The Halloween Event that Changed Venice.

The Halloween Event      
that Changed the Face of Venice forever                  (according to me―of course). 

If you are from Venice, or grew up in Santa Monica, Mar Vista, Culver City and parts nearby there is a great likely-hood that you’re pretty familiar with the famous Halloween haunted house tradition on Harding Avenue. Odds are: you might have been among the thousands of people who packed our street on one of those spooky Halloween nights to watch the shows put on by the Lennon family.

 *

It was a haunting portrayal that included Frankenstein, Dracula, a damsel in distress, along with eerie organ music played by a monster on the front balcony, drapes that blew from howling wind, flashes of lightening and peels of thunder.   Were you there?  Do you remember?

The Lennons were competitive, so I'm going to tell you the true story of how their famous Venice haunted house really began ―the single event that started it all. 

This was way back (early 60’s) before the long hair, before the Veloci-Rooster, before the alligator, before the Mexican tomato plants, before the Vietnam War protest and before landing on the moon and before painting Venice yellow.

Before all this... before the Ooze ... before the Ouija Board

...THERE was a time when good Catholics were not allowed to celebrate the Devil’s high holy-day of Halloween. It was our duty to avoid anything that smacked of demons and goblins, witches and ghost. Good Catholic parents celebrated All Saints Day instead. Kids dressed as saints and angels―sometimes even went begging for candy the day after Halloween.  It was awkward for everyone. This, however, is the true story of the watershed event that changed everything.

We lived across the street from the Lennons. The four oldest girls appeared on TV every week on the Lawrence Welk Show. 

How could our mom hope to compare to that?!
  
Her only hope was to hold fast to the long held tradition of sending her darling children out trick or treating as angels and saints. 

Year after year our mother, Joan Dahlin, held out as the last bastion of Catholic hope in the world―not giving in to the Devil's holiday by fighting back against the forces of darkness.

Year after year she spent endless nights sewing elaborate costumes that not even the Lennons could match (that's hard to image, but true)!  

Good for you Mrs. Dahlin -- We better than the Lennons.  

She sewed one costume for Tony (He was Saint Anthony - the patron saint of lost causes)

Then another costume for Karl (The first Pope-pictured to left) 

Then another  (Saint Christopher)             

And another   (Saint George the dragon slayer)

Then another. Year after year: satin embellishments, vestment undergarments, sewing… planning…dreaming and creating magnificent costumes with a special accessory for each one.

8 years of costumes ―8 years of sewing ―8 years of creative imagination―then a girl. Finally a girl. Ahhhhhhh―since she was the angel of the family, mom transformed her into an the cutest little angel you ever saw!

        Mary as a baby angel 

4 years later, she was old enough to be the Blessed Virgin Mary

9 years of costume making... then 10 years… then 11 years… and 12…and 13…and 14 years and now it was finally my turn.  I was 5 and was licking my chops in excited expectation of my elaborate Christian costume. This was a rite of passage―I would join the rest of the saints in trick and treating and be included in this special family tradition for the very first time.  

ME! Yes, me, I would join the saints. 

Then it happened 

Before I came along, mom invested a lot of time into sewing, a lot of energy, and years of careful planning of those costumes. And now it was my turn, but was nervous that I didn’t see the usually buzz of activity. The bright light of my saintly mother's energetic buzz had dimmed.  

It was October 31 and I eagerly tugged on mom’s skirt-hem. Because there was an obvious lack of enterprise I nervously asked about my costume. Maybe she had spent many nights creating me something special while I was sleeping―I hoped against hope.

Calmly leading me down a hall to a room that had been piled full of stuff, she pointed to the corner of a room and told me to climb toward an old, musty-smelling steamer-trunk that had been buried.

JOY! A treasure hunt, this was even more exciting. Opening it, she instructed me to pull out the old mink stoles that had been placed there years before. 

These smelly mink stoles still had the little paws and heads with tiny glass eyes that ominously stared at you. Don’t ask me why but ladies had considered these dead animals very elegant in their day for some reason. 

