The Unexplained - Tales of the Weird and Strange at 28 Ludwig Rd.

Halloween Craig at the Welch's ca. 2006

      Halloween has always been a well celebrated holiday with the  family.  Perhaps it was because Melanie was born on Oct. 25.  We always enjoyed dressing up and going out for candy.  Even now, we love to decorate with ghosts, witches, fog machines and creepy music for the night of all nights for the scary and weird.
     As kids growing up on Ludwig Rd., we would take our pillow cases from house to house and hope for a windfall when it came to candy.  We never really ever got much, but the point was to be out with the neighbors like the Darling's, the Srodulski's, the Horhorouny's and the Adam's family.  We ran in groups as we went from house to house knocking on doors and holding our bags out.  I believe the last Halloween Craig and I actually went out for was in 1974.  I would have been 17 and Craig would have been 18. It was just before he left for bootcamp in the Navy.  Melanie would have been 9.  I dressed up as a doll, Craig donned his normal bum, complete with torn sweatshirt, pants that had pieces of rags hanging off of them, a knit hat, and lots of brown shoe polish on his face.  We actually got a lot of candy that year for some reason.  By that time there were many more people living up on Ludwig Rd and area, so there were plenty of houses to stop at.

Halloween 1997 at The Welch's

     One costume that I remember Craig doing was one he made out of boxes.  He must have been around 13 at the time.  He took a bunch of boxes, cut holes for his legs, arms, and head, and put them on.  He covered his body with them to become a robot.  He had spray painted the boxes in silver paint, made a hat out of cardboard covered with aluminum foil, and he painted his face and hands with some kind of silver paint.  It was made from Noxzema skin cream that he mixed Testors silver enamel paint into it.  We were very creative when there was very little available to purchase, as there is today.  Now we have face paint.  Back when we were teens, we had to make our own.
     It wasn't always on Halloween that we had some really strange things happen up on the hill.  It was a bit secluded when we moved in around 1958.  We had the street almost entirely to ourselves.  Perhaps some of these things that happened were dreams, or just an overactive imagination, but even today I cannot understand how they happened.  This entry is dedicated to all who appreciate Halloween, and believe there is much more unseen in this world than we ever thought.

                                                    1967 - Visitation   
     To this day, this incident that happened to me still leaves me undecided if it was a dream or real.  It occurred when it was winter.  There was a moon that night.  I always slept with a nightlight because I had such night fears.  On this particular night, I was awakened by a tapping on my window.  My room was its normal configuration, and the night light was burning.  I was drawn to the window by some kind of force.  As I looked out, I saw three figures floating outside.  This window was very high up because it overlooked our sledding hill.  The figures were small beings in a robe of some kind, and they had no hair.  Their eyes were slanted and their mouths were barely visible.  Their skin was very light and glowed in the moonlight.  I found myself opening up the window and letting them float in.
     They seemed to create a table and lights out of thin air.  It just suddenly appeared, and I went to lay on it.  I remember them saying in my mind to not be afraid.  I wasn't, which is very strange.  I would have considered this a nightmare, but I was not scared.  I remember a light in my eyes, then I remember them putting something into my head on the front of my forehead.  It was like a needle, but I did not feel anything but a little pressure.  Then I do not remember anything more until I awoke the next morning.  
     The spot where they placed the needle has an indentation in it even now.  I can always find the spot on my forehead.  It is nearly in the center of my forehead, just below the hairline.  
     

                                           Generational Visitation?

     This incident has significance because I told my mom about the dream after my daughter, Kathleen was born.  My mother told me she remembered a similar incident happening to her up on Ludwig Rd.  She also said her mother told her about a ghostly visit from some entity when they lived near Cedar Mountain in Newington.  Of course, Ludwig Rd is a hill, and is actually almost a foothill to Soapstone Mountain.  So was I actually visited by an alien race?  Well, let me continue one more piece to this story.
     When my daughter was very little, she had many incidents where she would be sleeping but would begin to cry and scream and lash her feet and arms.  One day when she was 3, her father and I happened to be watching a documentary on UFO's.  Kathleen was on the floor playing.  She happened to look up just as a sketch of one representation of an alien flashed on the t.v.  She began screaming and ran down the hall, crying "The Masks, The Masks."  We had never exposed her to anything regarding space or UFO's.  I had never told her my story.  She just recognized them.  She was very afraid of these "masks."  
      A few years later she told me about her trips at night that she took with a friend from another planet.  He took her to his planet and showed her things.  She was afraid of him, but she couldn't stop the trips.  He would come and take her away, and she would have no other choice but to go.  It was a desert place she would go to, with twilight like lighting.  She always found herself back in bed the next morning.  
     One time, Michael and I were dating, and we took a dirt road called Parker Rd. in Ellington up to Soapstone Mountain.  We were looking for a place to park, frankly, and this was a dirt road and I knew it would end up heading to Soapstone and come out near the McIntires house on Webster Rd.  As Michael and I drove carefully on the road, both of us felt a strange tingling sensation, and it was as if the hair on our heads began to stand on end.  Something was going on.  We looked through the woods to the left, and saw numerous lights deep in the woods.  We thought we heard a strange whirring sound as well.  We were so scared, but couldn't turn around so we kept on going.  Thankfully, the car did not conk out.  We finally got to Webster, zipped down it as fast as we could, then went back to Ludwig Rd.  

