melanie sue

I'm just an amateur.  Lol

https://youtu.be/aCnYjkmcbyI?si=GRHcA1SHU7h7ZDuh

https://youtu.be/jyVquffG4VQ?si=MDQWaNVs5MFIAwRy

Embarrassing as it is-when I finished writing yesterday's entry and hit post......instead, it went POOF!

Obviously somehow I goofed.

Maybe it wasn't meant to post. Just some warm up practice. I have not written in a diary or a journal since my high school and college days.

When I first joined Poetbay, I attempted one that began with my days after college while living at The Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was a true fish story. At the time, in the late 70's, I lived with my boyfriend almost across the street from Kitty Hawk Pier and Restaurant Grill. He worked in construction and I waited on tables at night and also bartended.  I took care of his Golden Retriever, Kemo. One day while walking Kemo out on the beach, a huge amount of Bluefish had been run up close to shore. Many were disabled from the bites. I had a big cooler of ice....all I had to do was command Kemo to get me the fish. He was a very obedient dog but I think he also loved fetching those disabled fish and he did until we filled up the entire cooler. Later, we had a party on the beach-

volleyball, beer and fried fish and other good edibles.

But I wasn't disciplined enough to commit and stick with it.

I was a failure in my initial effort.

It got deleted.

I shall try again.

Tomorrow.

Today, I enjoyed the sunshine and mildly warm weather of Goldsboro, a place that almost got accidentally nuked in the early 60's.

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*Notice- This is the beginning of writing again. I am very  "rusty" and out of the habit of expressing my thoughts this way. I am starting over here, creating this diary, another way of recording my existence besides through poetry.  It is my autobiography. My written entries will likely be very raw.

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Truthfully, I don't know how to begin. 

I think I just need a journal instead.

I was born to parents from the Adirondacks of New York, on Pearl Harbour Day '54, on an airforce base in the middle of the heartland USA.

My mom was 19 and dad was 22, in OCS (Officers Candidate School), Omaha Nebraska. It was a rigorous equivalent of a college education, only in specialized training and education of which only half the entering class successfully graduated. My dad was one of those "Shavetails". The "Colonel", as my close friends always referred to him by, was a navigator and EWO (electronics warfare officer) for SAC (strategic air command) and flew  on crews, 1st the B-52's....and then, later (and briefly due to congress axing the program) the B-58 Hustler.  He married the prettiest girl in Long Lake New York, who had just graduated in 1953, top of her class. Mom worked with dad's sister and mother as telephone operators in Tupper Lake.  A year later, I'm born, then a year later my brother,  then another year later, another brother. Then, almost 8 years pass and in 1962, my youngest brother was born. I never got the promised sister but it did make me temporarily bossy when mom put me in charge of my messy brothers, awkward as it was because we all played "army" or "cowboys and Indians" together until we outgrew that phase of childhood. We played outside alot and I'm naturally drawn to nature. 

By the Grace of God go I.

My resume? 

I was a little girl, in a family of love, innocent and protected, somewhat sheltered. And somehow grew up and grew old. I got an education. I got a husband, 3 children, 6 grandchildren and 3 godchidren (from the mothers' ex relationships). I've lived in many places and traveled all over the USA. I've hostessed, bussed and waited on tables, worked at local and college restaurants and fast food places. I've worked in a daycare in Chapel Hill when domestic crisis reared an ugly head. I have been a stay at home mother until my children started school. I 've worked as a teacher assistant, long and short term sub positions, 20 years as a professional art educator in the public schools, several years teaching art camps and classes in pottery at our local community College. I was recommended and hired to work for Rocky Mount's grant-funded afterschool program called 21st Century. 

Then, there's the music. We play our own but it grew out of hearing others  first in our youth. I'll save those stories for another time.

 I  retired unusually early- in 2012. My mother died. My father had already passed in 2003. I grieved her loss differently and because I could, due to an unexpected inheritance.

My then estanged husband and I had reconciled- ignited at my mother's funeral....

And together, we became HOBOS of a band from New Jersey USA, called 

"Railroad Earth" ( named after the book). 

To be continued....

Yes, those were fun days, reveling in music idolatry.....
But, I outgrew it and hung up my outdoor festival dancing shoes for good in 2016. RRE loved us, invited us to the green room and after show parties, including one for NYE in Asheville NC.
We traveled the land in an RV and did it up VIP.
They stopped loving us, became political activists musicians after Hillary Clinton lost her run for president. Relationships chilled fast.
We stopped supporting them. Covid came and Andy Goessling, their strongest and most talented musician that friended and hung out with us in our rv--- died.

People die.

Nothing stays the same.

I no longer enjoy this band as I once did, live or otherwise. Without Andy, they're just not quite the same.