Hell Hath no Fury...Veloci-Rooster Conclusion.

(Continued from last blog posting)

Around the corner from us was this single-mother, who was probably way ahead of her time. She lived in a small house that was sandwiched between the "Fraternity" house at the corner of our street and just before the convent which was across the street form Saint Marks Catholic School. (A convent is a place where all the Sisters of The Holy Names of Jesus and Mary live).

 
Everyday, for the sake of educating her two young children, this lady brought them over to our house for a lesson in science and biology.  Where else could you expect to find a giant 20-year-old frog (the size of a beagle) named, "Grandpa," swallowing baby chickens whole and wrestling rats like they were mere crickets.

Where else in the city could you expect find tortoises cavorting or rabbits mating on any given day.  With the infestation of guinea pigs and rabbits along with the snakes and all the other critters, we had a veritable zoo in our backyard. This is not to mention the long-haired hippies who belonged in the Zoo right next to their primate relatives. With our plethora of animals and the per diem enterprise of procreation on prominent display, what a brilliant way to teach your children about nature and sex education. 


As Catholics, we were not allow to talk about those kinds of things but I'm sure Darwin would be pleased with this lady's progressive approach to home-education. 

These field trips with her 4-year-old and stroller-bound infant had become routine. She was as regular as the Milk Man, the Post Man or the Helms Bakery Man (even though Herbie the Helms Man was mad at us for stealing his eclairs - Harding Avenue was still on his route (Blog Post 8/3/13).

Her children especially loved the chickens and would spend considerable time staring though the chicken wire at the hens in our crudely built hen-house. Her 18-month-old would stand in the stroller, giggling, gawking, and ecstatically drooling down her bib while her 4-year-old jumped up and down, enthusiastically waving his hands in an awkward way, as if he broken chicken wings, while making attempts at chicken sounds. He had very thick glasses and looked special and this only helped to reinforce our assumptions.  

The way I looked at it (keeping my family in mind - who managed to find the worst in people and christian that with an awful nickname), I figured that this lady was probably lucky to have such a tame nickname like "The Chicken Lady."   Seriously, it could have been a whole lot worse!  She had learned to let herself in through the side gate and usually showed up unannounced.

MIND YOU - I was up in bed with my leg sutured in a million places AND COULD NOT WARN HER!

She had absolutely no idea that the delicate laws of the universe had been change last night when the group of angry small man and hippies climbed over the fence (fell really) and brought home:

THE BEAST!

EL POLLO LOCO!

 VELOCI-ROOSTER!

THE TERROR OF VENICE!

Unfortunately, understanding the new rules that governed the universe came with a terrible price tag. One that would required a bloody and protracted learning curve for anyone and anything that entered our backyard, including the herbal-smoking-perpetrators of this latest fowl kidnapping.  

This bird was definitely related to its dinosaur ancestor, the Veloci-Raptor. Though it had the brain the size of a pistachio nut it was a devious and cunning predator. (Speaking of gray matter, my dad said my brother's brains were not more than the size of a walnut. Which made them slightly more intelligent and more capable in their diabolical scheming.)

Anyway, the calculating beast let the poor Chicken Lady push her stroller all the way back to the chicken coop.   The kid squawked, the baby drooled and the rooster from hell stealthily moved in behind them to seal off the exit path.


This unprovoked attack by the raptor of prey, would be its revenge for the kidnapping the night before.

Talons blazing...up, up, up flew El Pollo Loco! In a rear assault as the Veloci-Rooster struck the lady in the derriere time and time again like something out of a Hitchcock horror movie.

                              "Hell has no fury like a mother scorned"

Under siege, the mother pushed the baby down into the stroller and closed her in the bonnet. She protected the 4-year-old by shielding him with her body. There was only one way out of the primordial graveyard of old car parts, decaying boats, and travel trailers —that had no "travel" left in them. She could not navigate her baby stroller over the decaying remains of prehistoric washing machines and outboard motors that haven’t had pistons in them for ten years. She had no other option, but to go through the BEAST! 