ANYWAY…My mother placed the hideous thing over my shoulders and said, “There.”

I didn’t get it “There… what?”  I said stuttering in disbelief, asking what saint I was supposed to be.

She said, “This will make you Saint John the Baptist, of course.”

I was confused by the furs, knowing that John the Baptist wore camel skins. Biting my lip. I held back my initial disappointment holding out whatever glimmer of hope for the really cool accessory like all the other kids had―at least. 

 With pleading eyes, I asked, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well…am I…am I going to get a cool thing to hold like all the other guys?”

“Follow me downstairs” she said without skipping a beat.

Taking a paper plate, she stuck a toothpick through the center of it and then perched the head from one of my sister’s dolls on top of the toothpick. 

To top it off she glopped ketchup around the beheaded doll’s neck.

 

More confused than with the furs, I had no idea how holding a paper plate with a decapitated doll-head made me John the Baptist.

Being "Swedish Strong" I fought back tears and asked her to explain.

“Because, he had his head cut off!” She said lifting an eyebrow as though that explained everything to a confused five-year-old.

That was the end of our conversation. Instead of looking like a saint, I walked outside in bare feet with two dead animals over my shoulders, holding a paper plate with a bloody head. The shocked neighbors thought I was a child werewolf from some horror movie.  Wolf-Boy!

The grouch nextdoor called the police. The nuns around the corner fainted. My oldest brother was jealous that I got to Trick or Treat as the spawn of Charles Manson while he, at 14, had to be Saint Anthony.        

As it turns out―I won! 

The older boys wanted to have costumes as scary as mine next year. They wanted to be goblins and ghost, and if possible, make the nuns faint!

(Pictured: Getting pinched from behind - look at the excitement in the older boy's faces).

This was the watershed event. I think (as least the way I imagineer the story), that when I went by the Lennon house, Mr. Lennon was waiting on the porch to scare the kids and I think I scared him. 

When the the rest of the family saw my inglorious costume―the bloody son of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre it was right there-and-then that they decided that someday they would put on a haunted mansion show to the thrill spectators for the next 20 years–on every all-hallows-eve  (a tradition that began in 1970). 

Actually Video Footage of transforming the house on Halloween 

Whenever I tell this story―my mother shall be immortalized as the one who changed Venice by inspiring those resourceful and imaginative Lennons (at least this is the way I tell the story).

Thank you Mrs. D

P.S. Did I say that I won? YES!

(Picture of Lennons on the gridiron: by Donny Blaser). 

(*Picture of makeup at Lennon house by Kathy Daris Facebook). 
(opening and closing pictures credit: Joey Lennon) 

If you want to hear me tell the story click here.  

Three kids and The Demon Possessed Paint

(continued) Three stupid kids and a 5 gallon bucket of yellow paint.


We knew this was going to be dangerous, but never anticipated the scope of the blast zone.








Tonight Tony was going to celebrate his job promotion from Wright Brother's Ford in Venice (on Lincoln Blvd next to the Carroll Shelby racing facility) to becoming the Service Writer at A and B Chevy in West LA by inviting the hippies to his property on Palms Blvd.

(Above - picture of celebration dinner in front of the Palms garage)

(Right - picture of Shelby Cobras rolling out of the Shelby's factory in Venice directly behind Wright Brother's Ford)*



Assembling our tools, fighting over rollers and pulling the lid off of the big 'O bucket of paint―Tommy, Jeffery and I started off with the best of intentions. Looking back we realize now that the fact that any paint at all actually went on the house―was a miracle in itself.

Tommy bored quickly and was the first to succumb to the small wicked voice coming from inside bucket. The insidious paint told him to lightly brush Jeffery's elbow with his paint-dipped roller and had also tempted him to lie by saying it was an accident.

Jeffery sensed that his cousin had no real remorse and of course, had to―HAD TO paint Tommy's forearm in retaliation. Ughhhhhh! It was almost impossible for a 14-year-old like me to manage a couple immature 11-year-olds. These guys went back and forth, tit-for-tat and were practically worthless, but I tried.  I TRIED!


