Morgan's Story Continues -
Morgan transferred to Pierce
College in 1987. Pierce is another of the community colleges in
California. She found a part time job at Contempo Casuals and
made friends there and at her church, First Christian Church of North Hollywood.
Grandma and
Grandpa gave her a brand new car, which was very different from
riding the bus or driving the sedate sedans and minivan owned by
either her grandparents or Mom and Craig. It was one of the last gifts Morgan received from her grandmother. Mary Alice (Pam) Reasoner Pillsbury died of cancer with only six weeks warning. Despite the efforts of Susan, her daughter-in-law, and a specialist in Oncology and Radiology at Stanford Medical Center, she slipped slipped away, leaving an empty place in our lives. It hit Morgan like a hammer. Losing Grandma was like losing a piece of herself. 
Melinda's
kids, four of them, had all been going to First Lutheran School in
Northridge since pre-school, around 1978, and Melinda was very
involved as a parent. Cookie baking, Cub Scouts, and Girl
Scouts also took her time, so time with Mom was not thick upon the
ground. On the other hand, living with younger kids offered lots of
distractions.
Melinda had finally agreed to marry
Craig Franklin. the couple were married on June 21, 1987.
Two years later Craig, having persuaded the children's father, Ron
Foster, to give up his paternal rights, he told everyone he had adopted
the children, naming them in the Last Will and Testament he had his brother Sterling, an attorney, write for him days before the second wedding on June 24, 1998. Craig had
been asking her for a long time, promising fervently to be a good
father to the kids, something her former husband had failed miserably
to do.
When Morgan moved in with the family her
sisters had just become active members of the San
International Order of the Rainbow for Girls and this added to the
frenzy of maternal time spent on such activities as sewing formals.
The girls, Dawn and Ayn, had informed their mother they were required
to have a new formal every four months. Two years later Melinda
discovered this was not exactly accurate but in the interim there was
a dress explosion.
Morgan was taking macro economics in college and Craig
volunteered to help her pick out her books on von Mises. What
followed, Morgan later realized, had a profound impact on her life.
Craig suggested Morgan start watching news shows with him on
Sunday morning while Melinda was busy doing unnecessary things like
making breakfast. The television watching awakened in Morgan an
interest in politics. They also lead to a bizarre series of
conversations with Craig.
Craig had hidden from everyone he knew his distorted and deviant inner life. His life had always frustrated him because he was unable to cope with the realities the human world, lacking the empathy and emotional intelligence, characterizing psychopaths. Craig's behavior is psychopathic. Discovery in the related legal actions will include a demand he be tested, both verbally and neurologically.
Craig fled when confronting ordinary chores, such as filling out and filing his taxes. Craig's non-filing of his taxes nearly bankrupted the family in 1997.
All confrontations with those he perceived as authority figures caused the same reaction. To cope, Franklin had learned to construct for himself relationships with people who would reflect back to him what he needed to believe about himself and the world. Therefore, Craig routinely worked to program those around him to reflect back to him fabrications, necessary so he could continue to function and useful if he wanted to feed his fantasy life. In one act he gained control and set the stage for acting out his sexually deviant behavior.
Morgan became a target for programming because she was there and because she also fit into the type and relationship which most sexually aroused him. She was beautiful, young, blond, and activated Franklin's most deviant fantasy, incest. The fact Melinda had three beautiful daughters who all fit Craig's sexual fantasies was, she later learned, responsible for his insistence he be allowed to adopt all of her children. 
One morning in 1988, when Morgan was on the way to school, driving down Topanga Canyon she stopped at a cross walk behind another car, waiting for the crossing guard and children to finish crossing the street. She heard nothing before the school bus read ended her new car, pushing her into the vehicle, an older, heavy car from the 70s, in front, across the intersection. Morgan was unable to open her door and her face was covered with blood. She suffered serious soft tissue damage.
In the aftermath she lost her job due to her inability to stay on her feet for long periods of time.
