Chapter 35 –Pedal Steel Widow

           

I had joined a band with Paul Downing and Don Adey called Spitfire before we left for Europe. It was basically a cover band that did oldies of the artist we most admired. The Beatles, Dylan, The Who, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, you know...great stuff that you don’t really hear anymore in clubs. I had purchased a student model pedal steel guitar a “Little Buddy” made by MSA with three floor pedals and one knee lever. I had no idea how to play it, but was determined to learn and would be wood shedding in the spare bedroom. Poor Donna, the first year of our marriage and she was going to be a pedal steel widow.

Also in the band was Bob Feldman on bass and Steve Somethingorother on drums. The reason I don’t remember Steve’s last name was because he was the most forgettable drummer I have ever had the displeasure of playing music with—well maybe not the most, since there were plenty of bashers and thrasher out there in the Silverspoon days, but close to it.

Bob Feldman had the fortunate or unfortunate distinction of being Corey Feldman’s father. Corey was having a lot of problems at the time with substance abuse and many other disturbing scenarios and I hope that he has come out of it unscathed. One can only hope. Corey stated that he began the "Emancipation Proclamation in Hollywood" at age fifteen, when he was granted emancipation from his parents. He stated that he was worth $1 million by age fifteen and by the time the judge court-ordered the bank records to come forward, only $40,000 remained. I never knew this at the time Bob was playing bass in Spitfire but I never thought much about it at the time since Corey never showed up at any of our gigs. I hear he has a memoir called Coreyography and I’m curious about its contents—might even pick up a copy.

Spitfire was named by Adey and Downing, the latter hailing from Hull, Yorkshire, fancied the British WWII airplane that performed so well against the Blitzkrieg. It also is the name of one of the less desirable sports cars made by Triumph. I much preferred the TR-6—I had six or seven of them over the years. The Holy Grail was the TR-250 and I was fortunate to have one of those babies with overdrive. I sold it when I moved to Nashville. I kick myself every day. We had a regular gig at The Boat House on the Santa Monica Pier on Saturday nights and one night I brought my Little Buddy steel guitar. I only had the thing about three or four weeks but I managed to squeak and squeal out a few licks by then. I thought it sounded good on the song, Baby it’s You, by the Shirelles and written by Burt Bacharach (music) and Mack David (lyrics) and was also recorded by The Beatles. Sha la la la la la la la la.

Bob was the only bass player I knew that could break strings on his Fender Precision. I guess his amp was such a piece of crap that he could never hear himself (we did play as loud as the establishment would allow) therefore he plucked and pulled at those strings like they were Robin Hood’s bow and I knew it wouldn’t be long before metallic strands went snapping like rubber bands. His girlfriend was a zaftig Vegas-like woman named Francesca who followed him around like a puppy. She was certainly nice enough to bring a few herbal refreshments which I was only too happy to partake in the friendly confines of her VW bug. Sometimes they would invite some of their questionable friends down to the gig, one of them being porn star, Ron Jeremy. At the time I had no idea who Ron Jeremy was, but when I found out later, I had to laugh.

Saturday nights at The Boathouse could be a dud or it could be so crowded that when you scratched an itch you were never quite sure it was your own body part you were scratching. One night there was a shootout on the beach right outside the beachside entrance, which was where the stage was situated. I heard a few loud pops and at first thought it was a car misfiring, but then Paul yelled, “hit the decks, it’s a gun,” and I dove underneath my keyboard. Fortunately the shooters never entered the club but we were questioned by the police for hours. They probably thought it was a drug deal gone awry, and we, being musicians would be suspects.

At the time, I used to have mixed feelings about that gig. I was never in a “cover band” before in my life. Somehow I always managed to perform my original material, but these songs were so great, and Paul was such an authority on fifties and sixties music (the more obscure stuff) that I thought it was a real education to learn these shinny little gems, even though I didn’t write them. The other trepidation was, of course, Steve. I don’t know how we pulled it off, between Steve’s banal thrashings and Bob’s muddy arrow pulls. Of course, retrospect always proves to reflect the silver lining in all of my musical endeavors, and I look back at those times as some of the best I ever had.

My main focus now was mastering, or at least getting a handle on the pedal steel guitar. I play guitar, keyboard, harmonica, mandolin, bass, really anything with strings, but the steel guitar was an enigma that I found to be extremely challenging. The sounds that emanated from that room could kill a deaf cat. Squeak, squawk, whine, snap, crackle and pop. I would lock myself in the spare bedroom and before I realized it, seven or eight hours would fly by while I was leaning over that beast of an instrument. Donna would knock on the door and I would resignedly get up from my cramped and unnatural position to let her in with my lunch, dinner or breakfast, whichever the case may be. She called herself a Pedal Steel Widow.

One day when I was in The Guitar Center in Hollywood, there were a couple of “real” pedal steels over in the far corner of the guitar section. I sat down at an Emmons or Showbud steel and when I looked up out of my trance I saw this curmudgeon of a guy with poindexter glasses and hair that looked like it never saw a comb in its life staring at me.

“You need a universal,” he said.

“A what?”

“A pedal steel in universal tuning. It has twelve strings instead of ten and that way you could go from E nine tuning to C sixth just by engaging the right knee pedal. It is the best of both worlds—you won’t need a double neck.”

I looked at him like he was speaking Mandarin Chinese or some strange language spoken on the planet Mars.

“Look,” he said, “I just happen to have an extra MSA steel at home and if you are really serious about learning the instrument I could lend it to you.”

“You don’t even know me and you want to lend me a steel, which I assume is an expensive instrument?”

“That’s right. Are you game?”

I didn’t know what to think. Maybe this guy was going to rob me, but I really didn’t have anything to steal. Maybe he was gay and wanted my body, but if he made a move I could kick his scrawny butt in the time it would take to sneeze. What the hell, I thought. If this guy wants to lend a steel guitar to a somewhat perfect stranger, more power to him.

“Where do you live,” I asked.

“Echo Park, it’s not that far from here. You can follow me over.”

