How I met my wife and how She changed my life.

    I met my wife quite by accident, although her sister and her husband have been trying to pair us up for several months after a recent breakup. I was in no real hurry to find another woman at that time and kinda just kept putting off several meetings that had been planned for us. I needed to get one of my spearguns from Carmen's (the soon-to-be brother-in-law) house and I thought that nobody was at home but Sis (what my wife called her sister). She was there and let me in to get the speargun. We were talking in the living room when Darleth (my soon-to-be-wife) came down the stairs wearing cut off jeans and a tube top with a pack of cigarettes stuck in the top, a can of paint in one hand, and a paintbrush in the other with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Sis laughed a bit and said well this is a fine first meeting of you two. I was quite dumbfounded at first and had a strange feeling come over me when I first saw her. Darleth was in a near panic but came all the way down the stairs and said hi. Sis and Carmen had told Darleth all about me in a manner that she thought that I was married to this other girl. I have to admit that touch of paint on her arms and face gave a different aire to our first meeting.

    A couple of weeks later Carmen and Sis said why don’t we go to a drive-in movie. Darleth and I agreed. That same day, Carmen, Doug my childhood buddy that lived two houses down from me when growing up, we're going out to do some spearfishing. Doug, (my soon-to-be Best Man) was a fair spear fisherman as was Carmen. We had gone out in Carmen’s boat early that morning and spent the entire day on the water. Darleth continued painting a bedroom and went outside to get some sun and fell asleep. Needless to say, both of us were burnt to a crisp and could barely sit back in the seat. It was not the best of first dates for sure.

    After a month or so things began to heat up and gel into a relationship of sorts. Carmen and Sis suggested that we go out on the boat, take some food and cooking equipment and spend the night out on the water and go diving the next morning. Now you have to picture this; the boat had folding back-to-back seats that when folded down makes into a lounge bed about 28 inches wide and 6 foot long, one on each side of the boat. How two grown people can attempt to sleep together on that narrow of a bed was tricky at best, with a lot of tossing and nearly falling off several times that night. I gave Darleth the inside and I tried to balance myself as best I could. Talk about building the pressure of a new relationship in very close quarters.

    We made it somehow and dawn broke, finally. We made coffee and made something to eat and headed offshore to the reefs for some spearfishing for dinner back at home that night. The girls got in the water but were scared off by a very large school of some good-sized barracudas. I never paid them much attention to barracudas but after several fish were speared and brought to the boat the sharks showed up. We moved to some other small patch reefs and got a few more snapper and the sharks showed up again. The girls said can we go in closer to shore in shallow water so they could swim without sharks and barracudas. So we went in close to shore in about 3 feet of water…no sense of taking a speargun with me in that shallow of water. So we all got in and just swam around for about 30 minutes. Darleth pointed out several small brightly colored tropical fish and asked if I could catch one of those. Sure thing. I went back to the boat and got a small dip net and proceeded to catch one or two of those colorful tropical fish. I had no idea what they were but took them back to the boat and found a bucket, got some water, and put the fish in the bucket. I went back and Darleth found some other fish..different colored and I caught two of those. So Carmen wanted to get into the act and so he caught one or two of yet a different variety. So sitting in the boat looking at the fish swimming around in the bucket, Darleth asked could we keep them?? I said well, maybe, if I could find my 20-gallon aquarium back in storage at my parent's house. So we emptied one cooler and added water, I got some sand off the bottom and found a few pieces of coral and some plants. And so now my saltwater tropical fish hobby began at my wife’s suggestion, "could we keep them"? One of many hobbies that were yet to come that would shape my lifestyle over the next 49 years.

    Our relationship grew into love and soon engagement. Spearfishing and hunting were well entrenched in my previous life that I didn’t need any help in keeping those activities alive. In fact, Darleth loved camping and accompanied me on many hunting and fishing trips for the next years of our life together. I quickly found out that she was a much better fisherman than I, most probably because her dad would take her to Goodland Island near Marco on the west coast of Florida where he gill netted and she fished with a rod and reel beginning at an early age of 8.

