Things That I meant to say but too lazy to write about

by Julius Daniels

    Where does one begin with a short biography of one's self? I was born on August 31,1958 in (1 year old me) St. Louis to Dr. Richard and Eleanor Daniels. Dad was aspiring to practice medicine and did his internship and residency at a hospital in Jefferson City, MO. Mom had the duties of raising her spawn. Me, Richy and Eve were a real handful. I liked to show Richy how he could fly out of the fourth floor of the apartment building. Though we never got a working model of the space suit past the window ledge. I am glad that Richy was only gullible and not stupid. Eve was always the quiet one. She did an abrupt about face somewhere around the discovery of boys...and hasn't been quiet since 8^) Love ya both!!!

    We were ages five, four and three when we moved to Pensacola, My dad's home town, in the summer of 63. The elementary years were spent in Catholic school learning about all the hell that I would have to endure before I died. In middle school, I got older and a bit wiser about life. I learned about moderation and football. I was always a big kid. Fat when I was little and a bubba in high school. I am still in the 'bubba' classification, and I am in crisis with my Lithuanian Survival gut. What the heck, I am thirty-eight and am becoming less occupied with my looks. Besides I am satisfied enough with the knowledge that all that I need to survive the next nuclear war or whatever is a good supply of water. I can live off my excess when the lipidly challenged are long gone. [I am not going anywhere with this so read on with relief 8^) ]

    I have always been a technical person. I fell headlong into the technical world when my parents gave me a short-wave radio at the end of the seventh grade. Gadgets and gizmos fascinate me. I loved to listen to short-wave radio as an early teenager. Later I involved myself in the mad-cap world of C.B. radio. My handle was 'Hawkeye' because I really liked the Alan Alda's character in M.A.S.H.. Not to be outdone most of my buds from those torrential high school years got c.b. radios too. Man-o-man it was a blast. The local yokels never knew what hit'm. Later on in my education I grew into amateur radio.

    I managed to complete a rigorous two year electronics technology program and upon graduation in 12th month of 1978 landed a job with a personnel support contractor at Eglin AFB. which is about 40 minutes east of Pensacola, FL. I had a good time there. I managed to grow and shrink. I grew in maturity and lost about 40 pounds. I had more gadgets than a gizmo geek could stand. It was an interesting four year stint, but all things come to an end. Another company won the contract, and the decision to lay me and about 400 others off was an easy way to trim the budget. I moped for about two weeks until something came up.

    That something was a cherry job down in the Caribbean!!! Too cool. And I had just gotten certified in scuba diving!!! I didn't even have to ask for the job. The new contractor had some openings in the Virgin Islands, and they were having trouble getting people to go. When the company representative called, I tried so badly to restrain myself that he thought I wasn't interested. So he tossed in some fringe benefits to entice me. [like I needed enticing 8^) ] I said my good-byes to friends and family then it was off to the tropics. I had three years of glorious scuba diving [Davis Bay my favorite dive spot], partying with all kinds of people and of course the maturing process....I met a few people there that have become life long friends. One of those friends is a true love that will never be. Damn sad story, but such is life. No she isn't dead...she had her own direction in life. My dad died from a stroke in November of 1985, and I left the Virgin Islands a couple of months later.

    I moved on like the energetic boy that I am. 8^).

    I finagled a transfer to the Bahamas and left St. Croix. It was not the most exciting period of my life, but certainly the most Miami Vice- like time that I could have without having the Bahamian version of the Miranda shoved at me. I had some wild times. Our last real mission was to track the flight of the Challenger's last mission. My heart blew up that day too. Grand Bahama Island is a big place compared to some of the other Islands, but the only real civilization is on the West end. Freeport and Lucaya are hot spots. My car was not a real winner so it was an adventure just getting into town from the base. I needed three spare tires and 5 quarts of 90 weight gear oil to make it without fear. I had two brake pads that worked. One in the front and one in the rear. Most of my friends were also my coworkers so it was never hard to talk someone into a road trip to town; even in that death trap of a car. We also did a lot of scuba diving. Most of the diving was from shore. There were several blue holes that could quickly take a diver from 5 feet to 70 feet and never be farther than 40 yards from shore! The site eventually closed down, and I was forced to take a look at other employment venues. I found one in Antigua! This would only last for a couple of months before I decided that I didn't want anymore of this Jimmy Buffett times 10 lifestyle. So with a short note and a quick good-bye, I gave notice and returned to the states. It was June of 1987.

    I came back at the same time that a few of my friends from Antigua were also coming home. I stayed with them, and we came up with the idea of going across the country on a tour. We bought a van and took off from Tampa. We wound up in Fairbanks, Alaska. We did a lot of fishing and hiking. I can still taste the fresh caught silver salmon smothered in the sauce of the day. Salmon was a staple food. I had fish every day for the entire month that we were in Alaska. I also saw the Northern Lights for the first time when I came out of a bar in Fairbanks. It was 1:00 am and the show was set against a dusky, northern sky. NO! I wasn't seeing things...I think?

    Later we drove North along the Alaskan Pipeline North of Fairbanks 50 miles toward Prudhoe Bay, and had to stop when a rather obnoxious gate kept us from going any farther. We did get north of the Arctic Circle though. On our way home, we stopped off in Denali and took a bus tour into the park. We got to within seven miles of Mt. McKinley. It was a clear day and my neck hurt from fixating on the peak for over an hour. What a clump of rock and dirt. Never, in my entire existence, have I felt as puny as I did standing at the base of that wonderful monument to plate tectonics.

    I turned 28 during that summer road trip. The trip ended in early September 1987, after 3 months playing the gypsy. It was time to start thinking about the future.

    I thought that I might like to do some more of the same kind of work, but what I did was very specialized. I came back to Pensacola and stayed with my Mom for a month and tried to come up with some ideas. The only thing that I could think of was going up to Virginia Beach, VA and look for something in the way of government contracts. So I said my good-byes, packed up my little Honda and headed for the hills. I did some sightseeing in the Appalachians and looked around for some hiking trail called the Appalachian Trail. My brother-in-Law said that I ought to go walk the trail. Well I wasn't much into the hiking thing so I just drove around. When I got to VA Beach, I hoped to land some kind of technical job, but all I ended up doing was fighting off a bad case of Giardia that I got while in Alaska. I was bent over, can't look at another piece of food or I will puke, fever chills, can't sit up and can't lay down, sick for an entire month. VA Beach was a wash so I came back home. Good old Mom, hooked me with a great offer of room and board. Her offer: If I returned to school and got my bachelors degree at UWF, I could have my old room. I started school in January of 1988. It was an excellent suggestion from a wise elder. Thanks Mom 'cuz it sent me down a really nice road. She died from complications of Schleraderma in March of 1994. While home, we got got a greyhound. Kate was just 8 weeks old when we got her and by the time she was 5 months old, I started taking photos. Yea Yea, I should have had baby pictures too, but I had never thought about it at the time.