You Can't See Me -release date:4/5/24

My second single, You Can't See Me, from my album, Still Moving is scheduled for release on March 5, 2024. You can pre-save it now. 

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jameswesleyhaymer/you-cant-see-me

Still Moving's First Single Release 2/22/24

 

My first single from the new album, Still Moving, is being released on February 22. Hey, that’s really soon!

It’s my first studio album in, dare I say, 14 years?

Produced by my long-time friend and cohort, Chas Sandford, It is the most rock record I've ever done.

Please follow this link to stream it on Spotify, or most other streaming services.

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jameswesleyhaymer/supermans-rocket

Looking Forward to Going Back - Again

 

Sometimes you must look backwards to move forward. I have been going back over these chapters, updating and editing them from the beginning. I am proud to say that this blog was used as a reference in Kenneth Womack’s new book entitled Living the Beatles Legend, the Untold Story of Mal Evans. So, I’ve got to get it right. What an honor to be mentioned in a book (even though I’m called Jimmy) about the Beatles road manager and trusted friend. I am tempted to put all these chapters together and publish it as a book. I am also in the final stages of my fifth record called Still Moving.

Love to all,

James Haymer

Chapter Four - The Good Pings In Life

                             

It's been a long time since I have posted but here goes . . . 

Man created the smart phone. Now you have a decent portable compact computer at your fingertips. I got this new Iphone 5c — it’s new for me but it is five or six phones behind. But for a hundred and fifty bucks on eBay with a year warranty I’m finally entering into the twenty-first century. Now a phone was more than a phone. Morgan, My youngest son, helps me set it up, and after download the Uber and Waze apps I’m good to go. I buy a cheap car-phone stand that attaches to your windshield at the new Spring Hill Wal-Mart for about ten dollars plus tax and a two-way in – one-way out adapter for my cigarette lighter. Morgan lets me borrow his Garmin GPS as a backup. I still haven’t returned it. He says he uses Google maps or Waze on his Iphone so I could keep it.

     My first ping is unremarkable. All I can remember is that I am a little nervous and I try to concentrate on where I’m going while getting used to the Uber app. I’m a pretty good driver when I have to be. I used to be reckless in my twenties and thirties, but now I’m older and much more careful, especially with the exponential growth of idiot drivers here. You practically have to be psychic to avoid a wreck.

           The first day ends without any major catastrophes; except there was one time I make a wrong turn onto Interstate 24 West and had to double back to the 40 East. The woman is stressed out about being late for a job interview at Plus Park on Briley isn’t making it any easier. I finally get her there at 8:35 only losing five minutes with that errant turn. She gets out and closes the door an aggressive manner. I apologize and tell the old it’s my first day line, even so, I know I am going to get a bad rating from her. When I get home in the afternoon, I check my rating. I had three five stars, two four stars, and a three star which averaged out to a 4.3. Now, you’d think that would be a pretty good rating. If it were a hotel or a restaurant that would be commendable, but not with Uber. I hear that if you fell below a four they can lock you out.

             I call my neighbors, Mark and Ashley, a couple with a farm across the road. It’s where we get our eggs. Mark is a guitar player originally from Indiana. He’s also a great photographer and graphic designer. He helped set up both of my novels and even took the back cover photo. He also sells ukuleles, classic watches, iron skillets and handcrafted wooden bowls on Etsy. A real modern –say Renaissance man. He calls Ashley, a local girl from old money, his farm wife. A gentle soul, she lets Mark walk all over her. He drinks a lot of beer; at least he did at the time. Ashley agrees to letting me Uber her to the grocery store and back. I tell her I will reimburse her but she wouldn’t think of it. She gives me five stars. I now have a 4.43 rating. Good, but not good enough. When Donna gets home I explain the situation. I ask if she could let me Uber her for a couple of miles and give me five stars. She says we could use some stuff at Kroger after the traffic dies down. I tell her about taking Ashley already. She laughs. I download the Uber app on her phone and show her how to use it. She’s worse than me with computers. After getting home from Kroger at around eight-thirty and she had ended the ride, and five-star later I was now a 4.5. That’s enough for one night. The ride costs us seven or eight backs, but it was worth it to sleep tonight with peace of mind. I find out later that Uber waits until you have completed one hundred rides before they take the ratings seriously. That’s good to know.

          The first ride that I would consider memorable was on the Friday morning of my second week. I receive a ping for a Ben at one of the older subdivision in Spring Hill. I wait in from the address on the app, and it is taking a long time for Ben to show. Eight minutes later a tall young man in his late teens or early twenties struggles to make his way down his driveway. I think there might be something wrong with him so I get out of my car and help him into the front passenger seat. I look at the Uber app and his address has disappears from my phone.

            “Ben, right?”

            “Yes.”

            “It looks like you cancelled the ride.”

            “What?”

            “It’s gone from the app. Maybe it was some kind of glitch. Why don’t you try again?”

He takes out his phone from his jacket pocket and holds it up, I’m not exaggerating, two inches from his left eye and tries to log on to Uber. He’s having a lot of trouble. I ask him if he needs any help but he says he’s got it. His phone pings. Mine doesn’t.

            “It looks like you got a driver, but it isn’t me.” A minute later another Uber driver in a black Toyota Camry pulls up. I get out of my car and try to explain to the Uber driver that I had this ride. They always ping the closest driver, and my car couldn’t be any closer; he was logging on from inside my car. The Camry driver, a young man wearing a turban drives off in a cloud of dust. He’s pissed off.