He lived in an old house with a guest room downstairs which he used for his recording studio. He was in the middle of a project where he painstakingly overdubbed pedal steel parts onto two sixteen track Otari tape machines through a Soundcraft mixing board. It was The Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky. A very enterprising attempt. He sat me down and made me listen to a few tracks and, I must say, it wasn’t bad—weird but good. Over in the corner I saw the MSA universal. It was Formica white and had seven pedals and five knee levers. He saw me looking at the contraption and said, “that’s my spare steel. Here’s the deal. I will let you borrow it for six months but after that I will help you find one of your own. I must admit that my intentions are not as philanthropic as you might think. You see, I have a mission. I want the world to be aware of the universal tuning and the more people that play them, the better the chances of it becoming a mainstay in the industry.”

How could I argue with that? “Okay,” I said, “It’s amazing that you would do this, I mean, you don’t know me from Adam.”

“I could tell you were talented by the way you played, and after you said you were only a beginner, I thought, yes, this guy needs my MSA. I have insight about people, you see.”

An hour later the steel was packed up in its case and he was helping me carry it to my TR-6. It barely fit in the passenger seat. My poor wife was going to continue being a real pedal steel widow for a little while longer.

Chapter 34 – Sex Show Torture!

Have no fear, Irene is here! I couldn’t believe that Donna’s lifelong friend had followed over to Amsterdam from Glenrothes, Scotland. I remembered the first week Donna had moved into my place on Camrose Drive, Irene and Fiona had called from the Greyhound bus station and now this. Oh well, I knew at least she wasn’t going to be sharing our room. Or was she?

We walked into the elevator and headed down to the lobby and lo and behold Irene was there in all her glory with her boyfriend, Steve. Steve was a low key individual who more than made up for Irene’s boisterous, bubbly demeanor and I was glad he would probably hold back her reins. After hugs and kisses from the girls, we went into the bar and ordered some drinks.

“I canny believe you came here on our honeymoon, Irene,” Donna laughed.

“What are best pals for?” Irene shot back. Steve and I just looked at each other with “what are you gonna do” expressions. It seemed that they were only here for a couple of days then were going to tour the countryside leaving Donna and me to our own marital bliss. Still, I could appreciate Donna had such a good friend that wanted to give her a royal send off into married life. I don’t think I have any friends that are so loyal. In fact, in the twenty years that I’ve been in Tennessee, not one friend of mine from L.A. had even come to visit. (hint hint).

After Steve and Irene retired to their room, Donna and I went to a local bar to take in some of the color of Amsterdam. They had this drink I got into called Geneva, that was a lot like Ouzo and it had the same powerful kick. I ordered one for me while Donna stuck with a gin and tonic. I noticed there was a pool table in the back with some Rastafarian holding court. He was winning every game so I casually strolled over and put a coin down on the table indicating I wanted a go. It was eight ball. The rules of this particular game was that you had to bank the black eight ball in the final shot to win—and you had to call the pocket it was going to land in. No problem. I was down five balls when he finally missed his shot. I knew I had to clear the table which I did. The last shot was an unbelievable bank shot which sent the eight ball scurrying to the far corner pocket and dropped in the pocket. I won three guilder. I knew it was going to be a magical night.

Donna then tried to persuade me to go to a live sex show. I was dumbfounded. Here was the demure Scottish lassie, one that I thought was so pure and innocent and she was trying to lead me into a place where people screwed their brains out on a stage. I needed a few more drinks for that. I got good and buzzed then agreed to the proposition.

“I’m not asking you to go up on stage and perform, only be a silent observer,” she said.

On the way there, I saw a torture museum. I wanted to stop there first to get me in the mood. Sick right? I was stalling and she knew it. After making the rounds and sticking my head into the stockade for fun, (Donna almost got her head in), we were ready to go to the Moulin Rouge in the Red Light district.

We took our seats in the fourth or fifth row of the theater and waited with anticipation for the show to begin. There were a few preliminary male and female dancers who looked quite nice with costumes that rivaled the Follies Bergere brought up to date for the 1990’s. Then came the main event. A young naked couple in their early twenties pranced around the stage and began to have intercourse. I was embarrassed as hell and wasn’t turned on in the least. It was almost funny the way they acted, like they were shaking hands (except it wasn’t hands they were shaking) at a business meeting or buying insurance. I wondered how they could keep it up (literally) for more than half an hour. I kept pretending I was an alien sent to earth to observe the strange customs of its inhabitants. It was the only way I was going to get through it without laughing. I have a tendency to have these strange fantasies whenever I’m in a situation where it is embarrassing to be human. Sorry, I got to go, my spaceship is double parked.

We went back to the hotel and in my mind I was going to try out a few of the pointers I picked up on stage, without the yawns and lack of interest, of course. Unfortunately, by the time my head hit the pillow at one a.m. I was dead to the world. The private show would have to wait.

The next morning we were heading back to Glenrothes for a few more days and then home to America as married folks. I wondered how being a team would affect my life now. How would my friends act now that I was the only one who wasn’t single? I would have to revise the use of the pronoun “I” and insert the word “We” instead. It was going to have to take some getting used to. Still I was excited and looked forward to getting back home as Mr. and Mrs. James Haymer. But most of all I missed my dogs—OUR dogs.

Chapter 33 –Amsterdam Honeymoon

Landing at the Luchthaven Schiphol twenty miles south of Amsterdam in the town of Haarlemmermeer, all we saw were orange and blue. The Netherlands had apparently just won the World Cup and they had their colors flying everywhere. It is a rather large airport, the fourth busiest in all of Continental Europe, and all the signs were in the looping and multi-lettered language of Dutch. Names like Zwanenburgbaan, Aalsmeerbaan, and Buitenveldertbaan blurred past as we scurried down the turquoise tiled corridors to meet the tram that would take us to the heart of the capital city. The Direct Rail Link connects Schiphol to Amsterdam Central and is the fastest and most convenient way to get to the city center. Trains run every ten minutes and in less than an hour we were on Leidsegracht St walking to our hotel, The American Hotel, of all places. With over a hundred kilometers of canals, ninety islands and fifteen hundred bridges, I wondered if it rivaled Venice, Italy for sheer amounts of water in the confines of a city. But like Venice the canals were the main way of transporting goods and materials in the past and present as well. It was truly a delight to see the Merchant houses with big narrow windows, decorative gable tops, narrow stairs inside and pulleys outside to transport larger objects to upper floor. I would hate to have to move a piano into one of those babies.

