This is not so much related to real estate as it is to how I make a living now, and the loss of Davy Jones to me, personally. I wanted to share, and this seemed like as good a place as any....
I've always been crazy about Davy and the Monkees...from 10 years old, through all the Beatles years, the 80's Disco, and even now. Their music was always a part of my life. Davy was a the most beautiful man alive, who only existed in my dreams and on tv. Millions of other girls in the 60's felt the same way.
I grew up in High Point, North Carolina in the early 60's...a world away from any Hollywood people. We didn't meet celebrities ever. In those days, you were lucky if your parents took you to a theater. It's not all that small of a town now, but still not a place you'd particularly want to live. I spent my childhood wandering in the woods, catching tadpoles, reading, and watching tv at night. At 10 years old, I was a kid out of the Waltons. And one night the television brought the Monkees to me.
I wasn't yet old enough to be listening to the radio like a teenager. But I daresay, in 1966, pre-teens across the country suddenly went music crazy. I was as in love with these boys as any woman ever loved a man. Davy Jones put hormones into me that I didn't have a clue what to do with. But he became my first love, and it never ended. I grew up, went into a delayed "Beatles" stage in my mid-teens, got out of high school, married, divorced, married again, went through my 20's...always with Monkees songs by my side. I went from albums to 8-tracks to cassettes and eventually to cds. But they were always my main musical focus. When Daydream Believer is playing, all is right in the world, and nothing bad will ever happen. (How I wish that were still true...)
In 1987, a miracle occurred and the Monkees actually came to Chapel Hill North Carolina. I went to see them, sat miles from the stage with binoculars, and cried the entire time they were on stage. I'm not sure why...out of happiness that they really existed, perhaps, and out of sadness that Davy was still a world away from me and not just a man that I could meet and marry. But seeing them just cemented my love for the music and for Davy once again.
I packed up my cat and a few belongings and moved to Myrtle Beach, SC in 1991, when I was 35. Lots of reasons, but mostly because I felt drawn here and only content when I was here. I've never looked back, and made a great life 200 miles away from everything I'd ever known.
The Monkees reunion in 1997 came along, and like everything else, fate stepped in and allowed me to win free tickets on the radio. I was working in a retail store (pawn shop yet!) making $8 an hour and barely paying my bills. I could never have bought tickets without borrowing the money. As it was, they were nosebleed seats and I finally got up, walked down steps and up aisles, and ended up about 3 ft from the stage. I took photos and felt like it was all a miracle... looking at this "god" from a few feet a way and breathing the same air as he. That was NOTHING compared to what the future would hold.
I came back to work on cloud nine, and the store manager had just gotten the internet on his computer. None of us had ever seen the cyber world before. He's in there whooping about porno sites and I asked him to "SEARCH" (note that) for Monkees. They were all over the internet, Davy had a somewhat "official" (at the time) website, and I met Cindy Bryant, the PFG fanclub, and was REALLY excited. This was the day of guestbooks and forums, and bless her heart, Cindy answered my questions and tolerated my nutty excitement. She became as close of a friend as any real-life friends I've ever had.
Davy and Jon Provost (Timmy & Lassie)
Of course I couldn't afford a computer. Even the cheapest ones back then were $1000 or more. That night I go home and see a commercial about Web TV, which was about $200. Working in a pawn shop, I asked my manager the next day to PLEASE buy a webtv if anyone came in with one for sale. He's never heard of such a thing and doubts that anyone else in town has either. Maybe 2 hours later, some guy walks in with one. It was brand new, still in the box with all the packaging intact. (Can you see the miracle?) He even tells the manager he bought it on a whim and has no idea why and just wants to get some of his money back. I got it for $50, (paid the store $10 a week) took it home, and got ONLINE!
I wanted my user name to be LoveDavy, but it was taken. So I chose LuvDavy. (Ten years later I still use that moniker) I emailed the Lovedavy person to see which Davy she was in love with ...LOL ... and met a girl named Denise. She actually had a Davy website! In the next few weeks she taught me how to make one. Of course, I wanted to tell the universe how much I loved Davy. I created the Davy Jones Worship Site, which for several years was almost as well known as his own site. In fact, when they debuted his site, the web designer sent me an email late late one Sunday night with a note about it and a link to it.
As for doing mine at the time, I can't even begin to tell you how difficult it was to do anything like that using a Webtv. There were no downloads...techie people built programs online that would transfer files from one place to the other and taught people how to use them. I still have it up now 15 years later, still on a website hosting site called "Tripod". I hate to move it or take it down.
When the miracle occurred the following year in 1999 and I met him, my whole life changed. He was doing an autograph thing in High Point! Wild isn't it? I don't think he's ever done another one since. It was for a Women's Club function. I actually drove back to nowhere (from somewhere) to see him.
Not only did I get to meet him, to speak to him, to sing along with him, but somehow I got the nerve up to ask for a kiss and got one. I came very very close to fainting, but if I had died then and there, I would have been happy to go. Nothing in this world has ever made my heart sing like that magical day of meeting Davy Jones for the first time. Honestly, I came close to overload. It's more like a dream than reality.
Since then, I've met him about 12 times, and even spent several hours with him at a horse race in Charleston, SC with my friend. There are many of us who traveled all over the US to meet and see him in concert. Hundreds of us have met online and formed friendships around our love for him. I had actually gotten to the point where I could speak coherently to him with the help of a Valium or two.
The Real Miracle
After months of obsessively learning and doing his website, I did one for my employer, too. They liked it, and it brought them a bit of business. Fate took over yet again, Ebay came along, and I started dabbling with that. I ended up setting the pawn shop up on Ebay and having my own office with nothing much to do except surf the net.
Eventually I got into search engine forums and loved the challenge of trying to out-think Google. I got good at it, and was approached by a real estate agent...then more...and eventually it got to the point that I could work from home and make a good living doing websites and search engine optimization. I never go to an office anymore...utter heaven. I have enough money now to travel about anywhere I want to go...to drive a car I want to drive, to live in a condo at the beach, and hopefully never have to work hard again.
I live the American Dream...and it's all thanks to a beautiful little Manchester lad named Davy Jones. How do you repay someone for a life change like this? I still keep his website around, keep up with my fellow Monkees fans on Facebook, and thank him every day of my life. He might still have been a daydream, but Davy made a daydream believer out of me...:-)
And now he's gone. My heart, and my world is a darker, more empty place. I've cried more tears than I have done losing family members. We all came together once again on Facebook and in emails to comfort and console each other, and to remember the good times. When he left, he took so many 10 year old girls' hearts with him. He will never know how many lives he changed.
This is my legacy from Davy Jones. Forever, Davy...forever.
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