LIFE IN THE LAUGH LANE
Before Dan Desmet agreed to write this book, he and his best friend looked up the Statute of Limitations.
Some stories made it in. Some didn't. You'll have a pretty good idea which is which.
Dan Desmet was a high school dropout with a smart mouth, a leather jacket, and three unlikely dreams: become a Marine, become an attorney, and marry Linda Morawski. Somehow, he pulled off all three... plus a few things that surprised everybody.
Life in the Laugh Lane is a memoir about friendship, loyalty, love, and the kind of life that only happens when you stop taking yourself too seriously. Funny, tender, and deeply human, this is a book for anyone who has ever bet on themselves and won.
What you'll find in these pages is a life that never quite went according to plan, because there never really was one.
There was a boy in Roseville, Michigan, who sat on a cement slab watching the new Piper Cubs take off and land, feeling like anything in the world was possible.
There was a leather jacket, then a DA haircut, and a very cute girl in cat-eye glasses who came to his door... to ask his brother to a party. There was a best friend made in a parking lot at age ten who is still, seventy-one years later, picking up the phone.
There were careers that shouldn't have worked and did. Friendships that should have faded and didn't. A marriage that has lasted longer than most institutions.
Children who pushed him into pools in his expensive leather shoes and watch, that he still called to check on in the morning. Grandchildren who made him quit smoking, corrected his language, and made him feel, against all odds, like the luckiest man in any room.
Life in the Laugh Lane is not a book about success. It's a book about attention - the kind Dan Desmet has paid, quietly and consistently, to every person who ever crossed his path. The neighbor kids. The courtroom regulars. The four ladies from the Corbin, Kentucky, plant who'd never seen a maître d' before and thought that only happened on the television series, Dynasty. The friends who showed up at his and Linda's 60th anniversary party and stayed well past the time the band packed up.
It's funny. It's tender. It moves faster than you expect and stays with you longer than you plan.
And it will make you want to call your people - the ones who've been there since the parking lot - and tell them you're glad they stayed.
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