My wifes life in front of the camera
 

When Helena was growing up I don't think she ever contemplated getting married. For some reason we never talked about this. Not that it was a taboo subject it just never came up. Anyway she did not learn to cook. Her mom loved to cook and since Helena never asked to learn never thought to teach her. I, as well, never intended to get married but I love to eat. So I started watching my mom cook dinner every night. It gave us a chance to talk about school and the like. And it gave me a chance to learn all about cooking and baking. Mom was a strictly American cuisine cook. She made spaghetti but it was an american style sauce. So I learned basic meatloaf, roast beef, fried chicken, all the staples. I would often make supper for mom and dad after mom returned to the workforce after I turned 18. So I had lots of practice. After we got engaged Helena and her mom started a crash course in cooking. Helena's mom was German so Helena learned to cook lots of traditional German dishes and american variations on many other german foods. Meanwhile on the floor below ours in our apartment building in Naples was a very nice Italian family. The mom spoke English and loved to practice so we would spend a lot of our off time with her and the rest of the family in their appartment. Dora (I know strange name for an Italian woman) was a very good Italian cook. And over the space of the nine months we rented the apartment I learned a great deal about Italian cooking. So by the time we were settled into a house of our own we had cooking down pat. Our first kitchen was tiny, barely room for the two of us, and no room to turn around in. Yet we worked out a system where we both could cook together. Helena's mom didn't do much baking. Her family didn't go in for deserts at all. My family could have lived on deserts. So I ended up as the baker. Helena learned from me and eventually became a very good baker also. Every year we made Christmas cookies to send to relatives and distribute among our neighbors. Each year we made six differnt types of cookies and all together probably made 20 dozen or more each year. Helena would get them started during the day, and then when I got home from work we would both bake until bedtime. When she became too ill to cook anymore it was really great to be able to take over for her and make her good food daily. The only thing we had to give up making was the cookies at the holidays. I just didn't have the time anymore to do that and take care of her too. She hated when we had to give up the baking and she was planning to try to bake again next year. The major difference in the way the two of us cooked was that I was planning to live alone (no marriage remember) after the navy, not planning to live with mom and dad. That meant that whatever mess I made I would have to clear up myself. So from my first cooking experiences I cleaned up as I went along. So when the meal was finished I had the cooking pans to do but not all the bowls and so forth that I used in prep. Helena figured that whatever she cooked mom would help clean up so she let it all pile up till the end of cooking. So by looking at our kitchen at mealtime guests could figure out which one of us had cooked the majority of the meal. Oh but the cookies. How she managed to do this I do not know but virtually every time she baked cookies she would somehow end up with flour everywhere. Once, and please believe this is not a joke, she got flour on the ceiling. I don't know how she did it, she didn't know how it happened. That became another family joke. I would come home and smell the freshly baked cookies and ask her who came over and baked for her. She would indignantly ask why I thought it was someone else and not her, and I would answer that I knew she didn't do it since there was no flour on the ceiling. Then she would smack me, I would kiss her and life would continue. Todays first picture is another clothed before the nude photo shoots in 1975. The second shot is Helena having lunch on the trail. We would usually just have crackers and peanut butter and a juice drink. Then a small can of pudding for dessert. This was in the early 80's. Number 3 is from California in the late 70's resting by a fountain, do not know where. The fourth on shows Helena on her least favorite feature of hiking the log bridges. Her balance was not the best even on flat ground and balancing on the two logs was always a trick for her. The next shot is from the late 70's and is Helena and the resident dog at the motel were staying at in Estes Park Colorado. The last shot is, I think, from Silver Dollar City in Missouri. This would have been in the mid 70's.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

Just a short note for today. Two months ago today we were getting very near the end and I'm finding it hard to write much. To write I need to remember and remembering, today especially, is getting to me. Anyway. Just a few facts about Helena and then on to the photos. Helena loved collecting things. She didn't try to create complete collections but rather collected things she liked. I told her the word eclectic and she fell in love with it. She always worried that the way she decorated our house was messy. There was a bit of everything on the walls and in her curio cabinets. But then she learned the word and from then on would tell people that our home decor showed our eclectic tastes. She collected stuffed animals. She collected hand painted Russian Laquer boxes. She collected Netsuke, Japanese decorative carvings made of ivory (only legal forms) or wood, or bone. She collected Pewter figurines. Usually she liked anything tiny and intricately carved or painted. She loved coffee (I hate it). Though she like so much cream and sugar that I used to tell people to give her a cup of hot cream and add a tiny splash of coffee. She loved pastries, as long as chocolate was involved in their making. She loved beautiful exotic flowers, despite both of our inabilities to grow any ourselves. We both had the original "black" thumbs. We could kill plastic plants. She didn't like birds much. She got attacked by some birds at our house when she took our new kitten outside. The birds dove on her trying to kill the cat. She loved cats. She learned to love dogs after I came along. She loved the sun and hated it when it was cloudy. (I hate sun and love the clouds). She learned to love Roller Coasters, again thanks to me. As I mentioned in another post she hated snakes. She handpainted porcelain figurines. Her work was very precise and beautiful. She had a good sense of color and fabric. She did not like to drive. She had a drivers license and I bought her a car for her 40th birthday but she never really liked to drive. She was a good driver and on our trips I let her do a lot of the interstate driving. She didn't like driving in towns or cities. She loved to swim. Pools, lakes, ponds it didn't matter to her. I bought us masks and swimfins and she really learned to love skindiving. She wasn't a drinker but would occasionally have a sweet drink, like a Grasshopper, or some other kind of frozen drink. She didn't like wine but an occasional drink of Asti Spumanti would go down good. She loved to snack on chips and dips. She tried knitting and quilting but it was never a passion with her. She like to visit museums. She could appreciate many different types of art. She was a member of the "I don't know what is good but know what I like" school of art appreciation. She like a lot of the old masters and many impressionists. For some reason she loved Grandma Moses work. She loved hiking, as many of the photos I have posted show. She liked roller skating and ice skating. She loved sledding. She loved helping me with home improvement projects. She loved being married. Enough. Today pictures start with Helena striking a "captain morgan" pose on a Colorado mountain trail in the mid 80's. The second photo is a resting shot again from a mountain trail (wearing that beautiful blue outfit). The third shot is Helena at Knotts Berry Farm in California in the late 70's. (The temptation is to say "making an ass of herself" but I won't). The next three pictures were all taken in the late 70's also. The first shows Helena at the Farmers Market in LA. Examining all the fresh fruits. The next is also the Farmers Market but at a more favored type of stall for her, the sweets. Note the pleased expression. The last shot is from Sea World and is Helena enjoying one of our favorite pursuits, eating.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

I spent most of today reviewing and cleaning the remaining pictures of Helena that I have. A lot of those pictures are mostly landscape pictures with a small image of her to give scale to what we were seeing. I have eliminated a lot of those as far as posting goes. I'm afraid they would not mean much to most of you who are exploring this thread. Also I am getting low on stories that I can tell that would be of interest to you. There is still a possiblity of finding more interesting photos of Helena (including possibly nude or semi nude photos) but I will not be able to look for them for a while. Anyway there are about 7 days of photos left and then I will be taking a long (hopefully not permanent) break from posting. Before I talk about todays pictures just a couple of words on beauty. When I speak of beauty I am talking about that quality that inspires you to gasp out loud when you see a photo or video of some person. Each of us has our own idea of what is truly beautiful. My idea of beauty may or may not track with your idea of beauty. As far as I see it there are three types of "beautiful" people. There are those that are beautiful in still pictures but lose that quality when you see them move and talk in person or on video. There are those that are beautiful in person or on video but lost that beauty when their image is frozen into a still picture. Then there are those who keep their beauty no matter whether still or in motion. In my opinion, in my "eye of the beholder", Helena fit into the third catagory. I found her as beautiful in still photo form as I did in person. I regret that I have no video of her. Her one appearance on local television occured before we had video taping equipment at home. The only moving pictures I have of her are two short (1-3 seconds each) snips of her in a 8mm film I made (both nude scenes). I have lost that film and hopefully have not thrown it away. I will be looking. Selecting pictures for posting here over the last two months has brought all the beauty I had known back to the front of my brain. It has been a great joy and also achingly sad. I had grown used to seeing her through her illness and it has been wonderful seeing her youth again with "older wiser" eyes. So lets look at some more pictures. I have selected and then rejected our first photo many times over the last two months. It doesn't show her face and is a pretty small image of her but for some reason I keep coming back to it. Anyway it is a kind of butt shot. Here she is walking into the Crater Of Diamonds park in Arkansas. The next is a resting shot from the early 80's in Colorado. Note the Denver hat she is wearing. It is one of the things of hers that I have not removed from our bedroom. I have left it hanging just where she left it after the last vacation we had. Number three is another rest from the late 70's this time also from Colorado. I really wish that could have been a nude. But even clothed I love it. Number four is the shot just after Helena drinking from the "goat skin canteen". I posted a picture of her drinking before and this is just after. The face she is making is due to the fact that the plastic liner of the bag gave a very nasty taste to the water. The next picture is Helena in Monument Valley in Arizona. Most people hire a native American guide to drive them down in a four wheeler but I told we could make it in our car. Well we did but it was the hardest drive I have ever had. We had to balance on two ridges with two foot ruts between them. We had to balance on those ridges over a winding road from the valley floor to the top while being passed by the four wheelers. Man I caught hell for doing that. Never again. The last shot is a contented Helena in a hotel room after a good day in California, also in the late 70's.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

As I have mentioned before we went to two Worlds Fairs. One was in New Orleans and one in Vancouver BC. The fairs themselves were what you might call typical. Pavilions from many countries and states. Lots of cultural items. In New Orleans we did get to see the space shuttle Enterprise. That was pretty neat. In an earlier post there is a picture of Helena with the Enterprise. While we were there in New Orleans though the top thing for Helena was a visit to the Cafe Du Monde to get some beignets (square fried dough covered in powdered sugar). The beignets are served hot and even though I don't like coffee it was worth the stop. I wasn't sure if I would get Helena to leave the cafe or not. As I remember we skipped lunch that day since we were still filled up with beignets. We also visited some of the classic sights in the city (cemetaries, French Quarter). In addition we stopped several places on the way down and back to see things. It was our first long driving vacation and we had a great time. For the fair in Vancouver we flew. Jets on the way up. On the return trip from Vancouver to Seattle we flew a small turboprop airplane (seated 8) that made stops at several fishing camps on the way down. It was Helena's first flight in a small aircraft (and with a young woman pilot, no less) and she really loved that. We didn't have time to see much of Vancouver itself but had a really good time at the fair. The night before we first visited the fair we saw an interview on TV with the head of the fair. He catching a lot of flac because the fair wasn't making the kind of money people thought it should. During the interview he mentioned that the one thing that really bothered him was how the people were leaving trash everywhere and not cleaning up after themselves. So the next day we were having lunch in this dining area when I looked up and saw him coming down the aisle. I heard Helena say under her breath "trash". She quickly put all our lunch garbage in a pile in front of her. I called out how much we were enjoying the fair. He stopped seeing the trash ready for us to dispose of. He asked us where we were from and then asked what we had planned for the evening. When we said just the fair and the fireworks he asked if we would like tickets to the nights show. (Full disclosure the show was Liberace. We were not fans but more than willing to see a free show.) He gave us the tickets and went on his way. That night we showed up at the venue for the show. We showed our tickets to an usher and she led us down to the front center and seated us in a VIP box seat. It was pretty cool that night but we didn't have to worry the box was heated. It was fun watching people trying to guess just who the hell we were and why we deserved that sort of treatment. We never expected such great seats as a freebie. Helena maintained that it was her clearing up of the trash that cinched it for us. I couldn't argue that. After the show we rode on some of the rides. They had a parachute jump ride and we got there just before it closed. The ride lifted you up in a seat and then dropped you from the top with a fake parachute letting you float back down. We had been married for over 10 years by this time but still knew how to use the darkness and solitude of an amusement park ride. We made out. You got lifted twice for your ticket. We finished the two lifts and were still in a lip lock when we hit the bottom the second time. There was no one else waiting to ride so the operator grinned at us and sent us up again. We got two more rides before it was time to leave. My lips were a little sore by the time we started for the place we were staying. One other funny thing happened that Helena used to talk about. I have an ear for dialects. If I am around someone for a day or so I start to speak using their accent and manner of speech. (When I was in italy I toured around Europe and was talking to a man in Switzerland one day and he told me that he knew I was from Naples because of my accent.) So we were at a bus stop waiting for the bus back to the house we rented and three 20 something people from Vancouver sat down. They were going on about how they hated the Americans that were flooding into "their" town for the fair. They were disturbingly against Americans. The turned and asked us if we didn't agree. Helena didn't say a word but I adopted their point of view (hey at 3 to 1 against I wasn't going to start a fight). They talked to us for about 5 minutes before our bus came. We were back in the house before Helena told me that I sounded just like the three of them. Without thinking about it I copied their speech patterns and accents. They never caught on that we were from America. So that was the "fair" story. Here are todays pictures. The first picture is Helena at rest on the way to Blue Lake her favorite hike in the Rocky Mountains. The hike starts a 10,000 feet so before long you are above the tree line and into the tundra. The next picture is Helena ready for the weather. As I mentioned in an earlier post sometimes we encountered snow. She didn't let that stop her though. She never let anything stop her. The third picture is Helena raking leaves outside of our first house. Number four shows how Helena would do her best to try to improve the parks we visited. Here she is propping up a rock that was trying to fall on the trail. The next picture is similar to one already posted of Helena feeding a duck. Though she didn't like birds much this duck was so nice that she relented and spent some time feeding him. The last shot is Helena going up the front steps at her parents house. This was in 1975, we had been married less than a year when this was taken. She is wearing one of my favorite of her outfits.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

