Did he tell his mother after their safe return?
“Back in 1959, I guess it was no surprise that people were much more open to strange things that happened that are not commonplace today,” McDonald said in a recent New Times interview. “I did not tell my mother or my father that my brother Danny and I hopped into a car with a strange lady. She drove us around the hills of Beverly Hills and brought us back safely. I know it’s weird, but it happened.”
In Oildale, he also remembers running everywhere as a kid, including home for lunch because he was too poor to have lunch money. He warmly remembers the one time his mother gave him a quarter for lunch and he ate with his friends.
He also offers a moving recollection of the JFK assassination, memories of the Watts Riots after another move to LA, and meeting his two best Oildale friends, Buddy and Mike Owens, who happened to be the sons of country music legend Buck Owens, which led directly to his meeting Merle Haggard.