wears a tuxedo; she has on a party dress. "This is the best movie ever," he says. "Her mom made it for me."

Someday he'd like to marry. "Well, you only live once. Why not have it all?" says his mother. "Marriage for Austin would be companionship ... a soft place to land."

In the kitchen, Austin carefully places vanilla wafers atop the banana pudding. He flips on an Elvis Presley lamp on a nearby table and Elvis belts out, "You ain't nothing but a hound dog." The Elvis doll on the lamp gyrates to the music.

Austin twirls, too, reveling in every man's dream of independence.

FAMOUS AUSTIN'S AND MIGHTY MAW'S BODACIOUS BANANA PUDDING

1 box (5.9 ounces) vanilla instant pudding

1 8-ounce container whipped topping such as Cool Whip

3 bananas

36 vanilla wafers

1 can of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk

1. In a large bowl, prepare the vanilla pudding as directed on the box.

2. Slice bananas. Mix together prepared pudding, bananas and canned milk.

3. Fold in whipped topping.

4. Line the bottom of a pan or bowl with 12 vanilla wafers. Place a layer of pudding mixture across the wafers. Repeat the layers and top with remaining cookies.

5. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour before serving.

QUICK FACTS ABOUT DOWN SYNDROME

-One in every 733 babies is born with Down syndrome - about 5,000 in the United States each year.

-Down syndrome may be transmitted from either the mother or the father, but women age 35 and older have an increased risk of having a child with Down. A 35-year-old-woman has a 1 in 400 chance; by age 40 the odds are 1 in 110, and at age 45 the risk is 1 in 35. However, 80 percent of children with Down are born to women younger than 35.

-Today, children with Down syndrome may live well into their 50s and beyond, but in 1910 the life expectancy of a baby born with Down was only nine years.

-People with Down syndrome are not always happy. Like everyone else, they respond to positive expressions of love and friendship and are hurt when treated unkindly.

Source: National Down Syndrome Society (www.ndss.org)

(c) 2008, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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