Day of the Iguana. Del Diablo

Saturday 12:00 - 1:00pm, The Long Day continued.  Dooh-Dooh Pants held the diamondback rattlesnake as tight as he could around its neck with one hand and gripped the 5 foot body with the other while rushing back up four flight of stairs. He carefully zigged and zagged around the piles of junk that had accumulated on the steps in the past 24 hours as if they were landmines. By the time he got to the second floor the electrocuted snake had come back to life and began to put up a fight.

Several of us went along with him to the third floor as part of the recon mission to return the deadly viper.  Built into the dormer-walls of the long back bedroom (where most of the older boys slept) was a reptile cage that ran the entire length of the room.

The reptile habitat had been segmented into five sections. One was for poisonous snakes; one was for regular garden-variety snakes, one was for Chuckawallas and leopards lizards (crawly things that we caught at Salton Sea); in one section we raised mice for food; and the final one was for...

                               ...Iguana Del Diablo

Del Diablo was no ordinary pretty-green variety of iguana that you could buy down at Allan's Aquarium on Lincoln Blvd. NO! This Iguana was the oldest, meanest, ugliest looking iguana in the entire world. It literally looked like it climbed out of the pit of hell. The name of this hideous dinosaur came from the smuggler the boys bought it from. 

I think this was the spawn from the lying creature that Adam and Eve encountered in the Garden of Eden.

Anyway... the boys had decided that we had to move the rattlers into the other cage, since this had been the third poisonous felon to escape in the last six months.  Now, that we had to swap all the rattlers into the cage where we had kept the king and garter-snakes; it took the entire Wolf Pack...to juggle the menagerie and to wrangle the other poisonous "sidewinders" from their domicile.

I promise it wasn't my fault! Chewy was the one who began all the trouble - really! I think that's why King Gustav threw the electrical switch when it was Chewy's turn down the "fire escape" (That's not until 3:00 - I'll tell you about that later).

Anywho... Kleghorn and Primo had managed to get a hold of the other two rattlesnakes that were being evicted by the use of a special stick that looked like a Y... and the three boys with the rattlesnakes wisely kept their distant while Chewy, Ulrick and Puke-Breath hunted down the four other occupants of second cage. These four snakes were perfectly harmless, so what could go wrong? 

Have you ever said those words out loud and at the very moment they crossed over the threshold of your lips, you knew it was the wrong thing to say - like a jinx! Yeah, like that! Chewy was from Mexico and said he knew ALL about snakes. He pulled the harmless garter snake from the cage like he was an expert and the awesome snake pee'd on him. "Expert" Chewy freaked out and threw the snake at me. I don't like snakes, but had to pretend not to be afraid because we're supposedly undaunted Vikings - remember that part? Well, neither did I.

The crazy snake didn't just land in my arms...NO...it landed teeth first! Both fangs embedding themselves as deep as they possibly could into what little flesh I had on my boney 11-year-old arms. At the time I only knew how to say "ouch" in one language... and so I screamed as the non-venomous viper dangled from my arm. I swung around and the snake swung straight out around me as I did several full revolutions; swinging and biting my tongue - not really sure how the thing was ever going to come off. The snake hit Chewy in the face and screeching, he stumbled over one of the rattlesnake sticks... which tripped the latch on CAGE NUMBER 5.

Iguana Del Diablo hissed and sprang for Chewy's leg, who danced like a...um...ah...I'm not sure what he danced like...because it wasn't very...um... how do you say...not masculine by any stretch of the imagination?! With the black ugly beast-of-hell attached to his jeans, he screamed, and cried, and jumped up and down, and kept shouting "Ave Maria"  louder than the honking noise that booger-slurping Jimmy makes.

Gustav was going to grab the insidious looking creature, but before he got the chance, Chewy shook it off his leg and the "creature from hell" took off running for the stairs. Ulrich slapped Chewy to knock some sense into him as the boys still had to get the rattlers into their new cage and I still had to get free from the garter snake that was still dangling by its fangs which were sunk even further into the tender flesh of my  left arm.

