Jim Colyer

Click on Michael for pictures.

There was an understanding between me and Karen at the Tennessee State Library that we were going to have a baby and that baby was going to be a boy. Karen had a magazine at the time called American Baby. It had a picture of a baby on the cover. It made an impression on me.

Karen had an IUD. She removed it in March, 1981, to try to get pregnant. I bought a book called Parenthood.

The first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in March, 1983. It was traumatic. I wandered the streets of Nashville with tears in my eyes. We were determined to try again, and it did not take long. To run it back, Karen got pregnant the second time on or around June 11. As it turned out, one baby or the other was to be born. The pregnancies were that close.

So, Michael Brandon Colyer was born at the Baptist Hospital in Nashville on March 11, 1984. It was 1:08pm, a Sunday. Karen named him. We were watching Love Boat in bed when she knew the time had come. I had felt her stomach as he kicked not long before.

Bill Davis came to the hospital. Karen's parents and I stood and looked at Michael through the glass window of the nursery. Dr. Doak said he was "perfect." It reassured me. It had been a Caesarian.

Charlotte came down and helped take care of Michael the first week. Karen bathed him in a small tub. We noticed he had a small birth mark on one of his fingers. Karen made arrangements with Mrs. Sledge, and he soon began day care. We dropped him off in the morning and picked him up in the evening as we went in and out of Nashville. Michael rode in a car seat.

I remember Michael's first smile or at least the first time I saw him smile. Karen was rocking him in the chair. I walked past them, and there is was. Just a trace. I almost had to use my imagination.

Karen breast fed. I called Michael "pinky" at first, and when he fed, I joked that he was "on the terminal." I would go to him and lift him out of his bed when he cried. He liked to be held. Sometimes we lay in that back bedroom, and I gave him his bottle. He sucked on his pacifier, or fooler. It was a time of Similac and Pampers.

On my birthday of that first year, the three of us went down Natchez Trace to Tupelo, Mississippi. Some pictures were made of Michael at the house where Elvis was born. I can still see Michael on the floor in the motel looking up at me and smiling.

At first, Michael laid on a blanket surrounded by toys in the middle of the living room. At about 9 or 10 months, he began to walk, tentatively holding onto the coffee table. I remember once when I was in the back yard under the oak tree. Michael came to the window and peered out at me, smiling as usual.

He loved to point. Once as I carried him outside the steakhouse he pointed to an airplane. I knew he was very much aware.

The first word I heard Michael say was "turtle." It was barely distinguishable. I had found a terrapin in the driveway and taken it to Hermitage where he and Karen were staying. It was in a bucket. I was afraid it might bite his fingers. We turned it loose outside.

I lived with Michael his first 13 1/2 months, and I was sure that at no time did he forget me. Recognition was always in his eyes. Once during that tough summer I drove with him in his car seat, just he and I. He was content to be with me.

Christmas of 1985, Chester, Charlotte, Estelle and I got a room in Lebanon. When we picked Michael up, he sure looked cute in his gray cap. Charlotte had brought him toys. The sound his train made scared him. Judy had given him farm animals. I held up a pig and asked him what it was. He said, "pig." We ate at the Cracker Barrel. The Cracker Barrel was incidentally the first restaurant he had been in. We walked across the parking lot to the motel next door. It was cold. As I fumbled with the door key, Michael said, "Cold!" I felt for him.

Regular visits began. There was no pattern. I would go down whenever things came together or I felt like it was time. I would throw some clothes in a sack and head south.

NASHVILLE

I visited Michael while they were living in Hermitage. He went and got his clown doll and gave it to me. I saw it as an offering. He later bit its nose off up in Louisville. Another doll he had was called My Buddy. He also had Teddy Ruxpin.

We slept in the same bed in the apartment Karen's parents built for them. Michael showed he had an imagination. He said he saw Alf looking in the window. Alf was a television E.T. Whenever we slept in the same bed, he tended to get sideways with his feet in my chest.

It made me proud to see him in a suit the first time.

