Eye of the Storm

By Jeannette Romaniuk

He is dubbed a chunk full of dough, crazy Dave, the unfathomable and every other name in the book! Others, at sixes and sevens, just shake their heads in bewilderment. They have the impression that he always seems to do the unthinkable, leaving everyone in his midst dumbfounded.

There is however a consensus among his friends and co-workers upon which all agree: Dave is one of a kind a comment that is re-echoed throughout his acquaintances. It is a comment that describes him to a T. Whereas some have the impression that a project is impossible and perilous, they are concepts that do not exist in Daves psyche. He has evidently substituted these concepts with the words no problem.

Indeed there isnt a quest or a project that according to this wizard is beyond the realms of possibility. Even the accessibility to the moon is feasible in this aspiring intrepids mind. It is just a matter of latching firmly to each alternating star, stars that form a tarmac and lead you directly to your goal. You dont even need a shuttle! Its as simple as that! No problem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490742496

Jeannette Romaniuk

Jeannette Evangeline Romaniuk (nee Gaumond) was born in the French community of Shell River, Saskatchewan on November 26, 1919. Much of her secondary education was done through correspondence. She went on to get in Bachelor of Education at the University of Alberta. Teaching became Jeannette’s passion. After retirement in 1984 she continued to tutor many children at various levels. In more recent years her passion to write about her life experiences became an obsession. Her first published works was a poem entitled “In Memory of Mother Theresa and Princess Diana” in the mid 1980’s.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

HE IS DUBBED A chunk full of dough, crazy Dave, the unfathomable and every other name in the book! Others, at sixes and sevens, just shake their heads in bewilderment. They have the impression that he always seems to do the unthinkable, leaving everyone in his midst dumbfounded.

There is however a consensus among his friends and co-workers upon which all agree: Dave is one of a kind a comment that is re-echoed throughout his acquaintances. It is a comment that describes him to a T. Whereas some have the impression that a project is impossible and perilous, they are concepts that do not exist in Dave’s psyche. He has evidently substituted these concepts with the words no problem.

Indeed there isn’t a quest or a project that according to this wizard is beyond the realms of possibility. Even the accessibility to the moon is feasible in this aspiring intrepid’s mind. It is just a matter of latching firmly to each alternating star, stars that form a tarmac and lead you directly to your goal. You don’t even need a shuttle! It’s as simple as that! No problem.

CHAPTER 1

YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS! Not in a million years! Not in the most remote stretch of the imagination! For it is beyond the imagination! Way beyond!

I am not kidding you. This is the honest to goodness truth! Believe it or not, I have a friend, in fact he is my dearest friend, who is the embodiment of both Paul Bunyan and Evel Knievel all wrapped up into one.

Preposterous! Impossible! Incredible! Not a grain of truth in such an assumption. You say. You’re just trying to pull a fast one on me.

The proof, however, is irrefutable! I have been an astounded witness to many of the incredible schemes he has challenged and regret to admit that I participated in many of the most flagrant of them. (Please don’t tell my Mother! Or my wife, for that matter!) Friends, relatives, even strangers, have witnessed the extraordinary incredible feats of this remarkable maverick. To enumerate all these formidable exploits one by one would be futile and would only serve to void their credibility. Therefore the most effective means of proving the veracity of this tale is to ask for your indulgence and follow me in a quest to seek the testimony of those who have witnessed these many incredible deeds first hand.

Before we embark on this wild, breathtaking tale however, let me take a moment to introduce my hero, David, the indomitable. For indomitable he is, to a T! Six foot four, robust, he portrays amazing physical strength and determination. He gives the impression that he would stop at nothing in order to reach his goal (and he does). Hurricanes, blizzards, infernos, volcanoes are minor details. Fear is a sensation foreign to him. Just fix your goal on your quest and go for it. Let nothing stand in your way. is his philosophy. Yet in spite of all this, he is most generous. In fact, he is generous to a fault. That trait has often threatened his security and could easily lead to his downfall.