Architecture aside, I couldn’t wait to get into our room, relax and then go out and find what the place was famous for, good old European cannabis. Donna was more of the Bailey’s or gin and tonic kind of girl so I was going to have to keep the small amount of whatever I scored on the street for myself. As long as you didn’t flaunt it, like blowing a hefty stream of smoke in the face of a cop, it was basically legal there. I pounced on the platform bed and found it surprisingly firm, just the way I like it. It was a really nice, clean room with plenty of space to stretch out and a big bay window facing north with a great view of the city.

An hour later I told Donna I was going to check things out and would be back as soon as I could. I went to a round pavilion where I saw a local, or what I thought was a local dude, looking like he was a selling some of his wares. He shuffled past him and I heard him say “hashish”. I wasn’t sure if this was the best thing to do but I figured I would at least find out what he had and how much it was. He said he had a gram for twenty-five guilders, which was about eight dollars. What did I have to lose? I asked to see it and he clandestinely opened the baggie a crack told me to take a whiff. It smelled like the real thing to me so I bought it. He pretended to shake my hand we exchanged money for the goods. I should have known something was not right. If it was legal why was he being so secretive? It just felt shady. I went into a tobacco shop and bought a small meerschaum pipe for ten gilders then to a liquor shop and picked up a bottle of Chardonnay and a couple of Heinekens and headed back to the room. 

Since it was our honeymoon, I propped myself up on the bed and filled the pipe with the hashish. It didn’t remind me of anything I had seen before but I figured, this was Europe and things are different here. I lit a match and drew in the smoke. It was hard to get lit and I had to keep the match going until it burned down to my fingers. The smell was unmistakable but I wasn’t getting any kind of buzz.

“Donna, I know you don’t smoke this stuff, but will you try it?”

“I’ll stick to my good ole Bailey’s, thank you very much.”

“I just don’t think it’s working, and since you’ve never really smoked, you would be able to tell if something felt different.”

After a little more coaxing, Donna finally submitted. I let the pipe for her and she inhaled like Bill Clinton. She squinted up her nose and said, “I din na’ feel a thing.”

I tried it again...nothing. Upon further investigation I realized I had bought candle wax dipped in a smallest amount of hash oil to pass olfactory inspection. Ripped off. I went out to try and find the guy, but what would I do if I did find him? Cause a scene? Call the cops? I don’t think so.

Donna and I went out to get some java in a local coffee shop. I saw a fellow next to me who looked and sounded American and appeared to be kind of hip. I asked him point blank where a guy could get the stuff that was illegal in the States.

“You go down to The Bulldog Cafe on Leidseplein Square. They’ve got everything.”

“Great, thanks. Who do I speak with?”

“The manager, anybody really. They know what’s happening.”

After coffee, we walked down to the Bulldog. It was in the touristiest part of the city. There was an Ecuadorian pipe band playing outside with a ton of people standing, milling about and riding bicycles. Donna waited outside while I moseyed in. I saw the host approach as I entered the foyer. 

You can see by the look on her face in the picture above, Donna was not too pleased about my interests. She wanted to go bike riding, visit Anne Frank’s house or see museums, maybe even go to a live sex show, not score dope. I told her it was all part of the Amsterdam experience and we would most certainly do those other things later

“Table for one?”

“Actually, a friend of mine told me you could buy some, well, some marijuana here. Is that right?”

“Right this way, sir.”

He led me to the back dining room and opened the top drawer in a hutch. A cardboard sign flipped up and I could see a menu of drugs. At the bottom I saw sensimillia. I didn’t have to look any further.  Three grams for twenty-five guilder, the same price as the hash oil dipped candle wax I bought hours before.

“Wrap it up, I’ll take it,” I said as he handed me the small baggie and I stuffed it into the front pocket of my jeans.

When we got back to the hotel, the concierge walked towards us with purpose. Was I busted? Did the guy with the candle wax see me staking him out and had a message for me? None of the above.

“Sir, miss, you have a message from a visitor,” he said as he handed me the note.

It read: Have no fear, Irene is here!

I couldn’t believe it. Irene, Donna’s best and lifelong friend had followed us over to Amsterdam. I guess she wasn’t ready to relinquish her to the cheeky American quite yet.

Chapter 32 – The Knot is Tied

After moving my mother and sister out of the B & B it was time to get hitched. I went to the church or kirk on the green and cleaned myself up in the lavatory sink since I didn’t have time to take another shower. Donna was on the other side of the kirk and, as custom has it, I was not allowed to see her until her Dad walked her down the red carpeted aisle. I was getting nervous and wished my father was there to calm me down. Robbie was my best man but he seemed more nervous than me. I asked him if he still had the ring and he searched his pockets and said he must have lost it. Then he laughed and said he was only kidding. I was in no mood for levity but after a minute he broke up and I laughed along with him. It did ease the tension. Good one.

The sound of pipe organ music echoed through the chambers and I knew the time was nigh. I followed Robbie through the thick wooden doors into the sanctuary and then I see her. She was beatific beyond my wildest expectations. I knew then that I had made the best decision I would ever make in my life. I was ready to get married. I couldn’t help thinking I was the luckiest guy on the planet.

I looked out at the crowd of people who had come from the far reaches of the earth to witness one of the most important days of my entire life. I saw my Uncle Ellis and Aunt Enid dressed to the nines, my sister Susan in a lovely black and white print dress. She looked years younger than her actual age and I am happy to say that she still does. My wee mom looked radiant and overcome with emotion. I was hoping she wasn’t going to faint when Reverend Thompson brought out the cross or said “in Jesus’ name”.  I knew at least I wasn’t going to have to eat the Eucharist or drink the blood of the holy savior. It was, after all, The Church of Scotland not a Catholic cathedral. I saw my sister-in-law, Carol beaming with the glow of a woman knowing that she wasn’t going to be the only one in the family who had married a Haymer. Next to her were Max and the wee bairn, Emily, who would prove to be the star of the show at the upcoming reception at The Dunnikier House Hotel.