Looking west from Soapstone Mountain, Somers, CT.

     The area around Soapstone Mountain has had a few reports of extraterrestrial activity.  So why did my grandmother talk about a visitation,near Cedar Mountain and why did my daughter tell me about her friend, here in Tolland?  Well, it is generally thought that if there really are aliens amongst us, they prefer connecting to a certain family and following them through the generations.  Well, it could be all just dreams, but the more I hear, the more I am convinced we are sharing our space with other beings, and that part of the mystery regarding them has to do with following one particular ancestry line.  Perhaps they are our family ancestors that walk still in an evolved state.  It is a curiosity that just might find actual proof in our lifetime.
    
                    The Mystery of The Horse Oil Painting - ca. 1974

     My father used to buy paint by number sets.  He painted a lovely set of geisha's once, and also painted Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough.  I also wanted to try my hand at paint by numbers, so I bought a set of horse portraits.  I spent many hours trying to get the details just right.  The horse was a ghostly gray/white horse with a gray mane.  It was an oval, or perhaps it was a rectangle but I cut it into an oval.  
     I decided to hang one of the finished paintings on my bedroom wall.  Melanie was around 9 at the time.  I was quite proud of the painting and it hung on my wall for quite awhile.  One day the two of us were either listening to the radio, or playing instruments.  Suddenly, we heard something drop.  I looked at the wall, and where the horse was supposed to be hanging, there was nothing but the tack in the wall that had been holding it.  Melanie and I looked at each other with big eyes.  "Do you see that.?"  Neither of us could believe that the tack was still so securely in the wall.  I figured that perhaps the painting had only been held in the wall by the edge of the tack; that the tack had never actually been through the painting.
     I dived behind the bed to get the painting.  As I held it up in the light of the window, I looked at it and saw that indeed the painting board actually did have a tack hole in it.  You could see the impression of the edge of the tack forming a ring around the hole.  I looked closer, expecting to see a slit in the painting board, figuring that maybe the split had caused the painting to slip.  There was no slit.  There was only a well defined tack hole with a ring around it.  
     I am fairly certain I still have the painting somewhere in the house today because I did hang it up for a while when we first moved into 27 Metcalf Rd in Tolland.  My sister always remembered the time the painting fell out of the wall and left the tack in the wall.  Both of us could never explain how it happened, just that it did.  Whenever Melanie saw the painting she would always say "Do you remember the time that painting fell off the wall?'  We believe it was spirited off the wall by some kind of invisible force, perhaps our alien ancestors that experimented with me in 1967.  