Ramming the rooster with the stroller and beating it off with a trashcan lid, she eventually managed to escape the ravages of the taloned-beast with only 16 bloody puncture wounds. The poor woman moved from Venice and was never heard from again. As for the crazy-eye'd rooster, the Chicken Lady had only managed to wound the bird's pride thus making it meaner than it ever was.

Venice - Harding - Dahlins - Marijuana Thieves BEWARE! 

Four Eyes sneaked in past the foul-mouthed mynah bird in the entry to visit me in my room so he could inform me of all the details of today's events (I was sad that I couldn't be there to protect the Chicken Lady and her two children). Four Eyes pulled a pen and notepad out of his pocket and began writing notes. While writing, he droned on about how in the future they should make a movie about Veloci-raptors. He said that because of our rooster, someone in Hollywood should portray the raptor as a close relative and make it have the cunning ability to hunt its prey. I hit him in the head and said, "You're so dumb! For real! Four-Eyes. No one would ever be stupid enough to believe something like that! Not ever! 

A minute later, I heard some of the hippies in the backyard screaming bloody murder. Apparently they had been back at Wall Drug and they had been trapped by Veloci-Rooster.  I giggled thinking this was divine payback. Four Eyes left and I could go to sleep on with something positive on my mind :)

Next the Big Fire and the scandalous tightie-whities.

And there lay...Gherhing the Great! Beware: Gruesome Picture.

This is a reenactment shoot... of the Helms Bakery Heist of 1966...  Blog Post August 3rd 2013

That '65 Nova is actually little Johnny Gillemot 's AKA Gillamonster.

Check out this Helm's Bakery Delivery Man ...

                                                                                                               ...pretty cute. right?

Pretty gruesome... don't you think?  No wonder "Herbie the Helmsman" stopped his delivery truck.

 Look at all that blood! Just look at it!

Don't worry...no one does anything like this in today's politically correct world. Well, we did back then! But I can assure you that no animals or little people got hurt in the photography of this picture.  After we stole the donuts and eclairs, Gherhing the Great walked away unscathed.



 And so did my actor, Cody Fisher.





I guess this is just a small taste of the "Good 'O Days" 

Happy Labor Day weekend - have fun, but don't get into too much trouble!

The "Politically Correct" police might just be watching!

Markie D Takes a Flying Leap

Star Date: Saturday September 10, 1966.  I thought saying "Star Date" was a groovy idea since the new TV show STAR TREK came out two nights ago on Thursday.

This Saturday turns out to be one of the three longest day ever recorded.

We began at 8:00 this morning with a visit from "Honking Jimmy" who had incredibly chapped lips and Vaseline smeared all over his face (Blog post "Hotel Crazy" 7-26-2013) Tommy, Jimmy and I made progress on the cool fort, which was a large hole we had dug in the backyard - thinking that if we kept digging we would end up in China!

The Wolf Pack woke up to my Staff-Sergeant dad - beating the walls with a broom so they could come down to the feeding trough of cold gruel and spoiled milk experiments (see blog post Milk Wars). 


Gustav drove up in his monstrous Hot-Rod and lent his genius to the project of electrifying the crude "fire escape" pole, that dangerously perched from the tippy-top corbel of our three and a half story dilapidated old house.


Chewbacca found the loose rattlesnake, or rather, it found him by crawling up his pant leg and settling in.

Gustav and crew, electrocuted poor Chewbacca in order to extricate the venomous snake from his underwear.

Upon returning the rattlesnake to its habitat on the third floor reptile-cages, Chewy threw a garter-snake at me, which firmly sunk in its fangs attaching itself to my arm. Swinging around, the snake hit Chewy in the face who tripped on a stick that opened the Iguana cage.  Not just any Iguana cage mind you, but Iguana DEL DIABLO.  The demon lizard ran for its life, chased by the Wolf Pack, down all the stairs, across the entry, past the foul-mouthed Minah bird, out the door, across the street and into the Tripp's house - seeking refuge by climbing into the wall furnace. (blog post Iguana Del Diablo 8-1-2013)

We had the entire neighborhood up in arms with "Dahlin" havoc and  mayhem. The Italian family was screaming, the Steadmens made sarcastic remarks, and the famous Lennons on the corner, locked themselves securely in the safety of their living room - rarely seeing the light of day.  

