The hilarious, picture-driven, true memoir of the youngest boy of the 60's "most dysfunctional family." Markie d's quest for survival and identity helps us discover and deal with the dysfunction in all of us. Funny, politically incorrect and thought provoking.
In the words of an ancient sage, "Laughter is good medicine."
Everyone I apologize...for leaving you on the cliff hanger.
I've been running crazy and am working on making another Video for this blog, which I am shooting in the morning. I will be telling the "LA Zoo" story in front of a live audience. This is the story where my family managed to let all the monkeys out. Blog Post 4/29/13
Oh, and I guess it is better to be telling the zoo story in front of a live audience instead of a dead one! Right?
As soon as I come back tomorrow, I will continue the story of the tragic and horrible accident that happened at the McIlliot's pool.
It involves an older brother, my younger sister and the baby Lennon girl - Annie. She is pictured to the right circled in red. Of course she's not that young...she's my baby sister's age, who is 9 at the time of terrible tragedy that took place at the McIlliot's pool. Trust me - the tragedy is not the horrible trick that my coarse older brother pulled to make me vomit... NO! It was simple tom-foolery that involved slippery, wet bodies and a large glass wall just adjacent to the pool.
By this time in 1968 a couple of the Lennon boys had begun to migrate off the Lennon family compound and had dared venture into the Dahlin backyard...with the snakes, the alligator, the snapping turtles, the chicken-eating giant bull frog, and the dreaded Veloci-Raptor - attack rooster.
Those Mexican tomato plants must have some powerful magic to get the hippies to fend off the rooster for their horticulture project.
I don't know why it was... but Annie began to come home with Kjersten for lunch - TO OUR HOUSE!
It just didn't make any sense! After all those years of parents being HΓΌber-protective...now either they didn't know about this or Annie just threw all caution to the wind and passed by her own house (that I'm sure had real food) and joined me and Kjersten at our house for lunch where we would have to scrape the moldy penicillin off our Pioneer sour-dough bread. I thought I would throw in "Hey Jude" for the sound of 1968.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to
man. It is a dimension in Venice California in the gap in time
between now and then.It is the middle ground
between what was fact and what was perceived to be. In it lies the pit of fears
regarding the survival of Catholic school and lots of older brothers. It is the dimension of 1960’s in Markie
D’s imagination. It is filled with tragedy, humor and a satirical look at the human
condition.
It is known as “The Dahlin Zone”
I blogged my way through that first terrible week of fifth grade in September of 1966. It is now October 1968, I have just turned 12 and am in seventh grade in Catholic School. Sister Edith is my teacher, and (like a lot of the nuns before her), she has had her share of Dahlin boys (5 or 6 to be inexact, one right after another). By this time in her long teaching vocation she was just plain tired of the plague that had infested Saint Marks some many moons ago beginning in the 1950's. Sister Edith will forever be notorious for her music lessons and will likely go down in infamy for her "head tones," for cracking rulers over hands of many-a-seventh grader, and for throwing erasers. She had a good arm and nailed me just about every time she hurled one of those chalk-filled bombs in my direction. She is probably in heaven right now playing catch with Jesus (However, I just hope she's not throwing erasers).
Anyway... I skipped reporting on last year - my sixth grade experience. If life wasn't already difficult enough, I mean, being shocked and shot, buried and shoved in the Hamper of Death, Milk Wars and pushing cars, left behind and knocked out, bitten by snakes, tormented and tossed like a salad in the trunk of Gustav's legendary Rat Killer...Sixth Grade was far worst than all of those things combined!
Besides starting the year off on the "wrong foot" with leprosy, and a stolen sweater that embarrassed the heck out of me...Du...Du...Du...I discovered my biggest NIGHTMARE!
Oh, I had barely made it out of Sister Godzilla's class by the skin of my teeth. I'm not joking when I say, "I barely made it out." My only consolation was the fact that all of the Nuns at Saint Marks already had - like - eight Dahlins before I got there and were not, under any circumstance willing to subject themselves to that kind of pain ever again. Not one of them would ever consider holding anyone of us back for another year. Thanks to the shear number of Dahlins and the rather rambunctious nature of my brothers, who preceded me, I practically had FUNKING INSURANCE. When I was promoted from fifth grade, it was Sister Godzilla's last year and she tried everything in her power to flunk me back into the fifth grade for another stint- since she was leaving. PAYBACK for the time we had electrocuted her (BLOG Post 4/26/13). Apparently, the Pope vetoed her, because the Catholic Church felt they couldn't afford to ruin a perfectly new teacher, recruited to be her replacement.
I made it! Just like the Hamper of Death... just like the Templates... and just like Salton Sea, I made it out alive!
Having said all that, why couldn't they have moved me across the hall into the other sixth grade class? Why did they stick me in my mother's class? (The reason was obvious,, to spare the nun across the hall). Yep, my mom had begun teaching the sixth grade at Saint Marks and I mistakenly figured that this year would be like being on a holiday where I could just kick back and relax! Nepotism had to have it's advantages, right?
