STARS, CARS & GUITARS
An attorney friend of Don, Charles Foster, became my lawyer to finalize the dissolution of my marriage to Guard Hall and Charles accepted a very large painting “It’s a Wonderful Life” in lieu my attorney fees. Life went on and we enjoyed it by going to gigs in the local bars with Don’s band, drag racing Don’s Firebird, camping and taking his fabulous cabin cruiser to the local lakes. By 1998 Melvia had returned to total babyhood and finally her brain completely mal-functioned. She was released from her suffering and passed away in her sleep peacefully. Don’s dad, John Tildon Dunham, a supervisor air traffic controller with the FAA, was a good provider for his wife and only son but had died in 1986 and I never had a chance to meet him.
In the succeeding episode I was deeply saddened when Captain succumbed to his chronic laminitis and not much later Cherie died of a serious colic attack. After their demise we rented the cottage out for several years. When, to my great distress I also lost my beloved Denzel doxie, I was very thankful when my friends Marilyn and Caroline got me an adorable new dachshund puppy. I called him Axel and he immediately became my new emotional support and best friend.
The Hartog Gallery on Wilshire Blvd. offered me a one month show which resulted in the sale of some canvases followed up by partaking in an exhibition at the Pacifica Asia Museum in Pasadena which encouraged me to keep on keeping on with the production of more paintings that would hopefully find new homes…
Don soon offered to get me another horse and I love and admire horses so much that it was impossible to refuse the offer! We found a beautiful 16.2 hand chestnut appendix Quarter horse I called Jesse, with whom I had an instant connection. We boarded him at Middle Ranch in Lake View terrace where I started taking dressage lessons with trainer Claudia Roberts, having given up on jumping after a bad fall some years earlier. Pretty soon Don got interested in riding also and we found him a nice sturdy Quarter horse, also a chestnut, called Matthew and he took lessons cowboy style with Jane Shaw at the ranch too. The two horses got along great and became best pals for the remainder of their lives.
By 1999 we decided to get married and chose the venue of Paramahansa Yogananda’s “Self -Realization Fellowship”, the ethereal Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades. It had a lovely original 17th. Century Dutch windmill chapel where the wedding took place, officiated by one of the Ashram’s ministers, surrounded by many friends and Don’s uncle Bud, aunt Shirley, cousin Rick and my sister Betty who came in from my hometown Amsterdam. My dear friend, fellow artist Stephanie Farago was my maid of honor dressed in a beautiful silk multi-colored sari.
Lacking a pumpkin carriage, the guests then followed us in the hired Jaguar limousine to the reception which was held at “La Boheme”, a very cool restaurant in Hollywood with a gothic bohemian décor where our guests were served a mostly vegetarian repast but a salmon dish as well. Instead of a band Don decided on a groovy DJ. Neither of us wanted the pretty wedding cake on our face so we did not pursue that tradition and just enjoyed the delicious taste. Everybody was dancing and afterwards we went home, followed by our hardiest friends and opened a mountain of beautiful and quirky presents. All in all it was a truly magical event…
Don and his drummer Steve Stelmach and bass player Vic Herstein had finished the album called y2K with his original songs that he had been working on all during that year and since the supposed total chaos of the millennium predictions did not happen by the end of that year we went on our honeymoon to Maui for our first anniversary in 2000.
We stayed at the Weston Inn at Makena, next to little known Big Beach on the south-west side, recommended by our friends Fred & Lynn who lived in Makawao. The beach felt like brown sugar and the warm water of the Pacific Ocean like silk. What a wonderful exotic trip that was, including horseback riding in “Upcountry” and driving all around the island seeing all the beautiful and interesting places, including the caldera of Haleakala; “the House of the Sun”, Rainbow Falls, the Maui Ocean Center aquarium, the neat little harbor town of Lahaina where we took a ride on the Kaanapali sugar train.
On the East coast at Paia was the celebrated “Charlie’s” pub where musicians like Willie Nelson might play and the big roller waves ran high for the surfers. To top it all off we attended a fabulous Luau with Hula dancers, burning torches, musicians and Hawaiian delicacies. It was a time of pure enjoyment and happiness to offset the traumas of my previous life experiences and I was grateful to the universe for its many surprises.
To be continued…