Note that I will be moving this story over to the WordPress Blog and update a chapter every month or so beginning in July of 2011.
This is not so much a story about Donny Laing, my dear friend from high school, as there is so much about him that I do not know. It is more about the memories and influence, both positive and negative, that he had on so many of us when he was still around.
It is also a story of how the horrific effects of alcohol abuse can be so detrimental and ultimately lead to unnecessary tragedy. The experiences were bitter, as they were sweet during that tumultuous time on the California Coast in the mid 1980’s.
As uncertain and desperate as those times were for me, unable to find a job of any kind, I can’t help thinking that there would be a real sense of mystery missing from my life had I not, by chance, met up with Donny twelve years after our high school days.
My sailing days finally ended in 1986 when I returned to the “real” world. Having access to a “Word Processor” for the first time, in my spare time, I wrote a screenplay about this “larger than life” character. It has recently resurfaced, stored safely in a box unopened for almost twenty years, revealing some fascinating new insights. It was poorly written back then, as I hardly consider myself a real writer, but merits a possible rewrite when time allows.
The early draft captures a slice of life of the Woodstock Generation with a small town flavor, glimpsing back in the late 1960’s, with a direct contrast to the mid 1980’s. It also requires a still-to-be written postscript: reflections of what it all meant from my perspective today. Time will only tell if this story merits being made into a film.
Until that determination is made, small snapshots are captured here, republished from the original Blog postings, to make the navigation a bit easier. When you enter the first page, you can see from the left column, there are many chapters still to come.
Note: the story was on the corrupted blog in an old FrontPage format. I will begin to recreate it here in June of 2011.