            “Where you going, anyway?” I ask Ben.

            “Down by the Opryland Hotel. They’re shooting an episode of Nashville, and I signed on as an extra.”

            “Cool. Try requesting a ride again.” The other rider must have cancelled enabling him to hit the request a ride button again. This time my phone pings. It comes up Music Valley Road, right by the Fiddler’s Inn. It’s a good thirty-five miles which will net me thirty or more dollars. I’m happy we‘d sorted things out, but I feel bad for the Uber driver in the Camry. Ben turns his head to the left as far as it would rotate and looks at me with his right eye. “You’re James right?”

            “You got it. There’s gonna be a lot of traffic and it may take an hour to get there? Are you okay with that?”

            “As long as we get there by nine.”

            “I’ll do my best.” I knew there was something wrong with his vision but I thought it could have been a temporary thing so I ask him, “Don’t you have a car?”

            “I don’t drive. As you may have noticed my vision isn’t so good. I’m blind in my left eye.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry man.”

            “I can see well out of my right eye but my left is toast. It called retinitis pigmentosa. It’s like tunnel vision. I have no peripheral vision on my left side. They do make special mirrors, but they’re really expensive. I’d rather take an Uber.”

            “Isn’t there some kind of operation they can do to fix it?”

            “They can, but my insurance won’t cover it. It would cost half-a-million dollars. My parents can’t afford that. Maybe someday.”

            I think if that were my kid I would beg, borrow or steal to get the money to pay for an operation. I don't know all the facts, though. You can never really judge other people’s situation. Every story has its own story.

            “I was an extra in LA a long time ago and I did a stint at the old prison in here West Nashville near Centennial Boulevard. It’s was for that Redford movie, The Last Castle. I had a blast,” I say. “How did you get this gig?”

            “I joined this agency here. They got me three days on this show. It’s my first day today.”

            The traffic is at its usual crawl going up the one lane road on Hwy 31 at 8:45, but it begins to thin out once we make it past the light at Thompson Station Road. After another two miles we’re on the 840 east and two miles after that, the 65 north. The traffic is doable moving about thirty-five to forty miles per hour. After living in LA this kind of traffic is a breeze.

            “So Ben, do you go to school?”

            “Nah, I graduated high school a year ago and I’ve been, you know, just hanging out trying to figure out what’s next. I was thinking about going to some kind of trade school. Diesel truck mechanic or something. I just don’t know how I could afford it with all the Ubers twice a day.”

            I didn’t want to bring up his parents helping him again; I knew that was a sore spot with Ben. “Have you thought about going to community college? They have a great one, Columbia Community College here in Franklin. It’s dead cheap.”

            “I don’t know. Maybe.”

            “You could go for two years and by then you may figure out what you want to do. If it’s a mechanic, then you could do that after. You know what I mean? The first two years of college isn’t anything more than general study anyway.”

            “That’s right. I heard some of my friends talk about Columbia, they really seem to like it.”

            “There you go. Maybe one of your friends could carpool with you or help with an Uber. It’s a thought, anyway.”

            “I’ll talk it over with my parents. But I don’t think they’ll go for it.”

            “Why not?” I didn’t mean to pry, but these parents of him were beginning to piss me off. Ben was an intelligent, good looking kid. Just because he had a handicap doesn’t mean they should treat him like an invalid. “I don’t mean to pry, but do your parents own that house In Spring Hill?”

            “Yeah, why?”

            “You know interest rates are the lowest they’ve been in years. They could maybe refinance and use some of that money to send you to school. It’s just a thought.” He got real quiet after that. I hoped I hadn’t touched on a nerve. “Listen, Ben, I’m sorry if I got out of line but I really like you and I think you could have a great future if you give yourself a chance. Hey, if you need someone to talk to about this or anything else, give me a call. I’ll give you my number when we get there. Okay?”

            “Sure, that would be great.”

            Exiting Briley Parkway we make a right on Music Valley Road. I can see a crowd of young people dressed in Nashville hipster garb standing in front of a makeshift nightclub. I pull into a parking space and put the car in park. I hand Ben one of my business card I keep in my tip hat with a printed out sign reading—I tip my hat to you for the gratuity. I thought that was pretty clever when I printed it out on my computer and tacked it on with double sided duct tape the week before. I get out of the car and help Ben with his stuff. It was nine o’clock exactly.

            “Looks like it’s just getting started. Have a good one, Ben, and remember if you feel like talking, give me a call. If you get the voice mail leave a message. I’ll call you back.”

            “Thanks again, James. I will.”

            I had an urge to check out the set and see if I could sign on as an extra but I didn’t want to deal with all the red tape I would probably have to go through. Just not worth it, besides, I could make more money in half the time with Uber. Still, it could have been fun. I watch Ben walk toward the crowd and, after a minute or so, he enters the building. I hope the kid calls. It seems like he needs some guidance, an older voice to talk with. If nothing else, someone to listen to him. I didn’t think his parents did much of that. Ben never called. Not yet anyway.

Chapter Three -Who’s Your Caddy – Part Two

 After waiting a week or so, I found out I had made it to the caddy qualifying stage at Richland. I was to report to the caddyshack at seven am sharp and begin walking the course with the other dozen or so prospective caddies. I once again drove my Alfa but this time I headed up the proper drive way and parked in a space far enough away from the members.