                                                            Ouija - ca. 1973
   
       I ask you, what child is not curious about a Ouija board.  My friend, Kathi Horhorouny, had one.  We used to pull it out at her house and play the game by asking questions and letting the pointer spell out the answer.  It always seemed strange things would happen whenever we did bring out the board.  I was quite surprised that Kathi even had one.  I did not like using the Ouija board because I truly thought it was possessed by spirits, and I was convinced one was going to take me over, just like what happened in the movie "The Exorcist."
     My sister Melanie also feared the Ouija board, too, and my mother never would let us have one.  However, that does not stop others from bringing a board with them  That is just what happened when Melanie had a sleepover birthday party when she turned 8 I think.  She had all her friends sleeping in the basement.  The boys, lead by our brother Craig, dressed up in weird clothes, painted their faces with shoe polish and while the girls were bowed over a Ouija board that one had brought, the boys gathered outside around the large window and began turning flashlights on and off under their chins while they made ugly, scary faces.  The girls were scared out of their minds, and the board was thrown against the wall.  They did not realize it was Craig and his friends, which included Dusty Darling and Bill Srodulski.  Of course they thought it was funny as heck, but the young girls in the basement were not so amused.
     Melanie had been asleep and when all the ruckus started she woke up, screamed at the ugly faces she saw in her half sleep/wake state, and then realized someone had brought a Ouija board and did not want them using it anymore. She also figured out pretty quickly that the people in the window was the neighborhood boys trying to scare the girls. 
     A few nights later, Melanie was sleeping in her bed.  One of the windows in the room was very high and overlooked the backyard.  It was pretty much a second story window.  She was awakened by a noise.  As she looked out the window, she saw ghosts floating outside of it.  She began to scream and called "Mom."  Well, my parents bedroom was next to mine.  I heard Melanie screaming.  You couldn't miss it, it was so loud.  I figured mom would go because she was a very light sleeper, but neither her or dad woke up.  I ran to Melanie's bedroom, and she was petrified as she tried covering her head with the blankets.  I turned on the light, and she was fully awake and when I sat on the bed and uncovered her, she heaved and cried in hysterics.  Finally I got out of her that she had seen ghostly faces in her window.   She swore she had been awake.  She swore that it was not a dream.  It couldn't have been the boys again, because there was no way they could reach the window without a ladder.  There was no ladder leaning up against the house.  She was as sure she saw real ghosts that had been generated from the sudden scare the girls had received while in the act of using the Ouija board, as I was that I had seen real  aliens at my window in 1967.  
     As we grew older and had our own children, Melanie still insisted that she had seen spirits floating outside the window when she was 8 and living at 28 Ludwig Rd.  

                                           

 
       

Life at 28 Ludwig Rd. with my sister - Melanie Sundgren Welch

                                                                                                        Melanie, ca.2005.  Photo by June Mita

     Melanie Lee Sundgren came into this world on October 25, 1965.  I know I was very excited to have a baby coming into the family.  For me, I was around 8, and still was into dolls and trying to be a mommy.  So I did spend a lot of time pampering her, holding her, and telling all my little friends about her.  Of course, the reality is that babies are not dolls.  They cry, they poop, they need baths, and they can't be left in a corner, forgotten for the moment.  The only thing I enjoyed doing after about a month was feeding her a bottle, because that was like feeding a doll.
     Our brother, Craig was 9 and he also liked taking care of little Melanie, at least for a little while.  Then he began to make himself scarce, choosing to be with friends over Melanie.  So it went for most of her childhood.  We being the older brother and sister were always trying to lose her to be free of any responsibility, and she was always trying to tag along with whatever we were doing at the time.
     I don't remember too many funny stories about Melanie's childhood.  I am sure there were plenty of funny things that happened to her, but they aren't something I took much notice of, so I will try to tell a few of the things I remember.  These stories are mostly for Melanie's children, Marc, Amy, Ryan and Sarah.  They may already know them, but for the sake of history, I will repeat them.  Melanie was daddy's little girl when she was small.  She said when he died in 2013 that the worse day for her was when she couldn't crawl up beside him and lay on the couch because she was too big.

                                                 Funny Photos - Long Gone ca. 1967

     My grandfather, Ralph Harlow, had a strange sense of humor.  He smoked these smelly, kind of bumpy dark cigars that were thin.  They may have even been a cigarette.  When Melanie was around 2 1/2, he decided to let her have a taste.  He gave her the cigar, told her to pretend she was sucking a straw, then blow out.  Well, we had a picture of her blowing smoke out of her mouth, holding the cigar in her two hands while it was still in her mouth.  Her cheeks were puffed out and she was surrounded by a fog of smoke.  The picture is long gone, but I remember it because we looked at it so often and laughed.
     I remember another photo of her.  She was around 14 months.  She had on only a sagging diaper with rubber panties.  She had on a red knit stocking hat of Craigs, one of dad's ties wrapped around her neck and practically touching the floor and a pair of dad's slippers on her feet.  Her head was turned away from the camera as she walked past.  We always got a kick out of that one, too.  She always did like to play dress-up using mom's heels or dad's big shoes.  He was a size 11.  She was so tiny, though, that I was surprised she could even move her legs to walk.  That was another photo that didn't survive all our moves.