The Gillamonster (Johnny Gillemot) stole his mothers car, hoping to show off, but dumping the clutch instead all he managed to do was break the drive shaft.

The Wolf Pack (that's my Viking brothers) used the broken down car to stage an accident by shoving my 5th grade buddy, who like to call himself Gherhing the Great, under the front fender with ketchup smeared all over his body as a diversion in order to rip off the Helm's Bakery delivery man (Blog post "Heist" 8-3-2013).

Upon discovering the foul smelling poop Jimmy left in the fort, Gherhing the Great and I condemned it and began filling it in with dirt. Sorry China, we had to abandon our efforts to dig that far.

The boys began terrorizing Jerry the weird guest of my mother. Mom had no clue that Jerry like to touch the boys who were now set on driving him looney - thus driving him away. It has worked as he chased Dooh-Dooh Pants (that's my 4th older brother who "cut the cheese" all the time!) up the stairs and into the long back abode of the boys and of snakes. Dooh-Dooh Pants flung himself out the window like a suicidal flying squirrel onto the pole... sliding and eventually falling to safety away from the sinister clutches of Jerry "TT."

Seeing all the action, Gherhing the Great decided to get in on it by running up to the third-floor with Jerry in hot pursuit. I was right behind Gherhing who was running too much too slow. Feeling like I was about to be picked off, I and made a hasty and ill-advised decision by heading for one of the rooms on the second floor instead.

ALL OF THIS had taken place and it is still only two-something in the afternoon - with a lot more to come before the day was over.

I ran down the hall through the door to my bedroom and then proceeded through another door on oppostie side of the room which lead to the sun-porch that was now being used for junk storage. It was filled to about window level of precious stuff that we had long since forgotten about (expect of course, for the buried trunk that had the fox stoles, which my mom used for my very first Halloween costume years earlier-  that caused a nun at the convent to faint and my next door neighbor to call the police - that's another story).

I hurdled myself like Iguana Del Diablo across the ancient and smelly boxes of National Geographics, over stacks of newspapers, over old clothes and stuff that was supposed to "come in handy someday" and opened the window on the far east end of the room. Scurrying back across the junk like a terrified rat, I curled up into a ball smaller than my previous record - when I was was shoved into The Hamper of Death (blog post "Hamper" 6-5-2013). Under the window and next to a old forgotten desk, I burrowed into a pile of newspapers covering myself in musty old clothes. There was no way Jerry "TT" could ever find me! I had heard some of the awful rumors and didn't want to find out if they were true or not. I was safe as long as I didn't give myself away by breathing too loud.

Jerry scanned the room and saw the open window. I was hoping he thought maybe I had flung myself to my death, rather than the alternative of being apprehended by his soft icky hands. He clumsily climbed over the piles of junk and viewed out the window; seeing that my body was not lying on the cement below, he proceeded to scrutinized the sloping exterior of the second floor roof for a possible means of escape. He signed in defeated exasperation and departed from the room.


I Had WON!

I had outwitted, out-played, and out-survived - Jerry (Hey, that might be a good idea for a TV show someday - use real people in it...and call it something like "Outwitted" or "Survivor" or something like that! Nah, it would never work!). 

I waited a couple minutes and silently slipped my head up like a prairie dog and cautiously looked around. Like a deer in the meadow, I tuned my ears to the slightest sound as though I were like Bambi trying to see if  "man was in the meadow."   Except for the sound of the Wolf Pack below, I had assumed Jerry to be defeated and gone. Digging myself out of the hole as if pulling myself up out of quicksand I finally emerged standing on the pile of junk pumping my triumphant fist into the air. The celebration didn't last long as Jerry violently swung the door opened jolting my faint heart into shock. Jerry gave that sickening grin and it was at that point that I decided it was best to throw myself out of the window. Turning the latch, with one foot on the sill I catapulted myself aiming for the lawn - hoping only for broken legs - THAT HAD TO BE BETTER, RIGHT?

As I sprung from the window sill, a sickness came over me, realizing the horror that Jerry had me by the belt. Kicking and screaming he drug me back into the room against every fiber that fought against him.

