A Powerful Video about Family, Life and Love!

Amazing Shadow Performance of Life, Loss, and Love 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOZS_Vq6eKw 

Click on one of the links above and be utterly amazed and moved by the stages of life - dramatized by ATTRACTION! You only need to watch 2:20 seconds to feel the preciousness of life and deep connections of family unfold before your very eyes.


I can sit back and say... If only!  If only my crazy family was more functional... If only we weren't so lost or broken or angry or alone. If only my family was more like the one on display here or more like the Lennons, then everything in my world would be okay too. If only!  If only I wasn't left behind at Salton Sea. If only my brothers hadn't shoved in in that hamper or if only they hadn't thrown me over a cliff - If only?


What I have discovered about the world is that things do tend to be a bit "Helter-Skelter." Trains and taxis and planes don't always arrive on time - according to schedule. Life seems to be full of interruptions, inconveniences and people who seem to let us down. Things just don't always work out the way we want them to and rarely happen according to our schedule. Why we cannot control the behavior of others...the words of others...the actions of others? What can I do to control those who have hurt us so badly? How do I fix my parents, my childhood, my past? How can I put the train wreck of my circumstances or my family back on track?

As parents we ask, How do I get my  kids "righted" before they veer off the track into self destruction? What have I done wrong? What could I have done better?


Why don't my parents, my family, my children, my siblings - why don't things always turn out the way I dreamed or want them to?

Since we were wired, designed and built for intimate connections, we grieve and hurt deep within the psyche of our human chemistry when we are betrayed, hurt, and back-stabbed with an ache that longs for people to treat us properly and for everything to be right in the world.

The only thing we can do in those moments of angst and anger is to take a deep breath and look up! There is nothing in this world that will satisfy this longing in the inner workings of the three components that make up the fullness of who we are.  We recognizes injustice, hurt, pain, loss and rightly grieve over these things.

To care about racial injustice or social ills - tells us that we were built with a component that longs for justice.

                                                 Justice demands Truth
                                                        Truth matters!  That's why we hate it when people lie

To care and grieve over the loss of a loved-one, shows us that death upsets us, as though groping for "life" was intrinsically wired into our DNA.

Maybe this concept of "life' is not as meaningless or as fleeting as some may suggest.

To see the world in its present state of corruption, violence and chaos, tells us that we are able to see things as wrong that we desire to set right.

To feel betrayed, upsets our concept of being loved.

To feel hurt by others, shows that we were wired for deep connections.

As humans we long for deep connections, we desire justice and want to know truth... We desperately seek to be loved and need to feel accepted.  We are wired to dream and yet live in such a fragile state of having our dreams constantly coming off the rails.

DREAM

BELIEVE

Every time something goes wrong, every time we're crushed, at every set back, at every disappointment - in every hurt and in searing loss - know that it is an invitation to draw nearer and more intimate with the ultimate Truth and source of true justice. Take heart and know that in every failed dream, in every broken relationship there is THAT INVITATION from the One true relationship that will never fail... that always accepts us just the way we are... a relationship we can trust with One who will never abandon us... forsake us and will LOVE YOU just for who you are - with no strings attached.


This life will be filled with "If Only's" to show you were not meant for fleeting superficiality...but wired for eternity and for something so much more than this life has to offer! 

Things may look Helter Skelter, but True Love conquers...it frees and it heals!

for you Android people here is the link (below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--i9i7xlw1Y

The WOLF-BOY Halloween - VIDEO

 SAINTS AND THE WOLF BOY

Some time ago I promised that I would post a video regarding the greatest horror story of all time.

This 1962 event was supposed to be Markie D's first hallowed "All Saint's Day" outing. Mrs. Dahlin meant well, but the innocuous and innocent plan quickly turned into a debacle of epic horror proportions. Worst than the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the police had to be called to restore order to the once peaceful and quite neighborhood that was rocked by sightings said to be the Spawn of Charles Manson. 







Please watch responsibly!


