I'll Never Forget You Mr. Lennon: The Day that Rocked Venice

Star Date August 13th 1969

The bummer about my birthday being the middle of summer is that every time we took a family vacation it qualified, both - as my birthday party and as my birthday present. We would be grinding the volcanic pumice between our teeth that had blown into a piece of toast soaked in bacon-grease and someone would break out into a horrific rendition of happy birthday that sounded more like cats fighting in an alley.

  "...happy birthday dear Karl and Mark. Happy birthday to youuuuuuuuu."

The Dahlins were definitely not Lennons and nobody in my family could carry a tune nor cared to.

I was born on my second oldest brother's birthday.

 Being 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10, I always complained. I wanted to have a "real" birthday party like all of the other "normal" kids at Saint Marks. But we were always gone to Kings River or Salton Sea at that time of year for our family vacation and my parents would say, "This trip is your birthday party" even though we were going to be there any way. It just didn't seem fair. Nothing was worst than the time they left me behind me behind at Salton Sea on my 11th birthday - you talk about a surprise party...boy was that unexpected birthday present(post 5/13/130. From then on, I figured I was lucky if they brought me back home to Venice with them - presents or no presents.  

Well this year, since I went on the Boy Scout Jamboree, our vacations for the summer was over and it looked like I would get a chance to be at home for once on my birthday and was anticipating a regular, good-old-fashioned birthday party.  I figured that I would get to have my friends over after Mass on Sunday and like my other brothers and sisters and like "regular people" do, we would have ice cream and cake and I would get to open some presents. To me, this was just as monumental as the astronauts landing on the moon a few weeks back.          
                                      "Markie D was going to have a real live birthday party.
                                       Markie D was going to have a real live birthday party.
                                       Markie D was going to have a real live birthday party."

I sang this in my head as I danced up and down the street on Saturday morning in anticipation of having a "real" birthday. Jeanette Lennon looked out her window and thought I was a little crazy, but it was all I could think about. I had arrived: Real friends. Real presents. Real cake.

But when that Sunday morning came the front pages of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the Santa Monica Evening Outlook were plastered with the tragic news of Mr. Lennon's murder yesterday at the Venice Golf Course. My little sister Karin, was over at the Lennon house yesterday playing with Annie in their backyard at the time the bad news had reached them.  Joey came outside to break the news and solemnly told her the second greatest understatement in history "Karin, I think you should probably go." The first greatest understatement being, "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the show?"

Our neighborhood was shocked! I know this wasn't global news. I know this wasn't as scandalous as Chappaquiddick or as sensational as the moon landing - three weeks ago, but this news was just as shocking to us and felt just as bad to our little, close knit neighborhood as JFK's assassination did 6 years ago.  

Sister Edith told us 7th graders, that if we missed Mass, it was a mortal sin and yet none of us felt very much like going this morning and I don't think the Pope was too upset that most of us on Harding Avenue didn't show up for church this morning.

Saturday night dozens of police cars began to show up and by Sunday morning we had cop cars parked up and down our street, along with reporters and a number of other mysterious vehicles.

The murderer had gotten away, but the Lennons knew who the prime suspect was right away. It was that deranged fan, Chet Young, from whom they had been receiving letters from for years. Actress Sharon Tate had been murdered less than a week ago and some of the newspaper people thought this murder was connected to the Charles Manson murders.

Chet Young had made death threats against President Johnson (back while he was still in office) believing that the President should have made Mr. Lennon allow Chet to marry Peggy, one of the four famous singing Sisters.


Since there were so many conflicting reports and since this involved the past President of the United states and possibly involved Charles Manson and might have been part of his serial, killing-spree of famous people the secret service sent a detail to our neighborhood to protect the entire Lennon family.

All of this to say... that I didn't get a birthday party BUT this time it was OKAY!  I was too young and too stupid to know what to say to my friends: Joey and Annie and Kippy. All I knew was that I felt sad for them and for their family. I had really liked Mr. Lennon. At 53 he was way too young to leave us. I remember him and the training he would do with his kids down Naples. I remember him driving down the street in his station wagon and seeing if any of us kids wanted to jump in and go see something that had caught on fire. I remember the time he took us down to the SLIDES at Venice Beach and we climbed under the fence and slid for free!  I remember the cherry bombs and the tin cups he would blow up out of the water in the backyard. I remember him threatening Leland to stop "hot-rodding" down our street. I remember how intense he was and also his sense of humor. I'll always remember some of his shenanigans during the big 4th of July shin-digs in their backyard.  

This was a bad day for Harding Avenue: Sorry friends, I'm going to miss your dad too!  

This was definitely not the "best birthday ever," but one I'll always remember - and one I'm glad I didn't have!  

...I guess we'll never get that race between Danny and Tony, but seeing how tony had broken the land speed record when he chased down that gator (last post) there really was no reason for the "match up of the century."