I really did until Tommy missed Jeffery and got the front of my shirt―accident or under the spell of the evil spirit, I couldn't tell.

All I knew was that the paint in the rolling pan TOLD ME to stay cool and to pretend like it didn't bother me. The haunted paint actually talked to me by name. "Markie D, you're the oldest―you're the boss―they can't treat you like this and get away with it." Everything the demon said made sense. "You've got to show them who's boss. Calmly put your roller into the pan and soak up as much paint as you can. Do it."

I mean a voice from the paint was talking to me. "Something evil this way comes" Who was I to argue.

"Hey Markie D the juggler vain on the side of your neck is bulging and a dead give away―GET IT UNDER CONTROL"  The ominous paint yelled. But it was right.

Trying to calm myself down I breathed like a lady doing la maze at child birth. As if under a spell, I obediently plunged my roller into the paint and pretended to go back to the patch of wood siding I was working on and screamed, "ATTACK!"

I had to show the two little kids that I was older and that I would win at all cost.

The DEVIL TOLD ME THAT I HAD TO WIN.

Screaming "attack" I lunged and ran that roller up the front of Tommy's shirt all the way to his nostrils.

The paint.
The paint.
It was the paint, I tell you! Just like the demon possessed rototiller that had dragged El Heffe around the front yard. This bright yellow paint incited a war and just like in those occasions where more baby food gets on the outside of the baby than inside the baby―there was more yellow paint on the torn up lawn, on  the stack of lumber, on the ladders, on the neighbor's wall, on the sidewalk and on the three of us than on the house itself.

  

 @

It was a canary yellow disaster of epic proportions. By the time Tony arrived back the three of us dripped from head to toe like zombies ONLY instead of blood it was bright yellow paint. This gave new meaning to painting the town red only in this case it was yellow demon paint―nearly half of of Venice was lemon colored. 

It wasn't like we could hurt the prices of Real Estate on this side of Lincoln Blvd, like anything over here would ever be worth more than twenty five thousand dollars.

The three of us stood there dripping and in unison said, "The devil made us do it." knowing full well that we would have to go to confession before we could ever take communion again.




BEST DAY EVER. That is until we found out that it was oil-based paint.

Tony called the Heffe, woke him up from his nap and told him to bring gasoline so we could scrub patches of the haunted yellow goo off of our extremities and out of our orifices.











The party went on as planned, only we were no longer invited. Our moms weren't too happy but the good news is we went trick or treating as three radioactive alien-brothers from Superman's neighboring planet―Plankton!

At least we thought our Halloween costume idea was funny.






Until next time!  














* Shelby Cobra picture posted by Enis Yeneriz on You know you’re from Santa Monica Facebook group

@  Picture telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/viral-video/11643553/Russian-driver-crashes-lorry-and-covers-himself-in-yellow-paint.html

El Heffe and the Maniacal Machine

Though this is a true story of events... this is more of a time capsule for those who grew up in and around Venice - Circa 1970

Tommy, Jeffery and I had our heads sticking out of the hole on the top of Tony's '59 Ranchero. Like the happiest dogs you ever saw, we turned toward the air blowing in our faces and tried to capture it in our mouths and nostrils. Just like brothers we fought the whole way from Harding ave to Palms Blvd.

Jeffery stuck his head inside the cab and asked Tony if he ever planned to finish the sunroof project he began years before.

"Blech" Tony said, as though fixing the hole he had cut out of the top of the car was furthest thing from his mind and dismissed him with a wave.

"Thirty six cents a gallon" I shouted to Tommy and Jeffery pointing to the prices at the Mohawk Gas station. "That's highway robbery" I said repeating what my dad must have said at least a thousand times. I got a blank stare from both of them―they were only 11 so what did they care. I would be driving in the next couple of years so it mattered to me.