            Not only was I going to walk the course I was to caddy for the asshole. The first three holes at Richland are impossible—straight uphill. I tried my best to keep ahead of the golfer but I was already lagging behind. Let’s face it, I was at least twenty years older than the second oldest caddy, I was trying my best but time was not my friend. By the time we reached the ninth hole Daniel the demonstrative was on my case. He was constantly correcting me for calling the flagstick a flag and that I wasn’t quick enough. Now when I look on TV and see the professional caddies, they seem to be walking at a moderate pace and staying behind the golfer. When I pointed this out to Daniel he said. “This is a private club and I expect you to be perfect. I f you want to apply for the PGA Tour, good luck to you, but it’s never gonna happen, so you might as well get with the program—my program. Let’s see how you do tomorrow, but I have a feeling this job is not in your future. I hope you can prove me wrong.”

            The next day I was going to caddy for two players, Daniel and Mike. That meant I had to carry two heavy bags. One was bad enough, but two! I knew it was going to be a struggle. I went home and grabbed two golf bags from my closet and filled them with the correct amount of clubs (fourteen) and weighed them down with dozens of golf balls. They roughly seemed the same weight as the bag I had been carrying earlier in the day. When I placed the two bags on either shoulder, I had a hard time keeping the straps from falling down. I knew tomorrow was going to be a disaster.

            When I arrived back a Richland it was a beautiful day in early spring without a cloud in the sky. That soon changed. Storm clouds were rolling in fast. Daniel and Mike told me to follow them out to the first tee and we would try to get nine holes in before the rain came. The two golfers teed off and I grabbed their two bags and placed them on either shoulder. I was doing alright as long as I walked at a medium pace but as soon as I tried to get in front of them (which is what I was required to do) they began to sip down my arm. I was getting dirty looks from Daniel, but Mike seemed to be a little understanding of my dilemma. I was watching the other caddy, probably thirty years my junior having no problem at all. What was I thinking when I applied for this job? I knew I loved gold and I thought it was going to be breeze carrying a bag, handing out the proper club and reading putts, (something I am very good at) but it wasn’t working out like I had planned. Daniel and I were in the ninth fairway when he said, “You know James, of the nine holes we played today, you only did well on one. I’m going to give you one more chance at the green. If you don’t hold the flagstick properly, read the putt correctly and not make any mistakes, you can try again tomorrow.”

            Daniel’s clubs were resting on the fairway about three yards from a fast moving stream. Now the old me would have picked up that golf bag and nonchalantly thrown them into that body of water. Thank God I had grown up a little. Instead I let him have it verbally. “Look Daniel, I have been trying my best to do all the things you said but I guess I’ just not cutting it. I love the game of golf, but if I kept on going with this caddy thing. I would soon learn to hate it. I don’t want that to happen so I quit. I thought at sixty years of age I was not too old to handle caddying, but I guess I was wrong. Imagine what it would be like in the ninety degree heat with a hundred percent humidity. I would literally die. So it’s best we nip this thing in the bud.”

            “Are you sure, James?”

            “Are you kidding me, Daniel? You don’t want me here anymore than I want to be here at the moment.”

            “That’s not exactly true.”

            “Oh come on. Hey, by the way, you know that five star restaurant in Napa Valley? I checked it out on the internet, and there is no way in the world you could have had a four figure meal unless you ordered everything on the menu twice . . . and those truffles? I think you were exaggerating the cost just a trifle. Hey, trifle truffles, I like that. So what I mean to say is, you are completely full of shit. So as Johnny Paycheck so aptly coined in song—take this job and shove it.”

            I walked off the ninth fairway and headed to my car in the parking lot without turning around. I didn’t have to; I could tell exactly what the expression on his face would be. Shocked. I felt vindicated. So it was back to the drawing board. My sister had mentioned Uber. I had no idea what Uber was, but it was going to play a part in my future. Once again Susan came through. Yes!

Chapter Two - Who's Your Caddy - Part One

Well, it was back to the old drawing board. There was no way in the world I was ever going to be a postal worker again –that’s for damn sure. But what was I going to do? I had written two books, available on Amazon, but the sales aren’t lighting the world on fire, hell, they aren’t even igniting the small town of Thompson Station. I wasn’t even in to playing my guitar that much anymore, and I didn’t want to tackle another book although I had started writing a story about my relationship with my old girlfriend, the German one, the one that broke my heart, but that was too painful for me to relive. I was looking on Craigslist and, of all things; I saw an ad for a caddy at Richland Country Club. I can’t remember the name of the company but it could have been something as generic as Caddys ‘R Us, or Who’s Your Caddy Inc. I responded to the ad and set up an interview at ten am the next morning.

     I woke up early, as I usually do, and took a long, hot bath with my cup of coffee resting on the stool beside me. I decided, since it was a beautiful late February morning, to drive my 1990 Alfa Romeo Graduate with the top down. I gave myself plenty of time to traverse the twenty or so miles to Oak Hills and I arrived a good twenty minutes early. I missed the first left turn into the county club so I took the next left which happened to be the maintenance entrance. As fate would have it, I found myself on the cart path, where those expensive little golf carts zip up and down next to the corresponding golf holes. I knew I needed to turn around, but that would have been hard to do without backing up and driving onto one of the fairways. Not a good thing to do. I noticed up ahead there was a gate that seemed to lead to the main entrance so I ventured forth. By the time I got to the gate I saw that it was padlocked closed. The only thing I could do was the reverse down the cart path and get the hell out of there before one of the workers saw me and reported me to the higher-ups. What mystified me was—where were all the golfers? I mean it was ten o’clock on a beautiful Tuesday morning and was driving through one of the most prestigious golf courses in Middle Tennessee and it was virtually deserted. Something was not right.