                             (this link is for Android users   http://youtu.be/XS1V9SGBd9o

I tell this story as though it conjured some emotional baggage that I have to carry around from my childhood. But in reality - when you think about emotional baggage...think about this: My older teenage brothers (IN HIGH SCHOOL) were dressed up like Saints on Halloween (Embarrassing)!  I had it good! I scared people with my costume and my poor older brothers were dress up like Saints well into the season in their male existence where they were trying to impress the ladies.  They are the ones that had it bad!  I think they are still struggling with the emotional scar tissue and if it wasn't for me - they'd still be 'Trick or Treating" in Saint costumes!    Every October 31st they should be sending me money instead of candy.

After this incident the saint costumes were retired and the boys got to be vampires and goblins and Frankenstein like other normal kids in the world.  Meanwhile the Famous Lennons were inspired to begin decorating their home for Halloween into a haunted mansion that grew quite notorious over the years.  

        Nothing on Earth is so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night.  Steve Almond

The Detroit Exorcism and the Naked Teenager.

Sorry to keep you hanging. Where were we?


Oh yeah, a bunch of dirty, hungry, ornery, smelly kids and two cranky parents just pulled into the parking lot of a Catholic Convent in the inner city of Detroit.

 (A never before seen picture recently discovered before the start of the trip - Disneyland parking lot - monorail in background). 

We had been fighting and farting and starving all the way across country in order to visit our Swedish relatives in the suburbs of Detroit. My parents thought they could kill two birds with one stone: 1) We could pay a visit to my mom's only sister, who was a catholic nun; AND 2) They figured that the layover and the food stop might minimize the potential havoc and destruction upon arriving at aunt Sally's house. My dad was trying to spare his brothers and sisters the plague of the locust.

"What could possible go wrong at a convent...for Pete's sake?" My dad said, making his case for the stop at the Convent!  I saw my mom roll her eyes... remembering that this was the last thing the captain of the Titanic said just after striking the iceberg.

The infestation of Dahlins hovered across the ground like a dark cloud as the Viking clan approached the concrete steps of the red brick building. Nuns rushed to the large front door for greetings and pleasantries, but mom frowned with worry, thinking of the death cloud in Genesis in the Jewish Passover. She took two deep cleansing breaths and apologetically gave her sister a hug.

As the dark cloud....I mean as the Dahlin clan ascended the stairs for the formalities, Puke-Breath was suitably satisfied and pleasantly distracted with his hands fishing around inside his pockets to make sure "everything" was still in order after the long journey.  Not wearing any underwear, he was confident that he was immune to a surprise "wedgie attack" and gave no thought to Gustav's inquisitive investigation of the tropical fire ants that swarmed under the tires of the Ford Econoline van.

One of the little buggers bit (or stung or whatever- Fire Ants - do) Gustav's hand and he leaped with joy shouting "Eureka!" like Archimedes and seemed as happy as Benjamin Franklin when he had harnessed lightning at the end of that kite string.     

Everyone was too busy to pay attention to the fact that Gustav had scooped up half the colony in the Folger's Coffee "pee-pee" can, trapping them inside by snapping on the plastic lid.

Mom and Dad hadn't stopped at a phone booth to warn the nuns of the exact time or hour of our arrival- and being unprepared, the black and white clad - agents of God's mercy on earth - scrambled to throw together a meal with leftovers from the food program. Like a bunch of cowboys on a cattle drive, the nuns stoically herded us through the wooden, double sliding-doors into the large dining room.

If you ever been in a convent you know that there are three distinct characteristics of a Catholic "Nunnery." 1) There was always a distinct smell that was a little bit musty mixed with moth balls and something like million year-old mildew...as if you could smell the dirt from the actual sandals of Jesus and other 2000-year-old relics that have been preserved from the Holy Land. 2) They were always quiet as though loud noise was forbidden and unholy. When the nuns walked you couldn't see their feet move under their long black robes, it appeared as if they floated across the floors like ghost without making any sound what-so-ever. Holiness and quietness seemed to go hand in hand. 3) Nuns never hurried. They moved slowly with a sense of deliberate purpose and never let their emotions show.  It is as though they were in the boat with Apostles being buffeted by the angry storms on the sea of Galilee and had learned their lesson long ago. Since that embarrassing outbreak of panic and emotion, they weren't going to let anything ever again -  ruffle their holy feathers.      
                         (And just for the record, to this point in history - they have succeeded).   

