I met Dawn Beckmeyer in the late seventies down in Carmel Valley, CA. Her family lived local and she worked at the place I was developing an accounting system on an IBM Sys-3 Mod 10 for, a new startup called Flasher Fashions.

She was not your typical looking woman. She had a square face with a smile and energy that melted everyone she met and just radiated positivity. Her very first orgasm was on top, in my Pacific Grove apartment. We fell in love.

For several years we had a great time and traveled a lot. We ended up in a nice place up in the Oakland Hills, and I was happy to have her for a partner.

One day, she sat me down in that apartment and broke up with me. She said she was going to become a cloistered nun in a remote Northern California monastery. WTF? Damned if she didn't do it, and it broke my heart.

She also told me that I was the love of her life. So, you experience that, and then become a nun?

Many years later I made contact with her there by mail, and she was happy and fulfilled. She was the cook for a monastery full of nuns, women who had bailed on conventional life, just to worship god.

That was a very tough breakup for me, and I've had a few. Things fell apart after, and I ended up making some bad decisions.

Oh well, if that hadn't happened I would never have hooked up with Riley's mom, so all things work towards the right place.

But still...