[jdviole2]

I'm afraid that Helena's upbringing did not prepare her well for marriage, especially marriage to me. Her mom was European and had a casual attitude toward nudity. Her dad was a different story. (Helena told me once he, as a photographer, had taken topless pictures of her mom but destroyed them almost immediately because he was afraid someone might see them). I on the other hand, since I was a teenager, have always been relaxed about being nude and being seen nude by others. Never seemed to bother me. I've told you about her feelings about nudity when we first got married. Anyway. Helena had never seen the ocean so on our first trip to San Diego she was determined to go to the beach. We went to Sunset Cliffs Natural Park. They are sheer cliffs dropping straight into the ocean. Spectacular. Close by there is a metal staircase that you can walk down to the beach. We went down and began to walk along the edge of the water. We used to go on vacation in the spring so it was a little too cold to go swimming but the sun was very warm. We were having a great time. We'd been walking about 15 minutes when we came across a guy laying on the beach getting some sun. He said hi. We said hi. We stopped and talked to him for a few minutes and then went on with our walk. About 10 minutes later Helena stopped and turned to me. In almost a shout she said "that guy was NAKED!!". It had just registered with her that he was sunbathing nude. It bothered her that she didn't notice right away. I told her that it probably was that he was so relaxed and natural about his nudity that he relaxed her enough that she didn't notice. It made quite an impression on her. (In fact I think she was disappointed that he was gone when we came back) I don't know if that led to her "skinny dip" on a later trip to San Diego or not. If so I owe him my thanks. On to todays pictures. The first one is a "surprise" nude. I do not remember taking this. It was taken in a motel in Arizona in 1985. A bit blurry because I was in a hurry to get the shot before she covered up. Her favorite way to refer to me when I was doing something "naughty" was PIG. If I was REALLY being bad then she called me "wh*r*". This was the first time I got called wh*r*. She was not happy with me. The next shot is also from 1985 and was taken in our motel room. We stayed at a place called "Little America". Red velvet flocked wallpaper. Pretty ornate. She was happily tired when I took this. The third picture was from 1990. It was taken just outside of Balboa Park in San Diego. Helena loved to wear short dresses, skirts and shorts. When she came to Naples to stay with me we were on a bus and this very tiny Italian "grandma" started giving me hell about letting my wife dress like that. She patted Helena's knee and chattered at her, saying basically she had to be careful dressing like that around all those Italian boys. Helena got a big kick out of that. The next picture shows Helena coming out of a cliff dwelling in a place called Walnut Canyon national monument in Arizona, again in 1985. This is a prehistoric native american dwelling. I don't believe you are allowed to go in the ruins anymore. On the walls you could see the handprints and even fingerprints of the women that applied the mud to the walls. The next shot is of a tired Helena at the Grand Canyon in 1985. We had been walking along the rim and down into the canyon a ways for most of the day and she was pooped. The last picture is also from 1985. We went to the Farmers Market in LA and here she is enjoying her number one favorite thing to do on vacation, eating. I notice that the auto editing put some stars in two places in this post. I completely understand. I'm sure we all know what I was trying to say, that Helena would sometimes refer to me as "a woman who sells her sexual favors". A wh*r*. That's it for today.