David Wyan Hays 69, of Maben Mississippi passed away in his sleep on the morning of December 5th 2024. David is survived by his wife, Joyce Smith Hays, who he cared for for many years as Alzheimers Disease from a stroke many years earlier which slowly took her away until her placement in a care facility in October of 2023. David also had a stroke after his 3rd Pfizer “vaccine” and dementia from that increased over these past 2 years contributing to his demise.
David was the oldest of the “Hays Boys,” David, Jimmy, and Tommy, of MSgt James H. Hays and Dolores Anna (Nickel) Hays of Schenectady, NY. He is survived by his two brothers James H. Hays Jr. (dog Daisy) of West Point, MS. and Thomas E. Hays (Robyn) of Biloxi, MS. He is also survived (I guess) by his sister Paula Dee (Paul) Fanning who estranged herself from us and as we have nothing nice to say there we will say nothing at all. He is also survived by many nephews (Thomas E. Hays, Jr. of Gloversville NY, etc.) and nieces, grand nephews and nieces, and great grand nephews still residing in New York.
Born in Rome, NY in 1955 as that was the closest military installation when mom went into labor, he spent a few years at Fort Niagara when at 4 years old (1960) the family moved to 71 Elder St. in Schenectady, NY where he spent his childhood and early adulthood among a neighborhood of many baby boomer kids in normally abnormal families. As a boy and man he was adept at working with his hands and was a jack of all trades, in early adulthood working at home repair and contracting, a tradition continued by his Grand Nephew Garett Hays with Hays Home Improvement in Gloversville, NY at 518-332-1460. He also worked for many years at Georgia Pacific and actually quit when they were going to promote him to management and an office job. He also worked for many years on and off at Marino’s Flying Pizza in Schenectady, NY working as manager when his good friend Mario Marino was unavailable.
From the time he was little David would not back down from a fight, even with the odds against him and he sure to lose. At about 7 he went down the street announcing to a new 7 year old kid just moved in he was there to beat him up. Unfortunately he learned that the new kids father had taught him how to box and David was getting the worst of it. After a few minutes the father came out breaking it up and as was the custom taking them to the side faucet to wash up and shake hands stating he had to break it up as David would’t quit, “unless he was knocked out or was near dead.”
As a young adult David was walking down the street across from the Elder St. corner bar when he was accosted by 6 black men looking to beat up “White Boys” as revenge for a black man beat up in the projects which were 3 blocks away. Having no choice, he took them on and was holding his own when a bat was introduced and he was hit in the right elbow smashing it into pieces. He tucked his limp arm into his belt stating, “if that’s the way were going to play it” as he opened his folding knife with his left hand and went after the closest, holding them off. Across the street people came out of the bar to see the commotion but none intervened as the police sirens got close and the assailants all ran off.
David was looking at losing the use of his arm but luckily the Orthopedic Surgeon on call was the best in the area and after surgery and a long rehab he regained full use to the arm. No assailant was identified or arrested so there was no way to pay them back. Tommy was so mad that the people we knew at the bar didn’t help in a 6 on 1 that he made a mental list of who was there and set about finding them out in bars and beating them up. David was known for his toughness but mostly if you left him alone there was no problem. Tommy got the (well deserved) reputation as a tough guy and those looking to make a name for themselves would often search him out. As Tommy is still living I’ll hold on the many, many adventures they, and the Hays Boys, had.
Davids passion was motorcycles, his 500 Yankee, 750 Honda and then riding his 1977 Harley which he rode until the NY weather made it hazardous. He even went so far as to continue riding with a cast on a broken leg, the crutch bungee strapped to the seat bar behind him. He also rode cross country making it to California and back this during the “Nix-on” gas era where gas was rationed and you were restricted to buying gas on odd or even days corresponding to the last number on your license plate if you could even find it. He travelled again to California in the late 70s with his long time girlfriend Kari Meyers and was offered a lucrative business opportunity by her uncle but, forever loyal to friends and family, he returned to NY when she wanted to.
