[jdviole2]

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.