Parents and families, teachers and community leaders have a serious responsibility for the children God has placed in their care. Some children do OK without the influence of adults, but most don't. Instead, many of them are scarred without parental guidance and adult supervision. As a result they're rootless, struggling through a maze heading for a life of crime. Often they are friend-less and loners, rootless and hopeless, feeling dumb and worthless, with low self-esteem - a sure road to crime. From Rags. . .to Free Room and Board is the story about a young boy, abandoned by his biological father before birth, sexually abused by a pedophile in his teens, committed crimes along the way, an alcoholic early on as he wandered through a wilderness maze. Finally, he committed a horrendous murder triggered by an attempted homosexual attack, and is presently serving an indeterminate life sentence. Sad In his story one can feel prison life from the inside. At the age of 64, he has spent half his life in the California Prison System. Though one sees the path put him there, why is he still there after getting a parole that was withdrawn, and has had 17 denials by the Parole Boards since? The reader can see inside the judicial system regarding this, as well as: Can one ever pay for taking a life? Is his being locked up indefinitely the only way? Can anyone know if he can make it outside? Has his human rights been violated? Is rehabilitation possible? Have parole hearings verified whether Donn has been rehabilitated? Is he past due for release? Here are insights to these and many other questions. It is urgent that parents and teachers, churches and youth leaders, be concerned with a host of struggling youth in life's maze. Officials must re-examine incarceration and rehabilitation in light of vastly overcrowded prisons and huge escalating costs of keeping prisoners locked up.

As folks draw nearer to their life expectancy, they begin to reflect on the meaning of their lives. There were events painful to recall, goals missed, or goals just not set, but there are no "do-overs."

From the vantage point of a long life, an overview shows it has been a great adventure, which led to the far side of Africa for nearly 30 years. Some good and meaningful things happened. What? When? And, with what results? A new longing for adventure came into focus through the chronicling of nearly 80 his years.

A new challenge was born-to write it down for others to read, especially his own children and scattered friends. But would anyone really be interested? That in itself became the challenge to write, and a new thirst for adventure. But doubts flooded in: "Is my adventure of life good enough to write about? Who would want to read it?" Even when the process was begun, nagging doubts crept into the corner of the brain: "You can't write it. You'll never finish it?"

After starting in secret, the feeling of inferiority kept saying, "You'll never finish it." But he did, and bringing this adventure to a successful conclusion was a victory.