My name is Abby Martin and I’m an integration and support manager at USPS headquarters in Washington, DC.
When I’m not at my job, I alternate between playing the fiddle and ice hockey.
Before I started fiddling, I learned the violin. I started classically training at age 7. I also played in my school orchestra.
I became interested in fiddling when I was in high school. I made a deal with my violin teacher at the time that if I mastered my classical pieces, she would teach me a fiddle tune at the end of every lesson.
Currently, I play in a local folk trio. I met my bandmates through hockey. They have also been teammates of mine for almost 15 years now.
I did not grow up playing hockey but decided as an adult that I could learn. I joined an all-female team called the Washington Wolves.
It turned out two of my teammates had lost a member of their band who sang and played the violin. They encouraged me to join them.
We perform in local gigs a handful of times a year such as porch fests in neighborhoods in Washington and in Takoma Park, MD. We also perform at farmers market events and get together about once a week to practice.
I also perform solo. I helped warm up the crowd at the recent stamp dedication ceremony honoring the 250th anniversary of the Postal Service. I performed two numbers, “Old Joe Clark” and “Devil’s Dream,” for hundreds of attendees outside the front of postal headquarters on L’Enfant Plaza. I also performed at a recent talent show held during the National Postal Forum in Nashville along with my colleague Mike Porter.
Both the fiddle and playing hockey have taught me lessons that I have applied to my Postal Service career. Things take practice and work — we’ll get there in the end. I know we can persevere, but don’t let a challenge derail you if it doesn’t work the first time.
I always feel so lucky that I get to do things like fiddling and playing hockey. My Postal Service position grants me the flexibility I need to do them.
“Off the Clock,” a column on Postal Service employees and their after-hours pursuits, appears regularly in Link.