He built a tree house in Ken and Dot's back yard. He kept his vehicles under the porch. Karen got him the car we saw at Mike Elkins' and decided we would get our kid. He tried to impress me by swinging too high on his swing set.

One time I went down and he had bit his tongue on the sliding board at day care. I freaked. We took him to Dr. Doak the next day for confirmation.

At Heckman Elementary, he scared me by hanging upside down on the monkey bars.

These things tended to make me think I was better off not being around. I was too afraid he would get hurt. I could not protect him every moment. He has always been adventurous

The three of us made excursions around Nashville whenever I came to town. We took him to the playground at the Parthenon. We took him to the lake to feed the ducks.

We rode the trolly. He was quiet and attentive as we rode along Music Row and through the downtown area. We boarded the trolly by the Cumberland River.

One time we were eating at Bonanza. Michael saw a wagon train on the wall. "Choo choo!" he said. I laughed.

We rode the boats at the Parthenon with Chester and Charlotte. He cried when I put the life jacket on him.

Karen and I took him to the auditorium in Nashville to see Bigfoot, the monster trucks. He got scared in the corridor, and I picked him up. It calmed him. We saw the Nashville Zoo in the summer of 1991.

We usually drove to Lebanon. On the street corner in Lebanon next to Baskin Robbins, Michael looked up at me and said, "Ice cream." We went in and got some.

Chester bought him some gummy worms.

Regretfully, I made less trips after selling the house.

Twice in 1995 Michael and I went to Ken and Dot's. This was good for him. He asked me while he was still very young why I did not like his family. I replied, "I am your family."

LOUISVILLE

I have many memories and images of Michael both in Nashville and in Louisville. They are precious. Of course the present and the future are generally more important than the past.

I remember him lying over by the wall in the living room sucking on a bottle. He finally told me his granddaddy took the bottle away because he was not a baby anymore.

He sat on the floor playing with those same cowboys and soldiers I had. And there was that Frogger game in the closet he went to everytime. He never forgot anything.

We have done a lot of things in Chester's yard. Early on, Chester flew his kite, and it got stuck up in a tree back near the pond. He looked at me and said, "Kite gone."

Once coming up the sidewalk, there was a bee buzzing around us. So seriously, he said, "Beeeeee."

Sarah was the daughter of Dennis and Cindy King next door. I thought Michael and Sarah made a cute couple and got their picture. But Michael was more interested in Cindy, whispering, "Sarah's mom is sexy."

We had a cookout at the pond. Michael and Sarah kissed over by Chester's tractor.

Dennis helped Michael fish. He caught one.

He loved to ride the tractor as Stephanie had before him. It was a sight when he put on Chester's old straw hat and ran around the basement.

When Karen brought him to Louisville, the three of us would always go see Estelle. Once I took him to James and Emma's. They discouraged me be turning their dog loose.

Restaurants were an experience. At Bob Evans, he ran for the kitchen with me in hot pursuit.

We took a train ride in Anchorage with Charlotte. We later went to the train museum with Karen.

When we saw The Snow Queen at The Kentucky Performing Arts Center, he climbed up in my lap and went to sleep.

In the spring of 1987, we arranged to see the mechanical dinosaurs with Larry and Claudie Rusk on Main Street. Afterwards, we ate at Kingfish on the Ohio River.

We went to the Louisville Zoo. He pointed to the giraffe and blurted out, "A giraffe!" At the petting zoo, he petted a wooly animal through the fence.

We have had quality time and done things despite the way things turned out.

Chester had Michael's picture taken at Sears. When he reached for me immediately after the sitting, I realized how close we were. It brought out the father in me.

Charlotte kept a photo album. She took the pictures, and I put them in the book.

Christmas cards and birthday cards went back and forth. I began getting father's day cards. I occasionally sent him cash.

I saved some of Michael's artwork. He liked to do houses. A driveway. A tree with a bird in it. A giant snowman with a black hat. The sun to the left of a blue sky. I felt they were memories of the house in Lebanon.

A drawing from 1996 shows him and me under a tree with birds overhead. His art is peaceful, domestic, in the yard.