                                 Surviving on Peanut Butter and Bread ca. 1968

     Melanie was a terribly finicky eater  She hated most foods.  She would drink milk, eat bread, have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and eat cereal, because we always ate cereals like Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch or Count Chocula.  I think she ate pastas as well, like macaroni and cheese, beefaroni and ChefBoyArDee ravioli.  Mom used to buy Tree Tavern frozen pizza and she also got a make
your own pizza called Appian Way.  Melanie would eat those later on but not until she was around 7.   

                                                                    Mel, ca. 1970 Photo by June Mita
     Many suppers, Melanie would drop broccoli or spinach under the table and of course the dog would eat it.   She never really seemed to get in trouble for not eating.  I guess by the time she came along, mom and dad were not as anxious about kids getting enough food.  They had already been through it with Craig and I.  Of course, all that lack of interest in food caused Melanie to be so skinny it made me angry.  Craig and I were solid, big kids.  We ate everything it seemed.  But not Melanie.  She was a light weight through most of her childhood.

                                    Cute Didn't Work This Time ca. 1969
                                                                                                                              Naoma Harlow, ca. 1952
     Melanie was used to getting away with stuff.  One time, though, she did a very wicked thing.  She was perhaps 3, maybe 4, and my mom must have wanted her to do something.  It made Melanie really mad at her, so she took mom's most favorite photo and put a mustache on it and scribbled a little.  Melanie saw how mad mom was and ran under my white iron bed in the furthest corner she could.  Mom went diving under, but couldn't reach her so Melanie just looked at her, put her two index fingers in front of her face and said to mom, while shaking her head, "No,No, No, No."  Mom started laughing so hard and Melanie began to smile and said "Your laughing.  You won't spank me."  So she came out and mom grabbed her and spanked her really good.  From that point on, Melanie realized even if mom and dad laughed or smiled, if she was going to get spanked, she would.
     Years later, Melanie made good her angry pen by bringing the picture to a restorer, who was able to redo the picture to its original beauty.  When mom got it for her birthday around 1992, she cried because it was the best photo she had ever had taken of her.

                                             Industrious Melanie ca. 1971

     Mel was always industrious.  She didn't have any girls her age nearby, so she had to find ways to keep herself busy.  My dad had a roofing business and brought a lot of envelopes, paper, pens and pencils home.  Behind the bookcase was a large area that was supposed to be the stairs to the basement.  Dad had put a floor in when we rented the upstairs to a family named Champ.  He never removed it when we moved back upstairs so he used it for a mini office.

I still have the table.  Here it is, 55 years years later.  Photo by June Mita

     Mom had set up a table for Melanie while she worked on dad's business.  The table was built by my Uncle Walter for Craig and I when we were very little.  It was about 20 inches by 30 inches.  He had it painted with Pennsylvania Dutch designs.  The table became Melanie's "office." She would spend hours organizing papers and envelopes and writing pictures or doodles into a paper pad.  She would carefully fold the papers and put them in envelopes and then put them into a cardboard box that became the 'out' box.
     Mom had extra ledgers and receipt pads as well, which Melanie made out for pretend customers.  We always knew where to look for her when we needed her.  She was usually behind the bookcase.

                                                         Blankie ca. 1966

     Melanie had a blanket she carried around with her for many years.  Mom couldn't ever wash it without Melanie going into hysterics over that blanket.  I  am never certain it ever got washed unless mom did it while Mel was asleep.  That was very difficult because Mel would have her hand so tight on that blanket, if you tried to undo her hand she would wake up.  Yep, she always had her thumb in her mouth and her blanket held up to her cheek.  Dad called her Linus, from the Peanuts comic strip.  She used to pull the fuzz off the blanket too and put it up to her nose, so it was pretty threadbare by the time she went to school.
     Mom had a heck of a time separating Melanie from that blanket when she had to go to school.  There was lots of temper tantrums from Melanie when she couldn't find her blankie.  I don't know when she stopped carrying around the darn thing, but it was pretty soon after she started going to school. 

                                      The Bicycle Incident ca. 1975

     Melanie had a lesson taught to her one day when she was about 10.  She had a nice speed bike that let her get to her friends houses very far away.  One time she went about 2 miles to visit her friend. As industrious as she was with schoolwork and business forms, she was rather careless when it came to taking care of her things.
     She left the bike on the side of the road where her friend lived, and the two went walking somewhere.  For some reason, dad needed to find her so he went to the friends as well.  Melanie was not about anywhere, but he did see the bike parked right on the street, so he took it.  He hid it in one of our sheds, and waited for Mel to stroll home.
     Melanie came home and didn't say a word.  She watched t.v., played with the cats, and dived into a book.  Dad watched her carefully, but Mel never gave any indication anything was wrong.
      Finally near supper he looked aat her and said "So, Mel, are you missing something?"  She looked back and with a complete stone face said no.  He said "Are you sure?"  She shook her head yes, she was sure.  In his way he said "Come here, I want to show you something."  He took her to the shed and said "Open it."  Well, there inside was her bike.
     She was grounded for a week because of the lie and dad said "If I ever see that bike on the side of the road again, you won't get it back."  She took great care of her bike after that. 