While pushing, shoving, and yelling each other all the way down Lincoln Boulevard we heard a terrifying scream above the riot we were making. Like a retracting periscope, Jeffery stuck his head down again and warned Tony of the awful sound we heard while still a block away―passing Allan's Aquarium.

Tony freaked and punched it. He sped so fast around the corner at Palms that the two outside wheels almost lifted off the warm asphalt as the three of us screamed in exhilaration pretending to be the sirens on top of a rescue vehicle.

This Saturday we had been recruited to paint the investment property at 1041 Palms that Tony had bought from Mr. Blaser for the tidy sum of $12,500 several years ago which was almost equal to his annual salary...AND THIS WAS EAST of Lincoln practically in the ghetto.

Even before screeching to a halt in front of small wooden shack that sat at the back of a very deep lot, Tony finally tuned into the harrowing cries of help that the three of us had already heard two blocks away.

"DISENGAGE ME!   DISENGAGE ME!  DISENGAGE ME!"  Bellowed the poor fellow who was being dragged down the length of the long lot. Tony had left his friend, "El Heffe" (or something like that), with the task of rototilling the front yard and a giant machine.

It appears that El Heffe managed to get the magnificent red-machine fired up and operating which Tony thought would never happen. That alone was a miracle in itself. The machine came to life and El Heffe grabbed the handle and the beast began dragging him up and down the length of the property. It never crossed his mind to let go of the handle grips that engaged the drive gears. As the blades dung into the hard soil and forced itself forward it dragged poor Heffe behind on his belly screaming as if  being tortured by a evil machine that would not let go of him.

"Someone help the boy" pleaded the little old lady next door.
"LET GO OF THE MACHINE" Tony yelled as he ran after the pair.

This thought never occurred to him. "DISENGAGE ME!" El Heffe screamed at a decibel higher than the roar of Apollo 11 taking off at Cape Kennedy. We stood with the growing number of spectators who had gathered on the sidewalks and laughed as Tony chased the helpless body being dragged around like a helpless rag doll.

"LET GO!  LET GO!"

The three of cried with laughter―even the old man next door thought it was funny. This was good stuff―who needs TV?

Tony jumped on the Heffe's back and pinned him to the ground that ripped the death grip he had on the handle bars.

The machine came to an abrupt stop―idling passively as if the devil had been exercised out of it.

Other than being dirty, scratched up, exhausted, sweaty, and thirsty―Heffe was FREE! When he saw the assembled crowds he had no shame at all. Standing to his feet, he dusted himself off with an air of triumph as if he expected accolades for taming the wild beast and for successfully rototilling half the lawn all by himself.

Tony turned his attention to the three of us and pointed to the five gallon buckets of bright yellow paint that he had stacked next to the porch.


With very little instruction he told us paint the house and took off. 

 Heffe also left in the Karmann Ghia, returning to the Harding house for a well deserved nap.
























Not wanted to alarm him, we waited for Tony to turn the corner until jumping up and down at the shear joy of the opportunity that lay before us.


Three stupid kids and a lot of yellow paint. Thinking about what that big, red machine did to El Heffe just imagine how much damage a bucket of possessed evil paint could do in the hands of some nit-wit best friends and no adult supervision.

Yabba dabba doo!... BEST DAY EVER to be continued.

I mean, Tony should have known better...right?





   

The Dahlins: A Great Symphony - Making Great Music

MY PUBLIC APOLOGY to my family for any misunderstanding I have created.

Dear Dahlins.  I love you.

This blog is my story! A symphony. It is the story of a little nine year old kid who was left at Salton Sea. It is the story of an 11-year-old who nearly dies when his leg is severed at the McElliot's pool. It is the story of broken arms, horse play, pranks, cross-country travel, kick the can, lots of fun, and even more laughter.

I have never considered and would never have chosen a different family or a different childhood. I love us. 

Something I read today said, "Everyone touched by a piece of music hears it differently. The composer hears it in the chamber of his imagination. The audience hears it with their senses and emotions. The members of the orchestra hear it most clearly..." filtered and specifically mixed through the sound of the instrument they play and "...the instruments closest to them."

