A nightmare training session

At the request of family members, I'm recording some of the stories of my strange, life experiences.

Please feel free to comment below on this first attempt.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8tebbw5g2xo35s2/Training%20the%20IRS.mp3?dl=0

A mystery monument at Borden and Sayre

I knew what I was looking for, but I hadn't seen it since the time I was a kid. I would visit this location with my Aunt Mildred and my grandfather, C.V. Ray.

And it looked nothing like it did when we would go there.

Today, it's a painted pile of bricks protected by a wrought iron fence -- no historical marker or description sign.

Back then, there were no bricks and no protective fence.

We would make the trip from Pacoima to the southeast corner of Sayre Street and Borden Avenue in the City of San Fernando.

When we'd arrive there, we'd often have to wait our turn -- you can't imagine how popular it was.

My granddad insisted on making the trek at least once each week.

Sometimes we'd encounter people who had driven there all the way from Long Beach.

It was that popular.

Oh, and it was free to anyone -- all they needed was their own bottle.

History repeats itself down to the breakfast table.

An open letter to my mother on April 15, 2020

Dear Mom:

I’m beginning to understand more about you and your generation.

I think of you when I make the breakfast – my favorite breakfast – the way you used to do it.

It was creamed eggs on toast – or Eggs a la Goldenrod, as you used to call it.

What I realized lately is that this dish, as well as so many others you served us in the ‘50s, was likely a child of the Great Depression. As were your ham hocks and beans, chipped beef on toast, egg-and-bread-enhanced meat loaf and even milk-enhanced French Toast -- not to mention the gravies you prepared. In fact, I made three of your gravies this week alone.

You endured shortages during the Depression followed by mind-boggling rationing during World War II.

We didn’t know the extent to which you had to endure “inconveniences” during your younger years.

If you were around today, you’d probably kick right back into the “make do” mindset of your youth. And you might smile and nod your head while we bitch and complain about how the worldwide pandemic is kicking our asses at home.

And I realized that, although you never had to live through a killer pandemic, your parents and grandparents did. You were born just four years after the end of the last worldwide flu. I can imagine that the stories they told you about the fear, the isolation, the suffering and the losses they endured had little meaning at the time.

Their experiences, however, prepared you in a way for the two major crises you would survive in the ‘30s and ‘40s. And, although we didn’t realize it, you were preparing us for what we might have to face one day.

Did your mother make creamed eggs on toast or gravies that could stretch a meager meal? Did your own grandparents learn how to take care of their families because their parents honed the same skills during the Civil War?

And finally, when our children emerge from this once-in-a-century plague, will they be passing along similar survival skills to their yet unborn grandchildren?

Things were never the same following the Civil War. In fact, some people are still stumbling over the debris from that horrible conflict. World War I and the flu epidemic of 1918 gave way to the Roaring 20s – a brief decade of carefree pleasure into which you were born. The Great Depression came to an end only because of the outbreak of World War II.

The second World War led to another relaxing decade, the 1950s. But human nature – or maybe just OUR human nature – wouldn’t allow the peace of mind to continue.

The cycles repeat each decade but seem to crash every century or so.

Will they be eating more gravy and creamed eggs on toast a hundred years from now?

Regardless Mom, thanks for passing along these great survival skills. 

Love,

Donnie

I understand the mindset of the El Paso shooter because I once wore his shoes

As with every other Baby Boomer in the United States, I grew up in fear of the savage invaders that were intent upon raping my mother and sister.

They drilled us in school – “DROP!”

We learned to hit the floor under our desks – instantly --because we believed that the "enemy," those communist killers, wanted us dead.

Our president, our parents and other officials demanded that we comply – for the sake of our own safety and the safety of our communities.

When I turned 18, as did hundreds of thousands of my peers, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on my own assault rifle and kill those invaders before they could get to my mother and sister.

A important pledge to my family and friends

Dateline: Burbank, California, Father’s Day, 2019.

I make this pledge to my family today, June 16, 2019, following a most incredible es equally stressful year.

My is not to kill two birds with one stone, but rather, to keep two long-overdue promises — one to my wife, and another to my loyal and too-forgiving friends.

More than 20 years ago, I promised my bride that I would give her a comfortable life and a bright future. For the past year or so, I promised to my friends that I would, in the form of an autobiography — a book that would pull a string on my life as it relates to fathers.

I am pledging to her, to my friends and anyone else who cares that I will have that book written, edited and ready for distribution and sale by Labor Day of this year — and probably much sooner.