I was reading a correspondence from a friend last night and something he said triggered something in me. He was talking about how the sight of a picture would trigger memories. That got me thinking of how my memory works. I was in the computer field and I always relate my brain to a computer. I store and retrieve memories just like a computer does. Sometimes I seem to have the memories locked away and need a password to access them. That is the picture, or sound, or smell, whatever that my friend mentioned. That password will then unlock memories that have been locked away, and those memories will unlock more until my brain is almost overloaded. That has happened a lot lately while searching all the pictures of Helena. Things I had long forgotten have come back. As an example. I had forgotten the days that she was taking some medicine and it caused her to gain a huge amount of weight. I found one of the few pictures I have of her from that time and it brought it all back. She was ashamed of the way she looked even though it wasn't her letting herself go and gaining the weight, but the side effect of the medication. I have posted that as the first picture for today, it was in 1985 taken in California. This is a picture that she would NOT have wanted me to post. However I have also posted the proof that it was only the medication that caused the bloating. The second picture shows her less than a year later after she stopped the medication and the "bloat" went away. This was at the Worlds Fair in Vancouver in 1986. (she still thought she looked fat). From then on she was very concious of her weight and would try to make sure she posed in such a way to appear thin in any picture. The most potent memory passwords for me though are the photos taken by Helena's father. I had thought her Graduation Picture had been taken by a professional photographer, based on the pose. However yesterday I found a bunch of old pictures of her and realized that her dad had taken all the graduation pictures. The third picture is from the set he took for her graduation. That was in 1970. She was 19 (due to her illness when she was a girl she lost a year and graduated late). After we met in 1973 she had her dad take a large number of pictures (for me). She only sent me a few and some of the others I have never seen. The fourth photo is one of those. The first time I saw this picture was yesterday. I fell in love with her all over again. She was 22 when this was taken. I had also forgotten how many "clothed" photos I had taken of her during her nude posing sessions. The fifth is another of those pictures, from 1975. I don't remember taking the last picture at all. It was probably in 76 or 77. She was dressed to go out somewhere. Helena never wore much makeup. I don't remember her ever wearing as much lipstick as she has on in this picture. Seeing so many unseen or unremembered pictures in one day did overload my brain. I think I will need to be careful not to find too many "passwords" for a few days. I will have to be careful of the music I listen to in case I accidently play one of her favorites. One of the first things I did when I started to clean the house was to dispose of her leftover perfume. I think the smell of that might just be too much to bear. Yesterday I turned to her chair to ask her a question. Felt like a damn fool. I'm finding the trick to the whole cleaning thing is to leave enough of her in the house so it is still her house, but not so much that I get overwhelmed when I enter a room. Its a delicate balance. I know that this will change some as time passes but she will never completely be gone. She meant too much to me for that to ever happen. This has been a kind of a rambling post, sorry about that. Tomorrow I will try to be back with some more concrete memories to share with you.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

One of the places we visited was Sea World in California. This was in the mid 1970's before it gained the bad reputation it has today. Helena loved seeing the dolphins and the killer whales. She loved the penguins and almost everything else there. The only thing she really hated were all the seagulls that were flying around. At many of the exhibits they had vending machines that dispensed cups of sardines (raw) or other small fish (dead). You could feed many of the different animals by hand. One exhibit was some smaller walrus. She had been feeding them for a while and then decided to see if she could make them sit up by holding the fish up out of their reach. She did that and was very surprised when a one legged seagull swooped down and took the fish right out of her fingers. She wanted to scream out loud, but of course we were in public so she didn't. But that pretty much ended the animal feeding for the day. We went to a tank with a couple of dolphins. They would come up to the edge of the tank and you could reach out and pet them. They did some tricks too like standing on their tails and scooting backwards across the tank. The would attract quite a crowd. Little did we know they were planning a trick of their own. Helena was in the front row right next to the tank wall. They did their tricks and then swam right up to the edge of the tank. One dipped its nose into the water and splashed water all over the front row, Helena included. Now I have a big problem. I need to laugh, big time. Come on it was funny. Unfortunately Helena did not see the humor in the situation. I was being expected to show great compassion for her. I handled it pretty well, I thought. When we go her somewhat dried off she turned, looked at me, and said "well go ahead. Laugh. You know you want to". Guess I didn't handle it as well as I thought. Sea World was not the only place we had problems with birds either. When we would hike in the Rocky Mountains and stop for lunch we would be assulted by mountain Jays. They are very agressive birds, fairly large, and not afraid of humans at all. We would be eating crackers and peanutbutter and I would hold a piece of cracker over my head and let a jay fly down and take out of my fingers on the wing. I would also put a piece of cracker on top of my head and let the Jay swoop down and take it off my head on the fly. She hated every minute when I did that. She was afraid I was going to get bit or scratched. Never happened. I would also lay back and put a cracker on my chest and let the chipmunks come up and sit on me stomach and eat. Helena was somewhat afraid of any wild animals we encountered. (though most of them were pretty used to humans). The only really "wild animal" encounter she had was close to where we live. We were hiking around a lake just outside of town. At the far end of the trail where it bordered on a big stand of trees we saw a "teenage" deer. I don't know if it had been someones pet or not but when we stopped to watch, it walked over to us and let us both pet it. When we walked off it didn't follow us but it was a pretty neat thing to see. We came close to what could have been a bad encounter once in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We were in Custer State Park where they had suffered a bad prairie fire the year before. We hiked over to see the damage and were on the other side of a large hill, on the trail, out of sight of anyone when we heard something coming down the trail after us. When we looked back behind us we were really shocked to see a full grown bull Bison walking down the trail. Bison are not friendly animals and you are not supposed to get near them. Nobody mentioned them getting near us. I told Helena to move uphill off the trail about 10 meters and squat down. We both sat unmoving as the very large mammal moved past us. I would guess it was about 2 meters tall and probably 650 kilos or more. It was scary but basically he ignored us though he kept his eye on us as he passed. That same trip to Custer SP we ran into a herd of wild Donkeys. In fact they got between me and the car and settled down for lunch. I had to walk through the herd to get back to the car. Helena was worried for me but all they did was grab at my coat looking for goodies, apparently they get fed a lot of junk food by visitors. We also got to see a herd of wild Elk in Colorado once but were able to do that while eating breakfast in our motel room. They had come down out of the mountains and invaded the parking lot. By the time we were ready to leave for the day they had gone. We had lots of run ins with wild animals on our vacations but thankfully none of them ever turned out really bad. So for our pictures today. First off another "eating lunch on the trail" shot from Colorado probably in the early 80's. Note Helena is once more eating a pudding cup. In the next picture she is standing under a large variety of cactus in San Diego's Balboa Park. This was on the "skinny dip" trip. The third shot is Helena in her parents kitchen with the lamb cake she and her mom made for Easter. This was in 1974. Next another of her father's pictures. This one with her in a fluffy robe (I doubt she is nude under the robe, but if you want to imagine that go ahead, I am). The next picture is Helena at our friends time share condo in Arkansas. This was in the 80's. She had just finished telling me to put the camera away and stop taking pictures. That might explain her expression. The last picture for today is another with the hat. From 1975.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

During that three week period between our first meeting and my proposal Helena and I talked constantly (OK between the times when our lips had better things to do). One of the things she told me was how she had always wanted a cute nickname when she was little. The fathers of the other girls at school called their kids Princess, or Sweetie. Helena's dad (and he meant this as affectionate, he just wasn't very good at it) called her "barn smell". He never knew but it really hurt her. I asked her what name she wanted to be called and she said I would have to decide. Well I couldn't decide on just one. So to me if she wasn't Helena (or Helen) then she was Princess, or Kitten, or Pumpkin. I think I finally made up for all the years of "barn smell". In a very early post I mentioned that for Christmas one year, at her request, I bought Helena a toolbox and set of tools. Here's why. When we bought our first house, like most newlyweds, we didn't have a lot of money. Unlike a lot of newlyweds though we didn't want to buy an expensive house. We got what is called either a "starter" home, or a "handymans dream" or a "fixer upper". All of those terms mean there is a lot of crap that needs to be done. I have limited skills with tools. My best quality as a handyman is that my repairs hold. They are sturdy, but they are definately not pretty. I repaired a sink drain once and couldn't keep it from leaking. I ended up with a ball of Plumbers Putty the size of a softball around the joint. It didn't leak anymore because I think the water evaporated before it could penetrate the thickness of putty. Like I said sturdy but not pretty. Helena figured that for a lot of things she could do better than me. Plus she wouldn't have to wait until I got home to get something fixed. So she asked for the tools. She became very good at home repairs. She would tackle any and everything except the electrical stuff. She would not replace a switch or outlet. That was OK though since my area of expertise happened to be electrical. We were a good match. I very seldom had to do any repair work in the house, or outside of it either. She handled both. Very occasionally I would come home and the tools would be laying out on the table. I knew then that one of three things was going to happen. Either I would show her how to do the repair she was having trouble with, I would make the repair myself, or we would look up the number of a plumber,carpenter to do the work. When I would show her how to fix something she would never forget and could do the same kind of repair next time herself, and much better than I could. Before too long some of the other people in the neighborhood were asking her to come over to fix things for them. She loved that. The best part of that first house was that it was in such bad shape that anything we did to it, no matter how inept the job, was better than what was there originally. She loved every part of repair work except the plumbing. She could do it great she just didn't like doing it. When we moved into our new home the only stipulation she made of me was that I was not to EVER try to repair the plumbing. I was allowed to shut the water off at the main if there was a leak but I always had to call a plumber to fix things. I made the concession gladly. It was funny sometimes to pick up the shopping list and see mixed in with the butter, milk, and bread the entry for a 1/4 inch open ended crescent wrench. My Princess/Kitten/Pumpkin was a hell of a repair man. Today's pictures start with Helena somewhere in LA in the late 70's. The next shot is one taken by Helena's dad in 1974. The next shot is Helena at Disneyland in 1976. Another shot of the Easter Lamb. She did the decorating herself and seems pretty proud of it. It was her first attempt at anything like that. The next shot is in downtown LA in the late 70's. The last picture is another from her dad. He was trying a "fashion" shot and I don't think Helena looks particularly comfortable with the pose. (Still looks pretty to me though)

