Today the Bangor Daily News is introducing a new Outdoors publication, and I am honored that it includes an interview with me by John Holyoke. Here's a taste:
“After I graduated, I went to Hollywood. My goal was to become a screenwriter,” Doiron said. “I spent a really miserable year in Hollywood and came back with my tail between my legs, and sort of fell back in love with the state of Maine at that point.”
Still, Doiron, who grew up in Scarborough and graduated from Cheverus High in Portland, wasn’t sure he was going to stay in his home state.
“I think I thought I was going to leave, but a couple of things happened. One was, I was struck by lightning while I was camping with some friends Memorial Day weekend, 1988,” Doiron said.
That episode was terrifying, Doiron said. He and two friends were camping (illegally, he admits) in western Maine’s Grafton Notch State Park. A tree was struck. Doiron was burned. And one of his pals was seriously injured.
“But when I survived it, and my friend survived it, thank God, people told me, ‘Well, you want to be a writer. Finally you have something to write about.’” Doiron said.
As I told John Holyoke, I don't know if Mike Bowditch is going to share my experience of being struck by lightning, but I feel an electrical storm looming.