"What big eyes you have" "What big teeth you have"  "What big hands you have Jerry" I thought. Empowered by mom's "Under-Pain-of-Mortal-Sin" clause... Jerry turned me over his lap and began spanking me with too much delight and too much delay in each lingering swat.

The good news and bad news was - that while Jerry had been stalking me, Chewy had preceded to slide down the "fire escape" pole when Gustav and the Wolf Pack threw the electrical switch (after all, he was the one who let Iguana Del Diablo get away - it was his fault). Chewy was only about half way down to the second story when he let go of the electrified pole and tumbled to the azalea bush below breaking his arm in two places. Yes, it was bad for poor- Chewy... but the good news was that the timing probably saved my life from being eaten by the "Big Bad Wolf"

On behalf of my mother, Matilda, my year-older-sister, came into the room screaming for Jerry to drive her and bent arm Chewy to Saint John's emergency room.

Matilda looked at me, horrified that I was in the greasy clutches of Jerry "TT" and trying to protect me she screamed even louder for him to stop what he was doing and to rush to my mother's aid.

"Thank you Matilda...and thank you God for breaking Chewy's arm," I silently prayed, giving thanks for the Wolf Pack's diabolical scheming and for Chewy's willingness to break his arm on my behalf.

There was no such thing as 911 back then and in an emergency, you had to find the phone number of an ambulance company. Our phone books were typically buried under piles of stacked rubble and could never be found or retrieved in urgent moments of an emergency, which meant that mom had to solicit rides to the hospital from the most expedient means. At our house that meant a willing person with a working car which was least likely a Dahlin.

In this case - hallelujah- it was Jerry "TT." This reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr. speech 3 years ago as I began shouting "Free at last, Free at last."



"Yes mam" I thought, as if talking to Irene "I got wings. All God 's chillen's.. we got a wings" (Blog Post "It's Friday July 15th 2013).




Little did the Lennons  (who were tucked away in the safety of their own home) know...Wait ...little did we know that later that night, one of our UFO experiments would go terribly wrong and catch their house on fire.


Tune into: The Great Escape
                The Prank
                The Burning

 



  

There Was No Way Out!

Star date: Saturday September 10th 1966 The third longest day in the history of the world next to the day I was left behind at Salton Sea (blog Post) and the day the sun stood still in Joshua's time (recorded for us in the Bible).

8:00-10:00 am So far this morning "Chapped-lipped-Jimmy" and Tommy came over to help me on the finishing touches on one of the 7 wonders of the Fort-Building World ! (Blog pos 7-29)


10:00 am-12:00 noon The older boys woke up and began working on a way to make the "fire escape" pole even more diabolical, by hooking it up to the dangling electrical wires that dangerously hung out of the kitchen wall, which we used to electrocute unsuspecting guest, girl friends and even a Saint Marks Catholic school nun. 

Zit King or oldest my brother, "his highness King Gustav," came pulling up in his 9 billion horsepower legendary Ford "Rat Killer" that woke up the neighborhood for at least a quarter of a mile around...including Gherhing the Great, who made his way over to my house.

My house was the center of the universe (at least that is the way it seemed to an 11 year old.   

Chewbacca, my second oldest brother, while standing in the azalea bush, had the runaway rattlesnake climb up his pant leg and precariously snuggle up with his boy parts. He threw Puke Breathe, 3rd or 4th oldest brother (depending who you count) onto the top of the fort, trapping "booger-slurping Jimmy" inside.

Gustav threw the switch, electrocuting both Chewbacca and the rattlesnake in order to save Chewbacca's life. It worked!The boys were able to pull the pants off of the dazed Chewbacca and removed the stunned rattlesnake.

