Donna Drake
The story encompasses a thirty some year span, from the war in Vietnam, to our world, as we know it today.
The characters lives intertwine with one Vietnamese woman.
So Lan comes to America to meet her "Number 1 GI" Gerald Hopkins, only to find herself lost on the streets of Portland. Frightened searching franticly for Gerald, she's picked up by a black man,by the name of Dirk, along with his main girl Bambi.
The characters thoughout the novel are all linked to So Lan. One of the characters being her daughter Leah, another Sister Margaret, and her friend Bambi, who breaks free from the life on the street only to discover who she was always meant to be.
So Lan's "Number1 GI " Gerald Hopkins, is having his own battle with alcoholism. His recovery journey takes him back to Hill 69 in Chu Lai.
The story unfolds with the recoveries, dreams, and hopes of So Lan, Gerald and the characters that intertwine with them.
Donna Drake has been an Oregon resident since she was a small child. Met her husband while she was in High School. They married and settled in their little community of Winston, Oregon.
Three years later her husband was drafted, and after basics was sent to Vietnam.
When he returned safely, they were anxious to start their lives, that had been interrupted by the war.
They bought a 50 acre place in the country that was sure to have plenty of room for them to raise a family.
She thrived in her roll as a wife and mother of three. She worked as a waitress to supplement the families income. On her days off she would spend her tips on brushes, paper and canvas, to create the paintings that hang on her walls and the walls of many others. Some of her paintings can be seen now at, www.umpquarivergallery.com
It wasn't until the children were raised and she was retired that this book came to her to write. It was as if she were watching a movie, the characters ran through her head faster then she could get them down on paper, sometimes pulling the car over to write before the story escaped her.
She genuinely hopes that you the reader will enjoy the story as much as she did in creating it.
The two women never looked back and the other woman was totally unaware of Margaret or the baby. The blond woman then whistled and hailed a cab.
"But ....But!.. Wait!.. Here, the baby!" exclaimed Margaret. The noise of a passing car drowned out her plea and her voice was lost in thin air.
The cab pulled up and sped off, leaving choking gas fumes in the air. Margaret stood there in shock, thinking about all that she had just been through in the last forty five minutes or so. Going to the corner market, coming upon this fearful sight of a woman in the storefront, lying in pain on the concrete. Helping the child be born and remembering her fears as she was witnessing all this. The memory of the woman, her disinterest in the baby, and the memory of the hardened blond, and the voice of the woman who was Vietnamese, or Chinese, Margaret didn't know. The memory of her saying,"No boom boom three day!" Margaret didn't know what that meant.
The crying of the baby a few feet back in the front of the camera shop brought Margaret to her senses. She bundled the baby and as she picked her up there was something that caught her attention.................
