PG 13: The Smell of Victory...You Know you're From Venice If!

Star Date: July 23, 1969. (continued saga and finale)  The Grand Overture of the "Venice Plague."

It was a full two days since the Apollo 11 had landed on the moon and we had witnessed - "The One Giant Step for Mankind" and the Jamboree had officially come to an end. The 1935 National Jamboree in Washington DC had been cancelled because of the polio epidemic and I couldn't help but think that cancelling this Jamboree might not have been such a bad idea, considering the plague that had arrived from Venice California - likened to an abhorrent yet virile virus known as Troop 32. As it turned out, the infection spread throughout the 34,225 other boys who attended the Jamboree, but most ended up surviving - considering the head trauma, the stitches, our E.coli bacteria, the greatest prank of all time and the aggregated psychological torment that will likely require years of psychiatric counseling.

On the very last night after the amazing fireworks display... it was time for another orchestrated raid by the notorious "White Angels." (For those who are just tuning in, "the White Angels" are a band of rowdy Boy Scouts - making late night raids in nothing but their tightie-whities (that is butt-tight underwear) and a cacophony of masking tape that made us look like Zombies from hell.  One of our Senior Patrol Leaders gave us the brilliant  idea and the permissive wink-of-the-eye that created "culpable deniability" while saying, "But I would never tell you to do this. Because it would be wrong!"  (wink-wink)

Dego didn't want to borrow Chronister's underwear and decided that he would go on the raid with us in his "Birthday Suit."  Dego was older than most of us pre-teen pubates and was proud of his generous male endowment and was always looking for a good excuse to flaunt his stuff and taunt those of us still waiting for a single hair to show up under our armpits. After some argument, he conceded somewhat and decided that instead of going on the raid stark-naked, he would have Ronnie tape up his private parts with the masking tape - which I knew wouldn't end so well for him. (He didn't seem to care about the consequences... as a matter of fact - I think he was looking forward to it! Sick! Right?)  

                                      "You know you're from Venice if!"

Our "Saturday Night Massacre" began at 2:51am  in the wee dark hours when everything had settled down and was quiet in the Boy Scout compound. The raid began as we quietly invaded several camps in our immediate vicinity and stole every Idaho potato we could find. We gathered and amassed our vegetarian plunder in small mountain just outside the front tent flaps of the KYBO patrol. Armed with Idaho's finest spuds we sneaked, snaked and snuck out in groups of three towards the massive parking lot that was filled with those disdained luxurious travel-coaches of the other "Regular" Boy Scouts. One boy in each group shoved the oversize potato into the opening of the exhaust muffler.. the other kid hit is with a brick, a rock, a bat...or anything heavy enough to beat the potato solidly into round exhaust pipe - while the third kid served as a look out.  It took us a couple hours and by 5:00 we had managed to cover the entire parking lot. Hallelujah!

We didn't want the proverbial smoking gun to point in our direction so we stacked the excess potatoes, bricks, rocks and sticks across the field in the camp of the troop from Beverly Hills.




As 300 Boy Scouts at Farragut State Park (those anxious kids who hoped to  receive their "bugle" merit badge) unnaturally forced out an ear-piercing wake-up rendition of reveille on tortured bugles... it served as a covering for the horrifying screams from the tent of the KYBO patrol, as the boys exuberantly pealed the tape off from Dego's hairy underparts and also from his dangling thinga-ma-giggy that had been wrapped like a mummy.












We broke down camp and loaded up the Troop 32 Scout Bus for the long ride home back to Venice.



We fired up the old carbon monoxide spewing beast and watched the normal kids climb aboard the nice buses and smiled as if we liked them. 

We watched and gladly inhaled the fumes of our glorious beast as the buses of 20,000 Boy Scouts chocked and sputtered and coughed and flat-out refused to start. Alan played his rusty bugle as we laughed and sang a victory celebration from Creedence Clearwater - capped off with Dego and Cockrell flashing their bare-buns in a "full-moon," pressed up against opposite portholes of the beloved old scout truck from Venice. 

We bellowed in an awful cacophony like the squealing of 24 rats who had their tails caught in a door.    

"There's a place up ahead and I'm goin'

Just as fast as my feet can fly

Come away, come away if you're goin'

Leave the sinkin' ship behind

Come on the risin' wind

We're goin' up around the bend

Bring a song and a smile for the banjo

Better get while the gettin's good

Hitch a ride to the end of the highway

Where the neons turn to wood.." 

With a cover up like this; deniability; The Smoking Gun, midnight raids "The Saturday Night Massacre" and learning how to pass the buck.. someone in our group was bound to go into politics.

See ya later Bill Gates...and the rest of you suckas!

                                 Venice Rules!



 

Gillemonster and His Dog-Poop Alibi

(Continued from 1/25/14) Chewbacca knelt over the dead body as tears lightly fell on the seared flesh that smell of burnt hair.  Crying, he mourned the loss of his friend.

Let's come back to the fatality left behind by the Great Fire of '69 and turn back to our list of possible arson suspects.