 While backing up I veered a little too far toward the fifth tee box and ran over the curb. I then put the car back into first gear and eased my way forward but the car wouldn’t move. I turned off the Alfa, got out of the car to see what was impeding my forward progress. My left two wheels were on the cart path and the right two was on the grass. That wasn’t the problem. I saw the problem. To my amazement, the frame of the car in front of the passenger side rear wheel was lodged against the curb. I got back in the car, tried to rock it to the left. Nada. Then to the right. Nothing. I was stuck. What was I going to do? I couldn’t call AAA and have a tow truck pull me out in the middle of a very exclusive golf club where members pay over a hundred grand a year for membership dues. So I walked around looking for a worker or somebody to discreetly help me dislodge my car from the curb. As I walked toward the clubhouse, I saw four young golfers finishing up their putts on the fourth green. When they all putted out I asked if they could help me. It knew they were heading for the fifth tee box where they would see an unusual-looking golf cart in the shape of a black Alfa Romeo, so I headed them off at the pass. I explained my situation and they kindly offered to help. I got in the car, started it up while the four of them rocked me back and forth and then left and right. It wouldn’t budge and the back wheels were making a terrible divot not even Tiger Woods could make with a sand wedge. Then I had an idea.

     I noticed the back right wheel was only four or five inches from the curb. If somehow we could lift the rear end of the Alfa and move the tire onto the curb my frame would be in the clear. The car couldn’t have weighed any more than eighteen- or nineteen-hundred pounds so I thought with a little elbow grease it could be done. Between the five of us, we were able to jimmy the car to the left and after about five or six tries, the wheel was resting comfortably on the curb. I thanked them profusely and pulled the hell out of Dodge. When I reached the gate I saw the padlock wasn’t fastened so I turned off the car, put it in gear, since the Alfa was parked on a steep incline and my parking brake wasn’t working, got out, opened the gate, and in a matter of seconds I was back on the main road to the clubhouse. I pulled through the main gate and parked the Alfa in the visitor’s lot and made it to the interview at five minutes after ten. Those four young golfer really save my hide. I hoped they wouldn’t say anything, but I knew that if they did I would be out of the interview before they finished their round. Not an auspicious start. I should have known then that this was not going to work out well.

     The room had three-inch-thick red pile carpeting, oak-laden walls (the real stuff not that cheap wood paneling), high ceilings and a long banquet table with a lined table cloth in the middle. Seated around the table were six or seven applicants, all of whom were in their twenties and thirties. I knew, at the ripe old age of sixty-three, I was a out of my element. At the head of the table was appeared to be the manager and his assistant. The manager, whom I later found out was named Daniel, was pontificating about how pristine the golf course was and how, if accepted in this caddy program, we had to follow the rules, be quick, polite, always walk at least ten paces in front of the golfers and be ready to hand the golfers their club of choice. The assistant nodded his head and smiled. He was a lackey but a pleasant one, not like his boss, Daniel, whom I could tell was a complete asshole.

     “Good service,” Daniel said, “was the most important feature of a caddy. “When I was in Northern California last year, I took my wife to a five-star restaurant where, I must say, we had the most amazing dinner of our entire life. It was a sixteen-course meal and the piece d’ resistance was the truffles they grated on our salad. Some of these truffles I hear can cost up to a thousand dollars an ounce. The meal was fantastic, but what impressed me the most was our water glasses. As soon as they got near empty, there was a waiter on hand to refill them. Now that was service! The check was in the four-figure range, but it was worth every penny.” This guy was so full of himself boasting about truffles and spending thousands of dollars for a meal. Every time he said something he thought was clever or impressive, he would punctuate the word or phrase by arching his eyebrows and bugging out his eyes. I disliked the man intensely.  Besides, I thought it was all bullshit, but still I smiled and tried to look interested.

     I filled out the rest of my application while the assistant, I think his name was Steve, told us, if our application checked out, we would get a call in the next few days to begin the training. It was a non-paying training but caddies could make up to two or three hundred dollars a day in tips, if they did a good job. I liked the sound of that. How hard could it be? I loved golf and I would get a lot of exercise. The best part would be playing this amazing course. Yeah, but I had heard that one before.

Part Three - Chapter One – Going Postal

In July last year, the Tennessee Haymers all flew back to Los Angeles for the marriage of my niece, Emily, to another Max (Boigon). Meanwhile, Max Haymer’s wife, Amy, was almost nine months pregnant. Maybe we could kill two birds with one stone and be there when she popped. We got our wish. On the day before we flew back to Nashville, Amy and Max Haymer had a little baby girl, Lucy, and, of course, she is the sweetest little thing on earth. How about that, I’m a great uncle. Well, maybe not so great, but really good.

Jonathan, our oldest son, came back from China that same month and met us in Los Angeles and was able to attend the wedding and be there for the birth of little Lucy. The timing couldn’t have been better. I was so happy to see him – we all were. He looked great even though his hair was almost military short. At this time, he was in his last month of college at MTSU. He changed his major from engineering to global studies since the classes he took in China reflected that course of study. Being so sick of school; he wants it to be over as soon as possible. Just wait until you get out into the real world of business, my son, and you will miss the comfort and security of being in school. I hope he finds a great career using his skills as an entrepreneur and a lad almost fluent in Mandarin.

