The Shocking and Vomitous Thursday Part 1

Before going Rogue (i.e. traveling up to the Rogue River in Eagle Point Oregon for a Harding Avenue reunion) in search of my past... I left off last time, still in the very first week of 5th grade. Thus far, I have only gotten as far as Wednesday.  Every Wednesday and Thursday the Dahlins put on a show for the rest of the neighborhood in the wild frenzy of  pushing the broken down fleet of cars and trash barges (trucks) from one side of the street to the other (blog post 7-3-13) in a "Tow-War" with the city.

Normally, the loud Italians across the street could be heard screaming at this time in the morning, but even that was put on hold as they blissfully united behind their large picture window in quiet harmony to watch the angry cacophony of discord as the Wolf Pack was whipped into shape by my Staff-Sergeant dad, in something just as spectacular as Ringling Brother's Circus act, only different! 

After surviving the Wednesday ritual of pushing cars, booger wars and Dooh-Dooh Pants passing gas that made me throw up in the gutter in front of Blaser's house, Wednesday was just like any other day for any other normal kid. I went in and ate my oatmeal cereal (secretly scooping out the meal worms behind my dad's back) and choked down the powered stuff dad had mixed into the stuff that had thickened and become sour, by pinching my nose and standing over the toilet - just in case!

At lunch, I received another "Template" from Chewbacca (see blog post, 6-26-2013), Michael C was smart enough not to touch my sacred sour dough toast (blog post 6-29-13) and somehow I managed to stay under Sister Godzilla's radar.

As I've mentioned previously, mom had pretty much quit cooking. She began to teach at Saint Marks and after school she locked herself in her room and didn't cook meals for us anymore.

That night, us little kids fed ourselves. Mary was a grade up in the 6th grade and already knew how to cook dinner. She made us "Helper." The Lennons, the Blasers or rich kids got to eat Hamburger Helper... but ours was just "Helper." The worst was when it was "Peanut-butter and Zucchini Helper."  I always ate that standing over the toilet. Okay, so we weren't normal, but at least the Venice police department department didn't show up that day and that was typically a good day for us. 

Thursday Morning:
"Up and at 'em. Time of the harvest moon. Let's go, go, go, go, go, go, go..." my dad screamed, stomping on the bottom step of the third floor stairs beating the walls with a broom handle. "Come on girly-girly-men... party all night, sleep all day! Oh, big men on campus...let's go, go, go, go, go, go, go..." my dad shouted as the entire lot of us had to push all the cars back to the other side of the street where we had pushed them from the morning before.

As the regular neighbors stood behind their windows and watched the fiasco an older couple drove down the street and spoke as they slowed past..."Did you loose a shoe? Little fella." they asked me.

"No" I said. "I found one!"  They shook their heads and sped away, but the way I looked at it (with the mess in our house), I was lucky to find one. If I couldn't find a matching shoe, I'd probably wear one I found and one of my dad's - wouldn't be the first time. However, it seemed to be a premonition that something was going to go wrong. I was nervous all day long but made it through the day unscathed, no fights, no trips to Sister Superior's office and no whacks on the behind by Sister Godzilla's well-worn yardstick.

I sneeked home through the Daniel's house, averting an ambush by Ulrich and his crew of little angry people... It had indeed been a good day. YEAH! 

Thursday night word had gone out that we were having a spaghetti feast. Since mom had stopped cooking meals, eating together as a family had become a rare event. If they needed to, the older boys could run down to the new McDonalds next to the church and buy 15 cent burgers, but the girls and I had to scavenge the cupboards and fend for ourselves.

Rumor had it that Kurt was making a hundred gallon pot full of spaghetti and word hit the streets like an elephant with diarrhea! I know that was a pretty gross illustration, but all that meant was that the news rapidly sprayed all over town.

A couple people even came by just to see if it was true that we were going to have real hamburger meat instead of zucchini or raisins in the sauce.

(If you look close enough, you can see the specks of meat).

As Kurt was stirring the pot with a big paddle the Wolf Pack was preparing something special in the kitchen for unsuspecting visitors. My dad had begun a remodel in the kitchen years before that had ended in a permanent state of temporary.


Next to the table, two old black wires stuck out of the wall. For light in the kitchen you had to touch the two wires together. Sparks flashed when the ends  touched which sent sparks of imagination through the heads of the older boys - brilliant flashes of creative and diabolical genius. They had figured out how to hold onto one end of one wire and have another group of boys hold on to the other end then connect hands in the middle... not only could you turn on the light, but at the same time everyone could share in the 110 volts of electricity (please, please, please do not try this at home! People have died... why we didn't die, nobody knows!). The best fun was to have two separate groups holding on to their seperate wires and then to catch some unsuspecting person walking by - closing the circuit - watching all that hair stand up on end, with the person in the middle peeing their pants in complete, shocking surprise; the coup de gras!

As victim of choice, I had been the fuse too many times already - not tonight! Tonight I had decided not to stray too close to the electrically charged Wolf Pack and they had come up with a new twist on their diabolical plan. They had the two groups (each holding on to one of the wires) stretch all the way to the front door - with one group going down the hall and the other around through the living room. They waited in the entry for their very first victim. I prayed that it might be Sister Godzilla or Ulrich, but saw John Masson instead coming up to stairs to see this thing about spaghetti night at the Dahlins.

John came to see the show, but didn't realize he'd be the main attraction...

Hold on, hang in there...it just keeps getting better!  


PS The rubber stamp etching above was carved by my daughter, Kiera.