This next blog entry is part one of the most tragic events in the Dahlin household. It is an event that happened in the "Indian Summer" heat wave of October 1968 two days after the World Series (Baseball Championship playoffs). The Dodgers stank that year, but with my Dad's relatives in Detroit, we at least had someone to root for during the series.
One of Detroit's pitchers, Lenny McLain, had won 30 games which hasn't happened since 1934...that was a big deal, but other than Detroit winning the World Series coming back from a 3 to 1 deficit and putting out an abundance of awesome "muscle cars" the world just seemed to be falling apart at the seams.
President Johnson hadn't had much to laugh about with everything that was going on and had decided not to run for re-election... which might be the reason he pulled his Presidential Motorcade over to the side of the road and figured he would harass the skinny-dipping Dahlin boys in the "Snapping Turtle" incident a month ago (Blog Post 9/14/2013). I guess the poor fella just needed a good laugh!
In April, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee and "Race Riots" had erupted just about everywhere. I'd have to admit that it was pretty scary. After all, Watts wasn't too awfully far from us and I was worried about Irene - who lived out in that area (Blog 7/15/2013).
My aunt Mary was the only nun to march the entire 50 miles, she managed to single-handedly stop a covert plan by Sheriff Clark to create a disturbance in order to put an end to the march and later testified before the House of Representatives on behalf of the participants.
Meanwhile, three of my hippy brothers had burned their draft cards...and two went into the service.
People were angry and Anti-War protest were everywhere...Columbia University had been taken over and shut down.
Robert F. Kennedy is shot by Sirhan Sirhan and died a day later on June 6th.
Need I go on? Do I have to mention the thing that happened in Chicago during the Democratic National convention in August with the police and anti-protesters - let's just say it wasn't pretty!
It's a crazy world to be a 12-year-old! With everything going on in the world, a kid just wanted to find a little peace and safety in his own home, but my house seemed just as crazy. I just wanted my parents to be parents, but they checked out and left me and my little sister to fend for ourselves. I was afraid of escaping rattlesnakes, of ill-timed baths and crocodile discoveries, big brothers, baby-pooh hampers, ropes, arrows, cliffs, cars, pits, BB guns, and ghosts. Little did I know that my days were indeed numbered.
We hadn't landed on the moon yet, but on Friday night, Oct 11th (the night after the conclusion of the World Series), we got to watch the first manned Apollo mission in the first telecast from outer space. That was groovy, a bit a good news in a chaotic world for a little dreamer like me and tomorrow was destined to be even better (at least that's what I thought). It was hot and I had a trip planned to the McElliott's pool since our pool had been transfromed into a happy hippy reptile habitat. "Pyschedelic man!"
Stay tuned: The gruesome and bloody details to follow.
When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
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