[jdviole2]

My father was in his upper 80's when he died. In many ways though he never grew any older than fourteen or fifteen years old. Mom used to complain that he never took things seriously but that wasn't really true. When he needed to act like an adult he did so, and quite successfully. Its just that most of the time he prefered living as a teenager. His practical jokes ran to the juvenile and he loved to have fun 24/7. I inherited that from him. Helena caught it from me. We always tried to have fun whatever we were doing. When either of us was feeling down the other could always raise their spirits. Helena had a more deeply emotional response to things than I did and seemed to take the bumps of life harder because of that fact. Sometimes she needed a little more to bring her happiness back. I quickly learned that she responded well to shock tactics. The totally unexpected, if funny or shocking, could jolt her out of any mood she was in. Thankfully I was just adolescent enough to try anything to cheer her up. We were out in the front yard one day raking the leaves. It was a cold day and there weren't too many people outside but there were a few. Helena was upset about something and at one point was near tears. I called out to her. When she looked up it was to see my bare ass shining in the sunlight. She gasped so loud that she started to choke. Whatever was bothering her was forgotten as she spent the next ten minutes yelling at me for what I had done. "What if the neighbors saw you? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" (FYI in case you are wondering the answers to her two questions were "so what" and "not in the least"). A few months later we were at the mall. Something was bothering her. Before she could get too upset I let her see me reaching to undo my belt and that is all it took. Her mind quickly switched to another track. She said that she never knew what I might do, but really I was only trying to do one thing. To make her happy again. If her worries were justified and we needed to do something about it we did. But we always did it without a panic and if there was any way to, we did it with humor. All of todays pictures showcase her in her more playful moods. The first picture is Helena responding to my grafitti while we were painting the living room in our first house in 1975. Note the name says Helen. Her legal name is Helena but she also went by Helen. (I had some other names for her too but that is for later). The second picture shows her behind bars in Silver Dollar City (a theme park in Missouri) in 1976. You can see that space between her front teeth I mentioned a couple of posts ago. The third shot shows her in a fun house type mirror in California sometime in the early 80's. Number four shows her getting even with me for my putting the moves on two wooden saloon girls. Its just my opinion here but if anyone could bring life to that wooden guy it would be her. I think this was taken at Knotts Berry farm again in the 80's. The fifth picture is the classic "OH NO I just sat on a cactus face". This was in the cactus garden at Balboa Park in 1990 probably the same day she skinny dipped the pool. You can see that gap in her teeth again. In the last shot she is attempting to prove that she is just as much a fashion model as any manequin. I think she proved her point. This was in California in the mid 80's.