On the other side of the aisle were all of Donna’s relatives. Her mum and dad, Olive and David, who were stunningly dresses in traditional British attire, her two sisters, Beverly and Heather, Beverly’s future husband Roy, who was responsible for initiating The Silver Quiach, a golf tournament that one year brought home fifty drunken Scotsman to Pitlochry Links and one sober American who had thought he won it all until Robertson came in with a score of 75, one stroke lower than mine. I was relieved that I didn’t have to drink the traditional Glenlivet from the silver chalice. I was recently sober and had worried about it all that week. I ended up winning a gray Lyle and Scott’s sweater, or as the Brit’s call jumper.

Seated behind them were Donna’s Gran and Uncle Bob, Jessie and Bill Smollett and their son, Billy. The family from the Crossgates  and Cardenden contingency, Uncle Alec and Aunt Sheena and the older of his two son’s Robin and his wife Liz with their two children.

I stood there facing my bride to be as Reverend Thompson spoke his vows of foreverness and love. We responded in kind and before I could run away and hide, which were only idle thoughts self preservation and cowardice, we both had said, “I do.” I slipped the ring Robbie handed me on Donna’s finger and she place the gold band on mine and the deed was done. We were man and wife!

After the ceremony we went down the Glenrothes Town Park to be photographed by the finicky and effeminate Andrew Merridew. The day couldn’t have been more perfect. It had to be in the high seventies and not a cloud in the usually misty or inclement Scottish sky.

The reception was held in the main hall at The Dunnikier House Hotel where Donna and I had a room booked in the honeymoon suite for later to officially consummate our marriage. David and Olive had hired an authentic Scottish band that also played a variety of songs. I was very impressed with them, especially the guitar player who was able to wrestle out a Hank Marvin tone from his Stratocaster. The dances were fun and I even tripped the light fantastic with my new wife and just about everyone else in the room. We paraded to the Dashing White Sergeant, a Scottish country dance n 4/4 time, in the form of a reel. It is a progressive dance is performed by groups of six dancers. Then we broke into The Gay Gordons, where every couple dances the same steps, usually in a circle around the room. Then we moved right along to The Grand Old Duke of York where one of the steps is where Donna’s best friend, Irene improvised a step and as she glided along under my legs she goosed me as I pulled her through. I wondered if that was part of the tradition or if she was just being cheeky under the influence of alcohol—lots of alcohol—typical of a Scottish wedding, but without the proverbial drunk uncle getting up to sing and making a real arse out of himself.

The grand old duke of York

He had ten thousand men

He marched them up to the top of the hill

And he marched them down again

And when they were up they were up

And when they were down they were down

And when they were only half-way up

They were neither up nor down!

Then during the meal an unexpected turn of events happened. Wee Emily fell out of her highchair and landed in her head. She wasn’t moving and it gave everyone in the room a terrible fright. Carol and my Mom rushed over to her to see if she was all right and after a few minutes she was moving around and crying her eyes out. Of course everyone held their collective breath until the wee bairn broke the silence with her wailing. Her mother picked her up and carried her off to their room so they could properly examine Emily and give her a chance to rest up. Robbie followed Carol and so did my mother and Susan. They didn’t come back for over an hour and my brand new in-laws and all of the Scottish folk were a might upset to say the least. They wondered how the Americans could leave the reception knowing that the child was recuperating. They figured it didn’t take a whole army of relatives to see to her well being, just the mom and dad would have been sufficient and the house doctor would see to it that everything was ship shape.

The festivities were winding down around one in the morning and Donna and I were the only ones left at the bar except for the bartender and the cleaning crew. We toasted each other with some Bailey’s for her and a single malt scotch for me. It was then time to retire for the evening and head to our suite.

That night Donna and I have the most amazing “togetherness” and I was so happy I could have died right there and felt like I had done it all. Of course I didn’t want to really die since I had a lot of things I wanted to accomplish, among them was to have at least three children and watch them grow up with Donna by my side. We woke up wrapped in each other’s arms and she still looked beautiful draped in the sunlight streaming through the ancient, arched windows.

We took a walk around the grounds and climbed an old oak tree that must have been a hundred feet high. Of course we didn’t get any higher than ten feet up, but it was grand. It all was perfectly grand. When Donna and I got back to Bilsland Road in Glenrothes the vibes were as thick as black pudding which if you’ve never eaten it, it is like a warm blood clot. Mmmnnnn! I wasn’t sure if my new in-laws were upset about the Haymer’s leaving the party for so long or the fact that their daughter was going to be moving to America and how terribly they would miss her; (I now know somewhat how they feel since my oldest son, Jonathan, has been living in China for over nine months with plans of staying there for as long as six years). I had to focus now on our honeymoon to be spent in Amsterdam and resigned myself to keep a low profile until then. We were finally going to be alone in a completely different country where you could get just about anything you wanted and then some. Did I say alone? Not to be. There would be a note from two uninvited guests waiting for us at the Hotel American in Leidseplein.

Chapter 31 –The American Invasion of Britain

Preparations were being made for our upcoming wedding on June 9, 1990 by the Scottish contingency. In America, Donna and I were getting excited by the thought of tying the knot and sealing our love with a pledge of forever. We were amazed at how many of my family members had decided to come over to join in the celebration. My sister, Susan, Uncle Ellis and Aunt Enid, my brother, Robbie and his wife, Carol and their two children five year old Max, and baby Emily and of course, Mom. It was going to be a great adventure for her and a wonderful distraction from all of the sadness and well wishers she had to put up with. Plus, she would be travelling with Susan, landing in London Heathrow and driving a rental car all the way up to Glenrothes, Scotland. They decided to leave a fortnight early so they could bloody well take their time touring the countryside.