12:00 noon - 1:00 While putting the rattlesnake back, the hideous and dangerous Iguana from hell (AKA Del Diablo) got away. It was Chewy's fault. He freaked out when he got pissed on by a "harmless"garter snake, which subsequently sunk its sharp fangs into my arm, which slapped Chewy in the face when I swung around in alarm which caused Chewy to cry out "Ave Marie" in his native tongue who then tripped over a stick which opened the latch!

the dreaded Iguana "Del Diablo" assaulted Chewy then fled down three flights of stairs, across the street and into poor Mrs. Tripp's house and became an uninvited roommate in the wall heater(blog post 8/1/2013) 

 1:00 - 2:00 pm When the Wolf Pack (that's my brothers) all came back across the street, little Johnny Gillamonster (pictured below), stole his mother's Nova and broke the drive-shaft trying to show off to the hordes on Harding Avenue. 

The Wolf Pack viewed that unfortunate event as fortuitous bounce of luck as they bankrolled it, into a serendipitous distraction to stage an accident involving my best-est 5th grade buddy - Gherhing the Great.  When the good-hearted Helms Bakery delivery man came to check on my friend who was under the front bumper of the disabled automobile (with an entire bottle of ketchup spread all over his chest and around his head -  the Wolf Pack raided the delivery truck of its ever elusive delectable cream-filled eclairs (Blog post 8/3/2013)

With traces of cream still hanging from his lips and hair covered in ketchup, Gherhing and I discovered the stinky poop that Jimmy left in the "bathroom" corner of the fort.

As we filled in the four foot pit with dirt, the boys decided to terrorized my mom's guest - Jerry "TT" (blog post).  It was psychological warfare. They ran up the front porch stairs, in through the wide-open front door, past the living room interrupting mom and her guest! The long hair hippy-want-a-be's made sure to wave as they scurried past the living room, then proceeded past the fouled mouthed fowl - the Mynah Bird - that was taught to cuss, up three more flights of stairs - to the third floor where they picked up speed- running the length of the long back room as if it were a airport runway for a takeoff. The boys then leaped out of the third story window some thirty-forty feet from sure death below like suicidal flying squirrels.

Over and over they did this making sure that Jerry "TT" and mom saw their faces...in each interruption as they passed by the living room. 

And that's where we left off.

2:00 - 2:30pm 
Tired of the entire interruption-affair, upset and frustrated mom came to the end of her rope. This is where she invoked THE CLAUSE!  The Clause rarely ever failed!  The only reason it didn't work at the Zoo when we let all the monkeys out, was because Ulrich said, he couldn't hear her over the adulations of the adoring crowd that he had been entertaining while precariously perched on the edge of monkey habitat (blog post 4/29/2013).

What Jerry couldn't figure out, was how on earth he kept seeing some of the same faces as they ran in through the front door and up the stairs.


IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE: How could a hairy tribe member, run in through the front door, head up stairs and come back in again through the front door? To Jerry this was like something out of the TWILIGHT ZONE. The scheme had the effect the boys desired; not only did it confuse him, but also incited him to anger. "YES!" They got got into his mushy head.  They owned him and they knew it.



Mom stood to her feet and screamed. "UNDER-PAIN-OF-MORTAL-SIN...You will stop that this instance! Do you hear me?" The only problem was that, several of the kids were not Catholic and did not share the same fear of purgatory like the rest of us...AND Gherhing the Great and I had been outside putting dirt in the hole, which was once a fort that rivaled the Sphinx in Egypt.

With blatant disregard to "The Clause" Dooh-Dooh Pants came back through for about the fourth time when Jerry took this act of disobedience as permission to chase down a few of the boys (he might of have some ulterior motive as well - yuck!). In both anger and secret delight, Jerry launched himself after Dooh-Dooh Pants and chased him up the stairs. Dooh-Dooh Pants made sure not to out run Jerry, but wanted to make Jerry believe he had a chance at catching him. Up, up, up, up they ran. See Jerry run. Run Dooh-Dooh Pants run!

When they reached the top floor Jerry knew, he had his prey in sight. Dooh-Dooh Pants was trapped in the long back bedroom - the very same room that held all the snake cages (last post). THERE WAS NO WAY OUT. Jerry had him right where he wanted him as a sinister smile of evil delight broke across his face - like the Grinch when he looked down on poor Whoville after stealing all the Christmas presents. 