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

Helena loved to visit zoos. We tried to see the zoo in any city we visited. We saw the LA the San Diego the Little Rock, and the Henry Doorly zoo (in Omaha NE). She didn't have any special animals, she loved seeing them all. She did find some she really attached herself to though. In Omaha they have a walk thru rain forest. There are two levels an upper level looking down on the animals and a main walk thru at ground level. Of course all the animals are behind descrete screens or across moats so that you don't have access to them. While we were on the main level walk she stopped, with her mouth wide open. When I looked where she was pointing I saw a Golden Lion Tamarin clinging to a tree trunk just off the main trail, not behind glass or screen. (By the way the trees are made of wire mesh and concrete and painted to resemble trees. You can't tell the difference) Tamarin's are small primates. The Golden Lion Tamarin is aptly named. It has a mane around its neck and looks like a small male lion. She didn't try to pet it or anything just admired it. When we got to the end of the trail we found a docent and told her about seeing the tamerin. She told us that they couldn't keep him in his enclosure. No matter how they secured the door (short of a padlock) he would figure out how to open the door. She asked us if he had bothered us or rushed us. We told her no and she said as far as she knew he never had bothered any guests. Helena talked about that many times after that and always when the subject of zoo's came up she brought out that story. In the different zoo's we visited she was able to get close to many animals, apes, Orangutan's, lions, tigers, and Giraffe's. Again in Omaha she got to feed a Giraffe. They were in an outside enclosure and would come up to the fence and stick their heads over. She got a handful of grass and held it out and the Giraffe took it from her hand. I found out later that when she was a girl the family visited a zoo in Chicago and she got to pet a Giraffe's tongue. It was a lot of fun just watching her interact with the animals. She looked like a little girl, her eyes wide open and bright, and a huge grin on her face. She never refused a trip to the zoo. In her last month alive we were planning things to do and the one thing she mentioned was that she wanted to go to the zoo again. Of course, she never made it. I'm not sure if I could go to a zoo anymore. I'm afraid all I would see would be her and not the animals. I must have some pictures of her somewhere with the animals but I haven't found them yet. I do have a picture of her and the giraffe when she was a kid and am posting that as my first picture of today. She would have been about 8 when that picture was taken. The second picture is yet another Helena resting on the trail picture. Probably from the early 80's. The next picture shows another clothed shot from one of her nude photo sessions. This would have been in 1975. Next another of the pictures taken by Helena's dad in 1970 from her graduation shoot. A word about those pictures. I have been unable to find the negatives for those shots. The scans are from very small 2 X 3 inch prints. He used very heavy paper and they are badly curled and creased. I took out the curl with heavy weights on top during the scanning but can not do much with the creases. The next picture is another of his shots of her from late 1973. If you look close you can see her engagement ring. I didn't have time to buy one before I returned to Naples so I bought one there. It is a 1/2 carat diamond solitare in a twisted european setting. I bought it on the Nato Base in Naples. When we went in to get it sized it drew quite a bit of attention from the jeweler. She told him where I bought it. He pulled me aside and asked what I had payed for it. When I told him, all he would say was that I should get it insured for 5 times that amount. The last picture is another one taken before we went out (sometime in 1975 or 6).

She is quite the cutie, you are very lucky to have spent time with her. Really like your tribute

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

Helena loved to shop for clothes. She had what I considered very good taste as far as knowing what she would look good in. Though she never trusted her own feelings on that subject. She always wanted to have someone along to help her decide what to buy, if anything. She and her mom would go out almost every Saturday and go shopping. She very seldom bought anything but it was a nice outing for she and her mom after we got married. I didn't mind since it gave me an afternoon to be by myself. Unfortunately her mom died at a very young age in 1979. Helena asked me if I would be willing to come along on the shopping trips and take her mom's place as advisor. I only had two conditions. The first was that we weren't going shopping every Saturday. We had to do other things too (like the Zoo for instance). The second condition was that I was going to be brutal in my opinions. Her mom would say that a lot of things looked good on Helena and then sit patiently by as she tried the same things on over and over, switching back and forth until she finally decided what, if anything, she wanted to buy. I didn't think I could stand that (unending love or not). We put it to the test quite early. Not long after her mom died she wanted to go shopping. I think she missed her mom very much and wanted to try to relive something. I reminded her of my second condition and she assured me that it would be OK with her. So she is in the changing room with a bunch of clothes and I am waiting outside with a sales woman. Now the role of the saleswoman is to say that everything looks good on a person, the more expensive the better it looks. Helena comes out in an outfit that really didn't suit her at all. She asked how she looked. The saleswoman said it looked good on her and I told her it made her look like an overfed hippo. Helena goes back in to change and I notice the saleswoman is staring daggers at me. I told her, "hey I just saved us two hours of agony". Helena came out a few more times and finally I told her that the outfit looked really good on her. That outfit became one of her favorites. She told me later that my appraising style took a bit of getting used to but she liked it, and liked my taste. I got so that I could buy clothes for her on my own (blouses and such like, I never bought pants or things that really needed trying on) and we never had to take any of them back. Helena liked mostly casual clothes. Jeans, T-shirts, things like that. At home she wore mostly jogging suits. But when she got dressed up to go out somewhere she did make herself look extrememly nice. As I mentioned in an earlier post she didn't wear much makeup but just enough to accent what she had and make up for what she thought she didn't. I was always proud to be seen with her whenever, and where ever. For myself I don't care how I look. Striped pants and polka dot shirts would be fine with me. Helena always worried how I would look and picked out the clothes she wanted me to wear. Don't get me wrong I know what goes together, and what looks best on me, I just don't care. I think some of our friends were a little disappointed in me at her funeral when they saw how I dressed her. I put her in jeans and her all time favorite T shirt. She wouldn't have looked good in her good clothes anymore anyway. She had lost so much weight and the clothes themselves were so out of style. I hope and I think I know she would have approved of my choices. I have a matching T shirt that I am putting away so I will have it to wear when my time comes. That way we can go together. (Even though some friends were disappointed many more of them thought the jeans and shirt more than appropriate and laughed when they saw them). Our first picture today shows the problem with candid photography. It shows Helena at the trial garden again shot from a distance without her knowing. Wouldn't you know she closed her eyes just as I shot the picture. In todays digital world I would just have shot again but when you had to wait for the film to be developed the time had long passed. Anyway I love the top and wanted to see another shot of it. The second picture is Helena at Disneyland in the late 70's. The third picture is from her dad taken in 1974. I like most of his shots and hope I find the negatives soon, since the prints don't really do her justice. The fourth photo is Helena resting in Colorado in the early 80's. I like watching her hair style change over the vacations. She really only had two styles. One was long and one was short. She fixed her hair in many different ways depending on how it fell that day. The fifth picture is also from her dad in 1974. The last shot is similiar to ones posted before. From California.

My wifes live in front of the camera
 

Helena dreaded her 40th birthday. Not, as you might expect because it meant she was getting older, but rather all the attention that might be shown. In our neighborhood and with our circle of friends, there was a good possibility of some kind of special attention being directed at her. She really didn't want that to happen. She asked if we could take a late vacation over her birthday week. I agreed and we planned a trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota. We drove her new car (an early birthday present) and I filled the car with other gifts (a new SLR camera, binoculars, some jewelry) and her favorite desert (Tiramisu) and two bottles of Asti Spumanti on ice. We had a great week, seeing and doing a lot of things. We had a second encounter with Bison, this time a whole herd. We were standing on the edge of a 3 meter dropoff on the left side of the road watching a herd of bison moving toward us. To our surprise the herd split in two with one half moving up the road where we were parked and the other entering the ditch right behind us. The only thing between us and the bison to our rear was the edge of the dropoff, and the only thing on the right was her car. The bison were somewhat taller than her car so it was quite exciting. After they passed they turned and ran (RAN) up a very steep hill. It was fascinating to see an animal that large, on its relatively tiny legs run so rapidly up that hill. We turned the car around to see if we could find the herd but they were long gone. We turned around again and saw a bobcat sitting on top of a rock looking at us. We tried to get a picture but the cat disappeared into the brush. The next day we visited Mt Rushmore and saw a large male mountain goat calmly eating grass in the median of the parking lot. We visited Wind Cave. (Full disclosure here, Helena hated caves. When she was a kid she was in a cave and hit her head hard on the rock ceiling.) This cave is very large with good walkways and very beautiful formations. Let me digress for a second and tell you about another cave she visited with me. It was in Missouri, in the Ozarks. We were on this tour (another pretty good cave with only one place she had to duck her head) and the guide pointed to a huge crack IN THE CEILING of the cave. He asked if anyone knew what it was. Given the location of the cave I guessed that it was the New Madrid fault, that caused a huge earthquake in Missouri and Illinois in the 1800's. I was right. Pretty scary to be underground standing on the fault line where scientists say a new quake could very well happen at any time. OK back to the birthday trip. We hit some tourist trap gift shops. Helena liked to look around but she never bought anything there. She prefered to find her own souveniers. On the way up to the black hills we stopped in the badlands in Nebraska (much smaller than the Badlands in South Dakota) and I showed her the fossilized remains of early mammels. Though you are not allowed to remove any fossils from the area one accidently ended up in Helena's pocket. It joined the many I had accidently picked up when I was a kid. Finally we returned home. We had left the day before her birthday and this was almost a week later and she thought she was safe. When we pulled in I heard her say "oh crap". A "friend" of ours had driven two metal fence posts into our front yard and hung an giant sign proclaiming that Helena was 40. I couldn't stop laughing. I told her that if we hadn't gone on the trip she could have taken the sign down soon after it was put up. Instead everyone had a full week to enjoy the fact that she was 40. She did not see the humor in the situation at all. Though she had no proof (our friend left no trace) she really read the riot act to our friend the next time we saw him. He of course denied any involvement. I took a picture of the sign but after our first showing I was instructed to remove it from our slide presentation of our trip. Helena didn't have alergies but was very sensitive to pollen, and dust. In the spring we would open the windows at home to let in the fresh air. Then somewhere in town a flower would bloom and Helena's nose would instantly plug up and we would have to close the windows until the next winter. When she did work outside she wore face masks. In the first picture you see her in her "bio hazard suit" working on raking the leaves in the fall. This was probably in 1995. The next picture shows her in a museum (I think it is in Michigan) around 1983. I had forgotten how stunning I thought she looked in those white pants. The purse is her favorite. I recently put it in a box for disposal. It would have too many memories to keep. The next picture is an earlier shot of Helena. This was taken by her dad when she was 12. Just beginning to develop the look and expression that would steal my heart a decade later. The next picture is Helena and our first cat in our house in the early 90's. He was a fat cat. The painting on the right side of the photo is one of mine the other one was done by her dad. He was far better than I am. The next shot is the last (as far as I remember) of the swimsuit photos from the "skinny dip" trip. This was the last I took and she was ready to strip. If you look good she was very near a nip slip on the left breast and the right one was on its way out too. The last picture is another of Helena at her favorite spectator sport, outdoor eating. And she has her favorite food, Chocolate Ice Cream. I'm not sure where this was taken but from all I see and remember it was in California in the mid to late 70's.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