 The first night in London they stayed at Susan’s friend Helen’s flat and although my sister had a good time reminiscing about old times, my mother found Helen to be a bit of a snob. Knowing Mom, she probably told her so in the most subtle of ways. The next day they headed to Bath but didn’t stop at Stonehenge and my mom loved it there and wished that she could afford to live out her golden years in that ancient British town where  archaeological evidence shows that the site of the' main spring was treated as a shrine by the Britons before the birth of Christ. A temple was constructed in 60–70 AD and a bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years.

From Bath they cruised up the motorway to Birmingham where Susan had spent her sophomore year at the university back in 1969 – 1970. It brought a tear to her eye and my mom said, “Is this what you were crying your eyes out about for all these years? It’s nothing but a bunch of old bricks and gargoyles.”  They frolicked in the Lake District and then Susan saw a sight that struck her sense of artistic wonderment. There was a herd of Highland Cows grazing in an open meadow and the way the light was streaming down on the heads made them look as if they were angelic, mythological creatures from a different time and place. Finally they crossed the border in Carlisle into Scotland and from there it was a mere two hour drive into Glenrothes where the Smollett’s welcomed them with open arms.

Robbie, Carol and the two wee Haymer’s landed safely at Glasgow airport about a week before the wedding. They had rented a couple of rooms in a farmhouse with plenty of acreage just outside of St. Andrews. One evening, just after the wedding rehearsal at the kirk in Leslie, Robbie was driving home and got pulled over by the Royal Scottish Police. He wasn’t drunk but because he was not used to driving on the opposite side of the road he kept as close to the curb as possible. Every time he felt himself getting too close to the center divider, if there was a center divider, he would jink his car back erratically toward the curbside. The officer got out of his car and approached what he thought was an inebriated driver and said in a thick Fife accent, “I’ve reason ta b’lieve you’re driving affected.” Robbie conjured up his best lawyer negotiating resources and explained to the cop how he got scared every time a car would pass on the opposite side of the road. The polite officer was nice enough and when he realized he was dealing with inexperienced Americans, he let him go with a warning to be more careful, maybe try practicing a wee bit in parking lots before attempting to navigate the open Scottish roads.

Speaking of the wedding rehearsal, it was held a couple of days before the big event in the small kirk (Scottish for church) on the green in Leslie, Scotland which is about ten minutes west of Glenrothes and just off a golf course. In fact, much to my pleasure, everything in Fife seems to be just off a golf course. The kirk was built in the late eighteenth century (one of the newer kirks) made out of stone and granite that was indigenous to the area. It looked like a place where James Barrie or Robert Louis Stephenson might have gotten married. The interior was all dark wood. Even the pews were hand carved with religious symbols. There was no way my mom and sister were going to kneel down on wooden benches, but I, being an honorary Scot, would comply with tradition. I was told by Donna not to worry since only Catholics kneel and this was a protestant kirk. The stained glass windows were exotic and ancient and all of them depicted some type of scene from the Bible. They were beautiful beyond description. In fact, Donna’s Uncle Alec had actually created one of the stained glass windows in the place about forty or fifty years earlier. Alec was an energetic man in his late seventies who insisted on calling me Jamey. He was one of my favorite new relatives who was an art professor in Glasgow and a collector of rare fossils, and I didn’t mind. He was also a brilliant photographer and snapped the photo of me dressed in a kilt while playing my Gibson J-200. His father, who everyone called Uncle Bob, was in his early nineties and was one awarded an MBE for his service with the Boy Scouts taking trips to Ireland and all over the Scottish Highland with his troop. Even at his advanced age, he would spend hours and hours in his wee garden, tilling the soil and sewing seeds. What and amazing man!

Reverend Thompson finally arrived from his chamber and brought out a large wooden cross. I thought my mom was going to faint. Susan and Robbie knew that their brother was marrying a shiksa but had no idea how Christian the atmosphere was going to be but rolled along with those punches. But Mom, she had been a Jew much too long to see her oldest son be blessed by a symbol of Christianity. Whenever they would sing Christmas carols in school when she was a little girl, every time the name Jesus was sung she would tighten her lips and sing, hmmmm, never wanting to betray her faith. Now this. I could see she was struggling with it and hoped for the sake of family relations she wasn’t going to make a scene. She kept it together by the skin of her teeth and we got through the rehearsal without a war. That would come later.

The night before the wedding I stayed over at my future bother-in-law, Roy’s parents, Ian and May’s house on the other side of Glenrothes. It is tradition that the prospective bride and groom should be in separate places as sleeping together was a definite no-no. They brought out a Casio keyboard and insisted I play and sing all of my songs, and a few Scottish favorites they had marked down in the wee songbook. On the morning of the wedding the weather was hot by Scottish standards. It had to be in the eighties and the Brits were thanking the Lord above for global warming. I had a pub breakfast in the neighboring town of Auchtermuchty and as I was walking to the B & B where my mom and Susan was staying, I almost considered walking the other way and keep on going until I reached the sea, maybe then hop a steamer and head for Norway. Was I really going to get married? I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and decided that I was doing the right thing to marry Donna, even though I knew there was going to be a culture clash. I had no idea how much of a clash was going to occur.

I arrived at the Archdoile House at about noon and saw my sister and mother waiting outside in the driveway by the taxi.

I said, “What are you doing down here, I would have met you up in the room, we do have an hour or so until we need to be there.”

Mom said, “Jimmy, the kicked us out.”

“What! Why?”

She went on to explain that the night before my mother had removed her make-up and used a black towel to wipe off her mascara. She didn’t think it was a big deal but apparently the owners did. It was the last straw that broke that camel’s back. I knew that my sister and mother were, by British standards, pushy Americans and they were beginning to have arguments between themselves maybe from feeling the pressure of the upcoming events. My sister, you must remember, is a producer and is used to giving directions in a somewhat demonstrative manner and I guess their loud voices and demanding behavior would not be tolerated by the owners of the B & B any further. I was appalled. How could these people be so insensitive to their guests who had traveled over five thousand miles to attend a family member’s wedding?