Out of the 16 or 17 on my original list, I have narrowed the suspects to a mere four:

1) Rita Nargie
2) Sea-Shell
3) Anti-War, Draft-card-burning, peace-loving hippies
4) The Owner

RITA HAD MOTIVE. She had been rejected by one of the "Frat - guys" and was holding a grudge. When my brothers and crew went down to the "Frat-House" in drag (dressed as women) and two were invited in - it only served to intensify her female hormonal angst against every man in the world. From the kitchen window of her house next door, she was allegedly heard screaming at the top of her Italian lungs that she would get even someday.  Unfortunately for Rita, the entire neighborhood heard her threats and this is why I felt she needed to be investigated. It does turn out that she had not come out of her room for more than a month, which I was able to verify by the dirty stack of surplus dinner plates left just outside her bedroom door.  Her mother had been in no mood to clean up after Rita, which the neighborhood also knew about.

I refer to that incident as "The Leaning Tower of  Stand-off Soufflé"   
 So Rita went off the list and the fire somehow brought closure to all the hurts she had suffered and had seemed to exact the vengeance she was looking for and the next week at church it was mentioned from the pulpit by the droning-monotone Irish accent of  Father Hoban as a miracle.  One lady said, "Hallelujah" and was promptly asked to leave the church.

I'm am now left with 1)  Sea-Shell, the 11 year-old-sister of the Frat-House President who had been
                                      dropped on her head.
                               2)  Hippies - other than my brothers
                               3)  Mr. Malon, the owner of the Property.

As for Johnny the Gillemonster...as I mentioned before he had motive!  He was a paperboy for the our local Herald Examiner newspaper. His route included the Harding Avenue Fraternity House. You can only imagine what a nightmare it must have been for the poor kid to collect the Newspaper fee from a bunch of transient squirrely irresponsible college-dropout types!  Every time Gillemonster knocked on the door, a different person answered and told him to come back tomorrow. After about 10 such visits 'O Gilly figured that they were running him around and that no one was ever going to pay.  He turned bright red and shook his fist at that house and said he's get payback. "You just wait and see!"  he yelled and spun dirt on the porch  from the back wheel of his customized Schwinn Sting-Ray (bicycle) as he spun out.  (Every kid in America had a Stingray bike).

Remember I told you about the lyrics that Four Eyes sent in to Creedence Clearwater Revival... about Do..do...do... looking out my back door... and all the other words the nuns told me when I interrogated them... well it wasn't "do...do...do"  It was literally "Dooh...Dooh...Dooh!"

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Lookin' out my Back Door

Johnny was so angry at feeling like he had been messed with... that he took the largest... stinkiest... warmest... pile of fresh-steaming dog dooh he could find early the next Sunday morning on a neighbors lawn and squished it between the sports section and the comics of the 50 pound Sunday Morning edition of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.  "Gilly" left that "special" payback edition of the newspaper right on the welcome mat in front of the large entry door. He rang the bell, ran across the street, hid in a bush and watched in delight as those drunkards with hangover vomited their guts out.  Gillemonster told me, that was his alibi and as he spoke I carefully watch every indicator on his face and really believe that the Dog-Poop completely satisfied his desire for payback.  TRUE!

I would never accuse a Catholic Priest - that's why Father Hoban never made it on my list to begin with, but he was known to have quite a temper - and being raised in Belfast had plenty of training in making Molotov Cocktails.

Let's just leave it at that - for now!  I was too frightened about going into the Rectory so I wasn't about to interrogate the Father... I'd leave that investigation to the Fire Marshal.

I already had enough problems at Saint Marks and next year - my last and final year - was destined to be a living Purgatory, for I had to look forward to spending the year under Sister Shultz.

Meanwhile, the mellow and cuddly Chewbacca grieved over the death of the neighborhood cat as though the thing had been a close relative of his.  Before the fire, I'd have to admit, that the feral Calico cat did look like a miniature version of my hairy older brother.  My brother looked like a giant version of Cousin It  from the Addams Family TV Show.

In the midst of smoke and firemen and ambulances and Secret Service and the Crazy Vietnam War vet with a broom and the Zombie Holocaust, Chewbacca scooped the dead cat into a cardboard box and took it past the dreaded Veloci-Rooster into the the hippie sanctuary of "Wall Drug" in our Venice backyard.  If you think the Rita-thing was a miracle - wait until next time.

The Nuns Claimed They Had an Alibi

The Great Disaster of 1969...continued from last post!

The last time I didn't have the Nuns or the Daniels on the suspect list for the tragic fire on Harding Ave. I would venture a guess that living directly behind the "Frat-House," would automatically put both of them my long list of possible suspects. 

1) My tribe...the Wolf Pack
2) Mr. Blaser
3) Mr. D (that's my dad)
4) Mr. Lennon
5) Frank Nargie
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland
9) Weenie Tripp
10) Johnny Gillemot
11 Tommy Blaser
12) Four boys dressed as girls
13) The Nuns at Saint Marks who lived just behind the house.
14) Walter Daniels 
15) Crazy, Anti-War, Peace-loving members from a real Fraternity

 and NUMBER 16 was "The Conspiracy Theory" - not a man on the grassy knoll, but...
 16) The Owner of the property - himself.