I love my mom, but boy was I wrong!
Turns out that, I didn't have a clue!
My mom was funny and there wasn't room in our classroom for two class clowns and besides she could make an example out of me!
In the future.. they are going to find out some things about little boys. They are going to discover things like ADD and ADHD and learning styles and things like that. In 1967 they didn't have those kinds of labels. I don't know if that was a good thing or bad thing. Without being defined or confined by a label I guess we really didn't have all the excuses we have today. But, the way I was wired...let me just put it this way...there was nothing in that classroom setting that was conducive to my particular learning style. We couldn't move enough, we couldn't touch enough, the desk chairs were too hard and too straight...there was too much order... I couldn't learn through my ears and the teachers talked too much. All of this to tell you that...I was special...and they just didn't know it or how to handle someone like me. Shucks, why stand when you can sit? Why sit when you can slough? Why slough when you can lay down? Why lay down when you can crawl around on the floor and grab the girl's ankles.
Why obey when you can climb over the cloakroom wall and make everybody laugh and why study when you can cheat off Regina's paper. (It was all pretty simple to me - I don't know why they didn't get it)
Sixth grade would be the hardest ten years I ever spent in school! I figured my mom might just flunk me, since I was hers. I pictured it in my head - I would probably end up like Jethro Bodine (on The Beverly Hillbillies) as a 26-year-old in Junior High School (I guess by then, at least, I'd be as tall as Marilyn Jones and maybe even have hair on my lip by then like some of the other boys). Anyway, like The Beverly Hillbillies, I was a fish out of water. That very first week I learned that sixth grade in my mom's class would not be a "cake-walk" especially since I arrived on the first day with "leprosy."
I'm going to tell you about that story, but it all begins a few years earlier about how the Dahlins managed to bring mosquitoes to California.
Yep, we are the one's...all right. And I'll tell you exactly how that came back to bite me (that's a pun)...let's say, it came back to bite me - like a bazillion times AND just two weeks before the first day of school. Everybody knows that sixth graders can be pretty cruel at times and should understand why I wished I have been committed to a Leper Colony Instead.
I would have gladly accepted the bell around my neck and publicly declared myself to be unclean rather than the ridicule of my friends.
...and it all began with my dad's frugal, hair-gel concoction of sugar-water... which I tell you about Next Tme...
...in the mean time, here is a picture of my hair that is as hard as a plastic, baseball helmet...that a gale force wind couldn't mess it up. That is where we get the derogatory expression... "Helmet Head."
Oh, and by the way, The Beatles just came out with a new song, "Hey Jude" sounds pretty cool to me and looks like it's probably going to be a pretty big hit.
Take a bad song and make it better... Don't be afraid
And anytime you feel the pain, hey Markie D, refrain, Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
"Head tones!" she shouted. "Head tones, class!" Sister Edith exhorted the seventh grade class to dig deep and reach for higher notes. Most of the girls couldn't even reach notes that high. The boys, on the other hand, sounded like mice whose tails had been slammed in the door - because most of them were going through puberty and their voices were cracking like when the needle gets to the end of a record.
I think Sister thought that we were the Vienna boys choir, but I had bad news for her - Ricky already had a mustache and no one in our class could get even get within eight notes of the octave she was trying to push us to - expect Anthony! He liked all this singing business.
Me, why... I wasn't a Lennon and God did not give me the gift of singing (I could whistle- though). When God was handing out voices I think our entire Dahlin tribe was probably off fighting one another or hanging on monkey bars - and the Lennons...well, they probably went through the line twice. Anyway, in middle of this music lesson, I figured I had better excused myself and made my way to the boy's room. God forbid that I try to hold it in again! I never - ever wanted to go through what had happened in Miss/Mrs. Sim/Simpson's class (Blog Post June 18th)! (I know the whole Sim/Simpson thing is weird; I didn't get it, but that's what I called her.)
While the awful cacophony of "Do, Re, Mi" was curdling the blood of the surrounding classrooms and irritating nearby dogs, I had to figure out some excuse for not going back. Ugh...I could hear Anthony and the girls screeching and the boys squawking that hurt my ears worst than fingernails on a chalkboard. I had to find a way out or I might die! "Think, think, think, Markie D," I said to myself pounding my fist to my head. I needed one of my flashes of genius and could only think about pretending to be sick.
I contemplated that for less than a second. The last time I checked himself into the school nurse in an effort to get out of a test and go home sick, it didn't turn out so good for anybody.
It was back in the 5th grade (in Sister Godzilla's class) when I fainted illness and she sent me to the infirmary. The volunteer mother there, tried to convince me that I had gas and told me to bend over, grab my ankles and "push!" She yield at me like a cheerleader or a doctor for a mother giving birth..."Push! Push! Push," she exhorted, waiting for me to pass gas! Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?
Sister Godzilla came in to make sure I wasn't trying to ditch and as she walked in the door - there I was with my little 12 year-old butt pointed right at her. She had the audacity to yell at me like this was all my fault. "Be careful where you point that thing, it might be loaded!"
Good Grief.