Dahlin kids scrambled and ran between legs and hung from the mantle and the wainscoting...mom couldn't scream at us, because it was forbidden (under clause number 2 above),  boys fought for position at the smelly oak table which was probably from the "Upper Room." When dinner came...before grace was even finished, we attacked what was set before us like vultures on fresh road kill. I want to apologize for our behavior, but when you're that hungry - no one is about to succumb to the social norms of using utensils. Why use a fork, when you can bury your face in a plate of spaghetti and suck in gobs of wet noodles and shove fists full of bread into your mouth from one hand and scoop globs of butter into your mouth at the same time with the other.

Don't judge us!  Seriously, knives and forks are just a worthless waste of time when you're starving to death. Dad was kicking us under the table and mom was giving us the angry-eye, "under the pain of mortal sin" stare - which seemed to say that if God didn't strike us dead that she would kill us later for this. She had a PHD in "Whoopology" and we're all sure to get a whooping later.

When things seemed like they couldn't get any worse... Puke Breath, who had been sitting next to Gustav, jumped from his chair and began screaming holy murder. He began patting his bottom and reaching into his pants - which we all thought was normal! I thought it was kind of rude for him to be checking in on his private parts in front to the nuns and all, but the teenager just went crazy and began running around the dining room crashing and breaking things like a Tasmanian devil.

Remember last year when the meat-bee went down his cast and he rolled around on the shore of the Kings River like the demonic? Well, this was ten times worse!
 
Nuns grabbed crucifixes and thought it was time for an exorcism. Sister Mary Catchatore pulled her skirt thingy up, exposing her Government-Jack-Boots and gave chase while clanking her heals on the hardwood floor in an unholy manner. She and three of my brothers managed to tackle Puke-Breath bringing him to the ground. He rolled and flung himself wildly as one nun threw holy water on him to see it if the devil would come out, but nothing worked. While Sister Catchatore had him pinned to the ground he reached down, unzipped his pants - forgetting that he had no underpants on and pulled his pants off. There he lay squirming and worming stark naked as the day he was born. Horror! Shrieks filled the once hallowed halls. Mom and Sister Dominique ushered my two sisters out of the room that had now been defiled.

His butt had a million red ants running to take cover with at least a hundred small inflamed blisters. He begged for mercy as embarrassed nuns - a little too enthusiastically rushed to his aid and picked them off his bare buns one by one. Gustave, just so happened to have an empty Folgers can for them to deposit the evil little critters into. "How convenient!"

If that wasn't bad enough, the late-blooming 13-year-old was in such misery, that he rolled over on to his back happily exposing all of his boy parts to the frantic and - much too helpful nuns. Speaking of worming and squiring, his worm was infested with the nasty little beast as the jolly nuns did their sacred duty in picking the Fire Ants off of his little pink poo-poo.

They figured this was the very least they could do to help the poor little boy.

Aside from everyone in the universe seeing exactly just where he was on his beginning journey into manhood, poor Puke-Breath was a miserable wreak the rest of the trip.     He had bites everywhere and I mean everywhere!  
   
Fearing we might come through town on our next visit, the Bishop asked Aunt Mary to leave the convent and was sent to the inner city of Kansas Missouri.   

Because Puke Breath couldn't sit, he had to stand in the back of the van for the entire rest of the two weeks we traveled back across country. And Sister Dominique and a couple nuns wrote a song about this little incident. 


Rejoicing over the fact that the Dahlins came and left in Il ne parle que du bon Dieu - which is French for "In a Ford Econoline van" and speaks about how  "One day the ants forced the boy to crawl
Dominique with just one prayer
Made him hear the good Lord's call"

Hey I'm only 7 and my French isn't that good!  But that is what my big brothers told me the song was all about.

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. " ~ Mark Twain

Ten Trapped Rats:and a naked kid!

Speaking of studies done on the overcrowded condition of laboratory rats, the four days the 10 of us spent caged in the close quarters of our 1963 Econoline van proved the scientific hypothesis that postulated the outcome of: anger, hostility, and sever distress.

In trying to get us to our destination as quickly as possible and to avoid as much contact with the outside world, dad tried as hard as he could to minimize the potty stops along the way. Mom and the two girls had to crawl behind the back seat and pee in an old Folger's Coffee can; the boys just peed in bottles. Occasionally one of the older boys stuck their poo-poo out a window and peed indiscriminately along the Interstate. Mostly, that was to make mom and dad mad. It worked. 