Del Diablo flew down three flights of stairs past the foul mouthed mynah-bird, "Dirty Bird. Dirty bird."
"Shut the front door" Tony yelled to Pinky who was halfway in, but too thick headed to respond quickly. Before Pinky knew what hit him the the devil-lizard tore across the porch and nearly leaped all six stairs to the front yard.               You know what? The Addams Family had nothing on us!

Several of the neighbors had heard Chewy screaming and came out to see what the Dahlin raucous was all about  - this time! As  usual Mr. Steadman yelled to his wife, "No wonder lions eat their young. Lock the doors honey!" The Nargies, the Blasers, the Lennons and the Tripps were all watching the show. "This is better than street cleaning!"(blog Post "Cirque De Soleil," 7-13-2013) Ricky Tripp said, prematurely to his older sister who were standing on their front lawn watching the show.  The demon lizard shot across the street with a bunch of blonde-haired hippy-types in hot pursuit. Turns out that Darlene and her brother Ricky made a big mistake. They forgot to shut the front door.  Before Mrs. Tripp could say, "Bob's your uncle" that lizard hurtled right through that open door and onto that green shag carpet followed by a dozen Dahlin boys and friends. After a clumsy couple circles around the living room turning over tables and knocking over lamps and things and a similar destructive loop around the kitchen, the wicked reptile shot up the small opening into the base of the wall heater and wedged himself there.

The boys tried to flush out the uninvited guest by turning on the furnace to full blast, but the spawn of Satan gave a sinister grin of satisfaction to the pursuing Wolf Pack as it dug its claws into the heating tubes as though it intended on staying for a quite a while.

So we caught one, but lost another one.  Sorry Mrs. Tripps. Chewbacca said they should be thankful it was only DEL DIABLO in the heater and not a poisonous rattler up a pant leg.  I don't think they took any comfort in that at all.

With all that excitement over and the two deep puncture wounds in my arm wrapped in a sock secured with masking tape, good O' Gherhing and Great I decided to head into the backyard to see if we could salvage the fort!

Oh, just so you know - in this picture if you look over the window on your right - you can see what eventually became of the Diamond Back Rattlesnake.

Today when people around the world exclaim, "Shut...the front door!" Now you know where that expression came from.We invented it way back then... and Mrs Tripp could be heard saying it over and over again!

(Ricky Tripp, thank you for this great memory.  Markie d)

Cirque Du Soleil, Boogers and The Fire Breathing Dragon

"Get Your Tickets!" Tommy yelled from the safety of his living room for the incredible show the Dahlin's put on twice a week.  He was charging a quarter to whatever brother or sister would line up behind the large picture window to view the sluggish caravan of performers who had been whipped into a frenzy by the mad drill sergeant of a circus ring leader.

Before Circus Soleil was "The Dahlin, Wednesday and Thursday morning Street-Cleaning, High Flying Act" that inspired it all. Just this last summer before the ill-fated Salton Sea trip (see blog post  May 27th The Tragic Tale). The cantankerous Dahlin boys managed to crash two of the Dahlin cars right in the middle of Harding Avenue as thrones of terrified and delighted neighbors watched between concealed slits in the louvered windows and Venetian blinds.

That morning, Kris had pealed out of the driveway in his 63 Ford Econoline van and T-boned Karl in the Dodge station-wagon, crushing the driver door. A fist fight broke out but no one had to be taken to the hospital. Dad wanted them to take responsibility for the repairs and the some genius in the Wolf Pack took red spray paint and graffitied, great big letters that spelled "OUCH across the driver's side of the car. Hence graffiti was born as a mobile art-form and it made it easier for the Highway Patrol to track down the fugitive Dahlins who were fleeing Salton Sea without their baby brother - that's me! 