RED WING

I made two trips to Red Wing, Minnesota, while he was there. By Greyhound. When I passed the Red Wing shoe store in Middletown, I thought to myself, "It's time to put on my Red Wing shoes."

The first trip was in March, 1993. I drove Karen's car. We ate at the Golden Corral. We bowled. He showed me how to get around town.

We ate at McDonald's. He said he had heard of Babe Ruth but not Mickey Mantle. That changed when Mantle died.

We went down to the Mississippi River. Karen had given him swimming lessons, and he assured me he knew how to swim. Still, I was scared he would fall in.

I got him a Lego castle, and we played with it in the motel room. It was strangely like the Excalibur in Las Vegas.

I saw his room. He was proud of his farm set.

I returned to Red Wing in August, 1994. Michael and I saw the New York Yankees play the Minnesota Twins at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. We circled the stadium, moving from the third base line to behind home plate around to center field. We saw Yankees Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs. The Twins had Chuck Knoblach, and Michael got a kick from the way I said his name. Ahhh! CHUCK KNOBLACH!! The Twins won.

We stayed at a motel over in the next town. There was a lake. He said, "We have all this to enjoy!"

He swam in the motel pool with a couple of kids. I rented a car, an Escort. I used to joke about putting Estelle in the trunk of the car. In Red Wing, he asked me if we should have said that. That was after she had died. I said, "No."

Michael showed me his school. We climbed Barn Bluff and celebrated River City Days.

We played pitch and catch outside the duplex on Bush Street. I bought him a Yankee cap. He had it on as I left. He stood at the back porch as I drove off in tears.

I was happy when they came back to Nashville. He had grandparents there who cared about him. He had no family in Minnesota. He was closer to me too. And the severity of those winters worried me.

His appendix came out while he was still in Red Wing. That was traumatic.

Back in Nashville, he was closer to Jonesboro and his favorite cousin, Jackie. Of course, I went to Jonesboro twice with Karen. I like to be knowledgeable of the places Michael has been.

CHARACTER

Michael was a cute kid with his blond hair, blue eyes and dimples. For a while, it seemed like every boy born in 1984 was named Michael and had blond hair. He looked like Karen at first. Then he looked like me. He went back and forth. If Karen and I were melted down and mixed together, Michael would be the result. It is that obvious.

He picked up on things quick. He seemed to have inherited both Karen's and my sense of humor. A blessing, I hope. I want to think he has taken the best from both sides.

I was always amazed at Michael's memory. I showed him a bird's next in a shrub by the driveway. During a much later visit, he went to that shrub curious about that nest. He continued to ask about the green car long after it was gone.

When he started first grade in 1990, it was a great relief to me. Holding him back was wrong, I thought. Everytime I was with him I was amazed at how smart he was. I hoped it would not hurt him. It meant he would graduate when he was 19. If and when he goes to college, there will be financial assistance under Chapter 35. We will discuss the need of having a plan, the necessity of getting into a lucrative field. He said he wanted me to help him work.

Growing up in day care was a two-sided coin. It made him easy with people. He had none of the shyness I had. The problem was, he was exposed to everything. Bad language. But I went through a cussing period too around the 6th grade. Ultimately, the good outweighs the bad.

I was always waiting for Michael to outgrow his mischief, thinking there is a perfect stage he will reach and remain at. This longing began with the terrible twos. Most likely each level will have its share of successes and failures. No one is perfect, neither parent nor child.

There are times when he can be strong-willed, headstrong, a handful. Karen expressed it as knowing what strings to pull to get what he wants. Like the time he wanted a toy guitar and I had to buy it to stop him from crying.

"I'm a kid," he told me once. Sometimes I forget.

Karen said, "He is a good kid although he likes to show off." She also said, "He's my life."

His determination is indicative of strong survival instincts.

He liked pushing the lawn mower in the driveway before I sold the house. He liked pecking on my typewriter. He liked to try everything, which is good. Everything impressed me that he was normal.