It's like watching a movie. Two people can see the exact same film at the exact same time and yet come away with two completely different interpretations.

We were all there. We saw many of the same events and heard some of the same music, yet heard it through the discerning ears of our particular instrument that allows us to come away with very different interpretations.

This is my symphony of stories - a song mixed through my grid of senses and emotions. You might have composed it different. As members of the cast and orchestra you might have played it different and certainly heard and saw it through your ears and eyes which are very different from mine.

The events are recited with the embellishments of creative spit and polish. The emotions, however, are mine and are portrayed here through the eyes of this little boy with accuracy.  

My life was the music of yearning to belong and the wanting of acceptance. It is a grand symphony of redemption and of forgiveness―the story of yesteryear and not today. I have never hated any one of my neighbors, I have never hated mom or dad and I have never hated any of you. All I wanted was to feel loved. I apologize that my struggles painted you in a bad light or made you feel like I was blaming you for my hardships or made you feel responsible for my faults.

This redemptive chapter was supposed to be 10 years down the chronology of this blog in the life of Markie D. Instead, I'm going to share that now out of sequence by assuring you that my song has changed!  I was indeed a mess. I was broken, insecure, disconnected and desperately trying to find the meaning of life and love.

This drove me to my knees. I prayed. I cried out to God. I wanted a relationship in the universe that was deep, meaningful, and significant. God reached down from heaven in His infinite wisdom and grace and changed my life. Whole. Complete. Forgiven. Full. God took a very hard and numb heart and replaced it with one that was new and pliable. God made it possible for me not only to feel loved, but also to love and to love greatly.

God put tears and tenderness back into my emotions.

I love you and love the times when we get together and tell stories and laugh. You are tremendously important to me and I hold no grudges. This part may sound a bit weird, but I owe a great deal of debt to all of you. I look on my childhood now as one of the greatest gifts given to me (and even orchestrated by God Himself on my behalf).


My youthful feelings as an underdog gives me empathy for the weak and the oppressed. I hate racism―I hate bullying and have stood up for underdogs at great personal risk to myself.

My reaching out and contemplating the deep things of the human psyche at a young age equipped me to be a good listener; to care about other people's feelings and to contemplate the deep matters of the heart and of the human condition.

It has also provided me with the ability to laugh at myself.            Laughter IS good medicine.



C.S Lewis wrote. "Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny..."

To give even more away... For me to claim that we were "America's most dysfunctional family" is facetious. The whole point is to show that every family has its faults and failings, it flaws and shortcomings. The grass is not greener on the other side. The universal human condition is one wrought with problems. It happened in our house and it happened in the houses of those next door and across the street. People will suffer disappointment and hurt. The greatest emotional pain is usually inflicted by those closest and most intimate.

Yet, if there is hope and healing and reconciliation and forgiveness for someone like this little boy, there just might be a chance for healing and wholeness for just about anyone―it is possible.

I beg you please, not to confuse the ramblings of a hurt and lost child so many years ago with who I am today.

I will continue to tell my story... and ...

         1) I'll be careful not to paint anyone in a bad light.

         2) I have many positive qualities for each of you that I carry with me that are worth sharing―so people                  would know that none of  you  are evil monsters (stupid kids doing stupid things―maybe, but not                  evil bullies).
     
         3) People don't like plain-wrap stories―we were never a plain-wrap family.

AGAIN, forgive me for making some of you feel defensive if I have crossed some unspoken boundary―this was never my intention only a means of  moving the symphony of my emotions to an amazing crescendo, which would otherwise, be nothing more a simple melody on white keys (white bread and non-fat milk).

This is my story. This is my song.

Let's make music together!

Love baby brother.  

Tony 

Karl 

Kris

                                                                             Kurt 

Erick

Mary

Mark 

Karin

Bob

Pinky

                                                                    AND our Favorites....

David and Lisa 

Dad and Mom 

The Biologicals 

Pavlov's Tortured Dog - Damaged Goods and Me!