On one of our trips to California we stopped overnight in Las Vegas. The main reason was that Helena wanted to see the Liberace museum. I must admit that the museum was interesting. It was filled with his costumes, cars, and gifts from fans (including a miniture piano made from Macaroni). We stayed at the Flamingo Hilton. That night we walked the strip stopping at some of the casinos. Helena liked Circus Circus the best though she liked some of the others too. We mostly just looked around that night. I gave her five dollars of my money to put into a slot so that she could say she gambled. She lost it all. That was enough for her. The next morning she went out by herself to shoot pictures and I went down to the casino in the Hilton. I put twenty dollars into a slot and before it was gone hit a jackpot for thirty eight fifty. I cashed out immediately and went out to read in the car. When she came back I told her how I did and when she told the story later to people she bragged that every time we went to Vegas (not telling them it was only once) we came home winners (not telling them how much). Years later as casinos began to open up across the country we went with my parents to one not too far from our home. Dad was a gambler and I guess I inherited that from him. Nickle video machines were big then so that is what she played. That first trip she came home a winner by a small amount. She really loved playing the games, especially some of the "bonus" games. She liked winning too, but did NOT like to lose money. Her way of gambling was to put 20 dollars in and if she won over that amount to cash it out immediately. She expected me to play the same way and it caused a bit of friction when I wouldn't do it her way. We usually played at machines separated from each other (at her request) so she couldn't see how dangerously (her opinion) I gambled. We made a rule that if she sat and watched me play (as she sometimes did when she thought she had lost enough) she was not allowed to comment on how I was gambling. She broke that rule once and it almost caused a fight between us. The bonus round on the machine I was playing (an Evil Kenivel machine) involved making motorcycle jumps. I made the first jump and won ten dollars. I could cash it out or go again depending on which button I pushed. I selected the next jump. Helen was not happy but it was only 10 dollars. I made the jump and was up one hundred and ten dollars. She looked at me and told me that now was when I should cash out. I put my finger on the cash out button and told her all I had to do was press it. She sat back happy and then I moved my finger and pressed the jump button a third time. I thought she was going to kill me right then and there. She began to read me the riot act. Some people at the surrounding machines were starting to take notice, maybe expecting a real fight. All the time she is yelling the bonus game is proceeding. It made her madder that I was ignoring her and watching the machine. You can guess where this is going. I made the jump and then cashed out for three hundred and fify plus dollars. As I expected the fact that I had won made no difference. The "discussion" continued while we waited for the attendant to pay me, while we walked to our car, the entire ride home and right up to when we went to bed. It went on for three more days before she quit talking about it. We went back many times to the casino and others and she never tried to tell me how to gamble again. Like I said she wasn't a good gambler. I guess, looking back, she probably figured she had gambled enough when she married an common seaman in the Navy with no prospects for employment when he got out. You would need to ask her how that gamble worked out, I'm too close to the situation to render an opinion. The first picture for today is one from her dad. This is another of the "graduation" set (you can tell by the short hair). This would have been in 1972. The second picture is Helena astride some kind of animal from a park somewhere probably in the late 70's. At the risk of it sounding dirty Helena just couldn't see anything like that without wanting to climb on top. The third picture is Helena and one of our friends cats in Colorado in the early 90's. They had a lot of cats and dogs and loved to hike like we did. The fourth shot is another of Helena taken by her dad. This was after we met in 1973. Next we have Helena at the beach. She got to see the ocean many times after that first "nude sunbather" experience. I think she might have been expecting to see others but we never did. (I did suggest that we visit a nude beach but that suggestion was rejected). This was taken in the late 70's, and note she is in those white pants I mentioned yesterday. The last one for today is a portrait taken during one the of the nude photo sessions in 1975.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

On the many vacations we took together we went on a large number of hikes and climbed up many mountains. I think if you could ask Helena however she would probably tell you that her favorite climb was to the top of Saint Peters in Rome. At the end of her stay with me in Naples she was going to fly back to Munich to meet her mom and travel with her home. Instead of flying out of Naples we made her reservation from Rome. We did that so we could see Rome together before we had to part. Rome is only about 45 minutes away from Naples by express train so I had been there many times and I wanted her to see some of the city. (Once I wrote home that I was bored one weekend and went to Rome. My dad, who never wrote to me mom always did, sent a letter that had only two lines. He said "I got bored last weekend. I went to K-Mart"). We spent one day visiting the ruins of ancient Rome and the next day at the Vatican. She liked the museum (including the Sistene Chapel) and the inside of Saint Peters. She had dressed in slacks that day since there was and probably still is a kind of "dress code". No shorts or revealing clothes were allowed inside the church. Anyway. After we had seen the inside of the church I suggested to her that we go up to visit the dome. At that time (and maybe still today) you could climb to the top of Saint Peters dome. There is a charge but it was pretty modest. You first take an elevator to the roof of the main church. We walked to the front of the church and stood by one of the huge statues lining the edge, and looked down into the square. The scale of the building has to be seen to be believed. You are unexpectedly high up and everyone below really seem to be the size of ants. We then walked to the base of the dome and inside. At this point you are standing over the main alter area and at the base of the huge dome overhead. This is the whispering gallery. I had Helena stand next to the wall and I walked around to the other side of the dome. I leaned against the wall and whispered "I love you". I saw her jerk her head up and stare at me. The acoustics are amazing. You really can hear a whisper from across that space and even in a crowd, and recognize the voice. Next we began to climb toward the top of the dome. There are really two domes. The one you see from outside and the other inside. The stairway towards the top of the church is between the two domes. The stairway is a metal structure (of fairly recent vintage). You can see many of the details of the construction. Helena didn't have any background in building techniques but still found the experience very interesting. When you reach the top of the stairway the real fun begins. The final climb to the top of the dome is up a set of marble stairs. The stairs themselves are deeply worn in the center from the feet of all the many people who have made the climb over the years. I think that was one of the things that impressed her the most. She really got a sense of time past there. The marble staircase is a winding spiral and very narrow. There is no handrail to grab but only a thick rope hanging down the middle and fastened at the very top of the dome. The rope itself is worn smooth from the years of hands clasping it. Helena loved this part most of all. You really don't have any idea of time when you are at that point of the climb. There is nothing to tell you what year, or even what century it is. At the top you are in the cupola and you can go outside and stand and move around a narrow walkway. You can see down into the Vatican grounds and out over the city. You can see most all of the famous buildings and ruins from that viewpoint. We stayed up there for quite a while. We didn't talk much, she just stood with a beautiful smile on her face and shining eyes. Then we started down the winding marble stairs and retraced our steps back to the ground. It was funny, she never talked much about that climb but any time I would mention it she would get a far away look in her eyes, a smile on her face, and I knew she was back there again in her mind. I can't see a picture of Saint Peters today without returning there in my own mind. It is a very good memory, that makes me a little sad now, but one I wouldn't trade for anything. The first picture today is from Naples in 1974. Helena is in the parking lot of the hotel where we stayed while she visited me. An old hotel but with a bathroom in the room and a shower that was an open area with the shower head, no shower door. It was very large and highly recommended by me for newlyweds. Lots of room to get soapy and play. The next picture is Helena examining an exhibit in another museum, probably in California. This was, I think, in the early 80's. Third today is another butt shot (boy did I catch hell for taking those kinds of pictures, she never believed she had a nice looking rear). This is at Rainbow Bridge national monument. There are two ways to get there. You can take a horse or walk a very long way (it takes a few days walking) or take a boat up Lake Powell. We went by boat. This was on our marathon California trip. We took three weeks to get there and back so we could see many things on the way to and from. This was on our list of places to visit again one day. A list sadly that we never got to use. The fourth picture is another from her dad. Taken in 1973. It is somewhat rare in that she is wearing a long dress. She never did that much. The fifth picture is another of the public baths in Pompeii. She is sitting on the edge of what was one of the pools where hot or cold water was placed. Her companion is a friend from the navy, face obscured for privacy issues. This was in 1974. The last picture is of Helena and her mom being photographed by her dad at the Earl May trial gardens in Iowa, taken in 1976.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

I have been thinking a lot about all the illness and injuries Helena suffered in the years we were married. The first and up to her death the worst came in the mid 90's. We had been in our second house for only a few years when I got a call at work. It was Helena and she told me she felt funny. She sounded strange to me so I started immediately for home. When I got there she was sitting on the edge of the couch leaning back and stiff as a board. She was out and totally non responsive. Our cat was sitting by her side licking her arm and hand, trying to get a reaction. Her mom had told me before we were married about the bleeding in her brain she had when she was just a teen. I knew that there was a chance it would happen again and I think I suspected that this was it. I called 911. At the hospital I met with a neurosurgeon who told me that she had an AVM (Arterial Venous Malformation) basically a tangle of blood vessels that she was born with. It was leaking and she needed immediate surgery. It was our good luck that he was a professor of neurosurgery on a teaching rotation in the hospital. When she came out of surgery she went to Intensive Care. Half her head was bandaged with a drain hose coming out. They had shaved half her head. She was unconcious. She stayed out for almost 6 days. Finally my mom got her to open her eyes and she began to wake up more fully after that. What the bleeding and surgery had done to her brain was unknown. She might not be able to speak, she might not be able to read, she might not even remember who I was. It was very hard waiting for her to wake. She couldn't talk since there was a breathing tube down her throat. Before all this we had been discussing that fact that I did not want to wear contact lenses anymore. She wanted me to continue wearing them and I did not. It was a heated debate. One day I went in to her room and she was fully awake. Up to now I didn't know if she even remembered me or not. I went up to the side of the bed and before I could even get any words out she pointed to my glasses and waggled her finger back and forth. She was continuing the discussion. I was so relieved I almost burst into tears. She remembered me, enough to nag me about the glasses. She couldn't talk so I brought a small pad of paper and pencil with me the next time I went to see her. The doctor and the nurse both were skeptical that she would be able to write at all. I handed her the paper and pencil and she began to scrawl words on the paper then gave it to me. The spelling was bad but I could read the words "you came home". The doctor was sure that her cognition had been affected and was very surprised when he saw me smile. I told him that the note refered to her call to me when she had the bleed and the fact I came home to her. Not only could she write but she remembered what had happened just prior to passing out. She spent a week in the ICU, two weeks in Post Intensive and another two weeks in a regular hospital room. Then she had to go to stay in a rehab facility for a month. The place she was sent for rehab was actually a geriatric facility that had some available beds and were looking to make some more money by doing rehab. Helena was the youngest person there and the person closest to her age was over 30 years older. She had not had her hair washed for two months and was anxious to get that done. She moved in on Monday and they told us that since bath day was Sunday she would have to wait a week before she could get her hair washed. She was really pissed. The next day when I got over to see her I noticed that her hair had been washed. I told her I was glad that they had washed her hair. She just looked at me and grinned. I then realized that she had gone into the bathroom and washed her own hair in the sink. I knew then that she was going to be OK. And she was. While she was in the ICU I wanted to take a picture of her so she could see how banged up she was. Everyone, my mom, the doctor, the nurses, all told me that would be a horrible idea. Soon after she got home from the rehab she casually mentioned that one thing she wished I had done was take a picture of her with all the bandages and tubes so she could see what she looked like. That was my girl. Todays first picture is of Helena outside of Disneyland. Taken in the late 70's this was her third separate trip to Disneyland. The second picture is of her and her mother at a viewing stand at the trial gardens. The third shot is Helena (from behind again, I must have really loved her butt) crossing a field of slick rock. I don't remember exactly where or when this was taken. Note the small pile of rocks just to her left. This is a trail marker. When in this type of terrain you need to leave markers like this. The idea that from each marker you can see the prior and the next marker. I taught Helena this and then she took the lead on the hike. The fourth picture is another one from her dad taken in 1973. The next picture was also taken by her dad in May of 1974. This was taken the day before our wedding. And, yes that is me in the picture. The last shot for today is another "resting on the trail" picture. There are so many of these since it was the only times during the hikes that she was still long enough to get really good pictures. Probably in the early 80's for this picture and in Colorado.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