For all his energy, there is a sensitive, almost angelic side. Michael said he remembers people by touching things they had touched. Being outgoing, he makes friends easy. I always ask about his latest friends, male and female. I write down their names.

Michael regularly answers the phone. The first word he said to me over the phone was, "Fine." I asked him how he was doing, and he answered in a small voice.

Charlotte talked about his Tennessee accent and the way he pronounced, "car." He took on a northern accent while in Minnesota.

MUSIC & MOVIES

Music has been a means of communication between us. He liked strumming my guitar very early. He inspired me to write three songs: "Michael B.", "Someday Michael," and "Part Of Me."

His favorite ABBA songs were "Mamma Mia!" and "Slipping Through My Fingers." I made him a tape of these.

He also liked Ace Of Base. He said they were better than ABBA and sang "The Sign" over the phone. I gave him the audio and the video of "The Sign." He gave the video to a girl friend.

Some other songs he liked were "Stranger In My House," "I Heard it Through The Grapevine," and "Don't Take The Girl" by Tim McGraw.

One time I sang "Happy Birthday" to him even though it was not his birthday. He smiled.

Once while the three of us were driving to the park in Lebanon, I could tell Michael was glued to the radio. I had mixed feelings. It was good in a way, but I did not want him to come under the dominion of music the way I did.

He still sings along with country music on the radio. He got a guitar. I wanted to teach him some chords and songs, but it is not easy to do.

Movies became a big deal. He told me once, "I saw Snow White." I thought he said, "I saw Noah." Karen and I took him to see Cinderella. When we saw the Ninja Turtles at the Cinemas, the violence made him restless, and we left. It surprised me when he knew Batman's girl friend.

I did not care for Forrest Gump, so it took some getting used to his imitation.

He liked Babe, the story of the pig. We had meant to see it at Hickory Hollow, but the showing was cancelled.

I never liked the title of Disneyland Daddy. I would prefer that we simply enjoy each other rather than having to rely upon some outside stimulus. Such is modern society!

GIFTS

I like to give him things to create a bond between us. I gave him my binoculars and those American logs I had as a kid. He was too young for the binoculars but said he had been plying with the logs. I bought him a Batman car and gave him a Roxette video.

He liked Biggs and was always curious about it, wanting to know if I had been there. I bought him a fishing rod and a basketball at Biggs. He asked me if I knew what pogs were.

SPORTS & GAMES

Baseball is a sport we can share. Michael played tee ball in 1990 and coach pitch the following year. I saw him play in each of these seasons. We watched Nolan Ryan win his 300th game on TV at the Red Roof Inn in Donelson. Then we saw the Yankees and Twins in Minneapolis. When Michael showed up in the basement with a box full of baseball cards, it was easy to compare him to myself at that age.

We played baseball in the yard. I hit a wiffle ball, and he chased it ecstatically. Around front, I pitched to him. He clubbed the ball and ran like crazy. A pint-sized power hitter!

He could not get enough of bowling. "Midnight bowling," he called it.

We played miniature golf in Middletown.

Watching wrestling on TV, he asked, "Do you like wrestling mens?" The action and hyperactivity of wrestling appealed to him, adults acting like children.

We played checkers at the Cracker Barrel, and I bought him a chess set after seeing the musical.

He got interested in ice hockey in Minnesota and later showed me where they were building the Arena on Broadway in Nashville. We would one day see Shania Twain there.

NAMES

Michael generally calls me Jim but on occasion has called me dad. "Let dad do," he told Charlotte when she was going to put a diaper on him. I think I wiped him once.

He also called me Jimothy.

The first time he called me Jim Mynatt, it shocked me. I recovered to see the humor. He likes to joke.

We called ourselves the Bash Brothers after Oakland's home run hitters, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.

At Hickory Hollow while playing in a toy store, he said, "Let's pretend we're brothers."

Surely a parent and a child can be friends too. It does not have to be an either/or situation.

Fancy Pants and Jimmy Swaggert became stock characters. He was curious as to who Fancy Pants was. Karen said he never mentioned him unless I was there.