Despondent, and still not recovered from the death of her grandmother, Morgan began talking more frequently to Craig. Craig took this opportunity to persuade her she was too stupid to have a career, urging her to go into acting professionally. He also told her she had a Borderline Personality Disorder, the first she had heard of the condition. He bought her books on the subject, making the condition glamorous with his assertion that she shared the problem with Princess Diana.
Morgan had once read a book saying Marilyn Monroe had the condition. Morgan never sought treatment and was never diagnosed with the condition, however. Since then she has been in treatment and learned her problems with self esteem and anxiety stemmed from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition arising from traumatic conditions in ones life. The only person who ever said she had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder remains Craig Franklin who is now being reported for practicing without a license.
Morgan worked seriously on her acting and began participated in the theater program at her church, working back stage. The participants were all well known, professionals, which was intimidating for her at first. But the work backstage turned into work in the industry with production, including work with Blacktop Films, owned by Matthew Earl Jones, the younger brother of James Earl Jones. It was Matthew who offered to horse whip John Fund for her when he found out about his caddish behavior.
Her first acting coach was David Kagan, who runs the Los Angeles School of Film Acting.
Morgan began doing extra work and found bit parts, for instance in, "My So Called Life." Other bit parts followed, most of which were fun but forgettable. She was also modeling for catalogues, for instance for J. C. Penny's. It filled the time while she continued to study acting. Classes included sessions with Kathy Smith Productions. Morgan learned about production helping out after class.
Film, rock stardom, Hollywood, glamor, none of these exciting possibilities ever turned into
reality for Craig,despite his strident and often loud efforts. In 1991 he was determined to have his songs performed at the Libertarian National Nominating Convention in Chicago. The Convention Committee told him they would be delighted to have him. All he had to do was buy four full packages and provide a video.
About the same time the Perot Campaign exploded on the American public, in the wake of an interview on Larry King Live. H. Ross created a wave of enthusiasm with no real agenda. Watching as campaign headquarters opened across the country, funded and paid for by volunteers surged with activity Melinda decided to see if it was possible to inject some freedom ideas into the mix. This killed two birds with one stone. First, it was innovative activism. Second, she had an idea that might keep Craig from singing in the kitchen while she was trying to make dinner.
And so was born the H. Ross Cannonball, written by Craig, edited by Melinda, and produced by
Jerry Corbetta, a friend of Melinda's. It was Jerry who loaned Melinda the camera to produce the video the Convention Committee insisted on seeing. If Perot had not dropped out at an unstrategic time more tapes would have been sold. As it was, the song became the unofficial campaign song in Perot's Texas HQ.
While Morgan was learning about the film industry her mother, Melinda was busy with the kids and deciding to leave the Libertarian Party. It had accomplished nothing. She was shocked and disgusted at the way Roger MacBride, an old friend of hers had been treated. Roger, the producer of Little House on the Prairie and the adopted grand son of Rose Wilder Lane, had been the Libertarian candidate for president in 1976. He had paid for most of his own campaign and focused on keeping election action local, flying himself in his own plane, No Force One.
The 
Libertarian Party was built on MacBride's vote, cast as an Elector from Vermont for the first LP candidate John Hospers in 1972 instead of for Richard Nixon. This also gave Toni Nathan, a woman nominated for vice-president, an electoral vote, making minor history.
Roger, saddened by the way he was treated, decided to found the Republican Liberty Caucus, hiring help to handle mailings. Their first National Conference was put on by Mike McCroskey in Tennessee in 1994. Melinda attended and Roger asked her to put on the second conference the next year. Roger died just three months later.
At the 1995 RLC Conference, held in Santa Barbara, a memorial service was held for Roger. Morgan helped out and there met both Sasha and Eugene Volokh, who were speaking at the conference.
Morgan dated Eugene for over two years, learning more than she wanted to learn about unbridled greed and unjustified pretensions.
The Abortion