Mom would start screaming, "Pull that thing in from the window, this instant! Under pain of mortal sin." And one time, one of the older boys pretending to be obedient, did exactly what she said, intentionally forgetting to turn off the faucet and made sure to spray most of us inside the van.  Everyone started fighting... Chewbacca made sure to slug me in the upper thigh as hard as he could to test out my theory that I didn't bruise.

Dad tried to yell over the din, "Silence is golden!" and as a warning gripped his hand on the back of the front passenger seat where mom was sitting.  The unspoken warning meant something like this: The next person who makes a peep will be whacked with the full force of that white-knuckled hand that had a death grip on the passenger seat.

The only  problem was, his hand only had a range of about a three foot circumference which included me and two other siblings who were sitting on the second row bench-seat. The older boys were smart, they sat in the very back (on the bench seat - just in front of where the Folger cans and bottles of warm, sloshing pee-pee were stored).

I had been strategically placed. The hand came out. The entire van got quiet. Then, it was back to the Lab-Rat experiments where Dooh-Dooh Pants was commissioned to "cut the cheese" to make me gag or barf so that dad would whack me. If Dooh-Dooh Pants failed to spontaneously produce one of his patented fat-greasy-farts, then it was "Plan B."  He would pull off one of his shoes. The second he did that - everyone knew.  He had gangrene or something like that - which made his feet smell like rotting flesh.  My parents just claimed it was athlete's feet and was "nothing to worry about!"  Gustav had told us secretly that it was leprosy and we were all waiting for his toes to fall off.  ANYWAY,  I smelled it and gagged, but didn't see what was coming next. With incredible precision, he wrapped his foot around from behind and stuck that fungal-crusted big toe...right in my mouth. 

Dad didn't see him do his heinous act of terrorism and only heard me gag and scream. Well... that was all it took. WHAM...went his hand to the back of my head!  The way everyone looked at it was - that it was my fault, I had been warned!  The way I looked at it - that thumping on head was a gift to everyone else in the van, because it short-circuited my superpowers momentarily and stopped me from vomiting all over everybody in our tightly packed "sardine can" on wheels.

This is the way it was all the way across the "Fruited Plain."   

On our diet of stale Triscuits and old cheese, we managed to survive on about a hundered calories a day for about the past four days and by the time we rolled into the inner-city Catholic school in Detroit where my Aunt Mary was presently serving, we were dehydrated, tired, malnourished, dirty, angry, smelled like pee/gangrene...and ready to fight junkyard dogs!  

While the nuns in the "nunnery" (that's Catholic talk for a convent)... scrambled to feed the pillaging migrant infestation from Venice California we poured out of the van and kissed the ground like drunken sailors that had been out to sea for far too long.

This was where the fantastic discovery was made. Gustav found red ants.  We don't have red ants in Venice and this was a new phenomenon for us to investigate. Gustav believed these biting fire ants had the potential for a practical joke of ginormous proportions. He just had to figure out how to bag about 300 of them and who his next victim would be.  Gustav and Chewbacca had given Puke-Breath so many "wedgies" (where they had pulled Puke-Breath's underwear up his crack so many times) that Puke-Breath had begun to outsmart them by NOT WEARING UNDERWEAR.  

 "So There!" Puke Breath said the last time they tried to give him a wedgie! "In your face! I'm not wearing any underwear!"  (I feel I need to say this, "that was probably not the best thing he could have said").

Since Puke-Breath seemed to have his hands in his pockets all time...checking in every five seconds with his boy parts and his latest stage of puberty....the two older boys figured they'd really give him something to check in on.

And boy did they ever!      ONLY...

...ONLY the entire convent of Nuns got involved in his rescue. 

“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”  Mark Twain

 

Mr. Toads Wild Ride: and puberty!

13 is the age a young man enters the "teen-years" which is the typically considered the onset of manhood.  This however, could be a rough age for boys who are behind the puberty curve a bit and embarrassed by the slow assent of follicle development.            Late Bloomers - it Happens!  