“Jimmy, could you please go upstairs and bring down our suitcases?” My mom asked me. I was already dressed in my tuxedo and the sun was peeking and the temperature was spiking. I was sweating and trying to control my temper.  You can tell by the photo pictured here that I was not a happy camper. I was going to retaliate in some way to these proprietors, but first I had to get married and I thought that things would go smoothly from then on. I was wrong.

Chapter 30 – She Said Yes!

The funeral was held at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles on Forest Lawn Drive overlooking Warner Brother’s Studios on Tuesday, November 20^th in the early afternoon. It was only fitting that my dad would have a view from his interment of the studio where he spent so much time in life. Driving up the winding road to the wall crypts of Abraham tiled with portraits of famous Jews such as Einstein, George Gershwin and many others was a surreal experience. The mosaic depicts the history of Jewish people in America from 1654 to the present. My mother was still in a state of shock and my sister, brother and I had to keep it together for her the best we could without falling apart at the seams. I have to thank Donna for her part in holding my hand and guiding me through the service. My dad loved Donna and, even though she wasn’t Jewish, thought she was a terrific woman who was perfect for me. They are so much alike. They both love a good bargain and are both hard working, level headed, no nonsense people. He would have been proud to know we are man and wife and are still very much in love.

I had written a song when I was eighteen called, My Final Bow, and I was asked to play it at the service in the small synagogue. The first verse and chorus went:

Curtain up and all is open and now the fool that lives inside                       me must go on. Lights turn on, the stage door opens. I’d like                               to take my final bow and then be gone.

It’s such a task to wear the mask that covers up the face you                       think you see.

 Haven’t you a single clue that what you really see is only me?

 I had no idea how I was going to get through it without breaking up, but I did. Afterwards I was told by the mourners that it was one of the more moving and emotional moments they had ever experienced. They marveled at how an eighteen year old could write such a song that was far beyond the depth of his years. I later explained that writing songs is like fishing. You just have to throw your line in the water and be there to pull the fish out before it gets away. That was one big fish I caught that day. I don’t even remember singing and playing it—I guess I was on automatic pilot.

After the service everyone was invited back to the house on Canton Drive in Studio City to sit Shiva and partake in the celebration of my father’s life. I heard so many stories about my dad that I had never known. My Uncle Ellis told me of the time my dad came back to St. Louis from World War II and how everything had changed. His father, my grandfather Joe Flieg, (my dad’s real name was Haymer Lionel Flieg) had been killed in 1946 when he was hit by a train trying to make a delivery to a chain of small kiosks in the Mid-West. It was around sunrise and he was driving all night and had fallen asleep at the wheel. I was named after my paternal grandfather who I never had met. So many stories were told of his love of show business and how he worshipped the ground my mother walked upon. He used to brag about his kids all the time and I felt honored to be his son.

The week after my dad’s passing I knew that life was for keeps. I was in our bedroom in our 600 square foot apartment on Vine Street with Donna by my side. I don’t remember if we just had dinner or were watching TV but I said, “Donna, I want to take you downtown and buy you a ring.” That was my proposal. I didn’t get down on one knee like a knight in shining armor; I didn’t have a chilled glass of champagne or any of the other romantic protocol that gentlemen are supposed to employ to win the heart of his beloved. Still she said. “Yes!” I did hold her gently and sealed the agreement with a loving, passionate kiss. Now the words I had spoken to her in Pitlochry were not just idle ramblings. I had made good on my oath and was the happiest person I could be be—which is saying a lot for me.

The next day we drove downtown and met with Beverly Hills High School alumni, Steve Safan, who graduated in the same year as me. His father had a jewelry store in the diamond district in downtown Los Angeles, and he showed us a variety of rings. At first I didn’t want to get a ring thinking it would interfere with my guitar playing or I would take it off and lose it. But after seeing the selection of rings, I thought a plain gold band was all that I required. I actually liked it. The funny thing is, I haven’t taken that ring off in twenty four years. I’m not sure if it would even come off now without surgery. Donna’s selection was a beautiful double ring set; one engagement in a single diamond setting and the other a wedding band with a small but exquisite inlaid diamonds wrapped around a golden band. They weren’t the most expensive rings but they weren’t exactly Diet Pepsi ring tops either.

Later that night we were looking in Sidney Omar’s astrological forecast in the L.A. Times under our particular signs. It read for Scorpio: Cycle high, timing is on target, dramatic confrontation lends spice. Circumstances suddenly turn in your favor. Member of the opposite sex declares. “I would be with you anywhere!”

Taurus: You no longer will be traveling alone. There will be ties, legal and otherwise. This is an excellent time for forming partnerships, considering marital status. No lie, this really was our forecast! We cut the clipping out and it still resides in the photo album of our early history together.

I knew that this was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. The woman I wanted to have children with and grow old with. I, of course, would grow old a little faster being almost twelve years her senior, but she still calls me her old teenager, maybe now I’ve graduated to being a twenty-something.

Now it was time for her to break the news to her mum and dad in Scotland and I was a bit nervous about how they would receive the news.

“Hello mum, it’s Donna.”

“Oh hello Donna, how are things?”

“Fine. How’s dad?”

“Just fine. He’s oot with the motorbike trials in Fort William. He should be back directly after tea.”

“Guess what? James and I are officially engaged.” There was a brief moment of silence. Olive Smollett was in two minds and Donna could tell. She wanted what was best for her eldest daughter and of course she wanted her to be happy, but marrying an American meant that she would live over five thousand miles away.

“Oh heavens above,” Olive gasped. “I wisny expecting that so soon.  Yer dad will be as pleased as punch. I canny wait to tell him. Do you ken when the big day will be?”

“We’re thinking in June and James mentioned having it over there in Scotland,” Donna said while picking up the phone and carrying it into the living room. She didn’t feel comfortable with me eavesdropping in case something negative was said. “But it will have to be a church that will condone a mixed marriage since he is Jewish.”