                            1973 - Of Weather, Horses, and Chicken Shows
   School Photo ca. 1973                                      

       1973 was a big year for our family.  Lots happened that year.  Right around Craig's 17th birthday in April, Melanie had a terrible accident.  We had a horse named Bucky.  He was more of a pony and had been a barrel racer.  Melanie wanted a horse, so dad got her one.
     Bucky was very good at jumping fences so he would often jump over his yard fence and run down the street to the Ludwig's farm.  They had lots of fields, and Bucky had a taste for fresh grass.  Because he was so nimble and stubborn, he wasn't always the best riding horse.
     It was early April and mom was walking next to Bucky while Melanie tried using rein commands.  Well, I believe a car came down the road and spooked Bucky because of the unsure rider Melanie was.  He reared up a little and Melanie fell off.  She hit her head so bad it started bleeding.
     Mom picked Mel up and carried her home while leading Bucky.  Mel was incoherent all the way home.  Mom was afraid that the fall had smashed Mel's brain somehow.
     I remember dad putting Mel on my bed and making the room dark.  He took a flashlight and flicked it on and off in Mel's eyes.  The pupils were responding to the sudden flashes of light but because she made no sense, he said they had to get Mel to the hospital.
     They had to keep her awake all night.  She had suffered a concussion and was in the hospital for a few days.  I thought she was going to die and cried all night the first night.  She missed Craig's birthday on Apr. 8, but when she came home we had cake for 2 occasions, her coming home and Craig's belated birthday.
     Not two weeks later, we were in York, PA. for the biggest chicken show on the east coast.  Melanie was still feeling the affects of the concussion when mom had a car accident going into the parking lot of the motel.  Thankfully our Chrysler Newport cushioned any force of the blow, and none of us were phased at all by the car that crashed into us.  Follow the link for the whole story on this incident.
     On December 16, we were under one of the worse storms damage wise for Connecticut.  It was a mix of rain, ice and snow.

Glistening ice from the December 17, 1973 ice storm in Connecticut.  This photo was taken from the cemetary off North Eagleville Road at UConn.  Photo submitted by Wayne Norman Shpow listener Dave Doiron of Mansfield.

When we were sent home early from school the bus couldn't get up our double hill on Ludwig Rd.  Melanie was totally wild with worry about our dad because he wasn't coming home.  Finally he showed up around 5:00 in his truck.  He barely made it home.
     We lost power for the first time around 6:30 p.m.  Melanie was in her element.  We could not go anywhere and we all had to stay in the living room where we had a fire going in the fireplace.  Since there was no t.v., no lights and no in and out of the refrigerator, we took to playing board games by candle light.  It was the happiest childhood memory Melanie had.
     With me at 16 and Craig at 17, and Mel only 8, we did not spend any time with her.  She was just a kid.  We were teenagers and were constantly with our friends.  During that storm, though, she had our undivided attention.  That was all she wanted occasionally, just us spending even a few minutes with her, which we hardly ever did.
    The storm knocked our power out but we happened to have a CL&P worker who lived in the neighborhood.  Mr Darling lived on Newell Hill Rd, and restored our neighborhood for about 13 hours.  Then it went out again for about 9 hours and he came back to restore it for all of us.  There were many shivering out the storm for days, but Mr. Darling, who was a darling, made sure we were all okay.

                             Sibling Antics And Jealousies - Barbizon Girl

Family portrait, ca. 1969.  Photo by William C. Sundgren, Jr.