This whole "late puberty" thing only served to exponentially compound the embarrassment that my 13 brother faced when he voluntarily exposed himself to a bunch of Nuns in a Catholic convent. I would also be neglect in my duty as an impartial reporter of my family stories if I failed to make mention that those NUNS were slightly too enthusiastic in the opportunity that presented itself to them. 

It reminds me of the time a bear fell into a giant vat of honey and prayed, "Lord, make my mouth equal to the opportunity set before me."        

As usual, with all of us ornery kids, any Dahlin trip, whether it be to the grocery story or across country, had a way of turning into a journey epic proportions. Last summer (1962), was one such occasion. I just finished reporting about Dooh-Dooh Pants' near disastrous brush with death as he careened out of control on a large paddle board heading towards a dangerous and deadly waterfall, had it not been for the swift and comical rescue - which is a classic for the ages.  Bookend that with the story of THE BEE...THE CAST...THE LEG...THE POISON OAK and you have just another inglorious Dahlin vacation.

Every trip was an adventure like something from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Our next family vacation across the beautiful expanse of the USA, would prove to be no exception.

Let's start from the beginning. In 1963 my parents bought a new Ford Econoline van.

The new van sat about eight of us, so along with all of our luggage, our camping gear and two of us little kids sitting on the warm engine compartment we barely managed to squeeze inside. It practically took a shoe-horn to cram us all in.  

The beauty of this thing is that it could go faster uphill than the 40 miles-an-hour that we were used to chugging along in our 36 horsepower VW van.

BY THE WAY: They've done studies on lab rats in overcrowded conditions that showed they are more apt to get agitated, angry and are quick to turn on one another. One look at my family and we could have saved those scientist lots of time and money.  My dad figured that by the time we had arrived anywhere we were lucky to have the same numbers as when we left! Mom always made snide comments about burying bodies along the way...but I think she was joking.  (that is what made the Salton Sea story blog- 5/13/13 so traumatic, I guess.  Deep down inside I felt I was one of the bodies they tried to leave behind).

Three or four days on a 3000 mile trip... with farts, fighting and grody teenage bodies - I'm not sure "vacation" is the right word to use for one of our excursions. It was more like a precursor for (what has evolved into) cage fighting. Every time the doors opened for gasoline or a pee-pee stop - bodies tangled in wrestling matches poured out onto the asphalt.

If you have been following the blog, then you know my poor dad was a frugal Swede (I don't blame him).  Anyway he perfected a way he could sustain all ten of us on these three week vacations by rationing crackers and cheese for less than twelve dollars.

Never mind the fact that the van didn't have heat or air-conditioning, add the name calling, the punching, the hair pulling, greasy farts, sweaty bodies, we usually ended up at our destination malnourished, dehydrated, missing tufts of hair - dirty and disheveled as if we were some blonde-haired cave-dwelling missing links.


 

We started out like this to the left...  and ended up like this to
                                      the right.


      It wasn't a pretty sight.


The first stop in Detroit was to the inner city to visit my Aunt Mary who was a nun ... Little did Puke-Breath and those Nuns know what awaited them... TO BE CONTINUED.

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm sure about the universe!" 

                                                                                 Albert Einstein 

                                                                         

Act 2 This Was No BEE-utiful Day!

To refresh your memory...

We flashed-back in time where dad had taken us on a celebratory trip to the Kings River.

After paddling around and splashing in the tame water of the shallow tributary where we had been camping for several days, we decided to head for a day trip on the big river below the dam.





  Here is our infamous "Dam Picture"


There we are to the left - unpacking - posing and melting in the sun anticipating fishing and splashing around in the swifter currents of the water just below the Pine Flats Dam.

Puke breath is in his full length cast from the accident at Saint Marks that was later billed as:

          The Dahlins verses The School Yard Fence.

                         The final decision: A Tie

We managed to bring the entire fence down, but the fence inflicted as much damage as possible in breaking poor Puke-Breaths leg in 8 places.

Previously, Dooh-Dooh Pants got caught in the strong current in the middle of the Kings and was carried downstream to a deadly waterfall on the paddle board, which was too big for him to handle.

Dad rushed... we followed...Puke Breath hobbled... Dad lowered a rope...over Dooh-Dooh Pants head it went... around his neck it ended...Dooh-Dooh Pants freaked out...paddle board spun... rope wrapped about board and Dooh-Dooh Pants...trapping him under water...
                                                 ... we had killed him before he even reached the bloody cow carcass that was being stripped of it leathery hide in flesh-shredding waterfall.