At first when I heard the sound of explosions and saw the black smoke of car tires that had caught on Fire, I thought the Nunnery was burning (the Nunnery is the Saint Marks Convent where the Sisters lived - sort of like a Monastery). I spent the night next door at the Blaser's house in Tommy's "way groovy" two-story fort with the sleeping-loft and asphalt shingle roof.  Screaming like a firetruck - I hopped over the fence into my backyard - avoided the Veloci-Rooster and began ringing the old rusted fire bell in order to awaken the neighborhood (the same fire alarm, procured by spurious means, which had been screwed to the back porch of our home that my mom used to call the Wolf  Pack in for feeding time). 

It was in the middle of the night and I guess it was good thing I did clang that bell, because the burning house was full of motley college "want-a-be's" who were trapped inside.

Someone threw a fire bomb through the large front window of the ancient house and it went up like a dry box of matches. The fire quickly spread up the grand staircase in the entry, cutting off the only means of escape for those caught on the second story.

A week later, as the house laid waste in a pile of burnt rubble and the neighborhood still smelled of smoke...I took my detective notepad and paid the Nuns a visit! To tell you the truth, I really hoped it was one of the Catholic Sisters, because they were mean to me...and I had a secret desire that at least one of them would end up in prison.

By the time I got to the 3th grade, and the 4th grade, and the 5th grade, and the 7th grade, they already had 7 Dahlins come through their classrooms giving the nuns so much grief that they felt it was time for payback... AGAINST ME!

They especially felt justified because of my special condition, lack of focus, and what they called "hyper-activity." I had always thought it was a superpower until I heard them talking about it behind my back. That might help explain the whole "Cloak-Room thing" I did behind Sister Edith's back (See blog post 9/2/13)

I guess I really shouldn't have blamed them, and later went to confession telling Father Sheldon of my secret sin. Only after 32 "Our Father's," 63 "Hail Mary's" and a couple dozen "Confiteors" the guilt of my sin was finally absolved. I wanted a letter from the Pope, but that never came. 

But still, if it had been Sister Godzilla who lit the fire - I might have turned her in.

The Nuns probably had the greatest motive of anyone on the list: Loud partying, carousing, cursing, drinking, drugs, girls and boys living together in sin...every single night - practically right there on their backdoor steps.

A quick slip out the backdoor - and bam - one of the penguin clad nuns under the darkness of night could start the fire and slip back in practically unnoticed.

Upon investigative inquiry by interrogating the nuns... one by one they corroborated each others testimony and had an iron clad alibi. Turns out, that none of the Catholic Sisters had any knowledge of how to make an incendiary device of this kind and other than communion wine - had no access to the specific type of alcohol for the creation of a Molotov Cocktail. Sister Godzilla did tell me in private that if she knew how to make one, the "Fraternity house" would have been gone long ago (I'm sure that will take some "Our Father's and Hail Mary's"). 

 Shucks, they were my best suspects and were now off the list.

Although they lived right behind the "Frat-House," Walter and his family dropped off the list - because he liked to party there on occasion and would have done anything to, "keep it all copacetic...man"

When I told told Four-Eyes about the things the nuns said which I wrote down on my little pad...he said he thought it might make some good song lyrics. I thought he was crazy. He typed them up and sent them to a Mr. John Fogerty of some hippie group called Creedence Clearwater Revival. I told him he was stupid and those words would never make it into a song - Not Ever!

The Nuns talked about how every time they looked out their backdoor they saw strange, bizarre and weird stuff that looked like giants doing cartwheels late at night - they saw things that looked like statues wearing High Heels (I think that may have been my brothers dressed up like girls trying to get in) and of course happy creatures dancing on the lawn (that part was true).

This is what Four Eyes scripted...   
"Doo, doo, doo, Looking out my back door.
There's a giant doing cartwheels,
A statue wearing high heels.
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn... " and some other nonsensical stuff like that.

The doo-doo part was compliments of Johnny Gillemonster...

I will have to tell you that story of intrigue and dog-poop that would eventually clear his name from the list below.
 

1) My tribe...the Wolf Pack

2) Mr. Blaser

3) Mr. D (that's my dad)

4) Mr. Lennon

5) Frank Nargie

6) Rita Nargie

7) Sea-Shell

8) Leeland

9) Weenie Tripp

10) Johnny Gillemot

11 Tommy Blaser

12) Four boys dressed as girls

13) The Nuns at Saint Marks who lived just behind the house.

14) Walter Daniels 

15) Crazy, Anti-War, Peace-loving members from an opposing Fraternity

16) The Owner of the property.

In the mean time- everyone's name needs to be cleared, since I was running the investigation and I guess I'll have to tell you about the details of the gruesome 4-alarm fire...the daring rescue and how a a pair of underwear i.e. whitie-tighties help clear one suspect from the list.

Until next time...  sleep safe... say your prayers and.... vet att du är älskad

                                                                                     
Android users Lookin' out my backdoor