Lanterna Rally

Author: Joe Burnworth

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2024-08-13

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1663263558

From a no frills family to national business success. It has not been a straight road for me, but with my work ethic, tenacity, never-quit attitude and entrepreneurial skills I have thrived and survived. Starting out at 12 years old going door to door selling Downy Flake Doughnuts, my work ethic was established at an early age. I advanced moving from job to job accelerating my work position providing me with enough income to purchase a wrist watch, my first car and paying my way through college. Investing and my entrepreneurial instincts have catapulted me from having my first duplex, purchasing a printing business, opening three roller skating rinks, building a national condominium and apartment development company building and selling over 1,400 units. Along the way I think I have used most of my Nine Lives! Among my many close calls with death are my tour in Vietnam, surviving Hurricane Iris and a runaway driver. I served with the 1st Air Calvary Division in Vietnam with my team’s mission, “Search and Destroy”. At times we had direct contact with the enemy at daybreak, mid-day, and prior to sunset-breakfast, lunch and dinner. I excelled at this S & D mission being named “Soldier of the Month” and being awarded an accommodation for Valor. On one of our many international SCUBA diving adventures my wife and I were on a 100-foot yacht, The Aggressor, in Belize along with another 100-foot yacht, The Wave Dancer. We were tied up 20 feet apart in a remote area waiting out Hurricane Iris, when the category four storm ripped The Wave Dancer from its cleats capsizing and killing 20 of the 28 people aboard. I wrote a book about the tragedy, “No Safe Harbor”. Another close call with death came as I was sitting in my front room watching a baseball game. A person speeding from the police catapulted his car over a berm into a tree and spun his car into my room. Both the tree and car were less than 12 inches from where I was sitting. The fleeing crashing culprit was arrested a few weeks later on my 80th birthday I have lived a charmed and successful Life!