All Duggan

I can’t remember the last time I talked to my friend Ryann. We are connected on Facebook, as we all are these days, but in the decades now since we both graduated from Alhambra High School, sightings have been sporadic at best. True, I left Los Angeles more than a decade ago but I think social networking is like the opposite of a car's side view mirrors: objects are not as close as they might appear. So I felt a mix of pleasant surprise and concern when she sent me a message on Facebook asking me to call her. “Who’s dead?” I thought to myself, like my mother answering a phone after eleven pm. In my head I ran through a quick list of possibilities but Michael Duggan wasn’t one of them. And yet, that is exactly who it was.

(1985. You Can't Take It With You cast photo. Ryann seated on lap in front. I am in back row with Michael)