Army vet pursues passion for painting after 25 years in military
PALMETTO, Fla. - Childhood memories are on Darryl Goldman's mind as he paints from his Palmetto condo.
"I have always wanted to be a painter. When I was a child in grammar school. My teachers tended to put my drawings on the wall out in the hallway."
His childhood paintings were so popular that a friend invited him to a lesson with an elderly art teacher. He still has that first painting he made.
"I was so proud to show it to my mother and she said, ‘You didn't paint it.’ And I said, ‘I did mama. I promise.’ Then she said, ‘I'm going to have to give you a whooping for lying.’ And so I got her the phone number and she called the art teacher. And she said, ‘Yeah, kid's pretty good.’ And so after that, my mother gave me a dollar every week from our lesson," Goldman shared.
Goldman enjoyed painting but soon gave it up for a career in the military.
"One day I was at Fort Benning, Georgia, driving home from a little chapel out in the country, and I saw some guys jumping off this tower. They come down. They'd hit the ground and they'd get up again, and they'd take them way up 250 feet up in the air to drop them again.I said, ‘You know, I can do that.’"
He joined the Army in 1976 and spend 25 years as a US Army paratrooper chaplain.
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"I remember sitting by the door, they'd always put me by the open door when it was time to jump in the look down, there were 120 soldiers all looking at you. They see that big white cross on the helmet and they're making this sign. You pray for me, right? And you know, I'd say, ‘I am praying for you.’ And that was the biggest lie ever told because I didn't have any time to pray for anybody else other than Darryl Goldman at the time."
After Goldman retired from the military he was a pastor at a church for three years and travel the country. But, he never forgot his first love- painting.
"It's something that you lose yourself in and the time goes by so fast and it's very relaxing now."
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Goldman has found himself painting again. He has a featured Artist exhibit at the Island Gallery West in Holmes Beach.
"And that's the wonderful thing about a gallery is you don't just have them in one room or in your closet. You have a place to share with the world and say, ‘Hey, this is what I do. This is who I am.’"
The exhibit will last about a month.
LINK: For more information about the exhibit visit, www.islandgallerywest.com.