Midnight

"Midnight"
Let's face it divorce just plain makes you crazy. No matter how well adjusted you may be at some point things just unravel. And you wind up like one of those rings from back in the 70's that were made up of 30 different rings. I had told my wife that if she was unfaithful again I'd leave and never come back.Now I usually bloom where I am planted. My student load went from 4 to 30 a week in short order. I construction form Monday to Thursday and played gigs as well as taught on weekends. I had tried working for a printer buddy of mine but frankly I had no talent there. The club scene at the time in Fairbanks was still pretty wide open. This was before DJ's Hip Hop and Kareoke. Live bands ruled and I loved it. It was not uncommon to play from 10:00 to 4:30 6 nights a week. Plus in some cases work part time or like me teach. I made nearly as much teaching as I did playing live. Frankly I was having a blast! I was supporting a woman who utterly refused to work,3 children an apartment and two cars all on less than 20 hours a week and My guitar playing was keeping food the table and heat in the house. The plus was I could tuck my sweet children to be everynight. Two years into being back in Alaska I had given up writing songs. For one the wife would freak if I did thinking off I'll go chasing that dream(I never did in the 1st place) and leave her to fend for her self(something I would never do) And After LA anything in Fairbanks was a bit anti-climatic. But In a conversation with a producer buddy of mine he asked if I had written anything recently. It had been so long I didn't even know if I could anymore. So I sat down to write. In two weeks I wrote 12 songs. At one point I was writing 4 at once. of the 12 I recorded 5 and still have them as a cassette demo. Even though my relationship with the wife was less than fullfilling I loved being a Dad. I loved coming home from work,having pizza nights,building lego cities with Jeremy. Coloring with Jessica. Tickling Emily, I loved fixing breakfast on sundays then going to church. It so totally fullfilled me. I was happy.
All during this time the wife was presurring me to get a job in Prudo Bay(the oil fields) I think she just didn't want to see me succeed in the music biz in general. The season in Prudo ran from January to May just the opposet of the season in town. This was something I didn't know. OK the money was good but 6 weeks later I was back in town. Unemployed.To take the Prudo gig I had to dump all my music stuff, things I had worked years to develope. The house gig,the lessons. 6 weeks later I'm scratching my unemployed ass wondering what to do.
I managed to come up with something but we had to move. A house divided will not stand nor prosper.I took a production gig with a singer/songwriter friend of named Lisa(I would never produce again, not my gift)during the course of recording tracks Lisa says"Steve have you ever considered doing relief work for the Mental Health program I work for?I said "No" although my years as a CNA were some of my happiest work wize. She says"You have the perfect personality for it"....I'm thinking "ya I grew up in a nutty family, I'm married to a lune,and I work in the crazy music biz" crazy and me get along fine. I lwent down the next day filled out an employment app got certified for CPR/1st Aid and they hired me on the spot. This actually turned out to be the perfect scene for me. The clients were certifable but I could handle them fine. I was free to gig on weekends and pick up 2-4 shifts a week. It would eventually become a "real" career out side music. And I grew to truly care for those poor souls. Because I didn't have(nor did I want one) a degree it would take a few years before I had the hours it would take to get on fulltime but in time I would
A word here about the church and I. We were waiting for this apartment to open up for us so the wife got us a one bedroom place owned by a couple at church. I had no intention in staying there for any real lenthgn of time. But we were waiting. The couple had two daughters and lived downstairs from us. They fought all the time. She seemed to yell at that poor guy constantly. I could tell from the get go that she didn't care much for me either. I'd be sitting on the porch in the morning drinkng coffee and smoking and all she ever did was give me dirty looks...real Christian. Well the apartment we were waiting on was taking a little longer than we thought to get ready. So I asked the guy for a few more weeks(I had plenty of money to pay the guy) well his wife wanted to convert our apartment to an extra bedroom for her kids. He comes back 5 minutes later and says we got 5 days to get out. He basically was making us homeless(by now the wife was going to hair cuttting school and it was one of her friends that let us stay there) they stayed in the cabin I slept in the van. My best