The Mutant Micro Venice Zoo (Hippies Included).

Now, that Chewbacca fell in love with this "miracle cat," Lazarus, our house was only getting wackier and wackier.   Along with our motley tribe of long-haired hippie-types (AKA the Wolf Pack), the dreaded Veloci-Rooster in the backyard, the snakes held captive in the cages on the third floor, the mice we bred for snake feeding, a Mynah bird that cussed like a drunken sailor in the front entry, a billion guinea pigs, turtles, a giant frog,the Iguana Del Diablo (blog 8/1/13), a bazillion rabbits (that kept multiplying), chickens, and Poochie the Wonder dog - we now had this ugly, black, almost-hairless, scabby cat that was now added to the menagerie at my house.

We had a micro-zoo of mutant animals - including my brothers who were becoming more and more full-fledged hippies!

Someone accused us of stealing one of the monkeys that we let out of the zoo and thought we had smuggled it home, but that wasn't true.  The monkey we presently had came from the new neighbors across the street. Somehow it was turned over to me and was now baby sitting the thing indefinitely.  Monkeys were kind of cool - because not everyone had one, but this one sat on the wainscot ledges around the first floor. The monkey was a boy and was obviously happy that it was a male. The depraved - naked little primate, flaunted his male parts to everyone who dared entered our house.   "Gross!"

By feeding the nasty looking cat (that had cheated death) on the kitchen table, and allowing the ugly thing to walk all over the counter tops - Chewbacca surrendered complete authority and power to the insidious cat to rule over the rest of us mere mortal human beings.  I think Chewbacca's brains had become a conduit to the planet where the far superior Cat Species were sent to earth from - to subject humans to their rule. It might have had something to do with the tinfoil pyramid that Chewbacca wore on his head while smoking the leaves from the "Mexican Tomato Plants...out in the hippie cave in our backyard called "Wall Drug!"

My brothers thought all this was groovy - while, I on the other hand, was down right embarrassed. Embarrassed by the monkey with dangling male parts; embarrassed by the zombie cat that walked unhindered on the top of the table and had absolute authority to lick the butter and open containers of sour cream; embarrassed by the swearing Mynah bird; the mess and junk and stacks of National Geographics magazines; embarrassed by the cars outside on blocks and boats parked on the lawn; and by the fact that the police department made routine visits with warrants in hand - but this was my family and my house and my story and I had to make the best of it.


The good news for my brothers was that with the Fraternity House burned down to the ground, which meant that we had inherited more parking for our armada of hot rods, trailers, boats, broken down cars and old trucks we used as trash barges.  

Hum...? Possibly a motivation for arson - BUT I don't think my brothers burned down the fraternity just so that we could park more of our cars.

All the hippies were accounted for and had alibis - so, I still have to find the perpetrator of his horrible crime - that could have easily been murder.

I understand all of this might be hard to imagine... and that I often compare my house to The Addams Family or The Musters, but there really is no comparison!  This was the 60's, this was funky Venice California, this was hippie-ville... this was my house... this was the Dahlins...where truth is indeed stranger than fiction.  

To turn a chapter...With all this going on at home, I thought that maybe I would take a try with the Boy Scouts in order to escape from time to time. I was inducted into my older "way-overachieving-Eagle-scout" brother's troop.   Troop 32.

By the time I joined the troop in 7th grade - the troops only two eagle scouts had graduated away and we resembled something that look more like F Troop (a show on TV).  At Camporees and camp outs we were a band of notorious little thieves that cut the tent strings of other boy scouts and pelted our enemies with dirt clods.

My Family:

The Lennons who lived across the street.

 

As you can tell, we were definitely not normal... by any stretch of the imagination.  Next time "The pit of despair!

                   EXTRA EXTRA read all about it!