Chapter 1: The Early Years
Daniel Lee Gooding was born on November 5, 1951 at Elizabeth General Hospital and was raised in the nearby town of Roselle NJ. Dan had the greatest parents any child could ask for! Unfortunately they are both gone now too.
His father Arnold was an engineer who achieved many patents over the years in building oil refineries. He also traveled all over the world to manage the building of new plants - taking his family with him to locations such as Casablanca, Morocco, the Spanish Riviera and Calgary Canada. [I have a photo of Dan riding a camel which I will upload later]
His mother Lucy Lee was a stay-at-home mom — but truly not in the traditional sense. She was a woman ahead of her time — very well-read with her own sense of adventure and independence. I remember that she wanted to return to Spain, but when she could not get anyone to come along - she made the trip anyway all by herself. She was also so athletic that she would race Dan’s classmates and usually win! She frequently took walks in the park and believed in eating healthy — often juicing veggies like carrots and celery. Even when she had become sick herself she did volunteer work at the local hospital.
Dan was the third of 4 boys. His eldest brother Bob was the youngest partner in a stock brokerage firm at age 23 and then went on to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors — often taking Dan under his wings. Unfortunately Bob passed away back in 1994.
The next older brother is John who was the Marine Sargeant of the family - Semper fi. After his tour with the military he pursued a career in photography. He also took Dan under his wings from time to time. Today he lives in Marina del Rey.
The youngest boy was Charlie - who elected to follow a musician’s dream. Unfortunately Charlie was killed in a motorcycle accident back in 2004. This devastated Dan severely - he never really got over this loss.
Dan had many childhood friends while growing up in Roselle. He confessed to me that he was usually the neighborhood’s instigator — often inciting mischievous activities involving exploding fireworks, faking an arrow assault, snowball fights, or giving his buddy’s brand new bike a glitter paint job. My favorite story involved a dummy they dressed up to look like a real person - they named him ‘Louie Louie’. Some of their innocent pranks included taking the dummy to Main Street and pretending to assault him — but when they hurled poor Louie Louie off the train bridge this brought things to a whole new level. Fortunately no one was hurt — but ALL the dummies involved were retired -lol!
Dan continued to keep in touch with all his childhood friends throughout the years ..