    We were married on August 17,1967 with a boatload of friends and family. We went to a private freshwater lake in upstate Florida for our honeymoon where there would be more than ample bass fishing. There were only two small 2 room cottages for rent on the entire lake. I had been there many times before with my parents on vacations and later on a couple of trips with some buddies that I worked with. At that time we took my boat for waterskiing and a small outboard motor on a wooden skiff for bass fishing. For our honeymoon, we took my dad’s boat and that same small outboard motor for fishing. My wife just had to outfish me. During the week's stay, we took the boat over to the Ocklawaha River at Moss Bluff and went north up to the Silver River and on into Silver Springs. I had made this trip back in high school and thought it would make for a good outing. That area on the river was used for many of the Tarzan movies of the ’50s and another movie, The Yearling, which was where we stopped for lunch.

    Since we had very little money between us we agreed to stay with my parents trying to save up for a house. Two years later my son was born. My brother-in-law, Carmen, and I tried our hand at full-time marine tropical fish and coral collecting. We could sell everything we could collect and send to New York but we would need a bigger boat to go to the Bahamas (Bimini), which is only 55 miles east of Miami, Florida. We bought a used 25-foot boat with twin Volvos, 120 HP inboard/outboard motors. We made several trips to Bimini when we found out the hull had a large crack, which was covered up with new bottom paint from the dealer before we bought it. That whole deal went very south and we got rid of that boat and I went back to work at the same engineering firm I had just left 4 months prior. We now had about 25 aquariums set up at both houses for keeping marine fish, coral, and invertebrates for shipping. We continued to ship all we could get using Carmen’s boat locally but couldn’t make the Bimini trip in an 18-foot boat safely. So we could only fill orders on our local fish. So that venture went by the wayside and so I set up a custom marine aquarium business building custom size aquariums for businesses. That spilled over to personal clients in their homes. That lasted a few more years and I just dove and collected for myself and a yearly Marine Aquarium Society that I had just joined. 

    This aquarium group had an annual aquarium show where the members would bring their aquariums to the show location for the exhibition. The first show that I entered I had made two 30 gallon hexagonal aquariums with custom backgrounds and wooden stands/tops with hidden filtration systems in the lighted hood. One aquarium had smaller marine fish that swam in and out of the holes in a centered rock-covered background. That aquarium could be viewed from all 6 sides. The base was 8 inches larger than the aquarium. I put the same sand in and around the outside wooden base of the tank. The interior bottom appeared to extend out beyond the aquarium. The second aquarium had the background at the back with the filtration pipes hidden behind it. I had caught a Black French Angel that was about 6 inches tall. That was a very beautiful fish with each scale of its side edged in a bright gold color. This was the only fish in the aquarium and I placed tall plastic wide-bladed plants in with the fish. I had made up a 6 ft by 6 ft backdrop that was behind the two aquariums. The backdrop had netting and dried horseshoes and dried sea fans and shells in the netting. That made for a nice display that was separated from most of the other side-by-side displays. My display was the last display in the show. Later that day before after I was completely set up and before the judging that night, a woman came over to me and said the judges will never go for plastic freshwater plants in a marine aquarium in a very sarcastic manner. I didn’t know that she was the wife of that year’s club president. 

    I was overwhelmed after the judging to see three first-place trophies and 2 second-place plaques on top of my aquariums. One was Best overall display, Best custom aquarium system, and the fish won Best overall marine fish. I also received second place in two of those same categories. I later found out that the three judges fought over if my display should be awarded Best in Show. They finally had to come to an agreement that I really had two separate aquariums and the Best of Show trophy was to go to only one aquarium. Needless to say that the newcomer nearly pulled off the entire show. The woman came back over with her husband spitting out black feathers. We became good friends later on. After a couple of yearly week-long summer diving trips to Grand Cayman with the aquarium group, many of the divers could see that my dive partner and I really knew how to catch marine tropical fish. We gave away fish to those people that were not very good divers and yet had aquariums that they wanted to bring to the aquarium show.