 Dooh-Dooh Pants contorted his face in contrived fear allowing Jerry "The Toucher" to come within a foot of two.  As Jerry "TT" approached with that icky look on his face... Dooh-Dooh Pants face lite up with a diabolical grin of its own and took off running.  With no where to go, Jerry knew he had Dooh-Dooh Pants trapped.

Dooh-Dooh Pants "cut the cheese" and to the utter dismay and unbelief of Jerry "TT" threw himself out the window.  Jerry correctly reasoned that Dooh-Dooh Pants would rather commit suicide than to be caught alone with him.Leaving Jerry in a cloud of fish-stick and spoiled spaghetti stench Dooh-Dooh Pants flung himself out of that third story window jumping for the pole that perilously dangled from the tippy-top corbel of the old turn-of-the-century house.

Out Dooh-Dooh Pants flew and down he slid, falling the last six feet or so onto the azalea bush below. Up he looked and grinned in satisfaction to the glaring dissatisfied stare of Jerry "TT".

Enraged and empowered by the clause..Jerry "TT was now raging to catch a teenage boy.

Jerry came back down the stairs and stood in the front entry, just waiting for his next victim to come through the front door... the Mynah Bird had some choice words it parroted to Jerry. Jerry was standing there with hands clenched ready to ring the neck of a morally innocent bird when Gherhing the Great and I came in through THE BACK DOOR wanting to get into the fun.

This is where everything went terribly wrong! Gherhing the Great did manage to escape and slide down the pole, but the on the way up the stairs, I decided to zig when I should have zagged! Gherhing was moving too slow and I made a ill fated dash for the front room of the second floor that was filled with junk...

Bad choice, Markie d. Bad Choice!


Meanwhile the Lennon's on the corner... the famous Lennon Sisters and siblings were all securely tucked  away from the mayhem inside the safety of their house.

Next time, see if Markie D escapes the clutches of Jerry "TT" and Chewy's fateful fall!

Until then Know: Du är älskad!

The Helm's Bakery Heist and Jimmy's Stinking Suprise!

The long day...continued: Saturday 1:00-2:00pm (The Day the Sun Stood Still)

Harding avenue was littered with people since the siege of the devil iguana that had embedded itself into the Tripp family wall furnace without formal invitation (last blog post). This jumble of activity was about typical for a nice September Saturday afternoon on our street. As the hordes headed back across the street towards my house ("Hotel  Crazy" blog 7-26-13), the skinny kid around the corner, Johnny Gillemot... AKA Gillamonster... provided the next bit of entertainment that my brothers managed to leverage into the "Helms Bakery Heist" of 1966. 

Gillamonster came barreling down our short street in his momma's '63 Nova. Never mind that fact that he only had his learner's permit. Not having a driver's license didn't stop people from driving back then, but he had a crowd and was determined to make the most of it.

Hoping to show-off, Gillamonster pulled right up in front of our house, put the Chevy Nova in neutral, revved the motor as high as he could and with the accelerator pedal stomped to the floor he jammed it into drive. He intended to lay rubber all the way down the street (did you see that I put in the word, "intended").

Rookie move! Instead of  the hairy burnout and squealing tires and black tread marks and tire smoke  - all we heard was the loudest clunk of metal cracking and snapping and clanking this side of the Titanic hitting the iceberg. 

Crack!
                                                      ...went the drive-shaft as it blew up the universal joint at the rear differential. The drive-shaft did a couple clanking revolutions before the front yoke slipped out of the spleen and shot out from behind the car like a missile from a mortar-launcher. Traumatized and humiliated, the Gillamonster would have to explain to his mom about his ill-fated "Joy-Ride" in her stolen Chevy Nova that now laid incapacitated in the middle of Harding Avenue.

Since my oldest brother, "Gear-Head" Gustav was there, he decided that he would have some sympathy on the embarrassed teenager and cannibalize one of the cars in our fleet of broken down vehicles we had parked down at the corner - (You know the ones dad made us move every Wednesday and Thursday for street cleaning - see blog post 7-3-13).