The board turned perpendicular to the shore and caught in some bushes just before the deadly falls... Dooh-Dooh Pants revived... and that was ACT 1... It could have been something right out of a Three Stooges movie - only the 10 Stooges!

We had almost lost one boy, now it was time for ACT 2:

Two of my dumb-courageous older brothers approach a trashcan swarming with Killer Bees from Africa; not really bees from Africa (they hadn't arrived yet in the United States) Meat Bees...AKA "yellowjackets" sometimes called "WASPS!"

I'm not talking about White Anglo Saxon Protestants - we were Catholic! 

These little critters are nasty because unlike bees... they craved meat to eat...and have been known to tear at the flesh of the inside of your eye. SO THEY CAN BITE AND THEY CAN STING! They are social and travel in colonies of up to 1500 bees.  I guess they like to travel in a social pack like my older brothers.

Anyway, the boys won the first round by approaching the trashcan and trapping a bunch of those yellow and black flying terrors in an old Styrofoam worm container.  I don't think the boys had a "Plan B" in mind yet. Had they, then this next part is premeditated.

Joining the rest of the crew, who were busy fishing, the boys opened the container and pretended as if nothing was out of the ordinary. 

HOW RUDE for those yellowjacket/wasps/flesh-eating-bees to be angry!  Well they were - imaging that.

We smelled like fish guts and the wasps began an aerial attack. Dad ordered all of us into the water.  Pushing, Pulling, Screaming, Yelling, (just about the same way we get into the van every time) we dove in and began splashing in hopes of  defending ourselves against the enemy air-force.

Most of us survived...we forgot one thing, however, "One Legged Limp Along" (that's what my dad called Puke Breath) had a full leg cast and couldn't join us in the water.

Gustav took a hit. One of the meat bees got a hold of the skin under this armpit. He freaked out and began running like a mad man!

THE DAHLINS HAD SHOWED UP. We had already put on a spectacular performance for everyone who had planned on spending a nice leisurely day by the river and now they were getting a glorious "TWO-FER"     It was like having two movies on one ticket, a veritable Three Stooges marathon.

Gustav deserved it...divine payback, a prank that finally stung him in the____________ !  Well anyway, he ran out of the water and on the beach he headed for low lying branch so he could swan-dive into the river and put an end to his nemesis.  Only...

ONLY, as he ran up the branch the bee fell off and straight down into the top of Puke-Breath's cast! (There really are no scientific explanations for these kinds of phenomenon - like hangers that tangle in the night -  socks that go missing in the dryer and the Lennons, 200 miles away sitting in the safety of their family room).

Up to this point, Puke Breath had done a decent job of defending himself by swinging his crutches at the aerial  onslaught.
 
But now, the universe had tilted against him and the angriest meat-bee/yellowjacket/wasp was caught in the cavernous darkness of this white thigh meat and pretty upset about it.

Throwing his crutches he leapt like that lame man who had gotten healed by Jesus.  He groaned and hobbled on his cast running back and forth on the shore as unintelligible language spewed from his lips - which needed translation if it were to be Biblical. He spun and threw himself back on the ground like the demonic in Mark's gospel!  

He wriggled and writhed on the ground, inserting a thin twig into his cast as he frantically tried to poke the demon bee.

It was no use, the pain was so great that he decided to give and die! Dad knew of only one thing. THE WATER.

In he went, cast and all!  The bee died!  The cast disintegrated over the course of the day... which ended up being a good thing... not just so mom could put pink calamine lotion on his bites and wasp sting...

BUT BECAUSE... it was only then, we discovered that the twig he had inserted into his cast was POISON OAK!

His leg swelled up with red and puss - three times it's natural size and "Quasimodo" the "Elephant-man" 
spent another week, quarantined, in that 'O hospital bed he had been so familiar with.

Since I'm still waiting to drop the "HALLOWEEN" video on you - which is in the works now...  Next time, I'll tell you about our 1963 cross country trip the following year - that ended up with naked Swedish bun-buns in a Detroit Convent full of Nuns.

REMEMBER

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."

