Growing his marijuana in the swamps off the Myakka river, he utilized his talents as agri-businessman and master farmer and sold the product so many people in Manatee and surrounding counties knew as, “Myakky Whacky” which he packaged with love: no seeds, leaves or stems. But when he was caught, first by the state and later by the feds, they gave it a different name that Donnie took on with pride; “Myakka Gold”
The legend took on a new chapter when, in 1989, one of Donnie’s vacuum sealed pounds of product that was still being circulated, even though he had already stopped growing it, after serving a state sentence and had gone back to farming everything from sod to cabbage and watermelons. That was the year that a young woman from Delaware with ALS named Cathy Jordan came to visit a friend at Manatee Beach. She planned to save up her muscle relaxant pills in the warm Florida weather so that she could overdose with them when she got home, only to discover that smoking Myakka Gold stopped the course of her disease and made her want to live again.