The Actor of the Family

 

March 15, 2026

 

“A story about the fourth Hayter brother"

  

            One of the toughest questions I get asked is “How is your brother doing?” The problem is I’ve got three brothers and none of them do the same thing. If we didn’t have similar looks and body language, I would think we had different parents.

            Larry is the eldest of the group. The guy started working after school in the ninth grade. That’s pretty much the only way he could get money, because Dad worked at a refinery and had trouble keeping seven kids in food, clothing and a home. Larry was a great baseball player, and when the family played flag football during the holidays, he was an animal.

            What he does now is read. During my lifetime I have never seen as many books as he has read. He now finds himself halfway through a book before he realizes he’s already read.

            Dennis is the second brother in the Hayter family. Dennis and I are close. He was the best athlete in the family. Baseball, football, and track were his three major sports. I played in all three, and couldn’t hold a candle to my big brother. Right now, he’s got leg issues, so I can now run faster than he does.

            The youngest of the brothers is Big Al. We called him that, because he started out scrawny. It wasn’t long before he grew into the name Big Al. He was big enough to break me in two. I don’t know why God allows certain people to suddenly become taller. Basketball and football were his specialties. At least they were until he started acting.

            In the field of acting, Al surpassed all three of his brothers. I thought I was a fairly good actor until Al started. Do you know how many movies he’s been in? I don’t either. I had small parts in five or more. I was never in a movie in which I got paid. Al has never been in a movie or a commercial in which he was not paid.

            One of Al’s lesser-known movies was shot in Conroe. I remember it well, because I was there when Daniel Baldwin’s character slugged Al, knocking him to the concrete. I thought for sure my brother would never act again. However, after director Chuck Walker, said “Cut!” I went over to ask Al how bad he was hurt. He said his head never hit the street. That’s when I knew for sure he was a great actor, because it sure looked to me like he cracked his skull.  

I’m not sure how many westerns or commercials Big Al has appeared in. I was present during the shooting of three of them. In one of his films, I was hired to chauffeur the actors. It was a horrible job. Do you know how much money the actors were making? I don’t either. Al wouldn’t even tell me. But what really irked me was when an actor would ask me to pull over at a store and loan him some money for cigarettes, something to drink, or to eat. None of them thought of bringing money with them.

Nor did they think to pay me back. The actor who still owes me the most is Billy Zane. Do you have any idea what it’s like to drive rich actors thither and yon, while paying for their stuff? I was making $50 a day, which amounted to about five dollars an hour.

            However, I must say that the experience was worth it. The best part was getting to meet George Kennedy. Al even invited me to be in a photo with them. I haven’t met nearly as many actors as Al has, but I’ve gotta tell you, George Kennedy was a most pleasant and humble person.

            On one of his trips to California to see Eric Braeden’s star being placed on the walk of fame, Al saw George Kennedy near by. He walked over to him and said, “I’ll bet you don’t remember me.” Kennedy looked at him and said, “Of course, I do, Reverend.” In the movie the two of them were in, Al played a preacher who rode with a group of thugs. I remember Arman Assante, Billy Zane, and a few others whose names escaped me. In the movie Eric Braeden played the good guy, who the thugs thought they had killed.

            The movie is about Braeden going around killing each of the bad guys. Though playing the roll of a preacher, Al rode with the bad guys. When Eric Braeden’s character found him, he hung my kid brother on a cross inside a church building. That’s why Kennedy called him Reverend.

            I don’t know what or when Al’s next movie or commercial will be filmed. I’ll be among the last to know. I don’t think he likes me going on about him, for fear I’ll include him in an article. That’s just the way some famously humble people behave.   

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hayter.mark@gmail.com

 

         

View from the Back Porch

 March 8, 2026

“From the Back Porch”

            You’re a bit late, but that’s okay by me. I’m just back here on the back porch waiting for you. I have every confidence that you were involved in something important. While waiting, I walked to the wooded east-corner of our fenced-in backyard.

            You may not remember me having a huge pile of pine tree sections tossed among every grabbing piece of vine and bush in the area. By the way, the vines and brush actually grew up after the log sections were dumped.

            Michael was the gentleman who cleared the whole area out for me. He worked for Joe Jackson, the other gentleman who was in charge of the project. Joe is older than I am, so he furnished the trailer and a nice young man named Michael to load and haul a wheelbarrow back and forth to the trailer parked in my driveway. Michael hauled no-telling how many wheel barrels loaded with tree sections. Of course, he had to cut a lot of vines and yaupon bushes to even get to it.

            Michael was one tough son-of-a-gun. The young man completed the entire project in four hours. I thought it would take him two days. I have carried out some tough jobs in my day, but there’s no way I could’ve removed those pine tree sections and all of the vines and limbs in four hours.

            Even if I got Kay and both my neighbors to help, we couldn’t have done it that fast. Big Al is the only Hayter brother who might come close to being able to haul everything to the trailer. Had I offered to pay Al the same as I paid Mr. Jackson, I know that he’d say, “No, but you might call Larry and Dennis.” Those two are the oldest of the four brothers and are both less healthy than me. No way could I handle that job.  Maybe by Christmas.