  In September, with the book completed and my musical career at a standstill, I decided to get a real job. It had been long enough. Donna had been carrying the financial burden for way too long and it was time for me to contribute. Better late that never. I had gone to the local post office here in Thompson Station and after talking to Brad, the man at the counter, about job opportunities. He suggested I go online and check out the USPS website. I did, and got a job a month or two later.

At first, the job seemed all right. I was in training and helping Emily, the fifty-something, stressed-out, postal lady on route 25. It covered two subdivisions, Canterbury and Tollgate. I don’t know how she did it in the time allotted, which was 8.4 hours. If it weren’t for me helping with the Amazon packages, I don’t thing she would have finished the route in less than twelve.

Before I got my postal legs, I had to train in the Nashville facility for a few days. I didn’t mind, they not only paid fifteen buck an hour in the classroom, but also for the mileage to get there and back. I thought it might be a sweet deal. Boy oh boy, was I ever wrong about that!

In the training, they stresses safety this and safety that. Safety, as you probably guessed, was the main priority. Not so! Since they didn’t have a postal van for me to drive, I was notified that I had to use my own vehicle, a Toyota Sienna minivan, sit in the passenger seat and drape my left arm and leg across the console. This, in my humble opinion, isn’t the safest thing in the world. I was advised to get a “suicide knob” for my steering wheel, that way I could do broad turns with my left hand. I went to Tractor Supply, bought one for twelve bucks, and installed it right away. I also purchased a flashing light which attached to the roof by magnets. I was all set.

Since the USPS made a deal with Amazon to deliver their packages, you wouldn’t believe how many there were; especially over Christmas. Sometimes I had to make three, even four trips from the post office to my route. With just the packages alone, I was out more than ten hours. I couldn’t imagine doing this route for real, even if I started at dawn I would never make back until dark.

Let me explain something about being a postal carrier. Do you think it’s just delivering mail and packages? Wrong! The first thing you do is remove the trays of mail and bring it to your little three-by-five foot cubby hole. Fortunately, the mail is sorted by address, and if your really good, you can take the trays right to your vehicle (with the packages, magazines and flyers, and what-have-you) and go right to your route. Very few carriers can do this since you are sorting and driving at the same time. Safe? I don’t think so. You think texting and driving is bad, this takes the cake. So, most carriers sort the mail into the hundreds of addressed slots, add the periodicals, magazines and flyers, and then put color coded markers where a package or registered letter corresponds to that particular address. This could literally take hours and you still have to pull all the mail, magazines etc., and markers down and put them in order back into the trays. By now, more than half the day is gone and then you go out to your van and load it all up. Not a fun day.

To make matters worse, the postmaster that hired me retired just before Christmas and a new postmaster came to town. Let’s call him Fat Albert. Fat Albert was a four-hundred pound butterball that liked to push his weight around. He had his sights on me, since I was the last carrier to leave for my route. Emily was on vacation, and it was now up to me to do her whole route (previously I had only covered one subdivision at a time and she did the other; now I had to do both). The day before my trial by fire, Fat Albert wanted to see if I could sort mail in another cubby hole, I think it was for route 22. I had no idea where anything went. The mail slots are not linear and cross streets interrupt the direct flow of the addresses, so nothing was a straight shot. You had to memorize the streets. That was the only way.

FA told me I was working too slowly. I told him I was doing the best I could. He asked me again when I was going to be through. I looked at the stack of magazines (maybe four hundred more) on the table and said, “When hell freezes over.” That didn’t go over to well. Then I said, “Since you have been working for the post office for what I assume years, why don’t you show me how it is done so I could learn from your expertise?” He said he was not going to sort my stuff just to prove a point. He knew as well as I, he wouldn’t have been able to do any better.

I also made suggestions heard by deaf ears. Government job. Need I say more? One such suggestion was that there should be a dedicated Amazon package delivery person to lighten the load of the mail and magazine delivery. He told me that instead of trying to change the way the post office does things, why didn’t I concentrate on doing my job better.

The day finally came when I had to do the complete route. It was a nightmare. I didn’t get back into the post office until nine pm. I then told Fat Albert that I couldn’t do the job anymore. I quit on February 5, 2016. He looked shocked.

One final note. I found out they had taken my advice and hired a full time package person. Too late. I was already gone.

Champion of Lost Causes - now available!

My new novel, Champion of Lost Causes is now available on Amazon for $2.99 (Kindle) and $14.95 for a hard copy. Go to the link below to check it out.





http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TE29O0W

Chapter 72 – Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries

As March of 2015 comes to a close, I think about the future as well as the past. In the last month, I have visited Florida twice, one for SleuthFest in Deerfield Beach and the other a family vacation in Miramar Beach. It was a miracle the Sienna made it to the white sands of the Gulf Coast and back with the check engine light on. The van has 238,000 miles on it. Miracles and wonderment!