Based upon the countless number of people who tell me that they want the book, and the media professionals who assure me that it has legs (people will want to buy it), I have promised my wife that it will generate enough to help us get back on our feet, and will become a continuing support to our later years.

I hope that you can see how this book will ensure that I keep both promises.

For those who haven’t been following my life story (and why would you have?), my early childhood had its challenges — most of them at the hands and shouts and insults and abuse if my first father.

When Mom could no longer take her share of the abuse, she divorced him.

When he broke the news to my sister and me, he was thoughtful enough to assure is that he’d be OK — he told us he wasn’t our father.

He even named the two suspects.

He died a couple of years later and probably smiled in his grave as his verbal time bomb would explode and re-explode as I would grow and understand the implications.

When I was ten, he died, not long after my maternal grandfather in Iowa took his own life. He had been a great father figure to me when we’d go there for the summers.

That same year, Mom remarried, and I spent the next eight years with a stepfather whose own demons would surface. I’m sure it was his demons that brought out his violent tendencies.

Today, thanks to years of therapy I understand why I struggled in school with dyslexia, PTSD, and ADHD, as well as learning and reading disorder.

My story will also describe the most remarkable skills I developed on my own to find astoundingly pclever ways to survive in school, in spite of my inability to read well.

I promise that you’ll smile and shake your head when I confess to some of the ways I came up with to survive exams and research assignments.

Those and other perception skills I honed as a child target would provide skills I’d use as an investigative journalist (without any need for cheating).

I enlisted in the Army to escape my stepfather, and ended up in combat in Vietnam. I know know that it only exacerbated the PTSD that was already a part of me.

Over the intervening years, I tried and tried to figure out why, in spite of being an award-winning, loyal, honest employee or team member, I never fit in, I’d repeatedly be falsely accused of horrible stuff — stuff I would never do.

Jobs never lasted very long — I just never fit in, or gained the confidence of bosses.

But all this time, on my own, with nobody to blow cigar smoke and tell me I couldn’t take on projects I would suggest, I would set out on my own to discover astounding stories.

I complete some of them, but many of them still sit in boxes awaiting completion as books and documentaries.

I now wonder if, had there been the right father in my life, I might have learned how complete stuff.

By the way, I latched on to many perspective fathers in my life — you’ll be astounded when you learn about them, and what happened to them.

I promise that the true stories and adventures I have to share will enthrall you.

In the last year, DNA had solved the mystery of who my father really was — and the earth-shattering discovery — 47 years late — that I fathered a boy.

His two daughters in their 20s are my granddaughters.

Needless to say, all of these parts of my life didn’t add up to me keeping the promise I made to my bride.

I’m promising her today, that I will complete this project — and that it will be successful.

People tell me I’m a good storyteller and above-average writer.

I hope you’ll stay tuned. 

"The Fire" -- a preface to Don Ray's book about his lifelong pursuit of fathers and father figures.

A fire that continues to burn in my consciousness.

 When I was six, I remember my parents' reaction to this newspaper story. For whatever reason, it had hit close to home for both of them.

It was a story about a fire that broke out in the Los Angeles home of a woman and her six children. I remember how it described how five of the children either jumped out windows or climbed down the stairs to safety.

A fellow Vietnam veteran gave me a life-changing perspective

We both served in Vietnam, but we didn't meet until a few years ago -- the small Vietnam vet group in which Paul participates invited me and Fritz the Sassy Service Dog to join them every Wednesday evening in Burbank.

What happens in the group stays in the group, but I can tell you that Paul is a wonderful photographer who sees beyond the camera.

Following last week's meeting, he took me aside and gave me a perspective so powerful that it has changed how I see my own life and legacy.

In the group meeting, I had expressed my envy of others there who smile and laugh when they speak of their grandchildren. They spend much of their time, it seems, doing things with or doing things for the family members they created.

Triage for a man in immediate need of my help -- maybe yours as well.

I'll call him Carl -- not his real name.

I promised my new friend I wouldn't share his name or his address.

He called and left a message for me at the Villa Terraza Restaurant last Thursday evening when I was there telling stories to people -- stories about the place that had once been the Old Vienna Gardens.

When I returned his call on Friday, he started telling me his problems.

Eventually, I asked him about the reason he left me a message. It had nothing to do with the book project we're doing or the storytelling session I had promoted on several Facebook group pages.

"I saw your Facebook page," he told me, "and read that you have PTSD and ADHD, and I thought maybe you could help me."

It took him about an hour to tell me his situation. It was like no story I'd ever heard.

