Book excerpt: DONALDS WORLD leads on a young boys trip to the top of the tallest building between San Francisco and Los Angeles during the 1930s When he returned home he climbed a 60-feet tree in his back yard to see from a distance where he had been. Who is this boy? The answer comes in chapter 2 -- from birth to his mothers commitment to a state insane asylum. Thirty years would pass before she is released under his care and gardianship. Chapter 3 explores the family tree and adventures by those who made the Oklahoma land rush of 1888 and their departure later because of crop failure. It took Donalds great great grandfather 65 days in all kinds of weather to return to Tennesee from Oklahoma. One can take the same trip today in less than 100 hours! Mrs. C. Jackson arrives on the scene in Chapter 4 to take care of Donald and his older brother, Stanley. Donald didnt know until she died many years later that her middle name was Charity. The headline for Chapter 6 is The White Avenue Gang. Donald recalls being only a bystander when the rich kid was tied to a church tree on White Avenue and one of his captures rode the boys red and white motor-bike around the block. He and his brother looked like the Balkan who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand to start World War I. Elsewere the book involves Donalds school days, summer work in the Sierra before joining the Navy and being saved by bombs that crushed two Japanese cities. He cast his first vote for Harry Truman. After that his presidential votes went only to Republicans. During college Marcia and Don where married before their sophomore year. After graduation Don joined UP and 34 year career followed by 10 years as a journalism professor at Oklahoma State University. He retired in 1994 and now lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 7543 S. 70th East Ave, Tulsa, Ok 74133 918 494-3634 E-mail [email protected]