     Our attention toward Melanie as siblings was generally harassment.  She was the baby who got away with everything it seemed and she got to do things that Craig and I never got to do.  Craig was the biggest trail to Melanie.  He used to coax her under a blanket or sleeping bag because she was always cold.  Then he would wrap the blanket around her very tightly and either hold it down or sit on her.  We pig piled on her regularly.
     Melanie always screamed she had to go to the bathroom, so we would let her go.  Well, it was her way of getting away.  Once, though, she had cried wolf too many times so Craig wouldn't let her go, and she really did pee inside the blanket.  Craig stopped harassing her at that point, but we probably did long term damage to not only her pride, but her bladder. 
     Melanie was a girl scout, just like I was.  She
collected many more badges than I ever did.  She was rewarded by my mom and dad by being able to attend girl scout camp every year for 2 weeks.  I never got to go, and I used to get so mad that she could have all that fun while I had to sweat through humid, hot days with no relief from lakes like she had.  Of course, when I finally discovered what they actually did, between bugs, wild animals and hiking, I was glad that I didn't have to go after all.

Barbizon Girl, ca. 1979  Photo by Richard Sundgren

     Another point of contention between sisters was when she got to attend Barbizon School of Modeling.  I think it was around 1979-80.  I was married by then but there was still a bit of a sting when I found out once again she got something I never did.  She learned things about posture, walking, and hair care.  Of course, the biggie was learning how to use and apply make-up, something I never learned very well.  Dad was so pleased at this beautiful daughter of his that he shot a ton of photos and showed them to all his cronies from roofing and at cafes and taverns.
     I am not certain Melanie ever appreciated that kind of attention. She had no aspirations to be a model.  It may have been our mom's way of getting her out of her introverted shell to socialize more and have fun.  Melanie had always been more academic and serious, unlike her very flighty, rebellious , artistically bent older sister.  
     I was terribly jealous of all the perks Melanie got growing up, but she was always envious of my abilities with poetry, music composition, sewing, drawing, photography and painting.  She was also sad because she didn't have any sibling close in age like Craig and I.  We were 14 months apart and could always use the other for a playmate when our friends were away.  

                                                    Auction Block ca. 1978

Very Last Christmas, 1977 at 28 Ludwig Rd.  Photo by Naoma Sundgren

     Melanie did endure many more upheavals than Craig and I.  The worse was when the town of Ellington came by in October of 1977 and nailed a sign on our big ash tree next to the road at 28 Ludwig Rd.  I had just gotten married in June, and I went to visit one November day and there was an auction sign.  Dad hadn't been able to pay the property taxes so the town seized the house and told the rest of the family they had only until March of 1978 to either pay the taxes or move all their things out.
     Melanie was 12 at the time.  I sat with her for many hours between November and March as she cried about losing the only home she had ever known.  Nothing could be done.  Michael and I couldn't pay the large tax bill, which was over $10,000.  Neither could we bid on the house.  We had no money to help.  I think the selling bid was around $28,000 for an oversize ranch with two complete houses (upstairs and downstairs), 4.5 acres, and a corral and several outbuildings that had housed our large chicken population. 
     They moved to Hoffman Rd., down in the valley in Ellington and rented half of a duplex.  It wasn't a bad place really.  Mel quickly got used to it and even liked it more than Ludwig Rd.
     Then she had to live through the mounting arguments between our parents until they finally split up.  Mom worked hard to pay the rent and they stayed there until around 1984.  

                                                      School Days

Melanie in EHS marching band, ca. 1983.  Photo by June Mita

      Mel seemed to be interested in music.  She didn't really sing, but she did begin taking banjo lessons at around 12.  She wanted to learn to play the theme from the movie Deliverance.  I played the guitar and within a few months we were playing the duet.  She learned the song much better than I did.  She would start going really fast and I would give up because I couldn't keep up with her.  She also learned to play the clarinet and played with the Ellington High School marching band for most of her 4 years there.
     One memory that I have was when Mel was in 1st or 2nd. grade at Crystal Lake School.  I was very sentimental at 15.  The class was doing a Christmas concert and the class sang "It's A Small World" so sweetly it made me cry.  Melanie had this other worldly look on her face, one of rapture and uplift as she sang.  Normally I hate that song, but when she sang it with her class, for that one moment I wished they could continue singing forever.
     In her adult life she also learned to play the piano only because she wanted to be able to play the piece from A Charlie Brown Christmas.  She learned it.  Whatever she set her mind to to learn, she did.
     If Melanie got into any funny scrapes, I don't know any.  She was always very controlled and stayed out of trouble.  She was brainy and was 4th in her graduating high school class of 1984.  She won a Pell grant for her grades as well as a few scholarships.  She went into the ROTC Air Force at UConn to study engineering.  Because of her accident with Bucky, the Air Force wouldn't let her stay in the program.  A traumatic brain injury or concussions are considered placing the pilot and plane at risk, so after a year she had to leave the program.  She studied Economics instead.