The Surprising and Incredible Shock in the Movie Theater

I was so proud that my buttons almost burst off my shirt.  A moment that sent a scream of jubilation in a movie Theater last Tuesday night.

A moment that I hope that Dahlins, Blasers, Lennons, Tripps, Nargies, McClains, Cheryl Arnold Moseley, everyone on Harding Avenue, those from Venice - Chrys Atwood and those with roots in Santa Monica will also feel proud and might join together with me in a special moment of celebration.  

But first this...

I don't exactly know where I was on March 21, 1965 as a 9-year-old at Saint Mark's grammar school in Venice Ca.  It could have been I was being shot by my older brothers with needle-tipped arrows, shoved in a hamper, buried in a pit in the backyard or the day I accidentally discovered the alligator in the bath tub - I don't know. I don't know if it was one of the days I was dancing with my squishy black angel from Watts. I do know it was the year I was left behind at Salton Sea by my family and even more importantly than all of that - it was the first day of the Selma March in Alabama.

Martin Luther King had put out the call to clergy to join the March from Selma to Montgomery for the rights of black Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Six nuns from the Midwest responded to King's call and joined the Martin Luther King in the march. It was the first time that vowed Catholic women had made so public a political statement, that changed the tide of public opinion. My Aunt Mary was one of those nuns who were later referred to as Sisters of Selma featured in a PBS special documentary. I am proud to say that my Aunt, Sister Mary Leoline, (native of Santa Monica - graduate of Saint Monica High School - who, during retirement lived in Venice at the Harding House) was the only nun to walk the entire March.  YES, SHE WAS THE ONLY NUN to march the entire way... THIS BRINGS ME TO THE JUBILATION SCREECH that disrupted the MOVIE THEATER... last Tuesday night!

A contingent group of my family in Southern California were watching "Selma" last Tuesday night, when at the end of the movie, a large cameo of original footage of Sister Mary Leoline -i.e. Aunt Mary - walks across the screen at the finish line of the Selma March in a single shot!

Pictured to the left is older brother, Kurt Dahlin, President and founder of Water Wells for Africa  (http://waterwellsforafrica.org) bringing the gift of water and life to 200,000 people every single day in Malawi.






This same excited gasp exuded from the four of us in Northern California who went to see the film the day before on Monday (with my mother-in-law, Sharon, who walked in the James Meredith march in 1966).

    

The same thing happened in Carmel California when my big sister, Mary Leoline (named after Aunt Mary), was watching the movie and also again in Las Cruses, New Mexico, when my little sister, Karin, was likewise shocked by the wonderful surprise of seeing this larger than life footage of our Aunt Mary "Bearing Witness for Change."  

VENICE - SANTA MONICA we have something to cheer about and can celebrate our rich heritage that made a significant impact in the world.

Here is the link to my Blog post that tells the Story of Aunt Mary.  

Stop racism: be an agent of change!  

Irene, my large squishy angel for nearly 20 years -  also worked on Harding avenue at the Blasers, the McClains, and at the Lennon house.

Good things can indeed come from Venice!

MLK Tribute: Watts Venice and Santa Monica

As a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. I want to re-post a true story about how the pains of being the baby brother of the infamous Wolf Pack were mitigated each week by the Angel from Watts. Also, it is important to those of us from Venice and Santa Monica to know that right in our stomping ground... right  from our city thousands of miles from Selma and right from our very own Saint Monica high school we have a genuine but non-nondescript hero of the Civil Rights Movement... to be proud of (by clicking on the link to the right you can find that story here)...