On our many vacations we visited many different hotels and motels. Some were very nice. The motel in Flagstaff Arizone, Little America was the most over the top motel we ever stayed in. The walls were covered with red velvet flocked wall paper and the room was filled with elaborate wood furniture. The only thing that freaked Helena out about this motel was that in the bathroom was one wall with a floor to ceiling mirror. She loved getting dressed and then being able to see top to bottom how she looked but the down side was that the wall was oposite the shower and the toilet. She told me that sitting on toilet and facing herself in a crystal clear image was more than she could take. She said she had to look at the floor the entire time. I must say I agreed with her. It is very disconcerting watching yourself doing something like that. The Hollywood Holiday Inn was another of the good hotels we stayed in. The rooms were just the basic but the people made up for it. We stayed there three times over 7 years and had the same waiter in the dining room each year. He actually remembered us from year to year. The most amazing to me was our final stay. It had been 5 years since we had been there, yet when we sat down our waiter came over with the drinks we were going to order. He remembered us from five years previous. At various times we saw celebrities there (I even rode up in the elevator with Donna Summer, anyone remember her?) There were some really bad places we stayed also. We stayed in a place in Palm Springs California that looked very nice and was a national chain. We had to move out of our first room due to the smell. Something had died and rotted in or very near the room. It smelled like a dead body. The next room we were in looked ok. There was a noise in the hall and I went over to peek out the door to see what caused the sound. You know how they have those peepholes in the doors. You can look out and see a wide angle view of the hall but no one can see into the room. Well the lens in this door was reversed. You couldn't see into the hall but from the outside you had a perfect view of the entire room inside. Helena wanted to change rooms but I just took a wad of chewing gum and blocked the hole. The worst place we ever stayed was a place called Ruby's Inn just outside of Bryce Canyon national park. At the time we were there it was the only place to stay within 30 miles of the park. And boy did they take advantage of it. We were on the second floor and you went up the stairs and along a outside walkway. The walkway creaked and groaned and actually sloped sharply toward the parking lot. It was on the edge of collapse. Then there was the restaurant. They had a salad bar. You got a small desert plate and were allowed only 1 trip to the salad bar. There was a choice of two salad dressings and you had to pour them out of the bottle. I don't remember the main course but only that it caused Helena severe upset of the stomache and an agonizing trip up the stairs, down the walkway, and into the room before spending a long time in the bathroom. The topper to the whole meal was the "homemade Hot Fudge Sundae". They had small dishes of soft serv ice cream already made in the freezer. The took the plastic wrap off of these and poured a little Hershey's Syrup right from the can over the top. That was it. It wasn't hot, it wasn't fudge, and the only thing home made involved an ice cream machine and a can opener. We were only there one night and both swore that when/if we came back to the park we would stay in the nearest town (30 miles away). The place is gone now (probably collapsed) and there is a Best Western (also called Ruby's Inn) in its place. If Helena were still here I'm sure she would tell you that even as a Best Western she wouldn't be staying at any place called Ruby's again. There are so many stories about so many places. Like the Red Roof Inn we stayed at in Kansas City that had a leaky roof. (Love the Irony). There was the motel in Estes Park Colorado that we stayed at that advertised itself as being out of the way and quiet and serene. The second time we stayed there most of the motel was occupied with college age men and women that were working in Rocky Mountain National Park. The night we arrived they had a huge party, real noisy. In the morning I was putting our camera equipment in the car and met two of the young women. They were very apologetic about the noise and told me that they didn't know anyone else was at the motel. I told them that was OK as long as the next time I got an invite to the party. (That part did not go over well with Helena. I was accused of being a flirt, she always accused me of flirting.) I told Helena that I was only joking and of course I wouldn't go to any party like that. She didn't buy that for a minute. Before we get to the pictures one last story. This also occured in LA at the Hollywood Holiday Inn. For our first trips to LA we flew and then took cabs, and public transport. We checked out and were getting into our cab. The driver asked us if we minded sharing the cab since he had some people that needed to get to the airport as soon as possible. Helena agreed, reluctantly, she like alone in the cabs with me. The driver put her in the front seat and I got in the back. The driver told me it might be a bit crowded and he hoped I wouldn't mind, then gave me a "dirty grin". I saw why. Dallas had been in town for a football game. We were going to be sharing a ride with four of the cheerleaders. Three of them got in the back seat with me (pressed very close). Then the fourth one asked me if I minded if she sat on my lap. I looked up and the only thing I saw were Helena's eyes. They looked black, like in the movies when the demon had possessed someone. I said sure and then began the best and worst ride I ever had in a cab. The best part can probably be understood by each of you. The hardest part (no pun intended) was to keep my face perfectly blank showing no emotion at all. Because I think that Helena spent the entire trip half turned in the seat making sure I behaved. She carried on a conversation with the girls and she told me later that she thought they were very nice. She enjoyed the ride, partially for the conversation, the other part for my discomfort. We got to the airport and checked in. We got on the plane and took off. Somewhere over the Rocky Mountains with no advance warning she turned in her seat and said to me "Well I just bet you are proud of yourself". That was the only mention of the cab ride for weeks. Later on of course it became a part of "family lore". She actually embelished the story more than I ever would have dared to. In her version of the story I was drooling and panting for the entire ride. In her version they were dressed in their cheerleader outfits (not true, damnit, just normal clothes). In her version I got a kiss goodbye from the one that was on my lap. I actually prefered her version to the truth. On to todays truth. The first picture is Helena in front of Manns Chinese Theater. I posted another similar picture but this is actually in the courtyard where the footprints are. This was probably the same trip with the cheerleaders, sometime in the late 70's. The second picture is another from her dad's shots. The third shot shows Helena sitting at trailside getting her camera ready. This was in the late 70's in Colorado. I'm not sure where the fourth shot is taken (possibly Silver Dollar City) but is probably from the mid 80's. The next picture shows Helena examining part of Hollyhock house in LA. This was a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This was in the late 70's. The last picture is the last of the shots of Helena dressed to go out and our Tulips. In the late 70's.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

Before I go on today I forgot yesterday to mention one of the motels we stayed at that Helena really got a kick out of. We were at Lake Powell to see Rainbow Bridge. We had made reservations based on reviews we read in the AAA travel guide book. The motel we selected (a Best Western if I remember correctly) among other amenities boasted a lake view. Now Lake Powell is a huge lake, for those who don't know. And it is surrounded by motels. We got to Page Arizona and turned on the correct road (according to the guide book) to take us to our motel. We drove past at least 20 different motels but did not see ours. We kept driving. (NOTE: be sure to check distances when refering to the guidebook). We soon left the populated area and were driving in a semi desert area. Sand, scrub brush, no trees, just flat FLAT land. We drove for another 5 minutes or so when Helena noticed a building on the horizon surrounded by absolutely nothing else. It was all alone. With a perfect movie reference (she loved movies probably more than any thing else) Helena said "Oh look the Bates Motel". You guessed it, as we got closer we saw the sign that proclaimed this was our motel. To be fair it was an excellent motel, clean, fairly newly built and well maintained. The usual procedure for us was that Helena would stay in the car while I checked in and then we would go to our room. In this case though as soon as I stepped into the office I turned right around and got her to come in with me. The reason was that the office area was filled with cats, 2 dogs and about 15 parakeets flying loose. I know you're thinking 15 loose birds, tons of bird crap. Wrong. The manager kept the place spotlessly clean. Helena was enchanted. While she played with the cats she had two birds on her shoulders. Normally she did not like birds but you just couldn't not like these. We got our room assigned (on the second floor) and went up. Like Ruby's that I mentioned yesterday, the entrance to the room was from a walkway outside of the building. Unlike Ruby's this walkway was stable and sturdy. The only thing was that no matter how hard we looked we couldn't see the lake. There was a range of low hills on the horizon that blocked our view. I let Helena into the room and went back to the office. The manager laughed when I asked about the lake view. She gave me directions. I went back to the room and had Helena follow me. Turns out that if you walked to the very end of the second floor walkway and leaned WAY out over the rail you could just peer between two of the hills in the distance and see a small patch of blue water. So they didn't lie, it did have a lake view. When we were at the motel Helena spent a lot of time in the office playing with all the animals. Moving on for today just a few words about painting. Like I said a long time ago experts say you should never do any painting project with your spouse. Causes nothing but trouble. In our case that was not true. We loved working on things together and probably painting most of all. When we were growing up neither of us got to do any of the actual painting ourselves. We were both delegated to the cleanup and fetch and carry details. So actually getting to do the fun stuff was heaven to us both. Helena was a joy to work with. Anything that needed doing she could do and do well. Whether it was masking the woodwork, mixing the paint, or cleaning up afterward. A couple of todays pictures involve our painting. The only problem with us working on projects together was that there might be occasional interruptions. (A word of advice. Making love on the floor surrounded by open cans of paint and paint filled trays and wet brushes is a logistical nightmare. We never did spill anything but I did end up with a uniquely colored body part. She thought she was so funny.). We painted both inside and outside both our houses. Anything that needed doing she was game to try. In a lot of ways she was braver than I ever will be. OK on to the pictures. The first picture is of Helena and the 40th birthday decorations that she tried to avoid by vacationing. This was in 1991. The next two pictures are of Helena in the midst of painting our second house. The first she is masking the bedroom window and in the second she is standing on a built in desk in the spare bedroom doing the actual painting. Both are from 1990. The fourth is Helena in Arches National Park in the late 80's. Another of the outfits I really like, those "short" striped shorts and the blue top. I always thought she look great in blue. The fifth picture is a proud Helena in her brand new car, just before her 40th birthday in 1991. The last shot is an unusual, for Helena, try at an artsy portrait. I don't know when this was taken, but most probably in the early 90's.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

I was watching a program on HBO last night and the host was talking about he and his wife having their own Five List. He was talking about a list of the five people that your mate would allow you to have sex with. A surprising number of couples have something like this. Of course the lists are only a fantasy. Usually they involve movie stars, sports stars, other famous glamorous people. Helena and I both had our lists, though she refused to admit that having sex was involved at all. She called hers her fabulous five. The people on her list changed frequently. All were movie and TV stars. Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Mark Whalburg all made the list at one time or another. I told her that my list was more like the fabulous five hundred. Mine were also mostly movie and TV stars. She assured me that I could have sex with any of them that asked me secure in the knowledge that the likelyhood of that happening was approaching zero. Periodically she would ask me if a certain person was on the list or still on the list. I would ask her the same. She once surprised me by asking if a girl who was my best friend in High School was on my list. I had talked about her to Helena before because I credited Sara Jo with my asking Helena to marry me. I did not date in high school. Too shy and insecure. Sara was dating a friend of mine and we became friends. When he dumped her because she wouldn't sleep with him we remained friends. I fell for her bad. Her friendship built up my confidence to the point that when I met Helena I was able to take the last steps and ask her out. I told Helena that Sara was not on my list. Helena said she would have loved to meet her and thank her for all she did for me, whether she knew how important that had been or not. I then told Helena that I only had two regrets in my life. The first was that on the last day of school I did not tell Sara that I loved her. The second was that I did not ask her if I could kiss her goodbye. Helena leaned over kissed me and told me she understood completely. And I really believe she did. When I tell the stories about Helena I sometimes I worry that I come off as a bit cruel to her. All the practical jokes I played on her. All the tricks. Well what I never mention is that she gave as good as she got. Her family, as I mentioned, did not joke around so she was not good at it at first. My father, however, was excellent at it. He immediately threw his alligence to Helena and helped her put over some great tricks on me. Once she gave me a box of expensive chocolates. We carefully ate one each at night so they would last. One night I went out to get our chocolates and the box was gone. I found only three chocolates left in a dish in the cupboard. Helena explained that my parents were over visiting that day and she had given them some to take home with them. Finally she couldn't take my moping around anymore and admitted that the rest of the chocolates were hidden in another cupboard. (My father was the creator of the joke, Helena his willing pawn). An ongoing prank I pulled on Helena involved our hiking. The places we hiked usually had a restroom at the trail head and from then on you were on your own. When the call came you picked your place and took care of it in front of the birds and bees. The very first time she needed to go on the trail Helena, very crossly, told me to put my camera away. She didn't want any pictures taken. Well that was a challenge I couldn't pass up. I took a picture. From that point on I would sneak pictures of her peeing in the woods, the rocks, the trees, where ever. She never saw me do it. When the slides were developed I would put them into trays and we would have a slide show. Sooner of later the picture of her peeing would come on the screen and she never failed to squeal and swear at me. We would then invite my parents and her dad over to see the slides. As the show started she would always ask me if I had removed the shot of her from the tray. Every time I would assume a shocked expression and apologize to her saying I forgot. She would then sit there fretting until the show was over. After everyone had left she would confront me and I would have to admit that I had removed the offending picture. I put them in a special place in storage. I found those pictures yesterday. Ah the memories. Today our first picture is one without Helena. I include it because it was the site of an especially Helena moment. Picture one is the Circus Maximus in Rome. I know it doesn't look like much today but if you picture the chariot race from Ben Hur you will get the idea. It was where the chariot races were held in ancient Rome. Nothing would do but we have a footrace. Helena and I ran the length of the track (one way) her laughing all the way, hair flying out. The second picture is Helena at Disneyland. This would have been in the early 80's. The third shot is another from her dad and shows a 17 year old Helena in her school uniform. Due to her medical problems she had trouble in high school. The local public schools were not able to do anything to help so the nuns at a local Catholic High school took her as a student and she graduated from there. This would have been in 1969. The fourth picture is one of my finds from yesterday. That buttcrack between the trees is Helen taking care of business in the mountains of Colorado in the early 80's. The fifth picture is also from yesterday. Helena posing outside in her bikini. This was in 1975. I found this in a box of slides with other shots of her, mostly portraits. It also contained pictures of me that I had forgotten her taking. At the time of the nude posing she felt I needed to pose for her too. Not nude (we should all be thankful for that) but in a very skimpy bathing suit she bought especially for my photo session. A lot of the shots were outdoors but a couple were inside and were copies of some of her nudes with me and my bathing suit. Those pictures will never see the light of day (or the internet). There is about twice as much material in a common wash cloth as there was in the damn suit. I think she really got a kick out of making me pose in that thing. The last shot is from a series of portraits taken in the mid 70's. I had forgotten taking these. Enjoy.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