PETS

He had a dog named Candy at Ken and Dot's. He told me he knew Candy was my first girl friend.

In Minnesota, he had two dogs named T-Bone. I am no dog lover but try to be tolerant for his sake.

We saw "Homeward Bound" in Red Wing. It was about two dogs and a cat. Michael saw a boy in the theater he knew from school.

DIARY APPROACH

February, 1991 - The three of us saw "Home Alone" in Lebanon. The movie was Michael's idea because I had not heard of it.

He explained the Ninja Turtles, and I understood they were named for Renaissance painters.

Through the 80s and early 90s he would ride in my lap on the passenger side while Karen drove. I enjoyed that.

From the back seat, he asked, "Why did you break up?" I gave an ill-prepared, lame answer. He had seen the wedding picture where Karen and I were kissing.

Michael liked to eat at McDonald's and enjoyed their playground.

November, 1991, was my last visit to Nashville until 1995. He was headed for Red Wing.

April, 1992 - We went on the Star with Charlotte. A boat on the Ohio River. My concern was that he did not fall overboard. He told us he had joined the Lutheran Church.

Summer, 1993 - The first of the two summers he came to Louisville while living in Red Wing. Chester and I met Ken and Dot who brought him halfway.

Judy and Stephanie were in town and had joined the pool at the Radisson Hotel, so Michael and I got to go swimming with them. We shot pool at the pool.

Michael stayed under in the hot tub breathing through a tube. I did not know he could get oxygen below and when he did not come up, I went in with my clothes on. I grabbed him up and pulled him out. It scared him. I was embarrassed but thought he was drowning and did what a father would do. It made a funny story. My clothes were soaked, my wallet, money, everything.

Marty's girls, Carrie and Sarah, were around, and Michael was smitten. He attended a beauty pageant in which Sarah took part.

We went to Churchill Downs with Chester, Stephanie and Mr. Howard. I let him bet 3 or 4 races, but he lost them all. Standing in a chair urging his fading horse, he shouted, "This sucks!"

"Yes!" I agreed, "It sucks!" trying to impress upon him the futility of gambling.

When it was over, we delivered him to Karen and Lee in Peoria, Illinois. He forgot his fishing tackle, and I sent it by UPS.

Summer, 1994 - We went to ride the horse at Jo Cornell Stables on Lagrange Road. We had done this a couple of times with no incidents. So look out! As Michael was mounting a horse called Bang, it tripped and fell. Fortunately, it fell in the other direction. I lept from the car and ran to the riding ring. I stayed close as Michael took his ride. This year's version of the hot tub!

We saw the Maverick movie. I wanted him to see it because I liked the series as a kid. Chester and Charlotte took him to church.

He was sick when I picked him up in August, 1995. We went to Opryland, and I got sick on the roller coaster. He was riding a second time when the first aid people came to me. They took me to the V.A. hospital. When Michael cried and said, "I don't want Jim to die!" I knew he cared. There is a strong bond between us. Before I left town, he told me, "I love you a lot."

Michael had developed a passion for bowling. He bowled 24 games at a dollar per game in Donelson. He was improving. The first time Karen and I took him bowling, he dropped the ball on his toe.

We ate chicken and dumplings at the Cracker Barrel. I understood this to be his regular dish.

Jumping on the bed was a little hard to take. So was the mooning I got, but I noticed he was getting some thighs on him. At least he was not bashful.

In November, I picked him up at 609A Rosebank. I wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe, but he did not want to. It amused me when he said, "This is not the 60s, Jim." I bought him the pair of cowboy boots he had been asking for. We stayed at Bugetel only to rush out of the room when there was a false alarm. We played Monopoly Junior and watched a Marilyn Chambers movie on TV. We talked about sex. My fears that he would be as uneducated about sex as I was were apparently unfounded. He knew a lot and liked to talk about it. At one point he said he had a boner. I did not know if he did.

He pretended to have his hand stuck in a vending machine. It angered me, and I whacked his bottom. I justified it by thinking he was making fun of how much I love him. I always hear that kids secretly respect discipline.