“Aye that’s right. No worries, I’ll find ya one close by. It will be brilliant.”

The conversation digressed to the weather and the health of all he relatives and then Donna told her mum to put a list of all the Scottish folk that would be invited. I was listening to my fiancée’s side of the dialogue and I could tell that the news was received well. One down and one to go.

After Donna got off the phone I called my mom.

“Hello Mom? Are you doing okay?”

“I’m hanging in there.” She sounded weak and tearful and I tried my best to break the news to her as gently as I could. “Susan has been by my side every minute and there’s so much food here you could feed an army. Do you need any turkey or roast beef?”

No we’re good. Listen mom, I wanted to tell you the good news.” I set the scene by telling my mom that since Dad died I had been thinking about my life and what I wanted to do with it. There was no reason to be out in the crazy world of singles bars and night clubs anymore and I knew I had found a girl who was bright, funny, and sweet and above all, she made me happy. I was ready and I knew it. It was time to tie the knot. Even though Donna was almost twelve years younger than me, I knew as we got older the gap in our ages would mean nothing. Sure she didn’t grow up with The Beatles; in fact, she was born the same year they played on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time. She never saw my wilder side when I was drugging and drinking and carrying on when I was in Silverspoon. That was the good news, but just the same, I felt like she missed a big part of my life and I could never explain to her the craziness that went on in those magical years. But now there was a new magic, a calmer and more grown up magic.

When I told my mom the news it seemed to lift her spirits. I told her we were thinking of having the wedding in Scotland and how it would be great for her and my surviving family to get away from the sadness and the constant reminder of my father’s passing. She was crying again but I couldn’t tell if it was from the thought of how proud my dad would be of me and that he was going to miss his oldest son’s wedding or if it was from happiness of my future plans with a woman that she thought the world of. Maybe it was a little of both. She told me she loved me and turned the phone over to Susan.

“Hi Jimmy.”

“Hey Susan. Is mom doing okay?”

“She’s up and down, mostly down. You should come by tonight and help us eat some of this food before it goes bad.”

“I will. We’ll probably be by tonight. Listen I don’t know if you overheard the news but...Donna and I got engaged.”

Oh my God, really?”

I told her about the plans of having the wedding overseas and at first she thought that I was running away from the problems in L.A. and leaving her and Robbie to be the ones to deal with Mom, but then she became excited when I told her it wasn’t until June. I said it would be a mitzvah to get Mom away from town and that it would be a great idea if the two of them could maybe fly into London and drive up to Scotland. They could tour the countryside and visit Oxford, Stratford-on-Avon and even go back to Birmingham where she spent her sophomore year of college in 1970. She was beginning to like the idea more and more. Then she became silent and I asked her what was wrong.

“Does this mean I am going to lose my favorite brother?”

“No Susan. It means you are gaining a sister-in-law. I’m only getting married there not moving away.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Look, I’ll see you later tonight and we’ll talk more about it. Okay?”

“Okay Jimmy. You’re such a good son and a great brother. I love you, Bye.”

“Thanks, I love you too.” I hung up the phone after Susan had said her usual sign off to a conversation complementing me on my duties as a nice Jewish boy who was good to his mother and sister and how I was her favorite. I wasn’t so sure about any of it. The only thing I was sure about was I was making the right choice and there was no turning back now. It was going to be a June wedding and the American contingency was making plans to invade the British Isles. It was going to be beautiful and totally insane!

Chapter 29 – Dad

We didn’t make it to Ayr this trip but instead we went to the cozy resort village of Pitlochry which is set in spectacular scenery and is located in the Perthshire Highlands around seventy-five miles north of Edinburgh. We visited the salmon hatcheries on the River Tummel and watched those resilient devils swim upstream in something called the salmon ladder.

While hiking through the brambles, heather and gorse I told Donna I felt like Jim Bowie blazing a trail through the wilderness. She asked me who in the world Jim Bowie was (she pronounced Bowie as if it rhymed with WOWIE or HOWIE). She has the cutest accent ever and it was one of the reasons that I asked her to marry me that day. We now were unofficially engaged and it all started in Pitlochry.

Back in Glenrothes at the Smollett home, Donna and I were preparing for our trip home. We didn’t tell anyone yet about our engagement but we knew that soon it would be known to all, maybe when we got back to America. I packed my Vox AC30 in the oversized suitcase and stuffed it with clothing and pillows. It must have weighed over seventy pounds. I prayed to the gods of amplifiers and baggage handlers that it would arrive in Los Angeles in one piece. At the airport, it was a tearful goodbye for Donna and her mum and dad and her sisters, Beverly and Heather. They told me to take care of her little girl and I promised that I would.

We arrived at LAX in a late June evening and my mother and father were there to pick us up in the Mercedes. When my dad tried to lift the suitcase with my amp he asked if I had a dead body packed inside. I noticed that my dad looked a little pale and I asked if he was feeling alright. He said he felt a little weak but chalked it up to being a little under the weather. Back at Canton Drive, we picked up Bridget and Ginger and headed home to our little apartment on Vine Street. The place looked even smaller than we remembered.

The next day Donna went back to work and I called a few of my customers from Universal Data Supply to see if they needed any more computer supplies. I had a lot of catching up to do but I found it difficult to concentrate after still being in vacation mode. My niece Emily (Robbie and Carol’s little girl) was now almost nine months old and she was the apple of her grandparent’s eye. Max was a great big brother to her and would spend hours with my dad and the three dogs, Danielle, Jean Claude and Oliver in the backyard gathering ,throwing and breaking sticks, his favorite pastime. I think it was around this time that Max began taking piano lessons and he was already playing Mozart. The kid was a prodigy and I have to admit that I was a little jealous. I wished that I had started music at that age.

