A Day Like No Other

By Daniel Tanguay

The book serves as an inspiration to those who suffered at the hands of another and shows what can happen when you get up, dust yourself off, and keep on going. The book shows what can happen if you dont get up and keep going. So when there are bullies on the playground, tell someone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504907491

Daniel Tanguay

The author is a person who believes that life should be lived and not struggled through. He believes that life has many struggles already handed to you without having to be handed another one or two of those so-called struggles. He also believes these struggles are of no consequence if they are faced at the time of introduction. The author is a person who struggled through a sleuth of bullying encounters and with many faces.

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© 2015 Daniel Tanguay. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/21/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0750-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0749-1 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1   A Day Like No Other

Chapter 2   The Long Road Back

Chapter 3   A Matter Of Fact

Chapter 4   The Test

Chapter 5   A Lesson In Life

Chapter 6   A Supposed Career

Chapter 7   The Beginning Of Struggle #2

Chapter 8   A Second Recovery

Chapter 9   A Career Of Choice Or Not

Addendum

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is written for my parents, my wife and my children. To my parents, Normand and Claudette Tanguay, I express my deepest appreciation for the love they have shown me and for their undying support during the good as well as the very rough times. To my wife, Lisa and children, Dylan Patrick and Samantha Lynn, I give thanks every day for their love and understanding and to show my appreciation for your constant support through life’s struggles.

I also write this for the person that believes that struggles cannot be trumped and that the will to carry on does play an important role in how you look at and enjoy life and living.

This book is written in

dedication to my beloved parents, Normand C. (1937-2011) and Claudette Nadeau Tanguay (1941- 1991).

PREFACE

Can you imagine not having all the amenities of life and knowing that you could have them if you only lived somewhere else? For many of Maine’s northern territory farmers this was a reality. There were a couple of things that kept this the reality that it was. Firstly, was that Northern Maine was a long ways away and that everything was sparsely spaced and the transportation costs were a big issue. Life for a Northern Maine farm family was very rigorous even in the late twentieth century. These families farmed such things as brussel sprouts, broccoli, wheat, oats, hay, corn, and potatoes. Of the many crops harvested, potatoes were perhaps the most important. While I was a student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent I learned about the many tasks for farmers during the long, cold winters. Potatoes must be stored in a cool dry place until they are sent off to different plants to be processed for marketing.

As was stated previously, Northern Maine farmers, in particular, potato farmers worked year round, through long winters preparing for what could be a good year or one of many bad harvest years of the past. There was one family of farmers I will focus on because their life appropriately depicts that of farmers all over Northern Maine. I recall many of my uncles being right at the grind when it came time to getting things done, especially, when it was time to repair certain parts of broken down machinery. Like the potato harvester or the tractor itself or even the machines needed for drying and packing and loading the many 5, 10, 20, or 50 pound bags into a trailer to be taken to market.

The Nadeau Family was the maternal side of my family and also where I lived for approximately three years. Picture this scenario if you will, I was the only baby in the family for at least six or seven months. This being true, I don’t believe that I was a spoiled kid in any way, shape or form. Of course, I’m being facetious to a point. As other grandchildren came along obviously less and less attention was placed on me and more attention was placed where it was needed like my siblings and my cousins. As a matter of fact when it came time to leave Northern Maine and move to south central Maine, I again became the center of attention but this time the center was sad for those whom I became the center for. You see the time came for me to leave Northern Maine and move away.

I am Daniel Normand Tanguay the oldest in my family of seven children, I was born in Presque Isle, Maine while my dad was stationed at the Limestone Air Force Base not far from Presque Isle where he was a chef. My first year I lived on the Air Base also, but later my dad was transferred to Africa. I was taken to live with my maternal grandparents, the Nadeaus in Fort Kent, which was about thirty-five or forty miles away. Since I was the first grandchild I had undivided attention from family members until more grandchildren began to arrive. When I was about two or three years of age, I moved to Central Maine with my Family. As time went on, six more children rounded out our family with a brother and five sisters including Twins. With nine people now in our family, we were always busy with our own and our family’s needs. My dad began watching our school progress carefully and our daily routines. Somehow, the boys in our family did not receive much affection from our father, perhaps stemming from a lack of affection shown him in his earlier life, in his family of eleven.

Since my dad’s father was a mason by trade, he involved his four sons in his work as soon as they were old enough. Being a mason was a very hard occupation to be involved in and demanded lots of recovery time in between workdays. My grandfather was the Mason and my dad and his three brothers were the tenders, together, they performed some pretty awesome work. Some of which are really beautiful even some forty or fifty years later. I am often reminded of my grandfather Cyril Tanguay, because I see his work almost every day at different sites. As a matter of fact, I had stopped to see this guy one day who looked very alone and distraught. We had started talking and I was trying to comfort him by using some soothing type language that seemed to work. During the time I was there talking to this guy, I noticed this stone wall and I made some comment about it and this guy told me that someone by the name of Tanguay had built the wall in the 1950’s. Of course, I being very proud of the fact that this guy was speaking about my grandfather, shouted out Wow, that was my grandfather. On both sides of my family, our ancestors were from France and later from Canada, my paternal grandparents, from the Province of Quebec, with one member being descended from the Iroquois Indian Tribe. As a young person, I used both the French and English language and am still able to respond in French.

CHAPTER 1

A DAY LIKE NO OTHER

SUMMER 1967

We usually left home for a 300 plus mile trip to Northern Maine on June 28. It was my dad’s two-week vacation period. We enjoyed the drive, and on arrival, we rushed around to do the usual activities, such as going to the current drive-in movie or going to a pond, maybe in the middle of a potato field, for a day of fishing with my dad, my uncles, and of course, my brother.

One day when dad went fishing with one of my uncles on Square Lake and I being only five and my brother only four, stayed home with my mom my two sisters and my grandmother. Later on that morning my grandmother had asked me to go with her to Georges’ market down the road say five or six miles, as things turned out, my sisters and brother