    After winning the respect of the club members and the board, those efforts later turned into being the vice-president one year and the yearly aquarium show chairman the following year. We had all kinds of donated door prizes for the people that paid to come to view the 2-day aquarium show. We also trophies for the people that brought their marine aquariums to the weekend show. When I became the show chairman I wanted to do something for the exhibitors. So I set out to obtain prizes for the people that took their time to bring their aquariums from home and set them up for the show. When I set out to do something…I do it BIG. Our aquarium society had made 3 yearly week-long trips to Grand Cayman to dive for tropical fish for the yearly aquarium show. We also had booked the next year's trip in advance. So when I became the aquarium show chairman I called the hotel where we stayed and the airlines and was able to get a week package, room/meals, and flight tickets for two people as the main grand prize for the exhibitors. I was also able to get some aquarium products from some of the vendors that I used. I called in a couple of favors from two marine fish stores in South Miami and got some marine fish and invertebrates as prizes along with a host of other things. That next marine aquarium show was the largest event with over 200 aquariums entered that year…the largest turnout that they ever had. The entire aquarium board members were dumbfounded that I was able to pull off such a feat. Every person that brought in their marine aquariums to exhibit that year was given one ticket for the exhibitor's raffle. We had nearly 60 gift prizes. I was so busy during the start of the raffle getting attendees out of the building so that the exhibitors could begin taking down their aquariums. So I had my diving partner draw my ticket at the end of the day for the grand prize only. If he drew my name for any of the other prizes I told him to put my ticket back in the basket. The main prize was left for last and just as I walked in the door, I told Harry to pick out a winning ticket for me. We joked earlier that if either one of us won that grand prize we would take the other one on the next year's trip for a week in Grand Caymen. I was busy doing paperwork when Harry drew my ticket for the main prize and he had a grin on his face that lit up the room. Everybody knew what had just happened and I didn’t even see him pull the ticket. The entire room went up in a roar and applause and Harry pointed at me from across the room and held up the winning ticket. I said no way… I said that I could not accept that prize… I was the one that obtained it... but everyone in that room said I deserved it for all of the hard work and hours that I put in on that show… so we went the next year.

    Aquariums and diving for marine tropical fish and invertebrates on long extended trips to the Florida keys with the kids and the women camping was just part of how my wife influenced my life. Diving camping fishing and hunting became a way of our lives for many years to come. However, she had one more surprise for me a few years later…and that was photography…little did she know she unleashed a monster.

    It was Christmas time and my wife had absolutely no idea what to get me for Christmas. My diving partner who was heavily into photography said to get him a 35MM camera. So she did just that. This was back in 1974 and the cameras at that time had no automatic anything. You had to learn which controls to turn and when and I was intimidated but within a few days, I got the hang of it. When I switched to color slides I really began to understand how each control worked with the other. You can see the slide get brighter or darker. With shooting negatives the processing machine can compensate if your exposure is off a bit and you really don’t know what you did wrong or right.

    Well, within a month or so I bought 2 more lenses and later added 2 or 3 more. I borrowed a friend's camera that was identical to mine and so now I had 2 cameras and more equipment than my camera bag could hold. I didn’t photograph people very well… I did a couple of weddings... hated doing those but made some extra money. I mainly preferred to photograph nature and wildlife. 

    A friend that I worked with had a small darkroom and he was interested in making color prints directly from color slides, a somewhat new process at that time for Kodak and a company called CibaChrome. So we spent quite a few nights at his place learning the process and making what I thought were some nice small 8 x10 photographs. I had a spare bedroom and decided I wanted a darkroom of my own. I bought a used enlarger and the equipment to make color prints from 8x10 and later added the equipment to do 11 x14 and 16x20 prints. Then bought various sizes of developing trays and a new color enlarger to make B&W prints mas well. I really loved making B&W prints. 

