Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters and 20 Intoxicated Rats!

We had an excuse in the back of the Boy Scout truck for being crazy. We had been freely inhaling carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen and other hydro-carbons that got belched out of the tailpipe of the old moving van that blew over the half barn-doors filling the prison space we inhabited for the duration of the slow moving - hour and a half drive to Camp Slauson. BUT, the guys in front - the two Scout Masters and Pinky Parlett had no excuse for what was going to happen next. Mr. Tapp was a novice in driving the horrendous beast - this was his "solo" checkout flight - per say!

(Picture above of "boy scout" truck in background with dent over driver side)

We already looked ridiculous pulling into campground!  We didn't care. We liked being different! We like to proudly say we are from VENICE to every other smug Boy Scout in the Boy Scout Universe (you know - the other regular kids who were actually there to learn something and to do something constructive).  We had our plans, which did not include anything to do with merit badges nor anything  remotely considered constructive.

                                     (pictured above- regular kids from Troop 34 pictured at camp Slauson)

Since my over-achieving Eagle Scout brother, Kurt, had left the troop last year and went away to Humboldt State University where he went into rigorous training to become a full fledged hippie, we were not about to let small details like merit badges and rank advancement get in the way of having fun.

In the meantime, Ray Vandenmark, who had been to Slauson a billion times, had his face pressed up against one of the two porthole windows that had been cut in front of our cargo compartment, (one either side of the cab), when Mr. Tapp was faced with the decision of crossing over the creek bridge to take the back route up to our Troop 32 cabin or to take the road most traveled that would put us below the cabin on main road.

Pausing, to contemplate the decision - wondering what direction to take... Ray began screaming into the glass window not to cross over the bridge!  His screams became the fuel for a chant the rest of us intoxicated kids in the back which only made the noisy arrival of Troop 32 even more inglorious and obvious to every camper within 16 miles (give or take 15 miles).
                             "Don't cross the bridge"
                             "Don't cross the bridge"
                             "Don't cross the bridge"
                             "Don't cross the bridge"
Louder and louder the cacophony grew as Kissel began pounding on a bucket while Mosquito Bait and Cockrell pounded on the inside walls of the converted moving van, like drums beating in unison to our new song!

We had reason... We were drugged  - but Tapp chose the bridge. Pinky was too large and was squeezed in so tight - that he had his arms pinned between Mr. Tapp and Mr. Sarosi - rendering him powerless to grab the wheel in order to prevent Tapp from driving the oxidized, blue monster over the creaky, wooden bridge.

There could be no greater entrance like ours, with boys at full octave - blaring off key,  "Don't cross the bridge," buckets pounding, walls resounding the thuds of enthusiastic fist like the beating of African drums... Ray screaming and bridge squealing in protest under the load.          

Venice had made it's way to Topanga - and everyone knew it!

Headlong with confidence, without heeding the wisdom of the 20-drugged-rats making noise in the back to the contrary - Tapp drove "boldly where no man has gone before."

In one final gasp Ray screamed at the top of his lungs before ducking to take cover...

...went the sound of a branch shattering the window where Ray (a mere nano-second) previously had been watching the awful event unfold before his very eyes.  Ray, was both, the most unlucky person alive and the most lucky! Somehow he had escaped death more times than me, but was like a magnet for near-death experiences without needing any help from older brothers. He did this all by himself and didn't need anyone else to shove him in hampers, bury him in pits, dangle him out of windows, tie him to trees, throw him over cliffs or electrocute him - like I had been privileged at the hands of my older brothers.

In an explosive crunch of twisting metal, the low hanging branch crushed the top driver-side of our juvenile delinquent containment box (other-wise known as"Scout Bus"). The branch shot through the window and slid along the flesh of Ray's back - under his uniform shirt that subsequently dangled him in mid air as though he was a large piece of meat on a Sish-Kabob!

Arms flailing and feet kicking, Ray dangled as the impaled truck was pinned between the large oak and the old bridge... the snakes had gotten away in the chaos while all of the other normal Boy Scouts on the planet watched in horror at our arrival.




So far, this is turning out to be just the kind of trip that Jeffery Lennon is going to love!  He was tired of being normal and wanted a dose of "Dahlin" to spice his life up, and believe me, he was going to get his share of "crazy"this weekend in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Just saying!

Seeing that we were stuck on the bridge, I climbed out on top of the scout bus and began an "air-guitar" rendition of the new Simon and Garfunkel song, "Like a Bridge over Troubled Waters"

Next time: "The White Angels"


  
   
                         

I Talked Cockrell out of Going NAKED!