Most importantly, I learned that a very shy man with very serious problems had decided to trust me, a stranger, and that I might be one of the only people who could learn the whole story.

I thought he was right.

Help us learn the truth about the Spy of Shadow Hills

For more than 80 years folks in and around the San Fernando Valley have been repeating rumors about a man named Auguest Furst.
He came to California in 1936 and built The Old Vienna Gardens Restaurant on Sunland Blvd. in what's now called Shadow Hills.

Before long, rumors were flying that this Bavarian born man with a thick German accent was a spy for Germany.
August Furst died more than 35 years ago and the old restaurant has changed hands several times.
But the rumors still persist.
I heard the rumors when I was a kid in nearby Sun Valley, and I heard them again 30 years later.
That's when I decided to get to the bottom of the rumors.
I got a magazine assignment and did some research, but the magazine folded before I could write the story.
The investigative files sat on my shelf for another 30 years.
But when a wonderful friend told me in January that he and the new owner of the restaurant (I introduced them to each other) were going to open it as an Italian restaurant, I decided that now was the time to finish the investigation and write a book about it -- :The Spy of Shadow Hills -- Rumors or Reality?
The non-profit I formed a few years ago, The Endangered History Project, Inc.., will be publishing the book in March -- but we need your help raising the money to print the book.
If you would, please take a look at this Kickstarter video and then read all about the project -- and the ways you can help.
And whether you help out or not, would you please be kind enough to share this with every human being you've ever met? Or at least to your good friends?
Thanks so very much.
Please click here to see the video and read about the campaign 

tv

Here's you chance to see Don Ray and Fritz the Sassy Service Dog on the History Channel.
The story is about a particular suspect who I first investigated in 1978. I also talked about the story in dozens and dozens of classes and lectures over the past decades.
D.B. Cooper was that name a man used when he hijacked a plane in 1971 and then disappeared.
I'm posting it here so that my wife's friends will have an easy way to find the video.
If you click on the link below, the video will start moments before they introduce me, Don Ray.
I'm the fat guy in the yellow shirt. Fritz is the dog on the floor.
Enjoy
Click here to see the video

Don Ray's Ugly Mug Shows Up on History Channel

Just in case you read this today, July 10, 2016, I'll be on History Channel's two-part series, "D.B. Cooper -- Case Closed? tonight. It starts at 9 p.m. (8 Central) and repeats at 11 p.m. (10 Central). I think you'll see my small contribution (or at least me talking about it) during the second half of the show this evening, Sunday. I don't think I'll be seen on Monday night's episode (same times), but you'll certainly see the results of my work.
If you're reading this after July 10th, I have a feeling you can watch it on the History Channel's website.
http://www.history.com/shows/d-b-cooper-case-closed

Come one come all to Don Ray's pity party

This is a whiny, pity me story 

My 8^th grade English teacher, Mr. Resnick, took me aside at the end of our morning class to tell me that I'd have to sit through both of that day's school-wide assembly.

The auditorium wasn't large enough to accommodate all of the student body, so they'd repeat it.

From my seat in the middle of one of the middle rows, I watched with envy as the “smart” and “special” students sat on the special bleacher on the stage awaiting their prizes.

It was the Awards Assembly, and I had dreamed of one day sitting on those bleachers and being recognized for something I had accomplished.

One by one, the smart kids accepted their awards for scholarship, sports, student government and other stuff.

Then Burbank's fire chief came on stage to announce the winners of the Fire Prevention Essay contest.

The first place winner walked proudly from her seat on the stage bleacher to accept her certificate.

Then the second place winner followed to accept hers.

When he announced the third place winner, nobody came down to receive the certificate.

He repeated the name.

Holy shit! It was my name!

I had to “pardon me” past the other students in my row in the auditorium and then walk down the aisle toward the stage.

When I got there, there was no stairway or anything I could use to get on the stage, so I hoisted myself up as if I were climbing out of the swimming pool.

People chuckled.

When the fire chief shook my hand and gave me the certificate, I didn't want to jump back down into the auditorium and struggle to get to my seat, so I just walked backstage.

Now I understood why I had to attend both assemblies.

When the first assemble ended, I waited backstage and watched the smart and special students take a short break and then return to their bleacher seats on the stage.

At least I got my picture in the local paper

Me? I just hung around backstage until I heard the fire chief call my name again.

This time, I walked from backstage, shook hands and walked backstage again with my certificate.

When the second assembly ended, Mrs. Scarf, the mean drama teacher who ran the assembly walked up to me and chewed me out.