    At the insistence of one of my wife’s friends who was also a photographer and was a member of a camera club, she said I should also join. So I joined the Dagguere Pictorialists Camera Club. The very first meeting I attended was a monthly print contest. So I brought 3 of my 16x20 B&W matted prints and won all three awards,1st, 2nd and 3rd place with one of the B&W prints winning the best print of that month. This upset many of the old-timers that were accustomed to always winning. I think I may have also won 1 of the color print categories as well that night. Needless to say, I came on that scene with a bang. Later on, that lead to being the president of that club for 3 years.  

    So after a couple of years and a few thousand color slides later I came upon a Southern Bell Telephone book cover and knew the photographer that made that image and said to myself, I have better images than that. So I set out to find who in Southern Bell that I could set up a meeting to show some of my images. I mainly just wanted to see if I could get a telephone book cover for myself. I found the gentlemen, who said he inherited the job of choosing photos for book covers but he didn’t like doing that as that was not his main job. I thought great. So I asked a few questions as to what type of photos he needed for covers and where in Florida did he have a need for photos. With a couple of answers, I set up a meeting and took some sliders and a projector and screen, and actually managed to get it all up to his office in downtown Miami for a dog and pony show. He was impressed but he could not make any promises. I now had where he needed photos and the sizes of the local area-wide books and set out to photograph a couple of days in each area and then set up another meeting, only this time with less equipment as someone in his office had everything if needed.

    I did a little homework on pricing/usage for various sizes of photos and where the photos were going to be located within a book and what type of publication and the circulation rates. I had no idea it was going to be that complicated, but I had my photo rates ready for our meeting just in case he asked. That first year I was able to get the main large telephone book for general Miami, and another 2 images that could be used generically up and down the east coast…that was West Palm Beach down to the Florida Keys. Three front cover images netted me about $1500.00. I now needed to get better more professional quality cameras and lenses. $1500.00 wasn't near enough to cover all of the equipment that I wanted or needed. So for the next 3 years and about 20 covers later, I had new equipment, the best of the best. I even bought an old-time folding 1930’s 4x5 press view camera, which I used mostly used for B&W photography. Now I needed a bigger enlarger for the much larger negative (4”x5”) and learning the fine art of true B&W photography. That got real complicated.

    After a couple of more years of telephone book covers, about 10 more, I now had some extra money to burn and decided that since my wife had unleashed this beast with photography, that I would surprise her with new wedding rings, ones that you could actually see the diamonds. So that Christmas it was my turn for a big gift for her and I had my camera and flash ready the moment she opened the box. That may have been my very best photograph of her.

    A NASA launch of the space shuttle was scheduled for the following summer and I really wanted photos of that big bird taking off. So I went up to the best location I could find which was well outside the boundaries of the NASA property. The location was on US Highway One and along the Indian River. This was a little over 12 miles away from the launchpad. I had rented an 800MM lens from Canon and set my tripod out the night before the launch next to my van where I spent the night. Morning came along with a mass of people that came in all night long we were all ready for the early morning launch. A heavy cloud cover moved in over the launch pad and all I got were maybe 15 frames before the shuttle disappeared into the clouds. “That’s All Folks".  At that moment I knew I needed to find a way to get into the NASA complex as a press photographer and within a month I found it. I was looking at one of the Southern Bell telephone books that had just come out, and there was my photo on the cover. This photo was solicited by one of the great-grandchildren of the original Monroe family that had a home on Biscayne Bay. this early 1900's 2 story cracker style home was on a National Monument Register of Historic Places. I met her when photographing on the grounds and she requested a slide of what I had captured. I said, of course, not knowing her intentions. As it turned out she knew the same gentleman that I was working with at Southern Bell and gave him the slide to be used on the local area telephone book. I had stamped my name and telephone number on the cardboard side of the slide so she knew that I still had rights for that image. The woman never told the gentleman from Southern Bell that my name was on the slide and he never looked. I called my Southern Bell contact the next day and asked him how did my photo get selected for the Coral Gables telephone book when I had never submitted it to him. After a few moments of silence and he said, OK, what is this going to cost me? He knew he was in trouble using my photo without my permission and signed paperwork. I immediately thought of NASA and I said a letter...more dead silence on the phone for a moment. I explained what I wanted and we hashed out the particulars and I now had my letter to submit to NASA for the press credentials to getting on the NASA property as a press photographer. 