The year is 1970


I got the ink off my face from being tattooed by Chewbacca. It's Spring - I was smitten and twitterpated like Bambi; still very much in love with "being in love" with Andrea, though still desperately wanting to know what this thing "love" is really all about.

I must put aside this quest momentarily and go with our Venice, Boy Scout Troop to Camp Slauson in Malibu for an early work-trip in preparation of summer!

Basically, it's a testosterone thing! Smelly kids that don't really shower, but once a week or so, herded into the back of our (now) infamous Troop 32 "Scout Bus" - a converted moving van that Ralph Nader would have said, was, "unsafe at any speed" because of the noxious carbon monoxide fumes that got sucked into the back.

Usually by the time we got to our destination whether Idaho or Malibu, we were like a bunch of wild hyenas who had already fought each other and were foaming at the mouth and ready to take on any other pack of wild animals.

I don't think there was anything about this particular "sweaty-toxic-smelly-fighting-work-trip that would get me closer to understanding the meaning of love.

Conceding on giving up on my quest for the meaning of love temporarily, I figured that this whole Boy Scout thing was just a way to even the playing field.

My next oldest brother up from me, was 4 years older than me and it went up to 9 years from there.  It wasn't easy fighting against a herd of 20-something-year-old Hippies. At least this way I got to fight against guys who were at least in a 4-year range of my age group!





Tommy Blaser couldn't go, because of the Hippy his mother thought we had killed with the pennies on the railroad track, but Jeffery Lennon anxiously anticipated the "Snipe Hunts" and was fully invested in whatever mayhem our troop would bring to the otherwise tranquil Boy Scout weekend in Topanga.
     
On the top of our list was Troop 34!  Boy, were they in for a surprise!

I had to reason with Dego and Steve and "Melvin Pervis" and "Mosquito-Bait" and Conklin and nix the idea of raiding the other troops in the middle of the night as the "Naked Angels." I think Cockrell (not a nickname btw) just wanted another venue to show off generous male endowment - like He had in Idaho last summer. Embarrassed, as a late-bloomer, I convinced the guys to go on the midnight raids in our underwear...AKA "THE WHITE ANGELS"

All of us swore to secrecy about the the snakes I had stolen from the cages upstairs on the third floor of my house of which we had no intention of releasing back into the wild... we had more sinister motives that involved the boys in the Mar Vista Troop!



(Pictured couple years later with Ray and Steve and Me - with the notorious "Scout Truck" in our front yard!)


Stay tuned until next time!  Havoc at Slauson

Normal isn't what it is all cracked up to be... Remember "You only dance on this earth for a short while."

Tribute to Mary Blaser and how the World is Different!

 A hundred years ago, back when we were kids, the world was a much different place.  Well, it wasn't quite a hundred years ago - it was only about half of that.  We didn't have computers - computer games - cell phones - smart phones - instant access to all of the information in the world at our fingertips and knew nothing of SOCIAL MEDIA.

For fun we actually had to play outdoors! You know, play: kick-the-can, hide-and-go seek until it got dark, build forts, hang out on front porches, fix cars and get dirty!  That was our way of being social... it actually meant being connected and making physical contact.

The internet was my front yard.

In the days we wore blue jeans with holes and fixed cars in the street.   In the days that if you needed to know something, you had to ask someone or look it up in an encyclopedia - because there was no YouTube "how to" videos!


This was back when kids climbed and people got hurt...That's the way it was back then...

Back in the day that we knew our neighbor and hung out with our neighbors...sang songs and did skits in the front lawn...

...smoked out in the backyard 

and just about everywhere else for that matter...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        ...played practical jokes - (not just video games) but did silly things like making a kid hang on the bucket in a well or stashed in a hamper, or electrocuting nuns or kids , and dressing up and stealing Edna's avocados. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               ...went fishing together...  (pictured: Erick, Mark and Tommy with his big catch - in front of Blaser house). 

There was no 911 - and no cell phones - and no instant access to everything you need when you desperately needed it... It made finding parents more difficult and emergency-response slower which should have made those times more dangerous... I almost died a couple times because of it - but we lived through it!

* And it was also a time that we did lots of stupid stuff like racing over the Venice canals when cars could still traveled over them in both directions...what were we thinking and how did world survive?  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The other thing we did in our form of social networking was to practically live in each other's homes. 

Our parents even went into business together: DAHLIN/BLASER Reality!  

Today, there is very little adventure. People drive hot rods on computer games and talk to people half-way around the world, but barely make contact with the person next door. They do all of this all from the safety of their couch and insulated from true physical contact.  Today, there is good chance that you don't know your next door neighbor... but back then you knew all your neighbors. You knew what they were having for dinner... you knew whether they would be watching the Lennon Sisters on TV or Perry Mason, or Star Trek or Bonanza.  None of that had to be posted on Facebook and the parents of your best friends became like a second set of parents to you (you know the "It takes a whole village" kind-of-thing).
   