Circled in red in the picture above is my Aunt Mary with Martin Luther King Jr. in the foreground of the "Selma March"

Now about the large, black lady from Watts who made her way to Harding ave in Venice several times a week for a couple decades; little did I know - she was God's gift to me - my angel. To be the youngest boy of a slightly demented pack of older brothers was a tough job - but someone had to do it.  It was my job to get Jalapenos rubbed all over my body, to be shoved in a hamper of death, to have my temples squeezed and knocked out. Who else would volunteer to be be electrocuted or buried in a pit or left behind at Salton Sea  - NOBODY in right mind.  But someone had to submit the the torture of sadistic older brothers left to themselves without adult supervision.   My mom had checked out, locked herself in her bedroom and our house was like an asylum run by the inmates where all sibling torture ran downhill and fell upon my plate... I had inherited this mantle from the brother before me and he in turn inherited this from the brother above him and so forth and so on.

The only problem was that by the time I came along there was a lot more of them to pick on me and they had perfected all means of inventive torture - never thought of before by the like of the Lennons, Nargies, Tripps, Blasers or anyone from Santa Monica.

The year was 1966 and a lot was going on in the world... besides the Beatles, long hair, hippies, hot rods and Vietnam War protest, there were much bigger stakes taking place in our country at this time. It was the ongoing tension about Race and equality and civil rights. After James Meredith was shot, Stockley Carmichael reacted and said,  "The three terms that black people in this country should learn at birth. One is 'White Supremacy,' one is 'New York Colonialism,' and one is 'Black Power.'"

No matter what white people say in denial... blacks were looked down upon as second class citizens. To a small degree (as much as a 5th grader could wrap his little mind around -  being the tormented baby brother) I understood their frustration. The pent-up need for equality and justice and the frustration of wanting to have a voice had become a ticking time-bomb.

In the seed bed of that context every Friday - an old, black woman took the bus from Watts to my house - on Harding Ave in Venice. Irene was large and squishy and beautiful. She spoke with a southern accent that was so thick, it was as though she was talking a different language. I couldn't quite make out everything she was saying... I couldn't make out most of what she was saying - yet despite my inability to understand her words, I knew she spoke a language that was not filled with hatred, malice or have any scorn... I did not have to flinch every time she rose her hand or fear that around every corner was some kind of diabolical trap. She was different...nice...maybe it was love I thought - the thing I longed for the word I wanted someone to say - TO ME! She didn't look down on me as though I was a second class citizen like my brothers did and she accepted me just the way I was - mosquito bites and all.

Irene came to de-clutter the chaotic mess in our house every Friday. By Friday morning it was always stinky mismatched socks that I had borrowed from the floor of my brother's room. I loved Fridays. I couldn't wait for the bell to ring at Saint Marks school - because I had an appointment with my squishy black angel.

When the bell went off at 2:50 in Sister Godzilla's classroom I darted for door...there was no time for idle chatter. I zigged and zagged in between the likes of Terry and Marilyn and Andrea and Theresa and "Ghering the Great" and Richard and Roberta.  I race home in those smelly mismatched socks. Poochie by beloved beagle laid smack dab in the middle of the warm asphalt and cheerfully wagged her tail when she saw me rounding the corner as I gave an abbreviated salute to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Lennon Sister's front window.

If I hurried, he could beat everyone home. There would be:
No Tony

No Karl

No Bob

No Kris

No Pinky

No Kurt

No Kleghorn

No Chewy

No Erick

No Charlie

No Four Eyes

No Queen of the World

No Karin and no Mrs. D.                 I could have Irene all to himself.

Irene, had heroically and miraculously washed mountains of laundry...cleared one set of stairs, raked the living room and entry of its debris. she dug through millions of years of strata that had collected on the Formica surface of the kitchen table since last week and parted the red sea of Evening Outlook - the Catholic Tiding and the National Geographic magazines that had become an accumulated mountain since the last time she was here. 

The flag was still hoisted earlier this morning, reminding me to be on lookout for the rattlesnake that had escaped last night) and the instant I burst through the front door the foul-mouthed Mynah bird began cussing like a drunken sailor. I shook my finger at the bird and told it to shut up...I didn't have time for it's vulgar language.. This was FRIDAY!  

Tuning out the despicable creature I stretched my neck in the direction of the stairs and listened for the singing.