Jonathan missed that vacation. I miss him terribly. We haven’t seen him in person since he left for Hangzhou, China in September of 2013. That’s two of his birthdays, two Christmas/Chanukah’s, two New Year’s come and gone without him here. Yes, we are planning for the future, when my niece, Emily is getting married in L.A. and my nephew, Max and his wife, Amy, are expecting their first child. This is all supposed to happen in mid-July—the same week. Jonathan is planning to join us there and, hopefully he will decide to stay in Tennessee after that, and finish his schooling. On the other hand, he may decide to go back to China and finish things up there. Daniel will graduate high school in May with honors, and will soon be going off to college at UT Chattanooga. Morgan, our youngest, is going to be a junior in high school soon, and is well on his way to being a film editor. He is so talented—movies are his blood. You should see him do what he calls “tricking”. It is basically extreme martial arts mixed with gymnastics. He can flip (what he calls a dub) with the best of ‘em. In two years we will be empty-nesters. But, as always, the future is uncertain.

When I was at SleuthFest, I had a pitch session with an agent from ICM in New York about my new book, Champion of Lost Causes. The novel is a fictionalization of my band, Silverspoon, wrapping around another story of Blake Lilly, a talented but troubled recording engineer who looks me up on Facebook after forty years. The Blake Lilly character is based on a true story. This guy actually contacted me on Facebook. He said he listened to my music and wanted to hire me, even pay me double scale, to play guitar on some tracks for a band he was producing. I had the feeling he was blowing smoke up my wazoo, and Donna thought he had trouble with the truth. She told me to ignore the guy. It was going to lead to trouble or, at best, disappointment.

The guy would call me up and tell me to meet him at SIR rehearsal studios the next day. Just as I was getting ready to leave, he would tell me the session was canceled. This went on for weeks. Then he give me this hard luck story of how his briefcase with all of his money, ID and a very expensive microphone had been stolen. I felt bad for the guy. It seemed like he had no friends. I offered to lend him some money to get him through the hard times. I just wanted to do something altruistic—like I did when I was younger before the harsh realities of life began to beat me down. It was only a hundred bucks. I wired him the money. Two days later, he told me his roommate was going to throw his ass out on the street if he didn’t come up with another seventy-five dollars. I knew I shouldn’t have done the first hundred, but now another, seventy-five? I told him all I could do was fifty and would wire it directly to his roommate. After that he was on his own.

When I finally made it down to meet him and the band. He was a no-show. I went out to lunch with the band’s manager and some of the musicians and they told me some of this guy’s war stories. The guy finally gave up and moved back to L.A. To this day, more than a year later, I haven’t even met the guy. But he did send me a check for $170 a few months ago. I guess I guilted him into it. Unfortunately, the check didn’t clear. I called him back to tell him this and he said it was a bank error. I tried it again. It still didn’t clear. His local branch manager of Wells Fargo Bank in Los Angeles figured out that when the guy had changed to an interest checking account, it was a different account number. What a numb-nut. The manager finally okayed the check and I cashed it.

This led to my book. Since I never met the guy, I had to make up his backstory. That was the fun part. Since the agent at ICM passed (it only took her a week to send me a very nice rejection letter), I have decided to spruce and tighten up the novel. I met a very informed and experienced writer at SleuthFest (in fact she is one of the founding members) who is helping me to get the book in what she calls “ready for prime time” shape. Thanks, Victoria. It should be finished by summer. I hope.

So, is this going to be the final chapter of Life After Silverspoon? I’m actually not sure about that either. Life continues, and I’m sure there will be stories to convey. Jonathan’s return to America, Max and Amy’s baby, Emily and Max (yes, her fiancée’s name is also Max) wedding and who know what else. It has been a long and winding road, as Sir Paul would say, and I have enjoyed writing it (most of it anyway). I appreciate all the support along the way from readers like you, and especially my wife, Donna. She has been a saint to put up with, not only this blog, but my retelling the story of Justin Goodman, Blake Lilly and the colorful cast of characters in my newest novel. I will let everyone know when it’s finished. If it every really gets finished. Writing books is hard work.

I haven’t written a song in over a year. Maybe when the book is done, I’ll get back to it. I hope so. I miss recording, but I will have to buy a new Mac since my older workhorse finally took a dump. I hope my Protools will load up and all my files are safe on my back up.

If nothing else, my life had been interesting. I never made a million or two. I did sell a couple of songs, some to major recording artists, but never had a hit. I do have four solo CDs that I am very proud of. Now, I rarely play guitar, and when I do, it’s with my middle boy Daniel, who is extremely talented—smart too. Smart enough not to go into the music business.

I’d like to leave you all with a song.

Life is just a bowl of cherries
Don't take it serious, 
Life's too mysterious
You work, 
You save,
You worry so
But you can't take your dough 
When you go, go, go

So keep repeating "It's the berries."
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life 
To you were just loaned
So how can you lose 
What you've never owned

Life is just a bowl of cherries
So live and laugh, aha! 
Laugh and love 
Live and laugh,
Laugh and love,
Live and laugh at it all!

When I look over at the face of an angel next to me in repose, the woman I had asked to share my life-book— together through each chapter, each page, each sentence, each word and even the spaces in between the words, I feel lucky, truly blessed. And my kids, Jonathan, Daniel and Morgan. I couldn’t have asked for three better sons. God, I love them all so much! I couldn’t imagine any other life as sweet. Why not end with another song? One that I wrote called Song for My Sons. It’s the last track on my Timing is Everything CD. You can also find it on my Reverb Nation page: http://www.reverbnation.com/jameswesleyhaymer

The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, it dropped straight down and hit you on the knee,

So if you want to grow up and be like me, you’ve got to learn to play your song.

