This Friday is my uncle’s 81st birthday, and he has turned every one of those 42,573,600 minutes into an adventure. Jim Hurley has lived all around the country and traveled across the world, but a necessity in his life was always near the ocean.
From a young age, Hurley wanted to be a beach lifeguard, and at the age of 18, he passed all the necessary tests but was turned down due to needing prescription glasses.
“If he could see, he would still be a lifeguard to this day,” His wife Laura Hurley said.
That didn’t stop Hurley from living an adventurous life. He worked on a shrimp boat with a three-person crew in Mississippi, using some of the same docks used in the film Forrest Gump. On their first trip, Jim was confused that he could still see the land and asked the captain why they were so close to the shore.
“We don’t expect you to last more than three or four days,” the captain said. “We don’t want to get too far away for when we have to bring you back.”
Hurley proved them wrong by making it a whole month.
“I showed them,” Hurley said. “It was quite the adventure and really hard work.”
For a year, Hurley lived in Hawaii with a friend and their family, living a minimalist lifestyle. Eating whatever they would catch fishing or hunting, primarily pigs and mahi mahi.
“We lived off the land,” Hurley said. “We bought almost nothing.”
From California to Mississippi to Hawaii, to working on a dock crew in Florida, to serving in the Navy, stationed on a boat off the coast of San Diego, all of Jim’s employments have been adventures.
Jim has traveled the world, from Cuba to Croatia and all of Western Europe, but one place that has stuck with him all these years was the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.
“It was the most beautiful and exciting site with the coral and crystal clear waters,” Hurley said. “You can be down 100 feet and look up and see the bottom of the boat.”
Jim has given me multiple opportunities to make my own adventures. At the age of 11, he gifted me a scooter, giving me a vessel to explore. Jim gave the scooter the initial test ride, flipping over the handlebars, rolling head-over-heels, and popping right up. He looked like an action hero.
Twenty years ago, Jim shared his love of the ocean with me as we took surfing lessons together. 14-year-old Paul remembers the freezing water of the San Francisco Bay and falling off the board for three hours. However, 34-year-old Paul only remembers an unforgettable day with his uncle.
In 2003, my uncle took me to an empty parking lot and told me to get in the front seat of his Lexus. At 13, this was my first driving experience. Three years later, while practicing for my driver’s test, Jim and I drove through a canyon. I hit a speed bump going 50 mph. Jim saw the sign for the bump but didn’t say anything.
“I wanted to see what would happen,” Hurley said. “You learned to take bumps much slower that day.”
His golden rule of driving, when it came to driving around curves, was that you could drive more than 10 mph faster than the speed limit.
Happy birthday, Jim. Thank you for the memories, stories, adventures, and, most of all, for your words. I strive to live by them.
“You have to make time to do the things you enjoy in life,” Hurley said. “At my age, I know it goes by quickly, and you need to enjoy your life.”