In Lebanon, we looked at the house and went to Castle Heights. We looked in the library window.

I always liked to see his school, so he showed me Rosebank Elementary. We shot basketball in his grandparents' driveway before I left.

He called in January and asked me to buy him a calf and a horse. He saw the horse in the paper, a gelding. He knew what a gelding was.

Michael returned to Louisville, April 3-6, 1996, after nearly two years. Probably 50% of my expectations were realized, which gives us goals for the future. We talked on the drive up. We missed the lunar eclipse because of clouds. The first night, he and Ernie played chess. I watched. I showed him Venus.

Michael brought his guitar, and we banged away. I taught him "Save The Planet" acappella.

When I asked what part of the Louisville Science Center he liked, he said the space exhibits. We saw suits of the Apollo 13 astronauts.

We bought a wagon at Biggs. $30 apiece. I thought if he put in some money, it would mean more to him. About Biggs, he said, "I love this place!"

It is important to get some of the things he wants. It is also important to stretch him, to pull him in the direction of maturity.

Michael informed me he had been to Canada.

We played Monopoly Junior with Charlotte. He bowled 3 strikes in 4 frames at Ten Pin. We rented the movie, "Big," and a Beavis and Butthead tape. It was chicken and dumplings at Cracker Barrel.

As usual, we fought some and got along and loved some. You desire perfection. Then you realize perfection is to not exist. So you strive.

Chester and I returned Michael to 609-A Rosebank. I saw his room and left him with a few bucks.

It took a while to see the 50%. I felt stressed after getting sick. The best part was in the trips up and down, conversation on the open road, father and son. Michael moved over and put his arm around me as we neared Nashville. It was good to hear him say, "I love you." We had four days, October 17-21.

The two outings with Greg went well. The first night we had Cajun food with him and Carl. The second time, girl friend Becky came to his house and made Michael blush by asking, "Would you like to see mine?" talking about boob implants. Michael enjoyed the sex talk and laughed with abandon. Greg, Michael and I were the Three Muskateers playing miniature golf at The Park in Middletown. Michael drove a go-kart. I was glad he got to meet Greg.

We went to The Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana. Charlotte went too. I expected bigger and better fossils, but we got to stand beside the Ohio River as we did the Mississippi in Red Wing. The fossils go back 400 million years. Michael said Charlotte looked like a fisherman in her hat.

He swam and piddled in the weight room at Blairwood Health Club. I got us free passes.

We watched game one of the 1996 World Series with Chester. Both Michael and Chester wore the Yankee caps I gave them. The Yankees went on to take the Braves 4 out of 6.

It is good to pass on tradition. I prefer, however, for Michael to like sports in general rather than shackling him to the history and controversy of the Yankees.

I bought a birdhouse from Michael. I laughed when he told me he was making birdhouses. I needed to make up for that. I am keeping it for the future.

Michael said his favorite car was a Mustang. He remembered parts of Save The Planet. I gave him the lyrics. He showed me how to find a second picture of Ben Franklin on the new $100 bills

We rented the movie, Twister. I like for us to see the big box office hits. We had chicken and dumplings before I left him with Ken and Dot. He weighed 124 pounds.

January 19-20, 1997 - Gaby made the Grand Tour of Nashville with us: Lower Broadway, in and out of the Hard Rock Cafe, Music Row, the Parthenon and Hickory Hollow. Michael's face had healed from the bicycle wreck. We bowled and saw Beavis & Butthead Do America, a movie none of us liked. I bought him Tommy Hilfiger clothes. Next time, I would pick him up at his new home in Lavergne. I wanted us to see comet Hale-Bopp.

Michael came to Louisville during spring break, March 24-26. The visit was more notable for what we did not do. We missed Hale-Bopp. All Michael could think about was his girl friend, Roxanne. I had the feeling it would be our last time on Aiken Road.

(This is what I call the classic part of Michael's Story. His Story has continued to the present day. I use it as a tool for recalling the past and planning and moving into the future.)