Chapter 1

On The Job

I was a plumbing and sewer person, spending the majority of my time cleaning sewers. It is a sewer company call J. A. Brundage and it is a family owned business.  The reason I seek employment there because I grew up with the owners son and at the time I felt I better drift away from my family business selling fishing tackle.  Many memories were made growing up selling fishing tackle. So much so, I write fishing short stories  telling my experiences in an area that fueled my hobby in this sport of fishing.  

What made me stay on the job of sewer cleaning for 7 years, was the pure pleasure of hard work.  It was extremely hard work but the personality of bosses made it fun and the sigh of relief  the customers express as their troubles washed down the drain. The job that required back braking work took a beating on me. Fighting off the realality of an increasing back problem caused by lifting heavy machines, I made the decision to leave the plumbing and sewage field of work .  This decision was made for my future that lied ahead, meaning I was not spending my dieing days tolerating a back problem.

The responsibility of how my future was not going to be played with a back problem that would of never heeled with this plumbing job I held for seven years, besides I was married to a woman who inspired my future life. Trying other jobs, failed my hunger for satisfied work. I decided to go back to school and become a welder.

The school chosen to learn my new trade was at Northwest Institute in Buffalo New York  (20 minutes away from Niagara Falls). This six months of learning how to weld helped me get hired as a welder just three months in school. This job development added fuel to my future drive. Graduating from welding school and I was  getting hired with a better paying job that started in two days, and third year wedding anniversary celebration, my future began to see light.

It was during this time, I had my stroke.

Before deciding to make a career as a plumber, I worked selling fishing tackle.  My father owned two fishing tackle retail stores in Niagara Fall's known as Marks tackle.   the fishy you are looking at displayed on my web site was the fish  my father used on is business logo.  Growing up traveling to many Lake and Rivers; even flying in a remote area to catch a fish my passion for the sport grew unconditional.  The bond grew so strong my stroke couldn't stop me from life's simplest pleasures, FISHING.  The limited mobility prevented this urge to go fishing I just wrote about  walking to cast away another day, which you can read and experience the short stories here called David Daul's Front Porch.

Nineteen years later I decided to leave this family business and enter into the beginnings to earn more money to explore the benefits of the wide open spaces.  The family business taught me the value of a dollar, work for it!  After I earned my pay and did my chores, the bike was prepared to take me fishing till dusk until New York State gave me a driver license.  Now that I can haul a boat , experiments were done to cook fresh fish shore lunches.  Call me crazy; at least my parents didn't have to wonder if I was experimenting with drugs.  I stayed high on life.

The best fishing experience I had with fishing was where a remote lake near Sudbury, Canada.  A single engine plane flew us in to stay three days at a shelter on an island and picking us up to fly to another remote area.  I wrote a short story called LIFT OFF.  It tells about a mountain spring water run off.  I'd keep my beverages cold with certain foods  in a little reservoir the owner rigged and also filling empty jugs with this water to drink, cook with and fresh  pots of coffee for those damp mornings.  Every evening I take a boat and fetch that spring water located on other side of lake.  There was no running water so I bathed in lake with the fisheyes.

During the seven years as a plumber, I developed a painful back problem causing me to make a career change.  This period of my life was very hard given the fact the job as plumber was very difficult to give up.  Since I was a people person, I gave up traveling Western New York pot hole roads, streets and highways to help persons get out of jams.  This drastic career change involved going to school learning the art of welding.

I am the jack of  all trades master of none so I remolded the house I live in now  Today it's my bachelor pad but its a clean very quite neighborhood in the city of Niagara Falls.  I am proud of my home because growing up on this street was rough.  Drugs and prostitution on corners ,very dirty and loud neighbors destroying the public property and this house was ready for the bulldozer.  If I was not studying, working or doing the honey do list, family and friends called me to fix or put in new electrical, plumbing, carpentry, and phone lines and also volunteer my time to help assist in any of their home improvement projects.  

AUTHORS NOTE I wrote about my home exclusively here called "HOME SWEET HOME"  (chapter 9)

My time in a year finished remodeling a home ready for my new wife to move in after the honeymoon. The neighborhood was still under construction.  While adding the finishing touches for the house, I like to believe I started the neighborhood watch driving out dealers and also assist our local police department to buy drugs so they can conduct arrest.

Having a stroke was just a bump in my journey to the unknown.  Don't let stroke or any life altering situation threaten your existence but use it to continue the destination.