Whatever wonderful genetics Rena’s parents carried before they made love and born four beautiful daughters,  was from a superior gene pool. Combined, the results were overwhelming, overpowering. When Rena came at me from the dark doorway and stood feet from me, I had to look away so I could catch my breath. When I looked at this creature, I was a disbeliever. They don’t make human being this beautiful. Then, it spoke;

“Can I walk with you?”

When I saw the movie ‘Species’ I laughed aloud at the urgency of the alien to mate with an earth man and was being very direct. Rena could have been asking me a carnal question. This just doesn’t happen in real life. Why me? Is it because I carry the genetics of Royal Rosamond who gave birth to four beautiful daughters? Did Rena read my genetic material, somehow, and I was fit to be her Knight in Shining Armor?

I found, her. She was lost and forsaken. Rena is a Foundling. For reasons she did not divulge she was sent to live with her grandmother when she was seven. In a letter she sent me a year ago she says she was sexually abused by her father. She did not grow up with her three sisters who became models. She did not get along with, them, her family, that she felt she was not a part of. And now, he boyfriend has disappeared leaving her alone, and without a place to lay her head. Alas, Rena has made manifest her core identity, the way she truly feels most of her waking hours. For seven hours or more she has had time to study her situation, take it all in, her hidden feelings that are concealed no more. This is one of the best things that ever happened to her, for she alone can hone her survival skills, and come up with ‘The Solution’. I was that solution, she chose. She chose me, like a preditor, a Cheetah that has run down a gazelle.

“Sure. I was expecting you!” is the answer I managed to eek out, for I was rendered speechless.

“What do you mean by that?” Rena asked, she moving a step ahead of me in order to head my answer off, get a better look into my eye for the glint of a a hidden agenda.

When we woke that first morning she was very relaxed with me, for I told her the truth;

“I am a harmless romantic. Don’t be afraid.”

We spent two nights in that backyard. Men who met me, now rushed into the backyard to behold her. They didn’t bother to say hello to me, the dude they didn’t know that well, and, didn’t want to know – at all! I was disgusted! They were like dogs around a bitch in heat.

Then, there was Rena’s walk, her gate. We walked through a tough Oakland neighborhood she oblivious and impervious to any danger, or anyone. I was awestruck at how she was taken in. Rena got respect. It was like I had a man-eating beast, on a leash! We walked to a store located on 35th. Avenue in Oakland. When people saw Rena coming their way, they were spellbound. She exuded animal magnetism. She was a Sexy Beast. She put on a show for real cowboys back in Nebraska. Se made grown married men, whimper.

Rena was the most perfectly proportioned woman I have ever beheld, and she was tall, about 5/11. From afar you knew you were going to be treated to a show. She had a walk – the walk! It was like a great cat. Then there was the look in her eyes. This was a powerful human being. I loved to study people’s reaction to her. There were some cool Latinos and Blacks in this hood. Coming from Grand Island Nebraska, this seventeen year old had no idea how cool she was, how she complimented every scene, every stage she walked onto. Everyone parted the way, and got a good look she seemed oblivious to. Irene had animal magnetism – in spades! She was a very rare Royal Flush!

About to go into the store, suddenly Rena backed up. She spotted a magazine in the window depicting a blonde in a bathing suit.

“I think that is my sister. She said. “She was going to be one the cover of a magazine.”

We went inside to get a closer look.

“No. It’s not my sister.”

Now, I am four generation Oakland, and I never dreamed I would hear such words. LIFE magazine had done a pictorial on ‘California Girl’s’ obviously shot on the beach in Southern California. This blonde is emerging from the sea, dripping wet, splashing in the foam. She is a beautiful Nereid. I just found the photos for this article. I suspect Rena’s sister is amongst the group of waders, or, perhaps she is the woman lying on her side with her back to us.

This article precedes the Sports illustrated pictorial. I am sure there was a contest to see who gets on the cover, and Rena’s sisters, lost. This meant, LIFE magazine hired at least one professional model. However, when I first walked on Santa Monica beach at sixteen years of age, I saw model material everywhere.

Marilyn, my first girlfriends, modeled for Sea and Ski when she was thirteen, which happens to be the age of consent in Nebraska. I assume this was because young women were scarce in the barren planes, and young men were want to start family early so as to have sons to work the fields. Rena, and her three beautiful sisters, wanted none of that, and fled. That is Marilyn, the blonde in the black and white photo. The famous fashion photographer did a shoot of Marilyn on the beach siting on a rock like a Mermaid.

I am going to assume Rena’s boyfriend heard about the sister modeling in California, and drove Rena out west to see if she could be discovered and end up in a magazine, or, on the silver screen?

My friend was a good friend of the Stackpole family who lived in the Oakland hills. After the Oakland fire we went and looked at the ruins of the Stackpole home. What a loss. Thousands of negatives were consumed in the inferno. Peter Stackpole shot Hollywood stars for LIFE and was assigned to Liz Taylor. Peter went on a cruise with Errol Flynn who dated two of the four Rosamond sisters who were raised in Ventura by the Sea. Rosemary and Lillian argued forever about whom the Swashbuckler was attracted to the most.

My grandfather, Roy Reuben Rosamond, wrote for Out West and Liberty magazine. I believe he and I were the embodiment of the minor god, Nerites, who was the brother of the Nereids, the only male sibling. Consider the fifty images of the Rosamond Women captured in the gallery in Carmel, a city co-founded by Robert Louis Stevens.

I just noted that the name Irene (Rena’s birth name) is found in Nereid.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2012

In Greek mythology, Nerites was a minor sea deity, son of Nereus and Doris (apparently their only male offspring) and brother of the fifty Nereides. He is described as a young boy of stunning beauty.
According to Aelian,[1] Nerites was never mentioned by epic poets such as Homer and Hesiod, but was a common figure in the mariners’ folklore. Aelian also cites two versions of the myth concerning Nerites, which are as follows.
In one of the versions, Aphrodite, even before her ascension from the sea to Olympus, fell in love with Nerites. When the time had come for her to join the Olympian gods, she wanted Nerites to go with her, but he refused, preferring to stay with his family in the sea. Even the fact that Aphrodite promised him a pair of wings did not make him change his mind. The scorned goddess then transformed him into a shellfish and gave the wings to her son Eros.
In the other version, Nerites was loved by Poseidon and answered his feelings. From their mutual love arose Anteros (personification of reciprocated love). Poseidon also made Nerites his charioteer; the boy drove the chariot astonishingly fast, to the admiration of various sea creatures. But Helios, for reasons unknown to Aelian’s sources, changed Nerites into a shellfish. Aelian himself supposes that Helios might have wanted the boy for himself and was offended by his refusal.