Ears trained like radar,I had heard it up on the third floor.  I could hear the sweet melody of  "Swing Low" It was one of Irene's favorites. "Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home."  and it had become was one of my favorite songs. 

Rounding the third flight of stairs I could hear my beautiful Irene joyfully singing, “Well, I looked over Jordan and what did I see, coming for to carry me home? A band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home. Swing low, sweet chariot.” 

Feeling like a bird set free from its cage I bellowed, "I got-a wings, you got-a wings. All O' God's chillun got-a wings." I sang trying to overpower her - there'd be none of that. When I rounded the corner with my voice cracking, Irene dropped her broom and opened her arms like a mother bird welcoming a chick back to her nest. In I flew. Her arms smothered me like the protecting wings of that mother bird. I was safe. It was Friday and for 20 minutes everything was all right in the world as I made contact with the elusive concept of what I thought might be love.  

She talked! I listened - though I couldn't understand a word she said, I laughed when she laughed at the end of her sentences - hoping my timing was right. 

Irene grabbed my hands... we danced like the Prince and Princess at a Royal Ball and she said..."You got-a wings child...you got-wings."   

Yep! For some reason - I got Irene and she got me. The mynah bird squawked out profanities in the entry as we heard footsteps of the Wolf Pack returning home. I couldn't let them catch me with Irene so I jumped out the third floor window, slid down the galvanized plumbing pipe and  began to work on the fort out back with Tommy.  She finished her work...and took the bus back to Watts. TGIF!
   

In the profound words of Dr. Seuss, in his deep theological dissertation "Horton Hears a Who," just because people are different or smaller than you, remember what Horton learned, "A person is a person no matter how small."  and if I be so brazen as to add - no matter their color, their size of shape...filled with mosquito bites or mismatch socks -  As Irene taught me, we are all God's children and all equally deserving of equality, love, fairness and the occasional tender touch of kindness. 

Peanut Butter and Unrequited Love...UGHHHhhhh!

Picture of my 4th or 5th or 6th oldest brother (depending one who gets counted into the mix), but this picture says it all. 

This just happens to be taken in the exact location we almost lost Kurt to the paddle-board-over-the-falls and the botched-rope-around-the-neck-rescue!  

As I said last time, I prayed for normal - but with the alligator, the attack rooster, the monkeys at the Zoo, the resurrected cat, with Iguana Del Diablo, the rattlesnake escapes, the Ouija board and the crop of well taken care of "Mexican Tomato Plants" anything to do with normal was well behind us. I always thought that normal lived next door to us or across the street at the Lennon Sister's house.  

As Catholics we weren't allowed to say the "Damn" word in our family. The Blasers next door were forbidden to say, "Darn it." Darn was just too close to "damn" and would count as a venial sin that could add to your purgatory time.  Being all grown up at 13, I dipped my toes into the shallow waters of Venial sin and said "Darn it" a couple times in front of Tommy Blaser, Kippy Lennon and Jeffery Lennon just to show them that I was older and more mature. On three occasions, I said the "Darn" word while thinking "Damn" in my head and wondered what my penance would be at my next confession.  I was a sinner!

 us - irregular

Them  - normal 

Us -  in front of our house

Them - in front of their house  

(continued) The morning I got back to Saint Mark's grammar school from the zero period for advanced math at Saint Monica High School -  wouldn't you know it, but the very first person I bumped into was Andrea!         Literally. I literally ran into her like a car wreck.

I think Marilyn Jones or Theresa Modesti pushed her into me - because they had been trying to set us up (that's how you do it when you're 13-years-old). I wasn't upset about running into her... as a matter of fact I liked how it felt to actually come into contact with a member of the opposite sex - who just so happened to be my - one "true love."  "Ah honey you are my candy girl"   This could have been good news on any other occasion...well, on any other occasion that I wasn't tattooed like a circus freak. "Darn" slipped out of my lips in the middle of our CATHOLIC school... what people didn't know, was that I was so mad at Chewbacca, that my brain - screamed that four letter word "Damn" inside! "DAMN IT...CHEWBACCA!" as anger and resentment filled my heart towards him.