I’m your dad, so take my advice, go lead yourself an honest life.

Don’t burn the candle at both ends, be good to yourself and all of your friends.

You don’t fortune, you don’t need fame, all you got to do is play the game.

Find a good partner to be your mate, give a little more back, son, then you take.

Oh, I love you so,

I take you with me wherever I go.

Find someone to be there when you’re down, and tell you the truth when there’s no one around.

So listen when she talks, at least for awhile, you’ll make it through the smiles and crying times.

Do what you love, and love what you see, and try not to live beyond your means.

Stand up for the week and keep the land free, have compassion, strength and dignity.

Oh, I love you so,

I take you with me wherever I go.

Sometimes you feel like giving up when your best shot isn’t good enough.

But remember that failures need apply only to the ones who fails to try.

This is what I’m leaving to you, you don’t need to listen, don’t need to approve.

Just do what you love, and love what you do, and let God’s true light pull you through.

I love you more than I love the sky, and all the planets passing by,

Be kind to your brothers, and treat ’em like gold,

Might be all that’s left when you get old.

Oh, I love you so,

I take you with me wherever I go.

Now I got a good home (wife) and family, I love my babies one and two and three.

And you don’t need eyes to clearly see, true love will last an eternity.

Take it for what it is, judge for yourself, but I found fortune beyond any wealth.

I eat when I’m hungry, and sleep when I’m tired, and most of the time I’m satisfied.

Oh, I love you so,

I you’ll take me with you wherever you go.

Chapter 71 – Meet the Taylors

 Jason Saks, me, Donna and Nicky Saks

First, a little backstory. I had no idea that I had any relatives my age in England until Jason Saks, my cousin, appeared at my parents door in 1977. He had been doing a little research about the Flieg/Sacks/Haymer connection and figured out that my dad, Johnny Haymer of M*A*S*H and Annie Hall fame was his uncle. Jason was working for Redken at the time and was in California for a brief stint. As soon as I saw his Aston Martin DB-5 parked outside and his dark curly-headed locks and oversized shnoz, I knew he was family. When Donna first met Jason on our way to Scotland (we had stopped in Manchester while driving up in 1990) she laughed at how, with the tea drinking and doilies covering the food, my relatives seemed more British than her family. No wonder I thought I was destined to be a second generation Beatle.

More recently, Jason’s brother, Jonathan, had been doing some research on a newly discovered relative, and here is the truncated version of the story. My great grandfather (nobody remembers his name, but let's just call him Mr. Zachnovitch or more simply, Mr.  Z), was married two times, and the year that my Grandma Betty (and Jason’s Aunt Betty Ann) left for America in 1911, Jason's father, David, came into being from the second wife. Well as it turn out, there was a younger sister of Betty's from the first wife. Her name was Minnie. She had also come to America, St. Louis to be exact, and stayed with my grandparents, Joe Flieg (who I am named after), and his wife, Betty in 1914 or so. The hard thing to figure out is: Why had I never heard of Minnie? She had seemed to vanish from the face of the earth. She supposedly left St. Louis and headed to New York City with a musician named George Tilson, who later changed his named to George Taylor. They had a son in the early ‘30s and called him George.

George Taylor Jr. is now 81 years old (or thereabouts) and is the first cousin of my dad, and my second cousin once removed, and I never knew he existed until the night Jason called me from England. He said he and his wife, Nicky and their two kids, Joe and Hannah were going to Orlando over Christmas and New Year’s of 2011/2012 and invited me and my family to join them on a sojourn to meet our long lost relatives. How could we refuse? Whenever I hear talk about family trees and tracing the ancestry of relatives, my head spins. I know you’re your head is a whirling dervish right about now. Right?

Yes, we made it down to Orlando and the tolls on the Turnpike were outrageous. Welcome to The Las Vegas for children. Heading southwest to Kissimmee to the township of Celebration where our Orbit One Vacation Villas awaited us a few miles from the Saks’s who were staying in a nearby vacation villa called the Bahama Bay Resort.

From the outside, Orbit One looked like it once was a thriving monument to Space Mountain, but now it was a bit rundown from neglect, bad management, or lack of funds. At least there was a nice pool, a putting green, tennis courts and a game room filled with arcade games and a pool table that were all in fairly good condition. Surprisingly, the condo looked a lot better from the inside. There was a Jacuzzi in the main bathroom and skylights in the living room and in the master bedroom. There were three televisions (one of them being a flat screen in the living room so the boys could hook up the PlayStation 3). Jonathan, who would turn twenty-one in March, was hogging the PS3, and stayed up until the wee hours of the night playing Skyrim and watching movies on HBO.

The Sakses and Haymers were in communication by cell phone. Since they had a cell phone with a UK number, Donna had arranged to get on the world connect plan with our phone company before we left which brought the cost down to twenty-eight cents a minute and texts to fifty cents each. I think it was around nine or ten at night when I called Jason from some rip-off supermarket owned by Indians (the Eastern kind), and he told me he and his family were nearby. I ran out of the market leaving Donna and the boys to finish up being gouged by the outrageous prices at shop and told them to meet up at the entrance to our condo as soon as they were done.