It was a happy and tumultuous childhood for the “Hays Boys” and most of the baby boomer boys growing up in a tough industry town. Being near Irish twins, I was born 15 month’s after David, I was often involved in his adventures. My first trip into a bar, at 16, was the College Inn where David instructed me to stand behind him at the bar. “Always know what they have on tap and order like you’re a regular so you don’t get carded” was his advice and when the bartender carded him he handed his drivers license then the bartender looked at me and said, “he looks a little young” but my brother had shown his NY License, on paper back then with only height and eye color, and held it behind his back for me and I showed the bartender the same license. And thus I was introduced to the favorite past time of many young men in Schenectady of pitchers of draft beer and 8-ball on a short bar pool table at a quarter a game. With a bar at the corner of Elder St., and many others in town, we honed our draft beer drinking and pool shooting skills. He also shared much wisdom with me such as “never hook your heels in the bar stool, always keep your feet on the ground” and “never bother the 35 year old at the end of the bar, he probably knows how to handle himself and just want to be left alone to enjoy a beer.”
The early 80s saw all 3 Hays Boys in Schenectady as adults and David marrying his first wife, Cheryl with our good friend Ed Rich as best man. At the reception we took my sisters camera without her knowing, back then a 35mm with film that had to be developed. The Hays Boys and best man Ed dropped the trousers of our 3 piece suits and took an “anonymous” moon shot, David well into the can overly exposed himself in the exposure. We put the camera back without her knowing. Luckily she had double prints made and survived the” WTF is this” shock at reviewing the developed prints and so I have a copy which shall adorn the wall in my house with other treasured family photo’s.
David had wit and a very humorous side to himself and could spin a yarn with a straight face. Mostly the pranks were harmless, if not a little off color. He used to take the shelled walnuts and glue them back together, put them back into the nut bowl, and wait for my father to open them. Dad then started shaking them to see if they had anything in them so David started to put balled up tinsel from the Christmas Tree in them so they would rattle. Dad resigned himself to the fact he was going to open 2 nuts to get one until we tired of the prank.
The early 1900s house on Elder St. had an old coal burner which was converted to natural gas, a huge monstrosity on the dirt floor in the basement with a monstrous cast iron door that you used to feed the coal in with but which now was so hot when the furnace was running in winter it would cause 2nd degree burns just touching it. Somehow, as a young teen, David figured out if you urinated on it the urine would immediately turn into vapor and within about 5 minutes a slight ammonia odor would seep into the first floor in spots. Dad, filling the house with his smoke from 4 packs of Camel non filters a day couldn’t smell anything but my mother had a very sensitive sense of smell. We would hit the furnace then go upstairs and wait and mom would then announce, “I smell something?” Dad’s retort was he didn’t smell anything. “I tell you I smell something” as she now moved about the house trying to figure out the source. “I smell it over here” and Dad would get up and sniff test with a “nothing there.” She would find another hot spot with “it’s stronger over here” and dad would sniff test and come back with a “Damn it Dolores, it’s in your head.” As we were laughing until our sides split both mom and dad would ask, “what are you boys laughing about?” Deep down dad probably knew we were somehow the cause of the commotion.
David was renovating mom’s bathroom a few years after dad had passed. The new commode had come in and that Sunday was mothers day. David made sure that mom was out to church and went over and unpacked the toilet in the living room and then filled it with mothers day flowers and a bunch of fruit, making it a “fruit bowl” of sorts. Mom comes home to find it sitting there with a “Happy Mothers Day, we got you a fruit bowl” to many laughs.
Divorced for many years David met and married a Mississippi Girl, Lisa, who was in the navy and stationed in NY. She got out of the Navy and they moved to Mathiston, MS in 1995.
In MS David went to a box factory looking for work and they put him on a hard machine which nobody could run to see what he could do. Within 4 hours he had it working and producing and they were so happy they announced to him they would be paying him the maximum per hour rate of $7.25 an hour (which was half of the NY rate). It was so low he said, “you gotta be shitting me” and thinking he was happy the guy said, no sir, and I mean we’ll pay you that starting this morning!” “You gotta be shitting me, a 40 hour week at that rate won’t even pay my car loan” let the fellow know it wasn’t a happy “you gotta be shitting me.” So back to contracting and home repair it was.