Yes, I deserved to go to hell. I bent over to help Andrea with her books when I heard Sister Superior call my name. When I stood up and turned around in her direction - she screeched and called me into her office.

Charlie Brown once said, "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love." Today my peanut butter would taste like gravel in my mouth. "Lord..." I offered up as she stood there and screamed at me for drawing the disgusting images all over my body "...normal, wouldn't be at all bad from time to time." I drifted off as she droned on about the Blessed Virgin Mary and others things I paid no attention to.

It was pretty embarrassing that she intentionally kept the door to her office wide open...so that the entire student body could hear her chew me out by name. I felt like she was the jury foreman rendering the verdict of guilty to be hung by the neck until dead in front of the entire school. I sat quietly and looked through her to the wall behind her...picturing...wondering...imagining the devious prank I intended to pull on Chewbacca as pay back. At the moment I couldn't think of anything better than a rattlesnake up his pant leg, but he had already survived that once before. NO, this time it would be more creative. He had it coming and I would have to tap into the evil ooze to get back at him for ruining my life and for the destroying the one shot I had at discovering what love really was.





While suspended from school, I intended on dreaming up ways of getting back at Chewbacca then eventually heading over to the Venice Police station to play football when the regular kids from Saint Marks and Venice High school got out.

After all this was the beginning a new decade - the beginning of the 70's and Hey, this was Venice - if you have ever been to Venice beach - you would know that with all my body art and tattoos - I would have fit right in!  

                                                                               Picture taken from the Venice Ocean Park Santa Monica 20^th Century Face book 

"Peaches Flowers and granola"   Good bye for now, I have to go eat my gravel, plan my revenge and hope Mrs. Blaser doesn't want to wash my mouth out with soap... my peanut butter gravel was bad enough.

       

Revenge of Chewbacca and the tattooed 13-year-old!

My older brother who looked like Chewbacca recently graduated from Santa Monica City College which granted him only more idle time. I don't know who said, "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop," but in the case of hippie older brothers this expression was certainly true - I had experience those unholy hands on too many occasions.  On the mornings he slept in (typically every morning - expect for the Wednesday and Thursday street cleaning torture  - which agitated him to no end)... I had one less obstacle of getting out the door in the morning and safely to Saint Mark's School. What I mean by "one less obstacle" was that I had one less older brother that I had to carefully navigated around - in order to escape unharmed.                               BUT NOT TODAY.

It was a new year (1970) and I prayed for normal! I had been praying for normal ever since the needle tipped arrows and the time I was left behind at Salton Sea. I was thirteen, still waiting for the stubborn hair to show up under my armpits and felt awkward among my classmates in the eight grade, like Ricky Arredondo, who had to shave the coveted peach fuzz on their upper lips.

I just didn't seem to fit; not in my family - and as a late bloomer not at school  - especially since I was the omega (baby) Dahlin boy and had been profiled because of the reputation of my older bothers that made the Nuns hate me and made me feel like everyone else was looking at me with raised eyebrows and sideways glances. On being Catholic





I wasn't a Blaser
I wasn't a Lennon
I wasn't one of those other normal, plain-wrapped kids who lived ordinary lives - I was a Dahlin!

My family was unique and I was special. Every time I walked out of a room I sensed that people were talking about me behind my back. I wanted to feel accepted and like I belonged and it seemed as though my older brothers (the WOLF PACK) knew that and were determined to make make sure that didn't happen.  I was on the outside looking in.

I'm not one who believes in conspiracy theories: I do believe we landed on the moon (6 months ago), that Paul McCartney was still very much alive, that tire companies didn't invent the expansion joints in concrete freeways to wear out tires faster or that the CIA killed President Kennedy - but sometimes I think my older brothers did conspired against me "To keep little brother down" at least it felt that way.

