The conclusion (c
ontinued) I wanted to be cool. And I wanted to fit in. And I wanted to be like them and to be liked by them. From the stories I heard, I knew that we would be scrounging around in the manzanita and the rugged western chaparral of the Santa Monica mountains and scurrying around on the rocks like blue-bellied fence lizards.
As a junior hippie, I thought I looked cool in my dad's army coat, which also added a thick extra layer of protection should I actively engage in the "lizard life."
Me and my Army coat and my rope...I was set!
Delighted in all the circumstance of feeling like I belonged and like I was doing something important, I smiled as I proudly carried the rope among the throngs of brothers, hippies, and Harding-ites up the windy mountain road of Tuna Canyon.
Like Issac on a outing with his father and blissfully carrying his firewood to the top of Mount Moriah... I too carried the rope with great honor - ecstatic to be included in this right of passage as a ritual of induction into my tribe.
I belonged.
I was loved.
Overwhelmed with the joy of acceptance, I bounded up the hill with a bounce in my step and a smile that I knew would hurt my face muscles the next day.
Eyebrows popping up and down, I shot glances at all the cute hippie-chicks communicating the hopefulness of connecting in a new way: a way that was no longer that of the "annoying little brother."
Flea-bait and Monkey-boy snarled.
Taking a left turn off the asphalt road we burrowed between scratchy manzanita shrubs that covered the entrance of a secret dirt trail.
I was let in on a secret... this was a big deal!
I was there with them... my heart pounded... as I imagined Issac's heart beat with the similar joy of being with his dad - carrying his special load of firewood up the hill.
Up we scurried to the sacred place... to arrive at an opening of the hippie temple of free love and nature worship.
Out came the freshly picked herbs from the"Mexican tomato plants" in the backyard of our Venice house and Zig-Zag paper. The industrious hippies rolled and licked edges of the paper and rolled some more that had obviously evolved into quite an art-form.
I watched the long inhales and ritual of breath holding and the passing of the "joint" ceremony as if a type of holy communion.
It came to me. I held the "Mary-Jane-cigarette" in my fingers just liked I had watched them do. CHOICES. I could puff and not inhale, but having no formal catechism for this sacred ritual - I declined my first hippie communion.
I basked in the warmth of Southern California sun, family, in community and in finally belonging to my people-group.
Uncharacteristically kind, Flea-Bait offered me a drink of his 7-Up! The Fates and the gods were smiling. I took a gulp and chocked on the vodka I wasn't expecting. I gagged a couple times to the delight of the hippies as the stuff rocketed through my nostrils and furthered entertained the hordes of hysteric hyenas who uncontrollably laughed at my retarded vomit reflex.
I felt sad to be the object of ridicule, but pasted a phony smile on my face - with the optimistic hope that I was there for more than shear entertainment. The joint reached my fingers again and I stared at the wet tip that had been passed around from lip to lip, I looked around the circle of rock dwellers and wondered what diseases I could possibly contract by making contact. They didn't see my stomach heave. I smiled and passed it along.
Giggling and laughter and incoherent stories (that I pretended to be interested in) went on for some time. I still held out hope that they liked me and that I belonged.
I don't know why I brought the stupid rope!
Finally, we headed back down the trail, under the secret entrance and back onto the asphalt road. They laughed and told more stories and made up words and called each other names and I smiled and pretended like I was one of them. I was numb but a couple of the hippie girls smiled at me - making me feel a bit more human which may have redeemed the whole trip.
THEN THE ATTACK!
I was used to fighting and knew that it would have been easy for me to hold off about five or six of them in their present inebriated condition.
AND I DID!
But there was too many of them. About 20 of them held me to the ground as they took the rope off my shoulders and removed dad's Army jacket. At first, I panicked wondering if this was going to be another "naked" thing... like they did before in the attic. Only this time it was wide open in public and in front of about hundred people and was fearful that I should have had hair under my arm pits and didn't and began swinging my fist and got one of them in the face and drew blood and everyone kept laughing.
They weren't interested in pulling my clothes off and embarrassing me in front of God and country... they had different plans. I knew exactly what Issac felt like when his father put him on the woodpile. They slipped my arms into the sleeves of the coat as they put it on me backwards and tied my sleeves behind by back like a straight jacket. They bound my hands in the rope and tied it around my body three or four times.
This was planned from all along. I wasn't there because they liked me or accepted me or as if this was some sort of "right of passage" for belonging... I was like the guy who had been invited to dinner by the cannibals - I was dinner.