I know I have mentioned before that Helena was a movie fan. She loved going to the movies. Early in our marriage we went to a movie almost every weekend. There are people who can only watch a movie once and never again. That was not Helena, she could watch movies again and again. Her early movie going experiences were around Shirley Temple. She just loved Shirley. In fact since I began painting and drawing portraits she only requested one from me, and that was Shirley Temple. (I could have shot her, those damn curls took forever). We bought one of the first VHS player/recorders on the market. I bought some of her favorite movies on tape for her so she could see them whenever she wanted. Though she started her love of movies planted firmly in the "kiddie" realm she didn't stay there. One of our first outings after we got married, before I had to return to Italy was to go to a movie. I asked her what movie she wanted to see. She didn't say at first. I couldn't imagine what the hell she wanted to see that was that bad. Turns out she wanted to see The Exorcist. (Hey I grew up on Saturday night Creature Features so that suited me fine) My mom gave me hell when she found out. She felt that was totally inappropriate for my new wife. I never did tell her it was Helena's idea. She grew to love scary movies. She had limits though. She didn't like "wet" movies (her term for overly bloody movies). We went to scary movies, musicals, dramas, comedys. Thankfully she didn't like Romantic Comedy/Drama movies so I was spared having to see that junk. She especially liked the scary ones though. I remember when we went to see the original Halloween. There is a scene where the heroine escapes from the house and Michael Meyers is chasing her. She is trying to get into the house across the street and the kids aren't unlocking the door. The bad guy gets closer and closer. I felt something moving beside me and when I looked I saw Helena had drawn her feet up off the floor and was trying to run herself. Kind of like when a dog dreams he is chasing a animal and his legs move like they are running. She really got into the movies. She also loved comedy movies. She didn't like the sophisticated type of comedy though. Give her a good fart routine and she couldn't stop laughing. As the technology moved ahead so did we. We had a laser disc player (sort of a forerunner to DVD). We bought a DVD player. I made it a tradition that each time she had to spend time in the hospital I would upgrade her TV/Video before she came home. Her TV screens got bigger and bigger. High Definition Blu-ray players came on the scene and we bought in. Each upgrade I would replace her favorite movies with the newer technology. As the years went by her hearing faded a little. She never needed a hearing aid but wanted the sound on the TV played pretty high. So high in fact that we blew her speakers out. I replaced the speakers with new/bigger/stronger ones and promptly blew out the amplifier. So I replaced that. She had a pretty much state of the art system by the time we were finished. She professed to hate "old" movies. What she meant was Black and White movies. For some reason she thought they all sucked. I would occasionally start a black and white movie and ask her to just watch 10 minutes of it. Usually she would stay for the whole movie and love it, but she still would tell people that she hated "old" movies. When she came home for the last time from the nursing home I had been downloading movies for a year or so. For the next 12 months she would name a movie she wanted to see and if we didn't have it (and we had over 1500 titles, both movies and TV shows on disc) we would rent or buy it online. The last two months she was alive she drew into herself a lot and finally settled on only one movie that she watched everyday. (Heaven help me it was a Disney film the old Pollyanna). The single exception was just a week before I had to put her into Hospice. I told her we were going to watch A Million Ways To Die In The West. It is a comedy and there is an extended scene where a gunfight goes wrong when the bad guy has uncontrollable diarrhea. I didn't even know if she was aware of what she was watching or not when I heard her making a strange noise. When I listened more closely I realized that she was laughing at the bad guy. Movies were a big part of her life and something that we shared. I tried to watch one of our favorites last week but couldn't. Not yet. It is still too soon. In our first house we had a lounge type of chair that we both could sit in when we watched TV. That was a fun chair. We could cuddle and smooch during the dull parts of the movie. Our new house didn't have a place for that chair so we had separate chairs. Not as much fun. That "banana chair" as Helena called it was where I learned a valuable lesson. The lesson was that if you tickle a very ticklish woman, and she tells you to stop or she is going to pee, you'd better listen to her. I didn't and got my first and only "golden shower" from my wife. From that day on when ever I would start to tickle her she would just say the words "banana chair" and I would stop immediately. Funny isn't it the places that your mind takes you. I started with movies and ended up wearing a urine soaked jogging suit. So on to todays pictures. Helena's favorite movie star, even more that Shirley Temple, was Marilyn Monroe. This is a picture of her taken outside of the Hollywood Wax Museum with a statue of Marilyn This was in Hollywood in 1977. Next we have two of Helena taken by her dad. The second of today's pictures is from her Graduation Photo shoot. The next shot is Helena in a long dress (very rare) taken in 1974. The fourth shot today was a surprise to me and hopefully will be to you as well. It is another "Helena nude in the bathtub" shot. I don't have the slightest idea which motel this was taken in or when it was taken. Sorry. The fifth picture is Helena resting at 11,000 feet just at the treeline on her way to Blue Lake, her favorite lake in the Rocky Mountains. This was probably in the early 80's. The last picture is another recently discovered portrait. Probably from the mid 70's.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

This may be the most difficult of all my posts to date because it is the most intimate. I have been considering this for long time now and I have decided to briefly talk about Helena and sex. While it is true that the subject isn't one that I ever considered talking about, I realized that I would be doing Helena a disservice by not telling the story and showing the enormous depth of her love for me and what she was willing to do for me. This will not be a tell all (Sorry folks no graphic details). I will end with a fun story about Helena and one of her "kinks". I briefly mentioned once about her being molested by a male relative when she was just a little girl. I spoke of inappropriate touching. Like many people this experience colored the rest of her life. (If he wasn't already dead I would be tempted to look her relative up for some severe, physical "attitude adjustment") She had a vision of what it meant to be a loving wife. Our "undress rehersal" for marriage (mentioned in an earlier post) proved to both of us that we were compatible in bed. Helena was pretty conventional though. She prefered sex in the bedroom, at night, with the lights off. There were exceptions, when emotions overwhelmed her. I mentioned, the other day, that time on the floor when we were painting the bedroom (though I guess technically that qualifies as conventional since we were in the bedroom at the time). One other memorable occasion was at our first house, on the floor in the living room, with the front door open (don't ask). That time her dad showed up and knocked on the screen door to borrow something. He saw nothing and I don't think he even knew we were doing anything. She deeply wanted to be creative and daring but the past kept interferring. We tried oral but I could see she was getting very upset. She told me that this was something he forced her to do to him. Since she didn't want me doing anything for her that she couldn't give in return to me oral was out. Things were fine for a few years until she developed endometriosis. This caused even normal missionary intercourse to be painful. Surgery didn't help. (It was supposed to help but the doctor, in attempting to "tighten up" things overdid it and made pain a permanent part of the act). The poor kid kept trying. She worried a lot about her not being able to keep me satisified. Movies, TV, and friends had left her with an unrealistic sense of the importance of sex in a relationship. She worried that I might become so unhappy that I would leave her, or start an affair. I tried to tell her that an affair was just too damn much work so she didn't need to worry about that. Of course the joke fell flat. We would go to bed (at her urging) and she would try but it was apparent that she was in pain so we would stop. The year we were trying to bake a baby was very hard on us both. (It is very tough to make love to a woman who is crying in pain the entire time.) One day I came home from work and she was sitting on the couch waiting for me. She told me she need to talk to me about something. Her eyes were red and I could tell she had been crying. That wasn't like her and I didn't know what the hell was going on. She told me I couldn't say anything until she was finished. She then told me she thought I was unhappy with her, and she understood. She said she knew she wasn't satisfying my needs in bed and then said, in a soft whisper, that if I wanted to find a prostitute for that it would be OK with her. I started to talk and she told me to shut up. She said that she thought if I found someone, a pro, who could do all those things that she thought I must want and she couldn't provide then maybe I would be satisified enough to stay with her. She started to say "All I want is..." she then started to cry and finished with "just please always come home to me." Talk about feeling like crap. I pulled her to me and we just lay on the couch for a long time, not talking, until she quit crying. I assured her that I had everything I needed or wanted right there in my own home. She wouldn't or couldn't believe that. She said I deserved someone better than her. She went on and on. Finally she ran down and it was my turn. I told her there were lots of things we could do that didn't involve regular sex. I told her that the only important thing was that she enjoyed what we were doing as much as I did. If she wasn't happy and having fun then I couldn't either. We ended up thinking of a whole menu of erotic things we could do that wouldn't hurt her (or me) and would make both of us feel content. For some reason the "twisted sicko" (my name for him) had never used his fingers on her or asked her to manually finish him. So that activity didn't have a bad connotation for her. I reminded her again that sex was supposed to be fun and we should just play. So for us foreplay turned into five, six, seven, or eightplay. We would spend a very very long time building up. Then we would take care of each other. Then, surprising to me, what turned out to be the best part of all, we would spoon and cuddle and talk. I never felt slighted or deprived. To this day the thought that she loved me so much that she would willingly send me to a hooker to get what she couldn't give me chokes me up and makes my eyes burn. I never had the desire to take her up on her offer. She was more than enough woman for me. Now I don't want to leave you with the idea that our sex life was boring. Just because she couldn't and didn't experiment much didn't mean that she couldn't surprise me occasionally. One Saturday afternoon we were in the bedroom, not even undressed yet, and Helena asked if I would do something for her and not think she was weird. I had no idea what was coming. She blushed a deep red and whispered that she wanted me to spank her. With no hesitation I grabbed her and flipped her over my knee and smacked her jean covered butt. She yelled for me to stop. I expected her to appologize and tell me that she had thought she wanted that but guessed she really didn't. And that would have been OK with me. But she surprised me. She turned her head and blushed an even deeper red (I was surprised that blood wasn't seeping through the pores of her skin). In a really soft voice she said that what she really wanted was a bare butt spanking. I complied. Helena didn't want to be hurt just to have it sting a little. It never was a regular part of our playtime but periodically before we would get undressed she would look at me and start blushing and I knew just what she wanted. I would yank her pants and panties down, put her over my knee, and turn her cheeks red. To this day I am surprised that the neighbors never called the police about the abuse, since I'm certain they could hear her screams clearly enough. There were a few other things related to sex that her relative hadn't ruined for her but I'm afraid those will have to remain my secret. Todays pictures start with a shot of Helena at lunch in the Rocky Mountains. Remember I told you she hated to eat there because of the mountain Jays that wanted some of our food. If you look just above her head you will see a Jay sitting on a branch hoping she will leave some food unattended. Probably taken in 1978 or 9. The next picture is from Helena's dad. She had just turned 18 in this picture and has part of her school uniform on. This was in 1969. The third picture is Helena sitting in front of an arch in Arches National Park. Sometime in the early 80's. The next picture is Helena in Disneyland from the late 70's. the fifth picture is another of the "Helena peeing" shots. She is just getting ready here. She never did hear me any of the times I snuck up on her to take these pictures and so they were always a shock for her to see them in the slideshow. I don't know what year this was taken. The last picture is another of the "lost" portrait shots from mid to late 70's.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