This morning was no different! It was January and the beginning of a new year...I had found clean socks and two shoes that matched. Somehow, in the cosmic order of things, I had been chosen as a select group of students from Saint Marks to attend Zero Period at Saint Monica's High School at O' dark-thirty-in-the-morning. I actually don't know why I was chosen or how someone figured that I qualified to be included in this smart group of kids who traveled each school-morning for advanced math (but I was...it made me nervous and now I had big expectations of high school level algebra to live up to). I had to at least pretend to be smart.  It felt good to feel like I finally belonged to something - even though it was a geek squad! I had to admit when I was just plain ordinary "White and Gold," a Swede with blonde hair I was kinda of cute - but that was the exception to the rule. Usually by the time I showed up to school I was black and blue - covered with all manner of bruises and Band Aids.

Terry Ballentine. Cathleen  Horamomto. David McLean. Smart kids, normal kids... and then there was me! On this particular Monday morning I don't know what Chewbacca was doing up so early - my hunch was that he never went to bed last night and was just making his way in from whatever party he was at. I don't know if our little encounter this morning was part of the "Wolf Pack Conspiracy" or if it was pay back that I had stolen Baby Jesus and managed to get away with it or that he was still upset that I tried to take him to school for show and tell.  In any case, I was a marked man (or a marked prepubescent-whatever-my-sister-called-me)... LITERALLY!

UGHhhhhhhh!

Chewbacca grabbed me from behind, picked me off my feet and squeezed all of the air out of me - cutting off the oxygen to my brain - rendering me unconscious. When I woke up, I quickly headed out the door door and hastily made my way to the waiting carpool of Saint Markian brainiacs. When I got to the car the other kids pointed and laughed (except for Cathleen - she cried! My Saint Mark's sweater was turned backwards and I had black-marker tattoos that covered my face like one of those Hells Angel "biker" guys who live down in the rough, run-down section of the Venice canals. Literally I was marked! In addition to the dripping flames - he drew little hairs on my chest and blacked out one of my teeth. I didn't have a good explanation for the mother who almost refused to let the little black and blue Swede into her car of hysterical 13-year-olds who wouldn't or couldn't stop laughing.  AT ME! Grrrrrrrrr


The only thing I knew, was that all the High School kids at Saint Monica's would see me and that eventually the rest of my classmates at Saint Mark's would think I belonged in the freak show in a circus.

The nun didn't know if she should let me into her class or not, but figured that since it was before homeroom she would take pity on me and let me in just this once with my demonic looking Tatt's - but she wasn't happy about it.

I met a kid named James Moore from Corpus Christi in the Palisades. He was the smartest kid in the class and wanted to write an algebraic word problem on how long it took Chewbacca to draw all over my body. "If Chewbacca began at the freckly mark as point A and drew a line all the way to the mosquito bite at point B and he drew another line from B to C and back to A around the ear and across the chest, which train would get to New York quicker and how long was Markie d on the floor before he woke up."   The kids laughed. It wasn't funny!


After class, when I boarded the "3 Lincoln" the bus driver squinted his eyes in serious scorn and asked me where I was headed - when I told him Venice Boulevard - he rolled his eyes, punched my ticket, reluctantly told me to get in and said "Venice, huh? It figures!"

I had bright expectations for 1970 and had hoped to get Andrea's attention.Only this was not the kind of attention I was looking for.



"Normal"
I prayed for normal but now sat quarantined in the back of the Big Blue Bus on my way back to Venice.

Maybe there really wasn't a conspiracy by the Wolf Pack...maybe they really didn't have secret meetings in the middle of the night to figure out ways of taking me down or trapping me in things like hampers or embarrassing me... if not - it just might be the conspiracy of human nature that makes us do bad things to one another.  I don't know if there any other explanation - the Ooze maybe- yes maybe it is the black sticky ooze we have all stepped into somehow and must find a way to escape.

Continued: Part 2 Back at Saint Marks

Childhood is the fiery furnace in which we are melted down to essentials and that essential shaped for good.                                                                   Katherine Anne Porter