I hung out a lot at Tommy's house... slept in his fort... ate their food... 

and a lot of people hung out at my house. 

...and back then, other adults in the neighborhood could tell you what to do and what not to do!  Mrs. Blaser, more than any other mother on our street was like my second mom. Her food was always better than ours - well they actually had meals at their house and she was a great cook! Her chili tradition on Halloween was the best!  She had a way of interrogating Tommy and Jeffery and me... She would always say to Tommy just after I had just gotten him to do something stupid, "Tommy, if Mark jumped from a ten story building, it doesn't mean you have to jump from a ten story building."  

She had a strong moral compass. She didn't want me or Tommy or her kids saying the "Darn" word and were threatened to have our mouths washed out with soap. 

She was practical. Always asking Tommy what color the water was of our pool before she would allow him to swim in it, "is the water green and is it filled with mosquito larva?"  she would ask. The only problem was she never asked about how many of the older Dahlin boys were hanging out in our backyard when he wanted to come over and swim in our pool. Which meant that although the water was clear - she couldn't prevent him from being electrocuted along with Karin, (little) Mary Blaser and me.  

She was kind.  When I was pushed through the front window next their entrance door - she treated me with compassion instead of yelling at me for breaking their window. 

                                                                                            She cared. She is the one who called me and said that our stupid dog, Bluin, was begin attacked by the Veloci-attack-rooster.  The Veloci-Raptor was responsible for giving the poor dog a frontal lobotomy, but Mrs. Blaser was responsible for savings its life. 

She never tried to get even!  She didn't do anything nasty to us for throwing the skunk "stink-sacks" over the fence into the mouth of Ginger, the eager collie, who was anxiously waiting to attack and bite into the potent scrumptious gizzards of the toxic smelling road kill  - THAT - Ginger lovingly brought into the house as a gift to share with the entire family.  

Mrs. Blaser was trusting! For some unknown and mysterious reason, Mrs. B allowed me to take her youngest kids - her most precious jewels - four wheel driving and off to Kings River teaching Michael to water ski behind a 15 horse power motor.                                                                                                                                               Boat accidents and plenty of misadventures                                                                                                                                                                         And...for some reason we always made it back alive and in one piece.    MIRACLE! 

Like the time I had every single kid on Harding Avenue in the back of my K5 Chevy Blazer for one of my infamous and illegal midnight beach escapades... WHEN... my big-block racing-motor cut out with the police racing down the bike path in Playa Del Rey - lights on and sirens blaring in hot pursuit. I had no choice, but to kick all 23 kids out of the back of my Chevy Blazer and made them push the gas-starved beast out of a huge sand hole. However, when the engine suddenly roared back to life I left a trail of Harding kids in the dust cloud and stranded on the beach - in the middle of the night! To this day - I have no idea how I managed to outrun the cops and also how I managed to regroup with all the scattered kids that ran off in a hundred different directions at the Playa Del Rey stables without any kind of contingency plan in place.

P.S. Don't tell Mrs. Tripp, or Mrs. Nargie or Mrs. MacClain or any of the other moms... shssss our secret!   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Mrs. Blaser was giving. She gave us the use of her backyard for my wedding reception.  For numerous functions and for fourth of July fireworks (not to mention the time where the invited Dahlins nearly burned down the apartment building behind her house)... Whew.. that was close!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          ...AND for a thousand other things we did in that beautiful backyard and wonderful deck! 

...and for my dad's, "Mr. D's" final birthday celebration... 

We worked with each other over at Century 21 O'Donnell and Associates.                                                                                                                                                                                                             The ladies in front of my Mercedes 

We became friends and although I felt like I could call her Mary, I continued to call her Mrs. Blaser out of respect for my second mom who was Wise and Kind and Compassionate and Caring and Giving and Generous.  Thank you Mrs. Blaser for enriching my life - for adding value to our close-knit neighborhood... for your discipline... for your friendship... and for loving me - both when I was young as if I were one of your own...  

....and when I grew older.

I love you... Mrs. Blaser! I miss you and I'll see you on the other side!    Your other son - the kid from next door - Mark                                                                                                                     Oh, and I guess I should tell someone (specifically a Blaser), where the treasure trove of stolen lawn tools have been buried - the ones that had the orange "B"  painted on them - which we had sanded off - and repainted with the letter "D" instead.                                             "Forgive us our trespasses!" 

     *Venice canal picture posted on Facebook (I grew up in Venice) by Kelly Scarborough!