Ring the bell, drool. Ring the bell, drool. Raise the fist, flinch.

Continued from last time that began with with the shirt.



Everyone thought it was funny—except for Brother Michael. So I went with it and let my classmates think I was doing one of my comical bits. In reality, however it was my PTSD. I didn't want them laughing at me. I wanted them laughing with me.

My brother Bob had come home from Vietnam, as well as two of my neighbors, Robert Tripp and John Gillemot. They looked fine to me on the outside, but they had this Post Traumatic disorder thing that made them flinch and caused them to react wildly and to do weird things at times.

This was understandable for them—they fought in war!  BUT WHAT WAS MY @#*%#@#^% Problem?

(Bob pictured above)

 (John Gillemot pictured to right) 

Like the returning Vets, I looked fine on the outside, but was all messed up in my head and hated myself for having no control over my wild reactions.

I don't know why my brothers felt they had to raise their hand up in the air like they were going to strike me in the head every time they walked by. But they did. Either it gave them a sense of power or they just liked to see me cover my head and duck—or both, I guess. They would gesture violently in my direction, I would cover my noggin, cower in fear, drop to the floor which always made them laugh.

Haha.  I was the laughing stock at home—make me cower or make me vomit—the ironic thing was it that it was the "peace loving" hippies who burned their draft cards that loved to hurt me. Their was nothing peaceful about them. 

I had been hit so many times on the head I was like Pavlov's stinking dog. Ring the bell and I drool only in my case I "stop drop and roll." And if the boys got really lucky, they could make me vomit up my guts which was the height of entertainment in our house.

Every time my poor dad raised his hand—I fell to the floor and took cover.

THANK YOU WOLF PACK.
Let me see if I can make you happy by getting all schizoid whenever you treat me worst than a dog. 

I don't know why my brother Chewbacca had to squeeze my temples or lift me by my chee-chees or by me neck or had to repeatedly slug in in the leg. I don't know why "Flea-Bait" felt he had to beat me up every day. I don't know why I had to be electrocuted, Jalapeno'd or buried in pits. I don't know why I was the one who was chased - hampered - shot - dropped - dangled and tattooed.

Anyway, I realized how bad it was in Brother Michael's class the day after he caught me half-naked in janitor's closet.  

He smirked and talked about Catherine the Great or something in history that excited him when Earnestine raised her hand to answer a question.





Earnestine had graduated with us from Saint Marks.  She was a girl. She was a friend.  A 14-year-old girl for Pete's sake. The 14-year-old girl who sat in the row just opposite me, raised her hand to answer a question and like some mental case I flinched, covered my head and dropped to the floor.
















How retarded was that. Everyone started laughing so I went with it—acting as if it was just some dumb comic bit. I was a hero and comic genius. All the stupid kids in 9th grade loved me.
   
Brother Micheal sent me to some guy with a name like "AutoBelly." Autobelly, what kind of name was that?  

It was worth a trip to the Dean's office, because I made Brother Michael hate me which I counted as a victory. I win!

Raise your hand, flinch. Raise your hand, flinch. Raise your hand, flinch. I felt like I was worst than Bob and Robert and John who had returned from the Vietnam war. Something in me was broken. I was Pavlov's stupid dog.





I was sure there was love in the world somewhere—maybe next door at the Blasers or over at the Lennon's house across the street—it certainly wasn't something I could find at home. 

They seemed to like each other.  That's all I wanted. Love may have been asking too much for my family. I was starved and willing to feel liked.



This guy, Waldo Autobelli, stuck his finger in my chest and began yelling at me. It didn't matter. He could scream his head off all he wanted—though I stood at attention like any real kid—I was nothing more than a Zombie who was dying a little more inside each day. 

I was becoming a robot and his finger couldn't penetrate my steal plate exterior. 

Alex shared his pickles with me as I thought about poor 'O Billy Joe MacAllister - he died and it didn't matter to anyone.  Same thing would happen in my house I thought.   

 "Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

'n' Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas

"Well Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"  

"Hey, Alex could you pass the pickles please."