friend Jessie helped us pack and move. It was a rainy windy day and these "good" Christians sent us into beating down weather and homelessness. Jessie was bitting his bottom lip to keep from giving them a piece of his mind. I told him to keep quiet and let God deal with these two...I was gonna take what ever pride and dignity I left and go. It would be the last time I would ever go to that (or any) church again for almost 15 years. Sad I know a stronger believer may have found a better church but I had had 25 years of this and this was the final straw. It was here that things at home finally blew apart. My soon to be ex used to call all her affairs "Friends" well she found another "friend" only this time I was gonna make good on what I had said years before. I offered her to go to counceling with me(I had found a really really good therapist) she said no....so I took what clothes I could stash,my music gear and walked. I left her with everything. Including a brand new car I had bought her and the kids. That was how she got away with so much she new I loved my children and she used them against me to get she wanted. I won't go into more gory details here except I probably had the closet to a mental breakdown as I had ever had. it was touch and go for awhile there. I even went on anti-depents for a time. Luckily I had a good therapist. He made a tremdous impact on my life. What made all this even harder was the fact my ex looked just like a good little church girl. She looked like one of them,untill she decided to go cruize the bars...when we were together it was like living with Doctor Jekel or Mr Hyde. Things got worse and worse. It would be 18 months before I could drag her to court for our day before the judge.The odd thing was she wept uncontroably during the process. to the point that she had to get up and step out in the hall way several times..I just thought. did you not think it would come to this? It would take me over a decade to pay off all the debt she left me with and I would have to deal with her continually trying to remain a part of my life. The word of God that he had sent me that snowy day in Anchorage was coming to pass. God was making the crooked ways strait. I got hired fulltime at Mental Health so now I could pay child support,I had a second job I worked to pay off my arrears(I was able to pay those off in less than 2 years) but still it would be years before I paid everything off, she never paid a single dime. Yet she would invite herself to dine with my family at any chance she got.
The final chapter of rewriting my life took place in 2001. I came to work one day and there was this new employee named Calisha. She was a big woman of color. She had just had weight-loss surgury. I had determined one way or another I was going to over come this problem. After getting to know her and asking lots of questions and spending hours on the net I decided to do it. I got a second job to cover all the insurance I had a gastric by pass operation..I went from 315 lbs tom 155 lbs...my change complete.
One sunny day I walked into Music Mart and standing behind the counter was this beuitful intellgent woman. Allison. I remember walking away that day thinking "what a pleasent delightful" woman. This is someone I would like to get to know better. At that time in my life I was really comfortable being alone. Maybe that, has been our succsess 2 and half years later we were married. I finally married my best friend,my soul mate, a woman in whose wisdom I can totally trust. It has been an honor to marry into her family. They are the quenticential southern family. All highly educated,very proper southern folk and
good Christians as well. Like I said I think God has been trying to make me into a southern gentalman and I couldn't have a better teacher than her.

In 1999 I formed "The Steve Olsen Band". My divorce had given me a lot of songs to record. With my old buddy Bob as my producer we recorded "Alone Again" there were plenty of cd's out there about good weman being mistreated and cheated on by bad men. But there weren't to many about good men being cheated on by bad weman. When I started writing I was going for total truth. I would pull no punches and color coat nothing when It was done the best compliment I got was from a friend who like me had been married to a real cheat. He exact words were these"Steve I feel like you looked deep into my heart and said all the things I couldn't say" my ex wouldn't let me speak.....so I MADE A CD AND HAD MY SAY AT 110 DB!

I have a good buddy who owns "The Greyhound Lounge" to build his biz he decided to start doing concerts. Just so happened that I was doing the cd and It was all my own stuff so for 2 years we were the house opening act for all the bands he brought up we opened for GREAT WHITE, FOG HAT,BLUE OYSTER CULT,PAT TRAVERS,JIMMI VAN ZANT(SKYNARD TRIBUTE)EDDIE MONEY, AND QUIET RIOT