To make matters worst...in walked one of the teacher aids... a cool girl from the eight grade - my life was ruined.
"Fourth most embarrassing moment in my life."
In a brilliant flash of genius, I quickly let go of my ankles and began fumbling about the floor as if searching for something the nurse-mom had misplaced.
"Nope, don't see it down here either!" I said, pretending to help the volunteer mom find something that wasn't really lost. Standing up, I stretched up high on my tippy toes and looked up on top of a dusty old cabinet and said, "Uh-uh, not here either. Yep," I said loud enough for Theresa to hear, "I think I'll go back to class now.. I think everything is OKAY"
Brilliant! It had double meaning... to the cute girl, she was supposed to hear that I was finished with my heroic effort to help Mrs. Putziger and to Mrs. Putziger she was supposed to hear that I was fine, because her old "wives' tale" trick worked. Geezers, imagine if this got spread about school. That defining moment in 5th grade cured me of one thing.
I would never go to the infirmary again.
Ha...I felt the least I could do was spread a little Harding Avenue joy and "crop-dust" on the way out of the room (Dooh-Dooh Pants coined the term "crop dust" and perfected the art of clearing entire rooms with a single SBD). Maliciously I left them in a malodorous "Silent-But-Deadly" cloud and vowed never to return again... then I hid in the alcove of Sister Shultz' classroom and watched as Mrs. Putziger and Theresa hastily emerged from the infirmary office choking and gasping for fresh air thinking ill of the other. Who said school had to be totally dull?
Well, that was then and this was now. Since I had opted out of the "faking-a-sick-stomach" routine, my options were sorely limited as I passed by the infirmary and begrudging made my way slowly back to the terrorizing sounds of 7th graders who were attempting to reach decibel levels that hurt human ears. It was rumored that Sister Edith's music classes drove 'O Mr. Snyder's dog bonkers (He was the grouch who lived behind Saint Mark's grammar school and stole every kickball that went over the fence for revenge- who could blame him right?)
There was no one in the hallway at that moment, so in an effort to kill some time I threw himself down on the ground and rolled around pretending be dying an agonizing death. Just so happened that Marilyn had come back from the supply room with the ditto-copier machine and had rounded the corner to find me rolling and squirming around on the ground like a possum that had been half-run-over by a car. This might be the fifth most embarrassing moment after being caught holding my ankles - butt in the air - and being cheered to "PUSH!"
Freezing like a mutant worm on the floor, I freaked out and wondered how this could possible help my reputation with ladies. All I needed was for Marilyn to tell Andrea that her suspicions were correct and I was retarded. I was in love, but was so insecure - I couldn't even say a word to Andrea or barley look in her direction without melting like the Popsicle at Salton Sea (Blog Post May 13th).
(See me flexing in the rear... that was the weekend they left me there when that 'O Popsicle just melted down my arm and onto the ground!)
By this time, I had been electrocuted and buried and shot at and tricked and stuffed and hunted and was insecure in my own skin. I was pathetic and desperately needed to feel accepted and often sought approval in all the wrong ways. Looking up at Marilyn, ten thousand scenarios flashed through my hyper active pea-brain. Yet, none of those excuses that I could immediately come up with - could not explain this incredibly abnormal behavior.
FLASH - Epiphany! The school play, popped into my noggin! The annual Christmas pageant this year was supposed to be sponsored by the seventh grade class. Quickly I asked, "Well what do you think?" As, though rolling around on the floor, was something that wasn't completely bizarre!
Astonished, Marilyn asked, "What on earth do you mean, what do I think?"
Smiling confidently, I took the offensive, "Is it believable?" I pressed her for an answer.
"Believable! What the heck are you talking about?" Marilyn asked with an incongruous look on her face.
"Pshawww...Can't you see! I'm practicing for the play! Come on Marilyn, get with it. As a shepherd, do you think that when the angels visited the poor shepherds out in the fields at night- that I should roll around on the ground like this (I gave her another little sample) as though I am dying of an awful fright? Well?" I asserted with serious eyes.
"Well, what?" she said, holding her position.
"Well, did it work? Did it look like I was dying from fright... do you think the audience will buy it?"
"Well, whatever" she said and rolled around me with the mimeograph-copy-machine-thingy keeping a wide birth, like I was one of those possessed guys in the bible.
I dragged myself slowly back to the classroom on my belly and laid outside the door practicing my writhing. Finally I built up the courage to open the door and crept in quietly while holding my ears. I just couldn't take it and seriously contemplated going back to the infirmary and holding my butt in the air like a frightened stink bug...for anyone and everyone to see, when the perfect plan came to me in another flash.
Instead of returning to my seat... I slipped unnoticed into the "cloak room" with a grin on my face that had to put the mean old Grinch's smile to shame.
I had a plan... and hummed the Beatles, "Hey Jude" to make it better... as I exectued my brilliant pla.
Everyone I apologize...for leaving you on the cliff hanger.
and let me tell ya... between us and the Lennons we had a lot of kids on Harding Ave and at our house a lot of "arrested development".