David settled in and worked on his homestead, a double wide on 2 acres, fixing homes and contracting. He enjoyed riding his Harley about, northeast MS is real rural with very few paved roads and plenty of scenic roads to toll around on. Eventually this marriage wouldn’t last and they divorced with David buying her out of the residence.
MS isn’t so easy to hit the bars as there are still many “dry counties” and even the possession of alcohol and “public intoxication” (i.e. odor on your breath) is illegal. David was in Webster County adjacent to Clay County which wasn’t dry. The “County Line Bar” in Clay the watering hole for neighboring dry Webster and Oktibbeha counties. At the County Line Bar in the early evening David decides to travel to West Point, MS in the middle of Clay County to visit another bar but decides it is to risky driving with a few under his belt. He turns around by backing into a rural residential driveway and hangs the one back wheel of the van over the drainage ditch leaving him spinning his wheels. So he goes to the house and asks for a push to get both tires on the ground. “Be right out” the guy says but within minutes the sirens tell a different story.
Between a rock and a hard place David goes with the cover story of the driver “Ben” ran off as David was sleeping in the back of the van. The Sheriff goes with the public intoxication laws and off to Clay County Jail he goes. Now upset he begins to fight with the Deputies and throws insults their way proclaiming he isn’t one of those low life poor bastards you throw in jail, using a racial derogatory label stating, “I’m not a N****r, I’m a White Man and I’ll be out in the morning.” He continues shouting at the Deputies and using the in house phone to call them until they just shut it off and after an hour of tumultuous in processing he finally asleep in a cell.
He awakes to find he has been placed in the felony tier with those of the skin color who would usually find offense at the racial derogatory label he threw about the night before, all headed to the State Prison for major felonies. He’s bunked with the only white guy on the tier, a 3 time felony drunk driving offender sentenced to prison and he says, “I’m f****d” but his cell mate advises he’s OK as he was the most exciting thing that had happened in a months, the whole jail was “hooting and hollering and laughing,” especially after the “I’ll be out in the morning” as they knew what the Sheriff would do. On the third day David is telling the Deputies he needs to get out as he has “dogs in the house and stock that needs to be watered and fed” even though he had none.
He relayed the story to me after I bought the house in MS and unfamiliar with MS laws I told him that it was my experience that most jurisdictions had a 72 hour pre arraignment hold so that people arrested over the weekend could be held for arraignment on Monday morning. “Never thought of that” he said, I expect thinking straight never entering his head as he was caught up in the moment. Moral of the story is never tell the Sheriff what he can’t do.
David met Joyce Smith of Maben, MS who was raised in Maben, left to be a School Teacher in FL. and returned to Maben on retirement. They married and David moved into her house on Chestnut St. They spent many years together enjoying life. They both shared a concern for animals and fed and took in many stray dogs and fed the stray cats in the neighborhood. They had his camper van and also a camper trailer and enjoyed camping and going fishing together.
The house across the street came up for sale, a run down affair with a hole in the roof and raccoons and squirrels living inside of it. They bought the house to tear it down but David saw the foundation and structure sound so he repaired the 2 story roof framing, under roof, and put on a metal roof by himself. At 6’ 4” and 190 pounds he could carry and put down the panels with no help. Slowly over time and with spare materials from other jobs he fixed up about 1/2 the interior with a working bathroom, laundry, and kitchen, heat, AC and all plumbing working. He used many unfinished bedrooms for tool and material storage with his contracting business.
He got into an argument with his wife’s daughter, Karen (and a “Karen” she is) who cajoled her mother to divorce David which he accepted in stride. As the Mathiston house was rented he just moved in across the street and continued his contracting business and got on with his life. One day he was on the front porch and saw Joyce take a header over the side porch rail as she had had a major stroke. He ran to her side, followed the ambulance to the hospital, and when she was to be released moved back in her house to take care of her. She had a miraculous recovery and was physically functional with only minimal memory issues at first.
