Hormones. Hodads. Harding: Nothing Makes Sense

The more I try to make sense of the world, it seems that the more nothing makes sense.

I am short and skinny and look like I’m a seventh-grader.

Impatiently I pray at night for more reluctant hair to show up under my arm pits—infuriated at the practical joke God was playing on me. Here I am, FOURTEEN in high school among towering mature oaks—gorillas with hair all over their bodies. 

I’m in love withAndrea, walk among the apes and have only two freaking hairs under my right arm pit. The small pond of choice at Saint Mark’s has grown into a very large sea at Saint Monica High School. 

I am frightened that Andrea now had the option of picking from the slick-surfers donning mustaches from the Palisades. I am merely minnow in the vast ocean.

It was spring – something was happening in my body that I couldn’t explain other than the fact that I was officially twitterpated.  It is time to take matters into my own hands. I wrote her a love letter (Though Paul Anka and Annette Funicello may see it as nothing more than puppy love – It is real to ME!). Never-the-less, this is a secret to keep from the Wolf-Pack. Couldn’t let my family find out about my secret crush–they would most certainly use this information against me somehow.

I tucked the note into my Pee-chee folder and was determined to give it to her at school.

Lunch.  

At lunch!  

That was my plan. 

I begged AlexDelgadillo for food.  As with our new tradition, he opened the bun on the hamburger his mother made him and handed me the pickles. 

“STOP!” James Moore charlie-horsed me in the thigh, to stop the nervous jitters of my leg that had been driving him crazy. 

“Hyper” I said, as an excuse—never knowing when it was happening.  Everyone had been calling me hyper for so long that I figured I might as well use it as my alibi. 

This. Was. It.

This was the moment of truth. 

I saw her—she looked my way. My heart stopped or my breathing or something.  Shock.  Excitement. Nervous. She still had a thing for me. YES! I still had a chance.

I stood. She walked in my direction. I fumbled pulling the folded paper out of my pee-chee folder. I crushed it in my fist. I breathed—I tried to.  Nervously, collecting my thoughts I took a step towards her and looked down for one second at the hand that held my undying declaration of love for her way back since sixth grade. I looked up as she walked right past me and right up to a guy standing in the ally way between the gym and the music room.

She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking past me. I glared. She smiled and giggled and even tilted her head. TILTED HER HEAD. Did you hear what I just said? You know the tilt girls do when they are “in-like.” She tilted her head to a stupid surfer kid from Santa Monica. 

UGHhhhhh...someone help me please! 

I was ruined. Where were you in the spring of 1971? If you were anywhere on the West-coast, the odds are, you probably heard the sound of my heart breaking?  

Minnow yes—plankton maybe –in a large ocean filled with sharks, hairy apes and giant oaks. I placed one of Alex’s pickles in the love-letter and ate it. The swim-team guys thought I was retarded.  Nothing made sense—not love—not hormones or puberty—NOT girls.

Words I thought I’d never say: “Today I need you Wolf Pack.” I was numb. “I needed to be put in a pit or hung out of a window. I needed to be electrocuted or tied up in a straight jacket and thrown over a cliff. I needed to get into a fight with someone.  I needed Richard to steal my chocolate. I needed Erick and the band of Angry-Little-Men to ambush me.” 

I am a Zombie in need. I was drifting. I needed James Moore to try to hit me in the leg one more time.

Despondent, I skipped swim practice and hitchhiked—home, half-hoping to be kidnapped, and got only as far as POP.

Surf-rats turned skater-rats were hanging out at the ruins. 

Dude it was on. 

Here I was in my catholic uniform completely out of my element right where I needed to be. Two rough looking kids screamed profanity at me and walked up as if I had invaded sacred territory—in surf talk—a “hodad.” This was my day to die. This was my chance to be pummeled, to feel pain, to feel alive.

“Dahlin?” one of them asked.  

I came straight out of the Dahlin cookie-cutter mold and looked just like my brother Karl who, along with Bruce Grant and Jeff Ho, surfed there all the time. I nodded. 

"Cool." Knowing I was a Dahlin from Venice this kid, Tony, offered me a toke of a joint they were smoking.   

                      I had a decision to make. 

To toke or not to toke that is the question?

Oh BTW two years later...  

On March 15, 1972, DJ Robert W. Morgan played the Donny Osmond version of Puppy Love for 90 minutes straight on KHJ in Los Angeles. The LAPD mistakenly raided the station studios after receiving numerous calls from listeners. Confused, the officers left without making any arrests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_Love_(Paul_Anka_song)     (It was right for people to call the cops it was torture)!

Pee chee folder Picture credit https://www.flickr.com/groups/peecheefolderart/pool/

POP picture 1 credit: Facebook post the rise and fall of Pacific Ocean Park 

POP picture 2  credit: Facebook post ?  

I Talked Cockrell out of Going NAKED!

The year is 1970


I got the ink off my face from being tattooed by Chewbacca. It's Spring - I was smitten and twitterpated like Bambi; still very much in love with "being in love" with Andrea, though still desperately wanting to know what this thing "love" is really all about.

I must put aside this quest momentarily and go with our Venice, Boy Scout Troop to Camp Slauson in Malibu for an early work-trip in preparation of summer!

Basically, it's a testosterone thing! Smelly kids that don't really shower, but once a week or so, herded into the back of our (now) infamous Troop 32 "Scout Bus" - a converted moving van that Ralph Nader would have said, was, "unsafe at any speed" because of the noxious carbon monoxide fumes that got sucked into the back.

Usually by the time we got to our destination whether Idaho or Malibu, we were like a bunch of wild hyenas who had already fought each other and were foaming at the mouth and ready to take on any other pack of wild animals.

I don't think there was anything about this particular "sweaty-toxic-smelly-fighting-work-trip that would get me closer to understanding the meaning of love.

Conceding on giving up on my quest for the meaning of love temporarily, I figured that this whole Boy Scout thing was just a way to even the playing field.

My next oldest brother up from me, was 4 years older than me and it went up to 9 years from there.  It wasn't easy fighting against a herd of 20-something-year-old Hippies. At least this way I got to fight against guys who were at least in a 4-year range of my age group!





Tommy Blaser couldn't go, because of the Hippy his mother thought we had killed with the pennies on the railroad track, but Jeffery Lennon anxiously anticipated the "Snipe Hunts" and was fully invested in whatever mayhem our troop would bring to the otherwise tranquil Boy Scout weekend in Topanga.
     
On the top of our list was Troop 34!  Boy, were they in for a surprise!

I had to reason with Dego and Steve and "Melvin Pervis" and "Mosquito-Bait" and Conklin and nix the idea of raiding the other troops in the middle of the night as the "Naked Angels." I think Cockrell (not a nickname btw) just wanted another venue to show off generous male endowment - like He had in Idaho last summer. Embarrassed, as a late-bloomer, I convinced the guys to go on the midnight raids in our underwear...AKA "THE WHITE ANGELS"

All of us swore to secrecy about the the snakes I had stolen from the cages upstairs on the third floor of my house of which we had no intention of releasing back into the wild... we had more sinister motives that involved the boys in the Mar Vista Troop!



(Pictured couple years later with Ray and Steve and Me - with the notorious "Scout Truck" in our front yard!)


Stay tuned until next time!  Havoc at Slauson

Normal isn't what it is all cracked up to be... Remember "You only dance on this earth for a short while."

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