Up until this time the police used to mark tires of the Dahlin's cars with white chalk in order to write parking violations if the vehicle hadn't been moved in three days. But, all the cunning tribe had to do was push the stubborn vehicle ahead three feet to hide the chalk markings on the underside of the tires. The police force retaliated and began marking the sidewall of the tires to thwart the cunning brood.  Then the ingenious kinfolk of the Viking Brotherhood sent Markie D with with a washcloth to wash off the troublesome chalk markings every two days.

Venice had no other recourse, but to convene a special council together and institute the most significant change in  the city's charter since filling in some of the canals (in the late 30's). 

Now, the poor Dahlins had to push the disabled fleet from one side of the street to the other, every Wednesday and every Thursday morning to prevent the police from stealing their precious cars and locking them up in the impound yard. 

Tommy was a budding entrepreneur and made about 2 bucks a week off his brothers and sisters who felt that the show was worth every penny he extracted from them.

While the "regular families" like the Tripps, the Blasers, the Steadmans and of course the Lennons sat around dining-room tables and ate Special K, Cheerios and the new Captain Crunch cereal (with real milk mind you, but that's another story) in preparation for school, the Dahlins however, came out to move the caravan of deceased cars with flat tires, dead batteries, missing parts along with trucks stuffed full of junk - from one side of the street to the other.
 
Joan...(that's what my brother's called mom) was already at Mass before school began. She had unlocked the twelve locks on her bedroom door and escaped the looney-bin under the cover of darkness. Dad, unaided by the "Under-The-Penalty-Of-Mortal-Sin" clause, began the ritual with a broom in hand yelling in the cadence that reminisced back to his Master-Sergeant skills during World War II.

Standing on the landing of the second floor, he beat the ceiling and stairwell with the broom-handle yelling things like, "Up and at 'em" and "Let's go, go, go, go, go, go, go" he uttered brusquely with the speed of a rapid fire machine-gun. "Time of the the harvest moon" he added, stomping on the bottom stair that lead to the third floor where Hippies were confined to.

Moving with the speed of molasses on a cool Swedish winter, lots and lots of bushy, uncombed blonde hair reluctantly shuffled out the front door. "Let's go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go" the Master Sergeant urged the sea-slugs making sure to kick anyone in the rear who had their hands shoved in pockets. He would give the offending party a "swift kick to the rear" and shout, "Shoulders straight! Chin up! Stomach in!" Out we marched: 5 of us, then 10 of us then, then 50 of us... who knew the number... But daddio knew if someone was missing amongst the chaos and would begin his second volley of intimidation that he saved just for the non-compliant long hairs on the third floor.

 "Oh, it's party all night, sleep all day... Big man on campus...Impressing the girls again...Let's go, go, go, go, go, go... come on girly-girls with your long hair... let's move it... it's time of the harvest moon... Big man on campus...Party all night sleep all day"

This tact didn't make the peach-loving hippies any happier when they came downstairs. Every one of them resented Wednesday and Thursday mornings - huffing and puffing and pushing trash barges with flat tires that might have had 16 tons of cannibalized motors, old car parts and trash towering over the truck bed in back.

Lug wrenches were pulled out...tires were rolled down the street to the gas station, leaky hydraulic jacks were shoved under rear differentials in order to slide cars to their new destination and small cars were often picked up and carried by the minions along with the customary sibling skirmishes, name calling, booger wiping...and flatulent wars that they were predisposed to.

AND TONY WOULD COME CAREENING IN... burning rubber all the way down Woodlawn past Leland's house in his ferocious, fire-breathing dragon known as the legendary RAT KILLER.

To Tommy and the rest of the Blasers who stood with mouths agape watching the show, this was almost better than watching the Dahlins let the monkeys out of the Zoo (See Blog Post of April 29th: The Zoo ).

Next time, just before I share about Thursday night and the Spaghetti-Vomit surprise, I just may have to share the spurious and dubious account of  how Dr. Frankenstein put together the Monstrous Beast that stuck fear in the hearts of hot rod owners everywhere...du...du...du... known as the "Rat Killer."