I think for most married couples the most memorable times are the "firsts". For example. Our first Chistmas in our first house. Helena loved Christmas. There were three kids in the family when she grew up and her dad wasn't a rich man so many of the gifts were practical and only a few were "useless toys". But she loved decorating the house. We didn't drive at the time and both of us were just proud (and stupid) enough to not want to call our parents for rides. Cabs were out due to the expense (my first year my salary was not very high) so we used public transportation and walked where ever we needed to go. We were in walking distance of grocery, drug, and other stores. That first year we walked together to a nearby mall and bought an artificial tree and ornaments. By the time we got home we were both worn out. After resting for a little while we went out again and back to the mall. We finished buying the ornaments and lights and cards to send (another first as a couple) and trudged home again. We had one more trip to make that day this time by bus to a more expansive mall to start shopping for each other. We never set limits on ourselves as to how much to spend. We took whatever free money we had and split it 50/50. Then we would head for the mall and both go our own ways. We would store our purchases in lockers at the mall and then when it was time to go home would retrieve the gifts and divide up the bags to carry home. The next day it was back to the mall again and more shopping. I can't remember how many days we spent shopping both for ourselves and parents/friends. That first year Helena wanted to set up the tree early. So, setting a precedent for further years, we put the tree and other decorations up just after Thanksgiving. Oh did we have fun. Watching Helena decorate a tree was a pure joy. She would agonize over placement of each ornament and would sometimes change positions a dozen times before she was satisified. She was so happy. It took almost the whole day to get the tree the way she wanted and the rest of the decorating in the living room just perfect. Then we shut off the lights, turned on the tree, and cuddled together on the couch and just admired her handywork. That may well have been the happiest we ever were. I know Helena always used that as the example of a perfect time we had together. Then we would spend the next several weeks wrapping and placing the presents. Both of us would tease the other by only putting one or two gifts a day under the tree. That first year her big gift was a synthetic star sapphire and real diamond ring. It was her favorite of all her jewelry. I probably saw that ring on her finger more that any other. And there were many others. Helena loved jewelry. I always wished I was a rich man so I could have covered her in jewels. As it was I would buy her a new piece of jewelry for every Christmas. Some were genuine stones some were man made. All the diamonds were real. She owned over 50 rings of all kinds. Two months before she died she spent an entire afternoon taking each of the rings out of their boxes, cleaning them, and putting them on. The second Christmas I bought her a stereo. She loved listening to music while she worked. The good news was that we were within a mile of an electronics store. The bad news is that speakers are HEAVY. That is one time I should have taken a cab but didn't. It took four trips. One each for the two speakers and one each for the turntable and amplifier. I hid those in the basement until Christmas eve and then after she was in bed brought it upstairs and assembled it so it was there in the morning. She kept adding traditions to our Christmas until the complete celebration took over a month, start to finish. For Helena the saddest day of the year was the day we had to take down the tree and put all the decorations away. Helena's birthday was another occasion that over the years got more and more elaborate until it became a "birthday week". (Helena wanted to go for Birthday Month but I finally put my foot down). The "week" included special meals, and fun things to do, culminating in the grand present opening. I tried each year to top the year before but that became very hard to do. One of the years that she really loved was the great treasure hunt. I hung balloons all over the living room and gave her a pin. One at a time she had to pop a balloon. Some were filled with confetti so they threw stuff all over the room. Some contained hand written gift certificates good for dinner, or a movie, or something else I knew she would like. Then some had hand written clues as to where she would find one of her presents. It took hours to finish the treasure hunt. In some of the balloons were parts of a map. She had to accumulate all the pieces to find her ultimate present (I tried each Birthday and Christmas to have one "great" gift). The map directed her to the garage where she found two 6 foot tall curio cabinets to display her collections in. She hated that fact that she never could seem to come up with anything like that for my birthdays. I always told her (and meant every word) that each day with her was like my birthday and Christmas rolled into one. That sounds sappy but I meant every word and still do. Just waking up in the morning facing her and seeing her sleep made me happier than any gift ever could. No matter how crappy my day at work I only had to see her smile and it all went away. Like I talked about yesterday she always worried about my happiness being married to her. If she could see me now I think she would finally believe what I told her for all those years. I'm not happy now. Not happy like I used to be. What I wouldn't give to feel her in the bed next to me, to see her sleeping there, to hear her snore again. (Yes Helena, I said snore. She denied it but she could wake the dead with that snore.) It feels more like I am visiting this house how instead of living there. It doesn't seem like mine, because of course it wasn't mine, it was ours. Half of me is gone, never to be replaced. Well lets get to the pictures. First is Helena near a restaurant (I think.) in Michigan (I think) in the early 80's. The second picture is one from Helena's dad in 1974. Third is another shot of Helena in Arches National Park from the late 70's. Number four is Helena and the fall color in Colorado from around 1979/80. Number five looks like Helena is attempting some weird yoga position but is simply trying to take a nice, quiet, unobserved, pee. As usual I was there to document the occasion. The last picture is what maybe the final bikini picture. Though I think there is at least one picture of her in a bikini I made for her, I can't seem to find it. This is from 1975.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

Today I am going to expand on my descriptions of the photos and tell some short Helena stories in connection with each of those. The first one does not include Helena but relates to yesterdays post. It shows one of our Christmas's together. The hangings on the wall were hand made by Helena and I and the three angels on the right side of the picture were ceramic's that were hand painted by Helena. Looking at this picture I can't believe all the gifts we used to buy each other. (Yes those ALL are for just the two of us.) The shot is in the living room of our first house. The window behind the tree is the one that Helena was standing naked in front of in one of her nude photos. You can just see the edge of the diamond shaped mirror (on the left side of the picture) that also figure into some of her nude pictures. The couch that she posed on is against the wall on the right but was positioned under the hanging light for her nudes. The second picture today shows Helena washing her hands in a stream in the mountains. The dog walking along the stream is Houligan. We had some friends that moved to Colorado. Before they moved they ordered a dog from a local breeder. When the puppy was old enough Helena and I decided to pick up the dog and drive him halfway to Colorado. We met our friends at a reststop on the interstate and made the transfer after lunch. Helena hated to see him go. She had held him the entire 200 miles we had to drive while she slept in her lap. She had fallen deeply in love by the time we got to the reststop. Our friends already had one old dog and they brought her along. She got along great while we were having lunch but our friend told us that on the way back to Denver the older dog kept staring at our friends almost like she was saying "Hey they forgot their damn dog. Don't tell me WE have to take him". The two dogs ended up being good friends. Helena loved getting to see him when we would go out to visit and hike. The third picture is of a much younger Helena. It was taken at a local fair in Michigan where she grew up. She had once told me about having cotton candy that was half as big as she was. I, of course, figured she was greatly exagerating the size of the goodie. When her father died we took all the family pictures home with us. While looking at all the pictures I found this one and showed it to her. She looked at me with a very smug expression and said "I told you so". I couldn't argue. While not half as big as her it is awfully close. I have many pictures of her at that fair or others like it. Riding the rides, and eating of course. I even have her first "nude" photos. Taken when she was about 2 standing up in a bath tub. Of course I can't show you those. I have some others that I will post at a future time. It is interesting (to me at any rate) to see the expressions that I saw everyday on such a small, young face. The fourth picture shows Helena in one of our motel rooms (in Colorado) eating breakfast before getting ready for a mountain hike. Though we both loved to eat a good breakfast (a full English breakfast, as they say) we never did if we were planning a long hike. The round tin on the bed is full of brownies. My grandmother, and after she passed away (at 99) my mother would make brownies for us to take on vacation with us. Homemade fudge brownies, with a marshmallow topping and a swirl of chocolate frosting. We ate them at breakfast and for a snack. Helena is drinking her morning coffee. We used to take an imersion heater with us and she would have to have her cup of hot coffee every morning. I hate hot drinks and settled for a cold coke. The thought of that almost made her sick. The somewhat sour expression on her face is her normal "morning" face. Helena was NOT a morning person. (She wasn't an night person either). She functioned best from 10 AM thru 9 PM. Any other time, forget it. I, on the other hand am a night person (I always claim to be part vampire since I don't really come to life until after sundown) but am able to function well in the morning too. From waking up to full speed ahead only takes me about 5 minutes. Helena hated that. The next picture is Helena and our first cat, Scamper, when he was just a kitten. She had wanted a cat for a long time but I wasn't sure. I had two bad experiences with cats (scratching and being bitten in the neck) and really didn't want to take a chance again. Finally though I realized that she really wanted a kitten. We went to a pet shop near us (we were driving by this time). Helena only insisted on two things that the cat be a short hair and a female. The shop had a batch of kittens sharing a open pen. All of them were running around and playing, rough housing each other. All except this one cat that was sitting at the edge of the pen looking up at us. Helena fell in love. Obviously this cat was more interested in people than in the other cats. I pointed out to her that the cat was a long hair. She thought for a minute and decided she could handle that. Then I took a look. I told her that the cat was a male also. (FYI sexing of kittens is VERY hard to do. No genitals are visible yet and you are dependent on judging the spacing between two openings on the cats bottom. I know kind of gross). The owner of the shop, in a very superior sounding voice, informed me that I was wrong and it was a female. There was a lot of back and forth between the two of us. Finally I told Helena that the cat was a male and if she could deal with that then she could have him. If she really didn't want a male then we weren't going to take the cat. The owner of the store freaked out and kept insisting it was female. I told her she was wrong and should just keep quiet while Helena decided. She kept quiet but I think it was more out of shock than anything else. Helena said she thought she could deal with it. So we brought him home. She named him Scamper because of the way he "scampered" around the house. We took him for his first health check. Helena asked the question, "male or female". I had all fingers and toes crossed. The vet looked and without hesitation said "oh obviously a male". I was right. She did all the scratching post training, and other training. (Side note here: I had house broken many dogs and was not looking forward to doing the same with the cat. When I watched as he climbed into the litter box and went by himself I was sold on cats. After that I always refered to it as the cat being "preloaded with software".) He was with us for fourteen years. If this was a pets thread I could write for hours about him but I guess I need to return to Helena. The next picture is Helena relaxing in the front room of our second house. This is kind of a hard picture to look at. I am staring this very minute at the same pillow she is resting her arm on. The glass she is drinking from is in a cupboard in the kitchen. It came from her mom and dad's house. I still use it. Though the picture hanging on the wall is not there anymore it is stored in a closet in a spare bedroom and I see it from time to time. The smile is one that I have seen many times and still is the expression I most see when I dream of her, which is almost every night. One last bonus picture. This was taken by Helena's dad in the summer of 1973 the day after we got engaged. I had come over to ask his permission to marry Helena. He wanted to take our picture and I'm glad he did. I don't have many pictures of the two of us together and this is one of my favorites. By the way even though she was 22 and didn't need permission it just seemed the right thing to do. And thats it for today.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