“Young man, why did you refuse to sit in your assigned seat on the bleacher?”

I guess that Mr. Resnick wanted to ensure that my writing award would be a surprise.

Yes, I felt proud, but sad at the same time.

In the late 1980s, I had my dream job as an investigative segment producer.

It was at KCBS-TV in Hollywood.

I worked for two of the most dishonest managers I've ever encountered.

I wouldn't know it until later, but my immediate manager was having a secret relationship with the young woman who was our unit's researcher.

He did everything in his power to convince his corrupt boss that she should replace me and I should be demoted to researcher.

When the news director called me and my manager's corrupt manager to his office to tell me that I was being reassigned, I quoted from the “confidential memo” my lying boss had sent to his lying boss.

I made reference to his remarks that I had no producing experience.

To make a long story short, the news director agreed to look at my earlier work (something nobody there had looked at).

Afterward he assigned me to produce a story that would tell the truth about the ZZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning scandal.

It would be the first story that told exactly what was going on --- and how the L.A.P.D. was completely wrong in its claim that the case involved drug money.

A few months later, when my lying manager announced that he and the researcher were getting married, management realized that he had intentionally tried to do me in.

They ended his contract, broke up our investigative unit and then announced that the station had to lay off people --- and that I was the last hired and the first to go.

On my own, I submitted to the L.A. Press Club the ZZZZ Best story I'd written and produced.

I entered it in the “Best News Writing” category in their awards contest. 

I also submitted another story that I had completed on my own time after my layoff (but before I was officially released). I entered it into the “Best Investigative Reporting” category.

Long story short, both of my submissions won first place in their categories.

I was proud to accept the two awards at their big ceremony, but sad that I won them only after I had lost my dream job.

Two more wins – the same sadness. 

Today, I learned that the Azerbaijan Supreme Court ordered the release from prison of my longtime friend and colleague, Khadija Ismayalova.

She had been locked up for a year and a half of her seven-year sentence on bogus charges.

The real reason they arrested her was because she was writing stories about the corruption of that country's presidential family.

A year ago, I was in Sarajevo, Bosnia, working with a wonderful team of investigative reporters on the Khadia Project in which we were continuing Khadija's corruption investigations.

The message was, if you imprison a journalist, there will be dozens who will continue her work.

Truth be told, when the project wrapped up last year, the project leader was unhappy with something I was or wasn't doing.

I failed completely in my attempts to create a two-way dialog with him, so I left as an outsider.

I was delighted a while back to learn that the Khadija Project had won the most prestigious award for investigative reporting.

One of my life dreams would be fulfilled, while at the same time, I knew it would not be likely that I would be able to join the team when the investigative news organization hands out the award next month in New Orleans.

I had gotten over that sad, pity me feeling until today when I heard the great news about Khadija's release.

Today, I'm immersed in my own pity party because there's no appropriate place for me to shout out how proud I am.

I've been in this lonely place so many times in my life.

What's a difficult-to-get-along-with misfit to do?

There's nobody else to blame except me.

Maybe the answer is some form of the a simple phrase.

Grow up!

Signs of Spring in Sarajevo

Fritz and I have been in Sarajevo for nearly two months, but I've been too busy doing investigative journalism to post to the blog.
This is to celebrate the coming of spring in Sarajevo.
We went out this morning to capture some of the telltale signs. First, we're offering a glimpse of the winter we're leaving behind.

 

Fritz took to the snow right from the start. He loved to romp in it and dig down deep into it.

 

 Once the snow finally melted away, the trees, shrubs and flowers came back to life.

I don't know if it was because the sun started rising in the sky each day or because the temperature starting rising.

Maybe they have their own seasonal alarm clock.

 

 It's nice to know that the people buried in this city cemetery are still pushing up daisies after all of these years.

 We headed east toward Old Town Sarajevo. Fritz enjoyed meeting people along the way, but he was more interested in meeting creatures of his own species.

The warm sunshine was enough to lure people outside so they could just soak it up.

 Street vendors didn't do well during the winter.

 

 Fritz and I looked watched this old man for a long time.



Every so often people would hand him a coin or two.



It made me wonder how he made ends meet during the winter when it's not as easy to get people to take their hands out of their pockets to hand him money.



Even though the coming of spring is about renewal, it's clear that in Sarajevo, people are still struggling.

Our beloved neighborhood 'recluse' is getting treatment for serious burns

This post is the first of what will be regular updates to the condition and situation of Edward Lattner, who police and firefighters rescued Monday from his burning home in Burbank, California.
Please see the earlier post for details from yesterday. And please consider subscribing to, sharing and commenting on this blog so that you'll get automatic updates.

