I was much pleased with Judy, and soon proposed marriage to her, and the next month she accepted on February 29^th. We were married in April by a blind black woman minister at the cross on Mt. Solidad with seventy of our friends and her relatives attending. I got along fine with her two sons and two daughters by three husbands and eight grandchildren. I was able to fully participate in Camping Bares activities and even go backpacking in the Sierras. I had traded my old motor home for a nice Komfort trailer, and we went camping in that.

The first rift came after eight months when she contrived an excuse to leave me. She got me on edge by spending two days alone with her previous lover Thom, then provoking me into hitting her on the shoulder. It seems she never really gave him up. She returned a month later after being advised that she had not been married long enough to get anything from me in a divorce. It was a foretaste of the future but I was blinded by love.

Our domestic tranquility was shattered next year after her elder daughter Anne suffered a cerebral embolism which left her permanently disabled. Anne had two pre-teen daughters and two baby boys by a different father, who readily took the boys in. The girls father, Anne's ex-husband, was in no financial state to care for them and had never paid a penny in child support, so I was persuaded, against my better judgement, to take them in. They were to be with us for the rest of this marriage, with all of the stages and minor crises that teenage girls are prone to. This included the elder girl totaling the Ramcharger, and severely damaging the Aerostar only a week later. At least they improved their academic standing remarkably. Previously, they had missed school a lot.

During these five years Judy bided her time and I managed to keep from being provoked by her taunting about seeing Thom while I was at work, for the sake of the girls. Then Judy was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her right breast was removed. She had to have chemotherapy and radiation treatment, which was very hard on her.

Matters came to a head when, unknown to me, the younger girl got pregnant and Judy arranged for an abortion. This caused her to lose custody and broke up the family since she was at fault for permitting the girl to have boys sleep with her overnight. This, on top of her chemotherapy illness, was too much for her and she repeated the pattern of her life by running away.

I came back from a motorcycle trip to find the house empty and the Buick gone, leaving me with the Ford Aerostar I had bought from her daughter Laura. I still had a motorcycle, a Homda Pacific Coast I had traded the Silver Wing for. I was devastated, and did not know what had happened, or where Judy had gone. A month later I ran into her at DeAnza Springs, the clothing-optional park where we had been keeping my Terry trailer, a bigger successor to the Komfort, which was the successor to the motor home. This time Judy justified her desertion by telling vile lies about me. When I heard these, it hardened my heart, and thus it came about that I met Elaine.