I didn't take that fork in the road,
which would have taken me,
heading down the path of
Fame And Riches.
Before I go any further,
let me just say,
I am very happy with the life I have had,
and am still having!
Knock on wood.
I have
Seven Wonderful Children,
Thirteen Beautiful Grandchildren,
and
One Great Grand-daughter.
That,
in itself,
is all the riches I'll ever need!
Because,
for a long part of my life,
not even my
Parents
thought that I would
have a
Family.
What I'm trying to say here is,
we all come to those
"Forks in the Road"
during our lives,
and the decisions we make at those intersections,
is never a wrong one.
Regret is the evil speed bump in our roads.
It eats away at any happiness you might have,
if you don't let yourself be content,
with what you have
or where you are in life.
In my life,
I believe,
I had at least three good opportunities,
to get involved,
at some level,
in the
Music Industry.
I'm not foolish enough to think that I could have become a
Rock Star,
or anything like that.
I mean I could have made a living at it.
My first opportunity?
Like most
Musicians
starting out,
I was involved in a local band which would perform on any occasion,
for any price,
around the town we grew up in.
In my opinion,
the four best
Musicians
in our area were playing at a local venue,
so I decided to go see them perform.
The lead singer of the band didn't show up,
so after thirty minutes,
when they were supposed to open,
they asked me if I would sit in
and sing for them.
My choices came down to this.
If I would have sung for that band
and done well,
my local reputation would have grown.
I would have had better opportunities to play with the best local talent around.
If I had failed miserably,
I thought at the time,
that I could have never lived through the humiliation.
So I didn't do it.
If I had,
I probably would have learned so much more about music,
so much quicker,
that I could have played
Professionally
a lot sooner.
Second chance.
I was asked to become a roadie for the band
Cheap Trick
by their road crew manager.
This time around,
I had a full time job,
a steady girlfriend,
and was in a popular local band called
Politixs.
We had a demo being played on the local college radio,
so I felt pretty good about things.
So I chose the safe
and secure way.
I stayed put.
I kept the routine I knew best
and didn't take the roadie job.
The problem was,
nothing ever stays the same in life.
Things are always changing.
It wasn't long afterwards that my girlfriend left me,
the company I worked for laid me off,
the band
Politixs
broke up,
and I totaled my
Cadillac Eldorado Convertible.
All in a two week period.
Third.
The last band I was in,
"Two Buck Howie with the Exact Change,"
decided to cut a professional demo cassette recording before I moved to
California.
I know it's hard to understand what a cassette is,
but
Compact Disks
hadn't even come out yet.
A local
Talent Agent
asked if we were interested in signing with his agency.
He heard a little bit of the demo
and knew me from my days in the band
Politixs.
My problem was,
I already had plans to move to
California.
I took the
Master Recordings
and never told the other guys about the
Agent.
Then I left it all behind
and moved to
Sunny Southern California.
And I would do it all over again,
the same way,
because of
Henrico,
Monchito,
Beverly,
Danielle,
Jamie,
Maryallan,
and
James Jr.
Thank you kids.
I love you all,
and all of your children,
and my
Great Grand-daughter
too!
This is,
Having No Regrets,
Jim Hauenstein,
And,
“I've seen and swam and climbed and lived and driven and filmed. Should
it all end tomorrow, I can definitely say there would be no regrets. I
am very lucky, and I know it. I really have lived 5,000 times over.”
-Benedict Cumberbatch -
That is my story and I am sticking to it!
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