They decided to remarry and continue where they had left off. He was feeling a bit off and tests revealed he had Hepatitis B, most likely since he was a young man and this had led to liver cancer. He had surgery to remove the tumors off of his liver and was put on the transplant list. Even though he was in his 50s his physical condition was 100% and he matched for a transplant. The surgery rendered him disabled and he had to close his contracting business. They were living life together, keeping busy. We hadn’t seen each other in many years and I came to his house to visit and liked it here.
When I retired and decided to leave NY it was Northeast Mississippi where I looked to move to. I told the realtor “no fix me uppers” but was with David when I pulled into the driveway of my house, a 1965 never improved since then 4 bedroom, 2 bath ranch on 32 acres with a pond. Pulling in the drive I told David I liked the location. The place was a mess but David looked at it and at the end of inspection said, “we can fix this up nice” and so I put in an offer, went back to NY, and then bought the house.
Back to MS and some happy times as David would drive up in the morning, we would go get breakfast, then work on the house for 4-5 hours. Weakened from his medical issues his mind was sharp and we set about enjoying each others company as we worked, told stories of past adventures, and joked with many of the same jokes we told at 25 when working on projects together. I had all the windows and doors replaced, the laundry room and living room were finished, the dining room was mostly done and 3 bedrooms had been finished. With much work done I headed back to NY to get my last total knee replacement, sell my NY holdings and get back to MS and fixing the house. (Photo’s of renovation at end of the obituary)
Then the Wuhan China Virus hit, my surgery was postponed and life put on hold my expectation to be out of NY in September 2020 was pushed back an entire year to September of 2021. Worse, upon my return to MS my brother came to the house but was unable to work complaining of dizziness which started after his third Pfizer mRNA booster. It took the doctor 3 months to order tests which showed he had had a stroke and was suffering early dementia. His wife, who already had dementia, also had the 3rd Pfizer booster. The dementia in both of them continued to progress. The evil ones who designed the poison, I’m sure, are to deny any causal relationship and responsibility.
In October Karen spirited her mother away under false pretenses and had her placed in a care facility. While the right thing to do she did it the wrong way with no regard for my brother’s privacy or possessions. She took advantage of his dementia and I was going to file elder abuse complaints but David asked me not to out of respect for Joyce, so I deferred. While not needed by me, some of his property was pilfered by “friends and family.” I moved him back across the street and made sure everything was running with him giving me power of attorney to take care of his affairs. He oft stated he was looking to live until he no longer had to care for Joyce and without Joyce he went downhill quickly.
His (mis) treatment by the government system when he couldn’t care for himself even with my help is a story into and of itself. I’ll leave the telling for another time and place. I am angered at government bureaucracy which causes problems in such a way as no one is held accountable. No one can say how many days they have left on this earth, but it is safe to say that the happiness of my brothers last days, and my happy days with him, were stolen from us.
Not to end on a sour note, he lit the candle at both ends his entire life and he rode his body hard as is our “Hays Boys” way. And in the end there were very many more happy days then mediocre and sad, for even on the “oh shit” days of turmoil and things not going like planned, he found humor and laughs in the irony of the stupid shit we do. It was a life well lived and his brothers, Jimmy and Tommy, among others remember him fondly and miss him greatly. The home here a testament to his abilities and a reminder to me of the good times.
Post script: David requested no service as he was a self professed “heathen” and a non believer. He had requested his body go to medical science and I had tried to arrange that but the government FUBAR is in effect and it didn’t happen. He’ll be cremated and his remains will sit on the shelf next to my Black Dog’s remains. My bible says ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and no mention of draining your blood, filling you with toxic chemicals, placing you in a wooden box which is then placed in a cement box so you sit in the ground for 10,000 years not decaying. I’ll be cremated also, thank you, and whoever (person pet, or other) which is on the shelf can be put into a coffee can with me and our ashes spread where ever (choose a nice, non windy day is my advice). I’ll take a prayer myself being a believer, and say one for all the others, heathen or not, it’s the Christian thing to do.