~ Richard Bach
      

Of Bees and Men!

Even though the setting for my blog is fall of 1968 (where I am in the first couple months of 7^th grade), last time I took us back 6 years to August of 1962. It shouldn't surprise anybody that this Dahlin vacation turned into another high drama odyssey in the comedic rescue attempt of Dooh-Dooh Pants, which almost killed him while entertaining the throngs of spectators that lined the shore of the Kings River just below Pine Flats dam.    

 

  

Chewbacca was happy that the paddle board did not end up in a plastic tray in some restaurant as tooth picks (paddleboard pictured to the left).

 

The previously mocking teenagers went back to Rio Linda with “Mud on their face, a big disgrace” (Hey, those are fun words...someone should make that into a song someday).

I took the bag off my head and returned Puke-Breath’s crutches and spent the rest of the day fishing with the family below the dam. 

 

I didn’t like fishing like the rest of the boys, so I spent the greater part of the day climbing the low hanging trees that hung over the river…being careful not to fall into the swift current that would carry me into “The Cow Blender Falls" of death - that Dooh-Dooh Pants had barely escaped. 

BUT, as either fate would have it…or human nature; this day did not end without at least a little bit more excitement brought on by the mischievous schemes of the Wolf Pack.

In a decrepit rust-and-blue trashcan that had the remains of some camper’s dinner from yesterday and discarded remains of  this morning’s fishing exploits – guts and trout heads, were bees. Saying bees makes this scene sound too mundane and just too ordinary when in actuality it was buzzing with the industrious sounds of ten bazillion meat bees doing what meat-bees do.

That old trashcan drummed with the humming and buzzing of a tropical cyclone that could be heard some 200 feet away that gave me the willy-nillies. It was a veritable “cock eye Bobs” as they might say in Australia. Never-the-less, the dented metal can was almost no match for the force of those bees that seemed to have that rusted can spinning under a spell, as if it had floated down river (like Dooh-Dooh Pants had in my last episode) and without being rescued was caught in the turbulent cow shredding falls just below the bridge.

No one in their right mind was about to venture within 32 and a half feet of that thing. But then, we weren’t really in our right mind - were we? While dad was busy baiting hooks and helping to liberate lures that had gotten snagged on submerged logs, two of the conniving older boys warily, but courageously made their way to the trash-can-of-certain-death with an empty Styrofoam worm container.

They had the brilliant (or devious) idea of capturing a bunch of those bees in order to terrorize the rest of us who were happily climbing or intensely fishing. 

Managing to make it all the way to the tornado of bees without getting stung, Gustav must have been channeling Saint Francis. The bees didn’t seem to mind the ooey-gooey container of warm-worm ooze that had been let down into the center of their vortex - the eye of the hurricane!  As a matter of fact the easily agitated bees seemed well pleased as they delightfully swarmed the bountiful grossness that was offered to them as if a gift from the gods itself.     

       NECTAR FROM THE BEE GODS

Little did any of us imagine, at the time, just how much this trickery would upset the industrious little critters.  Snap went the lid, trapping a bunch of them inside, just like they had done to me in "The Hamper of Death" incident (blog post 6/5/2013). I, better than anybody, knew how they felt! All these poor buzzing little guys wanted was to feel important and included, only to discover that they had also been betrayed when seduced by a cunning plot of my older brothers.  Maybe they felt betrayed, hurt, or sad (I don't know exactly), but I can tell you this – The Bees trapped in that Styrofoam worm container WERE MAD! 

Let me put it this way...in the words of Robert Burns, "The best laid plans of mice of men oft go astray!"  or should I say, "The best laid plans of BEES and MEN!"

To wet your whistle, maybe I should just say this…poor, poor, poor…Puke Breath. This trip was to celebrate the fact that he was up and out of bed for the first time in months with his full-length walking cast. In retrospect, my advice would have been for him 'not to have wondered from that hospital bed in our dining room.'  This is the same counsel I would have told Goliath when he faced a ruddy little boy with five smooth stones.  "Goliath - don't get out of bed today. You're in for a heap of trouble." 

Dooh-Dooh Pants' rescue was ACT 1 and now Puke-Breath was about to star in ACT 2 of the show we put on at the Kings River.            Puke Breath had no idea what trouble lied ahead!