    A lot of work and research went into getting cameras ready with building electronic auto triggering systems and timers and watertight housings to protect the cameras. There are the cameras that were set up remotely around the launch complex for different angles of the shuttle taking off from the launch pad. When everybody is ready to go out to the pad you have to go by NASA busses to different sites. I had 4 remote camera locations picked out and one camera with me at the VIP/Press viewing site which was only 3 miles from the launch pad 30A.  The next morning everybody in the press core that was filming the launch were all set up next to the countdown clock. When the clock and announcer said 15 seconds, we got behind our cameras for the biggest, loudest event I have ever witnessed. The sound and the ground shaking under my feet was when that shuttle lifted off and cleared the tower was something I will always remember. Over the next 3 years, I covered many launches including the Challenger’s first dawn launch and later that same week the first landing at Cape Kennedy. The photo of the dawn launch was printed and matted and framed to 20x24 inches as soon as I got back home and took it back up within 6 days and was hanging in the press center the last time I was there. I was selected to cover the first shuttle landing at Cape Kennedy, which was Challenger that had just taken off days prior. Those images of launches, landing, and moving the shuttle on the mobile launcher, “roll out” at dawn to the 3 mile run to the launchpad are some of the most memorial images to date. The sheer size of that thing was immense. I was initially scheduled to cover the disastrous loss of Challenger that chilly February morning but could not get off work.

    In 1985 I moved our family from Miami to Punta Gorda and watched the house that I designed being built and completed in 1986, I once again made my darkroom, which was a bit larger this time. I processed my B&W films and printed large 32x40 framed B&W prints and then added sepia-toned color to them for a light golden brown that depicted early Florida 500 years ago. Some 15 years later in 2000, we sold our home to move out to Colorado where my son’s family (4-year-old granddaughter ) had moved to in 1997. My wife was shocked that I would sell my house, the one that I had dreamed about long before I had met her, but we did. We lived in Longmont, CO.  north of Denver and closer to the mountains for a couple of years before moving back to Punta Gorda to help my aging parents. My son and his family decided to move back to their home in Punta Gorda as well. I loved the mountains and the snow. Before I left Florida I sold all of my film cameras and lenses for the purchase of a digital camera and a computer, which was a real learning experience working on photos without the smell of chemicals. I missed that smell.

    So after knowing my wife of 49 years, having a son with 2 granddaughters, and buying another home close to them again in 2003 so grandma could spoil the girls at all of the theme parks in Orlando, we found out in September of 2015 that my wife had stage 4 lung cancer. We were devastated, to say the least… it was a complete shock. My wife did smoke for about 25 years early in life but when we moved into the newly designed and built home she completely stopped for the last 30 years. The damage was done, however. I have always worried and still do about secondhand smoke for my son when he was growing up. My wife passed away in the summer of 2016 and now I'm all alone.

    After a few years, I kept asking the big question “WHY NOT ME”? My wife had so much more to give to our family than I did. After searching for answers and what was I going to do, I decided in 2018 that I would return to my childhood Catholic faith for some answers. I had been away from the church for nearly 60 years, but God waited on me. I still look for the answers to “Why” to this day. So after finding the perfect church and meeting some fine priests to talk to I have found some peace... for now. I guess the day that I leave this earth I will finally receive the answer to my question.

J. Michael