More photo expansions today. The first picture is similar to ones you have already seen. Helena raking leaves in the front yard of our first house. Helena had saved most all of the money she had earned from the three jobs she had held since High School. I had some saved. We pooled our money and put a down payment on this house because it was close to both our parents houses and we were familiar with the surroundings. The total cost of the house was 18 thousand dollars. Our monthly payments were one hundered and thirty dollars. It was a junky house but for us it was a dream come true. We painted the inside, and put new carpeting in. We used Helena's savings to buy new furniture for the house. Certainly not the most expensive but it suited us just fine. Helena loved working outside. She planted a lot of flowers (you have seen some shots of her with her tulips and iris). Of course in the fall we had to rake the leaves. Boy did we have fun doing that. We would rake them into a huge pile and then, just like we were six years old, would run and jump into the pile. We would rassle around and generally get covered with leaf fragments. The only hard part was stopping the play before we started to undress each other. (Occasionally I would get her pants-n-panties down a bit and flash the neighborhood) Then while we cooled off we reraked the leaves and bagged them. Shoveling the snow in the winter worked much the same way only substituting a pile of snow for the one of leaves. Every once and a while a small handful of snow ended up down the back of her pants/underwear. She would always get me back. This one was taken in the 70's. The next picture is Helena at Scotts Bluff National Monument in western Nebraska. This was a "marker" on the way west for the settlers. Near the bottom of the monument you can still see wagon ruts worn deeply into the soil. There is a trail to the top. And a road. We drove to the top and walked down. I think I have a picture somewhere of Helena on the trail. When we got to the bottom I insisted that Helena sit and rest while I walked back up to the top and picked up the car. Whenever we would visit historic locations, like this, we would spend time before researching the sights and then time there talking about the history. Helena was always interested to learn about what we were seeing. She became quite an expert on a great many things in our life together. This would have been in 1991 on her Birthday vacation that I have talked about. The third shot is self explanatory. On our first visit to Hollywood the Universal tour was toward the top of Helena's list of things to see. She was hoping to see a bunch of stars. All she got on the tour was a long distance view of Lindsay Wagner (Bionic woman). We did see other minor personalities but no really big stars, at least she didn't. We actually got to see bigger celebrities at home. Vincent Price visited a store near us once promoting a cook book he had written. We went to see him and Helena got to meet him. He was very sweet to her and she really got a kick out of it. I am fascinated by special effects and have been fascinated with stop motion animation since I was a kid. I talked so much about it that Helena finally asked me to tell her how it was done. After an afternoon of explaining I set up my camera the next day and she spent about six hours animating a dance with eight pair of doll shoes. When we got the film back she was thrilled and I was proud because the dance looked almost perfect. Very sophisticated work. She had heard me talk about Ray Harryhausen, an acknowledged genius in stop motion animation. Once he was to make a personal appearance near to where we lived. Helena urged me to get tickets to all the events. (There was a lecture, a screening of two of his movies, and a cocktail party). All were enjoyable. The highlight for both of us was the cocktail party. There were not as many people there as I expected there would be and we got a lot of time to talk to Mr Harryhausen. I mentioned to him the dancing shoes that Helena had animated. He asked her about what technique she had used and they talked at length about the art of stop motion. I can't tell you the feeling it gave me to see Helena and the top person in the field together, "talking shop". She never directly said but I think she was very proud of that. I know I was so proud of her. That was in 1992. The next picture is a little deceptive. Helena looks like she might be unhappy here but she really isn't. She is a bit tired. The dejected pose is just her resting her head on her hand. The beginning of the trail is way back at the beginning of the valley you see behind her. We were about half way to our destination. And then of course we would have to walk the same distance back. By the way Helena prefered walking up the mountains rather than down. It had nothing to do with breathing (though in the Rockies it can be a struggle) but with her feet. We always wore hiking boots (except for the one very memorable vacation when she insisted on doing all the packing and forgot to bring MY boots but instead got two pair's of her boots) and on the downhill leg her feet would jam the toes up at the front of the boot and by the time we got down her toes always hurt. The yellow coat she is wearing (and you have seen in many other pictures) was her mom's coat that she wore on vacation. For years Helena wore that coat on her vacations too, in memory of her mom. This picture would be from the early 80's. Next we see Helena at Alberta Falls in Colorado in the early 80's (note Helena is wearing her moms yellow coat again). The falls is a little over three quarters of a mile from the trailhead. It is a pretty easy walk. You get to see some very nice aspen forest (especially like this in the fall when they have turned color). From here we would always continue on to either Lake Mills or Loch Vale. Both moderately difficult hikes. They were never too hard for Helena though. There is another hike that she really liked where you got to see three lakes. You start with a short easy slightly uphill hike to Nymph Lake (lots of water lilys). You continue on a very steep climb before you get to Dream Lake. Then another steep climb up to Emerald Lake. She made all of them without complaint. We took our time and rested whenever either of us tired out. We always ate lunch on the trail and had snacks with us. One trip we were coming back from Mills Lake (and had just passed these waterfalls) when we met a newly wed couple from Texas coming up the trail. They asked how much further to the lake and were a little unhappy to find out it was farther than they had hoped. I pointed out the dark clouds gathering around the mountain top and suggested that they not make the climb to the lake. There is a real danger of lightning in the mountains. Right after we got to the parking lot and into the car it began to storm. A few minutes later the newly weds appeared. We had them get into the car with us. They were parked at the lower parking lot and still had another half mile to walk to their car so we gave them a ride. Helena (the old married woman) and the new bride were talking together about who knows what. The husband and I were talking about other things they could see on the vacation. Just then the rain stopped and "corn snow" began. If you don't know that is a type of precipitation that looks like hail but instead of ice is made up of small balls of snow. That was another event that Helena remembered and talked about a lot. The last picture for today is another one of Helena (in the yellow coat) from the 80's just getting ready to continue the hike. Its funny how some pictures have such an emotional impact for me. This seemingly normal picture brings me to tears. I think it is just the look on Helena's face as she gazes up the trail. I feel the warmth of the sun, I can smell the pine forest and clean crisp autumn air, and I anticipate the feel of her hand as I helped her up (as I always did). This picture looks so much like I have seen her a million times that I feel like I could reach out and stroke her hair or kiss her cheek. One of my favorite pictures.

My wifes life in front of the camera
 

Continuing with the extended stories of the photos todays first picture is Helena coming down the trail from Blue Lake. This is the last big downhill stretch and the rest is a long walk through meadows and stands of trees. As I have said before the Blue Lake trail was Helena's favorite hike. There are nice Aspen trees (full of color in the fall), that lake you see in the picture, then you climb above the trees and are on the tundra. The final destination, Blue Lake, is a cold lake with a small waterfall at the oposite end of the lake. Sometimes when we visited our friends in Denver we would take the dogs and all of us would hike to Blue Lake. The female dog really loved to swim. She would get in the lake and just wouldn't come out. When it was time to go home the owner would call her and she would head for shore. As long as you stood waiting and watching her she would keep heading in. If you turned your back she would reverse course and head for the middle of the lake again. By the time we got back to the car she and Houligan would be exhausted and would sleep all the way back to Denver. She had some kind of nasal problem and when she slept she made a noise like a bee, a constant buzzing sound. Helena loved that. All together I suppose Helena and I hiked this trail 10 or more times. She never got tired of the hike and really I didn't either. There was a lot to see and plenty of animals on the trail to watch. The second picture today is Helena with two of our honorary kids. We didn't have any children so two of our friends would involve us with their kids. In this picture they had just come back from buying "Cabbage Patch" dolls. This was when they first came out and were almost impossible to get. Helena and her friend stood with the two kids for two hours just to check out. To make you all feel old. The girl in this picture is married and has 4 kids now. The boy is also married and he and his wife are expecting their second baby in a few months. For number three today is a picture of Helena at Knotts Berry Farm in LA. It is a theme park, in competition with Disney for visitor dollars, and has a lot of rides and things. We went there two or three different times. The last time we were there they had put in an updated version of an old ride of theirs. Originally called the steeple chase (a horse racing ride) the horses had been replaced with motor cycles. You sit on the bike with just a lap belt and hold on to the handle bars. The bikes are pulled up a hill and turned loose to travel down a track. It was an early version of a roller coaster, dating from the 20's (I think). It wasn't there too many years. I am guessing here but I imagine they couldn't get insurance for it since the only restraint was a lap belt. You almost got thrown off going around the curves. Helena liked the ride (but she only wanted to ride once, so figure out for your self how MUCH she liked it). The Ghost Town portion, pictured here, had some rides, eats and shops. The other main attraction at Knotts (and it was the real beginning of the park) was the Chicken Dinner restaraunt. The food was really good. They originally sold jellys and preserves, and introduced the Chicken Dinners to have something else to entice people to stop. And, yes this is the same Knotts as you can buy in the grocery today. Picture number four is Helena on a trail in Bryce Canyon National Park. Originally Helena wasn't sure she would like to visit someplace with no trees or streams. She quickly fell in love with "red rock" country though because of the variety of shadings of the rocks. This particular trail is really neat winding through these very deep canyons with the red rock walls towering above. The only thing she worried about was what to do in case it rained. Any rain can very quickly rush down these canyons and they become very dangerous. I assured her that they didn't get much rain in this part of the country so not to worry. Flooding was a constant worry to her. Everytime we visited Estes Park she would be a nervous wreck until we got to town. The Eastern approach to Estes is through the Big Thompson Canyon. It is a very long canyon with just room for a small river and the road. Every so often a wider spot held a cabin. In July of 1976 a thunderstorm dumped over 1 foot of water in four hours at the top of the canyon. A 6 meter high wall of water washed down the canyon. There isn't anywhere to run to and 144 people died. Helena knew about this and it was a constant worry for her. Picture number five is a portrait of Helena taken during her "nude shoot" where she revealed ALL to the camera. While she was on her back with her legs spread I adjusted her hair and took this portrait. You can just see her bare shoulders and let your imagination do the rest. After yesterdays post I went back to work cleaning out the house and as usual checking to see if I could find any more pictures of her. I found a box with about 400 slides in it. I put it aside and continued to clean. When I got done for the day I took the box upstairs and spent a hour or so looking at the slides. I found quite a few pictures of Helena in among all the slides including this portrait. Also in the box was the next picture, another of her bikini pictures. Showing a bit of butt peeking out of both sides of the bottoms and even a hint of butt crack at the top. These pictures were taken in our backyard in full view of our neighbors. (The guy that lived just on the other side of that tree she is standing by was a bit of a perv. His bathroom window faced our back door and he didn't have a shade on the window. Helena saw him one day standing in front of the mirror making "he man" poses. And he didn't have a "he man" body. She said she didn't know whether to laugh or throw up. Surprisingly she wasn't nervous about posing outside. I don't know if she knew just how revealing the suit was but probably she did. By this time she was beginning to believe me when I told her how beautiful she was and also was beginning to believe in herself. In addition to those two pictures I found one of her in a minidress and four pictures of her wearing that translucent nightgown/robe. In post number two there is a picture of her wearing that outfit. Each of these show some hints or more than hints of nipples and pubic hair just showing through the material. The mini dress picture is almost a duplicate of one previously posted but with a much different expression on her face. I will be posting these occasionally to kind of spice things up. Oh and I found the original copy of the "laying on the bed butt shot" from post number 44. I will post that also some time soon even though it will be sort of a dupe the quality is so much better using the original slide. The one before was a copy of a copy of a copy of the original and really appallingly bad. So I had a good day with the cleaning. And. Saving the best news for last. I also found 5 new color nudes and 6 new black and white nudes of Helena. I only remember taking one of these so the rest are new to me also. When I get them cleaned up I will be posting them 1 or 2 at a time. There still may be a few more black and white ones somewhere but the negatives will be in a different place and I'm not sure where that is. I will be satisified though, if this is all that I ever find. I loved her bottom. I couldn't keep my hands off of it no matter whether we were in public or in private. I always wished that I had taken more shots of her bare butt. To my great joy I found that two of the black and white pictures feature her behind, including one that I think is magnificent (remember I am biased). To whet your appitite I have included one of the nightgown/robe pictures. This is the least revealing of the shots. She only shows more from here on.