As I approached the gate, I saw a silver SUV of some kind and long haired people with British teeth waiving from the interior. As I got closer I could see a swarthy, dark curly-headed man in the driver’s seat next to a slim woman with medium length brown hair, and two kids with noses pressed against the glass. It was them. Jason flung himself out of the van and ran down to meet me with open arms. I ran toward him, and we embraced like cousins who hadn't seen each other in over five years would do. Walking back towards the Silver Dodge SUV, I saw Nicky waiting for a hug and I was more than happy to oblige. Then Hanna and Joe exploded out of the wan and were not shy about getting their fair share of embraces. Pictured below: Daniel Haymer, Jonathan Haymer, Joe Saks, Hannah Saks and Morgan Haymer.

Donna and the boys drove up within a few minutes and she put the car in park and they all got out. It was a Kodak moment if ever there was one. Daniel, who was 15 at the time, noticed the fourteen-year old Hannah was tall and thin and he gave her a conciliatory hug followed by Jonathan (almost 20) and then Morgan (12) who seemed to be embarrassed by all show of affection. I knew he would warm up to them as soon as food was served. Then Joe, eleven years-old and no more than 4-feet-7-inches tall, introduced himself to his strange exotic relatives all the way from America. The strangest thing to fathom for my boys was the Saks’s thick Manchester accents. We agreed to have a little meal in the condo, which brought out a half-smile on Morgan’s face. Jonathan got back in the Saks’s van and directed them to our room in the Saturn building - number S24, which was on the top of three floors. It was nice of them to bring some groceries (or messages as Donna would call them), some beer, wine, coffee, milk, cereal and bananas I think? we had already bought some Fruit Loops and paid a whopping $4.99 for the box. Still, it was really great to see Jason and Nicky again, and of course their two progeny who we hadn’t seen since 2005 when we stopped in Manchester for the second time on our way to Scotland. Scott Taylor pictured below.

On New years Eve we made plans to meet up with the long lost relatives at George's son, Scott Taylor’s home in Ocoee, a mere 15 miles from where we were staying. Driving in with the Saks's right in tow, our Toyota Sienna approached the gates of Ocoee Gardens. We parked the Sienna next to the small strip of grass by the mailbox in from of the semi-circular house in Ocoee Gardens. Jason and his clan, and The Haymers together numbered nine. Nine strangers were going to be walking into a mysterious house in a gated community in Central Florida. Nine strangers, who claimed to be family, were knocking on the door of Mr. and Mrs. Scott Taylor. What if they thought we were crazy (which we are)? What if they were? What if they were boring and we were going to waste a perfectly good New Year’s Eve on people we couldn’t wait to be as far away from as a tsunami? We had to devise some sort of signal. I always used the brushing of the side of your nose with your index finger, so we decided to go with that one.

I knocked on the door with Morgan and Daniel beside me. The rest of our gang meandered up as the front door opened and . . . there they were. It was Scott who opened the door, and I could see the rest of his clan peeking behind him in the foyer. Scott is tall, around six foot two with dark curly hair and a bit of a hook nose that points slightly to the ground just like mine. Mine’s a bit bigger; I guess it had ten more years to grow. Scott introduced me and the rest of the combined clans to his wife Pam, a cute little round thing, not Melissa McCarthy round, mind you, but pleasingly so. She was no more than 5 feet tall in heels.

 Dan, with lighter brown hair than Scott looked more like a working class dude. He had the typical 50 year old spread around the middle something that I was fortunate to avoid, so far , anyway. Scott, who also managed to avoid the beer belly, was in pretty good shape (he’s in real estate so he has to keep up appearances) but complained about his back and knees. Then there was George—George Taylor himself. Looking at him with his Clark Gable mustache and a good amount of dark gray hair, I knew for certain he was definitely a family member. Scott's son Jake was in also from from South Florida. He is a little younger than Jonathan about 19, I guess. While the “grown-ups” were in the house reminiscing, Jonathan, Daniel and Morgan were led to the lake by Jake. It was a modern-day Huckleberry Finn scene.

The thing that really blew me away about the Taylors, something that was hard at first to wrap my head around was: they were Baptists. I mean, I never knew that anyone in my family was anything other than of Hebrew descent. They explained that Minnie, when she married George Tilson (later Taylor) had converted to Protestantism and never looked back. Another interesting thing about George Sr., was—he was a musician and had his own band. I’d asked George Jr. if they ever made any records, but he said he didn’t think they did. Too bad. I would have loved to have heard something. No doubt about it, music runs in the family.

I asked them point blank the reason they never knew about us, or for that matter, any other relatives. They said that Minnie told them that all her brothers and sisters had died in the war (WWII), and she was the only one that had survived. They had no idea about the Sakses or Haymers or Fliegs or Flegs or anybody other than their small family unit of Taylors. One can only speculate what the reasons were. Did she have a falling out with her family? Was she working in an undesirable profession? Was it because she had married a non Jew that, if revealed, would alienate her from her strict Orthodox Jewish father? We’ll never know because my Aunt Minnie, who I had never heard of before a year ago, had died a few years back. It’s a shame. I would have really liked to have met her and find out about her strange and obviously intriguing life. If nothing else, we have a much larger family that before and, if things go as I hope, there will be many more family reunions in the future.

It turned out to be a wonderful New Years. We weren’t bored, they weren’t crazy (we’ll at least not the serial killer or drooling village idiot crazy) and if they ever come to Tennessee, it is guaranteed that they will not only have a place to stay, but will have to sample my Chicken Parmesan or Spaghetti with Clam Sauce ala Haymer. Maybe even play a little music.