Burnt Orange Report

Old Friends and Crazy Shit

By Byron LaMasters

I got up today in my typical Sunday morning routine. I Slept in. Made a pot of cofee, then spent a few relaxing hours reading the Dallas Morning News and the New York Times. So who's on the front page of the Dallas Morning News? My old friend from elementary school, Doug Havard. I was friends with Doug from 4th grade through 6th grade when we both attended the Parish Day School. We parted our seperate ways after sixth grade. I kept in touch with him until eighth or ninth grade, but at that point we more or less lost contact. Doug was always a wheeler-dealer. In elementary school he'd buy a box of baseball cards and sell the packs to myself and my friends for a profit. Unfortunately, he turned to selling drugs and fake i.d's in high school and college. When he was arrested for selling GHB to an undercover cop, he fled the country. A part of me was hoping he'd just fade away - have a nice life with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he had made on some remote beach. But Doug got greedy. He got himself involved in an international money laundering scheme and was arrested this month in England. I don't have any sympathy for the guy. He'll be in prison for a long time, and that's a good thing. Anyway, read today's Dallas Morning News for more. For further background, read this 2002 Dallas Observer story.