            With that out of the way, let’s take a few minutes to listen to the birds. A great sound those tree sitters. I think I heard a warbler. In the background I can now hear a sparrow. Wait! Wow, that sounded like the Dark-eyed Jurico. That is an actual bird; I’ve just never seen one. The thing was dark enough to hide itself well.

            Not to completely change the subject, let me tell you about last night, I read that the people in Europe do not put their chicken eggs in the icebox. So, let’s spend a few minutes in Europe. I’ve never been there. I have all confidence that I’ll be able to say that on my deathbed.

            I noticed that one of you asked why egg-eaters in Europe keep their eggs out of the fridge. First of all, we both know that Europeans aren’t like us, nor DO they like us. But they do eat eggs, just not ours. For one thing they think it’s dumb that we store our eggs in a refrigerator. It just so happens, if you keep your eggs below 50 degrees, it can cause the shell to develop both moisture and bacteria. When you’re finally ready to eat the thing, bacteria could have seeped into the yolk. No joke. If you eat a bad yolk, it could keep you seated in the restroom for a good while.

            Europeans don’t clean the shell of their egg until they’re ready to cook them. The yolk not the shell. When cleaning an egg with poop on its shell, there could be some of the fecal matter that seeped into the yolk, thus making someone sick. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen in Britain.

            I’ve got many more fascinating things to share with you, but I must go to Home Depot to get a few bags of big rocks. You see, after all of the wood and vines were hauled off, I saw three holes dug under the fence. The back neighbor’s two dogs dug their way into my yard a couple of weeks ago. The third hole under the fence is likely a very large armadillo. Because no dog would intentionally dig from my backyard into someone else’s. An armadillo? In truth they don’t have a clue what they’re doing. That’s why I never write about them.

end

hayter.mark@gmail.com

Hayter Family Newsletter

 

March 1, 2026

“Family Newsletter”

             The most important part of any article is the first paragraph. You need to  grab the reader from the beginning, or they’ll be turning to the comic section. The question before me right now is “Have I in any way whetted your interest?”

And if so, did the word “whetted” mean anything to you. It just came to me. After which I had to look up the spelling. Whetting? Right now, you may be reading the comic section or wondering how any of this could in any way interest you.

Well, let me try this out on you. One of the greatest beginnings of any book is “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…” and it goes on for a few more minutes.

Had Charles Dickens left out the word “incredulity” in the beginning of the one sentence paragraph I might’ve stayed with him. But he couldn’t stop. He ended with these last words of the sentence. “for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” I could see my ninth-grade English teacher telling me to check out “A Tale of Two Cities” and have a report on it in two weeks. I was never asked to the read the book, but I was curious enough to watch the movie. It was sadder than sad.

My personal favorite beginning of a novel reads like this: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it if you want to know the truth.” I’ve read the book twice. I’m still waiting for the “Catcher in the Rye” movie.

My first published book began with “I was teaching history and government at Montgomery High, a school just north of Houston and south of nowhere that sounds familiar.” Not nearly catchy enough for “the Summer of ’76.”

But the vast majority of writings are from my many articles now in The Villager and Conroe Courier. That’s what started this article. My sister Jill used to write “Our Family Newsletter” twice a month and send it out to everybody in the family. She started it back in January 1988 and kept it going until the end of ’99.

My kid sister’s toughest job was typing out each edition of her newsletter. She then went to the Post Office to make copies, front and back. Her second most troubling job was getting people to send her stories of family events to put in the newsletter. It was a bear. I’m surprised she kept it up that long.  That’s 288 editions.

A few months ago she began emailing us copies of the old newsletters. I pulled up two of the most recent emails, and pridefully looked at each of my articles that were included. I needed help to come up with a topic for this article, which is about the importance of the first sentence of any book, or article.

Virginia Pliler is my dear friend whose mother would read my article only if the beginning sentence interested her. There is no telling how few articles she ended up reading. But with that out of the way, let me read to you the first paragraph of my article from January 16, 1991. 

It reads: “Do you want to know who is actually running this country? Who is making the decisions on everything from what will be on TV at 7:30 Monday night, to who will be President of the U.S.? The real power in this country rests in the hands of a clouded, faceless group known as “Those Polled.”

If that paragraph was enough to hold anyone’s attention, the rest of the article would send them straight to the comics, because this was about the longest article I ever wrote. It was printed by “The Herald” which is possibly in another state.

In the other article I begin with: “When is the last time you read anything positive about a car salesman? For me the experience has yet to come. On a list of the most respected profession “car salesman” rated somewhere between carnival barker and pit bull trainer.” I would be surprised if The Villager and Courier didn’t receive a few Letters to the Editor over that piece.

            Lately I haven’t received a single gripe about my articles. I now receive them on                    emails. If email ever dies, I don’t know how future gripes will get to me. Surely, I’ll             be gone by that time. And before you say it, I’m sorry I called you Shirley.

end

            hayter.mark@gmail.com