Indeed perhaps there is no one in this whole wide universe whose character is as controversial. His whole personality is a paradox. Daredevil, wild, impetuous; yet kind and endowed with an inexhaustible generosity. Never once being able to set his foot on solid reality, he is one of those great philosophers who yearn to change the world. Those who, unable to tolerate the injustices rampart on this universe, long to transform it from a world of me-ism to a world of you-ism. Those who are always thinking of someone else’s well being before thinking of their own. Impulsive, he, like the great, charges into this vision with an impelling force that knows no bounds. He is entirely astounded and aggravated by the fact that people act contrary to all logic and rationality. Yet he himself constantly challenges all logic and wisdom.

David’s most remarkable character trait, the aspect of his personality that distinguishes him above all and makes him a unique human being, is that outstanding generosity. Indeed he is the epitome of generosity. It is the aspect of his nature that is so engraved in his nature that it has made him famous and popular among all his acquaintances. Many of our friends would swear that David’s reckless nature is the predominating feature of his personality. I strongly disagree. David is the paragon of generosity. Having said this I admit that recklessness is a close second.

Besides being the paragon of perplexity, he has a passion for the unpredictable, the inconceivable, and his obsessive desire to challenge the impossible. The greater the risk, the greater the thrill he gets out of the venture. That recklessness is manifested in all aspects of his daily activities; the exhilaration he experiences from flying down the highway at breakneck speed, of precarious business transactions, and even in unpredictable social associations. He lives dangling from the twig of a branch that is hanging by a thread, about to fall off the tree. Something is bound to turn up. he says. And it does! Miraculously! Every time!

CHAPTER 2

BEFORE WE EMBARK ON this precarious venture, I must warn you. You’re in for a rough ride! So hold on to your hat! Your hair is bound to stand straight up on your head and turn white after just one episode! For you will still be holding your breath, wondering how this daredevil managed to disentangle himself from one hair raising shenanigan and straight away embark headlong into another.

The following anecdotes have been recounted to me by members of his family, his childhood friends, his uncles, aunts, etc. In other words, those in his immediate milieu when he was a child.

His adventurous and chaotic roller-coaster journey started from the moment my friend took his very first breath. Seething with rage because he was hungry and cold, he created one heck of a hullabaloo! The attending nurse swore that she had never seen an infant so frustrated and angry. Things were not just the way they should be in this new world. Or so he thought! Even then, he must have been thinking. I’ll soon fix that!

Call him Cyclone, or better still Hurricane, said the nurse for this child will charge into the world with a vengeance, a ferocity that will be uncontrollable.

I will give him a very appropriate name. said the mother, I will name him David after the Biblical character who challenged the giant Goliath. For this child will forever challenge the impossible; the most formidable foe. The nurse’s prediction heralded my friend’s destiny.

To set the pattern of his chaotic sojourn on this eventful journey, my friend was only four when he barely survived an operation for an acute hernia. Stuck in the northern wilderness, Vanderhoof, British Columbia, it was impossible to find transportation to the hospital. He was in a critical condition when he arrived at the hospital. The damage was almost irreparable. To make matters worse, he thought his mother had abandoned him there. He was frantic! It was all the nurses could do to keep him in bed, even after the operation. He was bound and determined that he was going home. He recuperated quickly however (as he does from everything else) and was soon up to his old enterprising self.

During the first few years of his childhood things were relatively calm. Be that as it may, I was told that he took his own sweet time to learn the basic skills such as walking, toilet training, and talking. It wasn’t through lack of ability. Those everyday run-of the-mill skills were just not in his schedule and were therefore not worthy of his valuable time and commitment.

I have better things to do. For instance, holding onto my status in the family. Here I am. Let no one dare to take my place. he claimed. He also jealously guarded his belongings, including anything new that was given or bought for him. When he had new clothes he did not part with them. So he slept fully dressed with his new clothes on, shoes and all.

CHAPTER 3

HOW DOES IT WORK? or What happens if? has always been David’s obsession and the cause of major tribulations for himself and for everyone else in his immediate entourage. He had a fascination with fire, and many of his early experiments involved fire. He must have been very young when he decided to investigate the properties of fire, for he was not going to school. I didn’t know him then, for he lived in British Columbia, but much later he told me what had happened.

"When nobody was looking, I sneaked matches out of the house and decided to find out what would happen if I made a bonfire in the family storage shed. The shed was full of beer bottles and what