I WAS THE MAIN ATTRACTION!
About 20 of the betraying hippies grabbed the length of rope in front of me and another 20 grabbed the length of rope behind me. First it began with a game of tough-of-war. One team of delirious hippies pulled the rope as hard as they could up Tuna Canyon road and one team pulled downhill stretching me out in the middle. My adrenals began pumping epinephrine and endorphins into my nervous system that turned off regular human emotions and my pain sensors. I went to my safe place
(like I did at the betrayal of the hamper) where I had no feeling what-so-ever (this was my drug fix).
The game morphed, of course, as they got more inventive and I felt nothing. Walking down the hill, tied up like a wild beast, we came around a bend in the road. I was scrapped along the rough rocky sides of the cliff - and with my hands tied - I no defense against the sharp claws of the scraggly bushes.
More Laughter!
Then in the opposite bend of the road, they discovered that if they held the rope tight enough, they could hold me suspended in mid air - feet dangling helplessly above the 300 foot drop.
More Laughter! I wanted to think it was because they were having fun and not just because they were laughing AT ME! I didn't know how to act! In my sickness of desperately wanting to belong - I laughed along with them like I was enjoying the torture - and I didn't know if I was suppose to be enjoying this or not. Or if they wanted me to put up a fight or if I should go on pretending it was fun as a way of making them feel they weren't getting the best of me. I hated it, yet loved the fix.
ANYWAY...making the way back to the cars and the psychedelic painted VW van with the peace sign and words "Make Love not War" painted across the side like a billboard... they scraped me along the side of a hill again. "Swedes don't cry" I told myself and I didn't. And I never did - not once.. not when I broke my arm and
not when I chopped off my leg and not now.
And the troglodytes dangled me over the ravine until struck with the bright illumination of a new iteration of the game when Flea-Bait and his group holding the rope uphill ran towards me. Down I free-fell to the end length of the rope and crashed into the side of hill. This caught on quickly with both groups.
Isaac - Abraham - The knife!
I knew what he felt like.
Then the angel! The angel stopped Abraham... I prayed for my angel.
NO ANGEL. No Rescue.
Both groups of marijuana influenced hippies ran together and charged apart... that sent me down the hill again and up against the sharp rocks and the prickly thrones of the bushes with no defense as my body grated up the side of the hill like cheese against the side of a cheese grater only to be dangled in mid air again and to do it all over.
Again and again. And laughter and laughter and more laughter.
Finally one of the hippie chicks finally had enough and took pity. She broke rank and pleaded with the crazies to stop (must have been some nurturing mothering instincts kicking in).
Everyone talked about it all the way home - and with scrapes on my face - a bloody lip and nose and with bush rashes and gashes on my torso - I forced a smile and pretended to laugh with them as they laughed at me.
This was going to be another great story to tell! We invented Bungee-Jumping...only our rope was not a bungee and had no elastic to it. I'll laugh when I hear the story being told at family gatherings and I'll be sure to laugh when I tell the story AS IF I was part of the story and not the object of ridicule in the story.
In the mean time, I'll wait for the next chance to feel like I fit in - like I belong and yet am also frightened by knowing that I am so desperate to be connected and to know what love feels like - that I'll put my self at risk to find it.
I don't know what's wrong with me... less human... more robot...broken... I'll probably say yes the next time.
I held out hope that this embarrassing story doesn't make it back to any of the friends at Saint Mark's. Some of them still think I'm a regular kid and do regular kid things like they do. I know that I am not an example of what it means to be normal by any stretch of the imagination, but am so afraid that Andrea or the other kids might see me as damaged goods and want nothing to so with me.
(picture to right of normal classmates doing things regular kids do...Cathleen and Andrea and Regina and Theresa and Pam and Marilyn and Patty)
And so I carried the rope and so Issac carried the firewood and so I wondered what I would volunteer for next time and wondered if I was slightly retarded and so I smiled and so Jeanette Lennon walked across the street and asked me why I was always smiling and I didn't have an answer - except that like Joseph in the Bible - I had a dream...and I smiled and shrugged my shoulders... and felt like I wanted to give her a hug. Only I was 13, and 13-year-olds don't do that... and just said to her, "another day in paradise" and I put the rope away in the boat.
1957
1960 with Ford Woody in background 
sidewalk repair 1965 
Swat team and animal control 
Karl, Theresa, Vicky, Vicki, Irma, Mark, Erick
1979 L-R Uncle Mark. Erika, Tim, Tom, Kurt 
1980 
1999 foundation and pillar repair 
2012 