Ed's lifelong friend (consider him a brother), Louis Dow II, got word in Florida from Ed's neighbors as the fire trucks were arriving yesterday (Monday) morning. He says he rushed to the airport for the first flight to California, and he's been at Ed's side or looking after Ed's house since he arrived. That's Louis in the photo.

He told me and other concerned neighbors that Ed is heavily sedated at West Hills Hospital's Burn Unit with serious burns mostly on his hands, arms and head. The pain was too much for him.

"They're treating him really well," Louis said. "He''s got a great team of doctors." He says the hospital is providing him with lodging while he's looking in on Ed.

The good news, Louis said, is that Ed is going to live. However, he'll be hospitalized for a long time. Tomorrow (Wednesday) the doctors will begin skin grafts. They'll also put a scope down into his lungs and also monitor the condition of his kidneys and heart.

The bad news for Ed is that it's clear that he'll never again get to live in the house he's occupied all of his 77 years. His parents built the house in 1937. He's lived there by himself since they died.

Louis asked me to say "thanks" to all of my neighbors and friends who have offered to help. He will be packing up and removing the last of Ed's things from the hours -- neither the house nor Ed are in any condition for occupancy. The fate of the house is up in the air. There are family obstacles someone will need to address. If anybody has reason to speak witth Louis, he says I can share his contact information with them directly.

Ed has been a fixture in the neighborhoods surrounding his house on South Griffith Park. For decades, people have watched Ed walk deliberately -- in short, staccado steps with his head aiming just low enough to avoid eye contact with passersby.

I've talked with him more than a dozen times when my dogs and I pass him on the sidewalk. The conversation has never advanced beyond a reluctant-sounding "Hello."

Louis promised me he's going to provide some photos of Ed --- and he's going to keep me (and other neighbors) up to date on the quiet man's situation.

Again, it would be great if you would subscribe to this blog and receive notices when I post an update or something new.

Thanks for reading this far. Give me any suggestions you may have.

A recluse with so many friends in his time of need.

(Updates will be in a new blog postings. Click on the blog title --Don Ray''s Friends etc.-- to navigate to newer postings)
Burbank Policer Officer Brent Fekety responed to the 911 call from Ed Lattner's neighbors this morning.
His house was on fire.
The nearby engine and rescue ambulance from Fire Station 15 were across town doing a training exercise, so it would take a couple of minutes longer for Engine 11 to arrive from Third and Orange Grove.

Officer Fekety went inside the burning house at 326 S. Griffith Park Ave. (just around the corner from our house) and pulled Ed from the flames -- but his clothes were still on fire.
Firefighters arrived moments later and found Ed breathing but suffering from burns. They rushed him to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center.
Neighbors gathered outside his house where his sofa, his melted TV and some other furniture were on the lawn --- not far from where the singed clothes they had cut off of him lay.

Everyone loves the elderly recluse --- even though he rarely spoke more than an obligatory "hello" when people would pass the slightly hunched-over, slim man in the same dark jacket when he would walk around the neighborhood.
He was always walking --- regardless of the weather.
And everyone knew where he lived. To strangers, the plain house in an upper-middle-class neighborhood seemed to be abandoned.
The lawn was always in need of water, a good mowing and edging. There were no plants outside, except a tree near the curb --- a tree that had unkempt bushes growing without maintenance.
There was no car in the driveway and nothing but some seemingly unused city trash containers in front of the detatched garage.
No signs of anyone living there.
At night, the place seemed to be completely dark --- nothing to see behind the always-drawn shades. If you stood on the sidewalk for a while at night, however, you could eventually distinguish a trace of light through the edge of a window -- a glow that looked different from the reflection of the street lights.
Neighbors say that his parents built the house back in the '30s and Ed has never lived anywhere else. His folks died quite a few years ago and Ed stayed in the house.
"He's always been a recluse," one neighbor told me.
They were trying to piece together his story. They say he has a half-brother living out of state --- far away. Word has it that he they tried to get Ed to go there, but Ed refused.
"If I go with you," a neighbor quoted him as saying, "you'll sell my house and take all my money."
As Fritz and I walked back home, I encountered the parking enforcement woman. The minute I told her that the house that burned belongs to the old man who is always out walking, she knew who I was talking about.
Everyone would see him on his daily and evening walks.
Everybody is fond of the old man in dark clothes who walks with his head down --- even though he believes he has no friends.
That can happen to recluses.