By the end of the summer my dad’s health didn’t seem to be improving so he went to the doctor for tests. He seemed a bit weak and was struggling to breathe. We thought it might be some kind of walking pneumonia. You have to understand that my dad was a guy who never got sick; I can’t even remember a time when he had a cold or the flu. So this was a little disconcerting to see him in such a state. It was now the end of August and he was sent to a specialist, Dr. Decker, who had a sneaking suspicion that the diagnosis was a little more ominous that any of us had expected. My parents had a trip planned for Paris and the doctor told them not to cancel it. He would have the results waiting for him when they got back in early September.

When Donna and I went to the airport to pick my parents up it was a shock. My dad came off the plane in a wheelchair. What happened? Here was a man that seemed so vital and alive a few months ago and now he couldn’t even walk? We drove back to the house on Canton Drive and I helped my father out of the car. He struggled to make it through the front door and when he stood at the bottom of the stairs as white as a ghost, I saw that he couldn’t climb them. He went to the emergency room at Cedars and soon we found out that he had a sarcoma of the lungs. I was in denial at first when he was admitted to a smaller hospital called Brotman Memorial but after the first week there things started to progress quickly in the wrong direction. My sister, Susan was a wreck and my brother, Robbie seemed to internalize his feelings—too upset to even talk. If it wasn’t for his wife, Carol to help him through the disaster, he would have been comatose. Our father was dying but I refused to believe it. They released him from the Brotman and his and my mother’s bedroom was converted into a sick room with oxygen and medical equipment I couldn’t even begin to fathom. By the end of October he was readmitted to the emergency room at Cedars in the ICU where the doctors gave him a week or two to live. Now things were becoming real for me.

Just after my 37^th birthday on November 2, Susan called me and told me to hurry over to the hospital because he was going fast. Donna and I jumped into the Nissan 200SX, the car my dad used to drive, and I drove like a maniac from Vine Street weaving in and out of cars on Santa Monica Boulevard trying to make it down there before it was too late. He was holding on but we knew it wasn’t going to be long.

Was this the same man who was signing autographs in the driver’s seat of our 1962 Cadillac convertible when we moved from Jericho, New York to California so he could be a part of that newfangled idea called the situation comedy on television? The same man who took me with him to Wallingford, Connecticut where he played the part of Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees. Not only did I get to hang out backstage with the showgirls who pinched my cheek and said, “he’s so cute Johnny, he’s going to be a real lady killer just like his old man,” I also played second base the next morning in a pickup game at the motel where the cast a crew were staying—it just happened to have a ball field in the back and all the male members of the cast had Spalding signature Whitey Ford baseball gloves since the show revolved around baseball and the unfortunate Washington Senators. I felt like the luckiest kid in the world and I will never forget that trip as long as I live.

Moving to Beverly Hills, on the suggestion of Carl Reiner who said, “whatever you do Johnny, you have to get your kids in the Beverly Hills school system, was a shock to my system. In New York my dad was considered something special—there weren’t too many thespians in Jericho. Now in the hills of Beverly I was just another progeny of another actor—a character actor at that, who didn’t even have a major role in a weekly television series. In my senior year I had to hitchhike to school from the corner of Olympic and Doheny and sometimes people like Tony Sales would fell sorry enough for me to give me a ride in his girlfriend, Nancy Allen’s Camaro. The happiest day for my dad was when he was hired by Woody Allen (no relation to Nancy) to play the part of the comic in Annie Hall. Woody is famous for using real life characters and situations in his films and this was no exception to that rule. Woody Allen used to write skits in the mid-fifties for my dad’s act with his partner Paul Seers in a place called Tamiment. I still have those skits on the original onion skin paper. He finally did get his own series, (even though he was a semi-regular on M*A*S*H playing the part of Supply Sergeant Zelmo Zale) called Madame’s Place. He was over the moon even though he had to play second fiddle to a puppet. My duo, Two Guys from Van Nuys, even did a guest spot and performed a song we wrote called, Make Way for Madame. It wasn’t an act of nepotism because we had to audition like everyone else who crossed the paths of directors, producers and casting agents.

My sister, brother and I stayed at my Grandma Betty’s apartment on Arnaz while my mom and dad rented a cheap room at some motel on Pico until moving to Oakhurst Drive, a half a block north of Whitworth. It was considered Baja Beverly Hills but it was good enough to get us into the suggested school system. Now looking at my father’s gray skin and faded brown eyes, all those memories came flooding back with the tears that I tried to stuff inside. I couldn’t keep them contained.

 My mom was being a real trooper and keeping a brave face but I knew it was all an act. She was trying to be strong for him and for us. They had just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary in January of that year and my dad would turn seventy the following January 19^th. He wasn’t going to live to be a septuagenarian. He died on Saturday, November the eighteenth at three thirty in the morning.

We stayed at the hospital until the sun rose in the eastern sky, like it always does, but this particular sunrise would occur without my father. It was a gloriously beautiful morning without a cloud in the sky as I drove Mom, Susan and Donna in the Mercedes back to Canton Drive. My mom said that the beauty of the day was a dedication to the man she had spent three quarters of her life with. She was never going to be the same again after that and would spend the next twelve years in mourning with her health failing. They were a team and the team was no more. At least she had us and her two beautiful grandchildren (there would be three more on the way in the near future).

How was it possible that less than a year ago we were watching The World Series in Robbie and Carol’s house on Hesby Drive witnessing a half crippled Kirk Gibson hit that amazing home run to put the Dodgers ahead in game one? We couldn’t believe it was possible and when we saw Gibson’s feeble, one-handed swing loft the ball high over the right field wall, we jumped out of our seats cheering and screaming at the top of our voices. It was a day I will never forget and it will always remind me of my wonderful father.

Johnny Haymer, born Haymer Lionel Flieg in St. Louis, Missouri on January 19, 1920 had a wonderful career in show business and if you want to see his amazing accomplishments you can Google it or go to imdb.com. He did what he loved and loved what he did. He was lucky. But the most amazing thing he ever did was to marry Helyn Sylvia Graff, a twenty-one year old ingénue from Detroit by way of Brooklyn. He loved her more than life itself and, I am more than sure, he loved his three kids profoundly. This is something you didn’t see on the internet before, but now you will. My dad was a hero to me. I love him still; I always will.