While the car was stranded, it was just too much temptation for the rest of the idle Wolf Pack. Mrs. Gillemot's broken down Nova provided the perfect opportunity for prank on a grand scale. They hoped to stage an accident as a diversion and grabbed me for their latest scheme. This time, however, I put up a struggle since I had served my time in the diaper-pail-of-death under Edna's old Buick (blog post 6-5-13). "Pick me. Pick me. Pick me" Gherhing the Great begged, jumping up and down - waving his hand in the air like he was in school, desperately wanting to be part of the staged pandemonium.

While Gustav went to work, Gherhing the Great was scooted under the front wheel of the disabled Nova. Totally getting into it he volunteered to let the boys tear his shirt open as they spread ketchup over his chest and around his head. Mr. and Mrs. Steadman looked through the slats in the blinds and shook their heads in utter disgust. 

That is when I heard the familiar chime of Herbie's Helms Bakery Truck. The boys scattered and hid behind cars and trees and bushes and our busy block suddenly looked desolate like something right out of the

Twilight Zone  

Playing along, the Gillamonster slumped over the steering wheel of his mom's car with ketchup on his forehead and with some dribbling from his mouth as though he was unconsciousness from the fatal atrocity. 

Herbie wheeled his Helm's Bakery truck behind the accident scene and vaulted himself to aid the young bleeding victim which laid contorted under the front fender of the car. 

Back in those days... right down Venice Blvd was the World Famous Helms Bakery.  They had fleets of delivery trucks that delivered bread, donuts and pastries right to your front door.

On the top shelf were the cream-filled eclairs...we never got to have the cream puffs because they were just too expensive -  forget expensive, they cost money! Oh, you can bet the Blasers and the Lennons had Helms donuts and stuff like that, but not us... not until today!

Just like in the good old days of the Wild West we staged a holdup. As Herbie examined the dead body of Gherhing the Great, the boys silently slithered out of their hiding spots and slipped into the Helm's delivery truck  

Chewbacca and Donny and Tom and Kleghorn and Puke-Breath cleared out the exclusive top shelf of the sweet, cold-goodness of cream-filled eclairs and disappeared just as fast as they had appeared. 

Herbie ran to the Steadmans to use the phone to call the police. Knocking on the door he explained to Mr. Steadman his urgency and when he turned around and pointed to the street Gherhing the Great and Gillamonster had both disappeared. Mr. Steadman looked at him and said, "It's no wonder lions eat their young." Thinking it was just a juvenile prank Herbie, without checking his inventory got in his truck and sped away from Harding avenue. 
 
Gustav managed to get Gillamonster back on the road - with Mrs. Gillemot "none-the-wiser."

Like worms that crawl in and out of dead pirates bones...the Wolf Pack oozed into the holes where bricks were missing in the foundation of our house into the dark clubhouse in the basement. It was there they shared the stolen booty, with Gherhing the Great who got to have a cream-filled eclair all to himself  for payment. Gherhing gave me one measly  bite as we headed to the fort to investigate the damage from earlier when Puke-Breath was hurdled on top by Chewbacca the moment he discovered the rattlesnake in his pants (blog post 7-29-13). 

Before we even pulled the plywood off the top we could smell the foul surprise that Jimmy, the booger-slurper, had left inside earlier. He had pooped in the corner that Tommy and I, pretending, said was the bathroom.  GROSS! I heaved of course...and made Gherhing shovel a foot of dirt inside the entire thing before I could even get close enough to declare it condemned, tear the thing down and fill it in. Hearing laughter we looked up to see the older boys leaping out of the third story window and sliding down the "fire escape" pole with renewed fervor. 

Gherhing had not been down the pole yet and wanted to get into the action. Running into the house, behind the continuous steam of boys who were making their way up the three flight of stairs...THAT IS WHEN I SPOTTED THEIR MOTIVATION. Jerry "TT" had come over for a visit and they had intended on driving him bonkers (blogpost 7-26-13). 

Their plan worked, but at my expense!  Next time "Fire Pole Terrorism" and getting trapped by Jerry!
 
Below is a little video bit of history about Helms Bakery by a very good friend of mine, Victor Leon, of Lion's Automotive in Torrance California.  

John Gillemot served our country in Viet Nam - was exposed to "Agent Orange" and had a rough go at things, but has recently had a major turn around and it doing great.

Thank you Gillamonster for serving our country!