The Steps of the Harding House: Celebrating 60 years of Freedom

Thank you to all those who gave their lives so that we could have the liberty and the freedom to safely assemble on stairs and front porches - We remember you... we honor you... we thank you... 

1955

 1957

Left to right Karl Mary Mark (in diapers) Erick Tony  

1960 with Ford Woody in background  

1962   handmade clothes

first row L-R Mary Karin Erick Mark 

Second Row L-R Karl Kurt Dad 

Third row top left Tony top right Kris  

     sidewalk repair 1965 

1973  reenactment of the big accident 

  Swat team and animal control 

Karl, Theresa, Vicky, Vicki, Irma, Mark, Erick

                                         1978 Grandbabies

L-R Tony baby Erika, Mark, Irma, Theresa, Kris, Mary 

 going to the dogs  L-R Bluin Randy

 1979  L-R Uncle Mark. Erika, Tim, Tom, Kurt 

 1980 

L-R mom called "H. Joan" Irma, Kurt, Mr. D, Karl (top) Janet, Mark, Marilyn (top center) Mary, Theresa (second row), Dianna (above Theresa), Kris, Erick and Bill

                                                 Mid 80s   more grandbabies

  1999 foundation and pillar repair 

 2012 

Paint 

2014   Neighborhood Lennon (cousins) 

Kippy, Tommy,  Jeffery, Kevin, Michael

 

DAHLINS 

"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."~Erma Bombeck

Happy Memorial Day FROM HARDING AVE VENICE CA.  

Where we Buried the Body

(Continued from the last post about the hippie we murdered and from the post before that about my sex education).


Anyway, running away from the Kingdom Hall on West Washington Blvd, I was very concerned about becoming emotionally attached to my captures. This is something that happens to Swedes don't ya know... There is no name for it yet, but trust me in the couple years it will be a diagnosed syndrome named after something Swedish - maybe after me or maybe after a city in Sweden like Stockholm!   Just saying!



Afraid of having positive feelings and have empathy towards our kidnappers - I didn't look back and ran straight up the street to the Troop 32 Boy Scout house followed closely behind by Tommy and Jeffery!

There we met up with the likes of Ray Vandenmark and Alan Scout, who were the two Senior Patrol Leaders on the infamous "Boy Scouts from Venice" raid on the National Jamboree in which we nearly killed that nerd kid, Bill Gates, from Seattle and were forever banished from returning to a Jamboree. Anyway, all the same hoodlums who were on that 1969, "fighting-cage-on-wheels," "diarrhea-revenge" road-trip were all there. It was a pretty derelict group and I had earned everyone's respect by fighting my way to the top (Special forces training, care of all of gnarly fights with my big brothers - thank you very much Wolf Pack!).

The grungiest kids were from the  "Golden Triangle" area of Venice whose parents were pretty persnickety by thinking they were better than those of us north of Washington Blvd as though they had somehow been annexed into the new Marina Del Rey. Even though they wrote Marina Del Rey on their outgoing mail - it was still 90291 and they still had Venice DNA, despite how much they pretended to be "Beverly Hills yacht owners."  Even though Steve Kissel was from that area - he was pretty cool and didn't smell as bad as some of the other kids.

Anyway, we get to the troop meeting late when the patrols were already outside in the backyard for the group activity.  I don't know what they did for the group activity over at Mar Vista Troop 34...(if I had to guess) probably something a whole lot tamer and a whole lot cleaner than what we were used to - crocheting maybe..hehehe.  We assembled out back in the dirt lot of the small property that was located between West Washington Boulevard and Washington Way (confusing right... "Sheeze" I guess someone ran out of names when they were naming all the streets in Venice) for a game of "Steal the Bacon."  This was a universal Boy Scout tradition...however, THIS WAS VENICE!  This was not like the normal kind of Steal the Bacon they played over in Mar Vista or in Beverly Hills or in little Billy Gates' troop in suburbia Seattle...  NO... this was knock down and drag out.

I loved it; it was Viking style.  Like something that took place on regular basis in our front yard (only with kids closer to my age).
                         









However, poor Tommy had the wet spot on his jeans and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, as soon as he got dragged across the dirt yard a couple times, it collected dirt that acted like a beacon - a neon sign in Vegas that said "Look, I Pee'd my Pants!"



The boys mercilessly "stop-drop-and-rolled" poor Tommy. When he got home, I got called in to testify about jumping off of metaphoric ten-story-roof and how I shouldn't have encouraged him to jump.







I did want to tell Mrs. Blaser that the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Pope and the Catholics should all be proud... but that might led to having explain about the hippie we might have killed, so I kept my mouth shout about the railroad tracks, the pennies, the guitar...about the Kingdom Hall incident and just said,  "Yes, ma'am!"  afraid that she would ask us to show where we buried the body.

Jeffery kind of liked the thrill of the whole thing and wanted some more...He signed up to go to Camp Slauson in Malibu next week with us and decided to help me with my big plans of payback for Chewbacca. I warned him in advance by asking how he did with snakes and dead things. He said he wasn't sure, but wanted to give it a try. They run a tight ship over at Bob and Jeanette Lennon's house, but Jeffery sneaked over and that is when we put into play       "PLAN: X Y Z!"

The Surprising and Incredible Shock in the Movie Theater

I was so proud that my buttons almost burst off my shirt.  A moment that sent a scream of jubilation in a movie Theater last Tuesday night.

A moment that I hope that Dahlins, Blasers, Lennons, Tripps, Nargies, McClains, Cheryl Arnold Moseley, everyone on Harding Avenue, those from Venice - Chrys Atwood and those with roots in Santa Monica will also feel proud and might join together with me in a special moment of celebration.  

But first this...

I don't exactly know where I was on March 21, 1965 as a 9-year-old at Saint Mark's grammar school in Venice Ca.  It could have been I was being shot by my older brothers with needle-tipped arrows, shoved in a hamper, buried in a pit in the backyard or the day I accidentally discovered the alligator in the bath tub - I don't know. I don't know if it was one of the days I was dancing with my squishy black angel from Watts. I do know it was the year I was left behind at Salton Sea by my family and even more importantly than all of that - it was the first day of the Selma March in Alabama.

Martin Luther King had put out the call to clergy to join the March from Selma to Montgomery for the rights of black Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Six nuns from the Midwest responded to King's call and joined the Martin Luther King in the march. It was the first time that vowed Catholic women had made so public a political statement, that changed the tide of public opinion. My Aunt Mary was one of those nuns who were later referred to as Sisters of Selma featured in a PBS special documentary. I am proud to say that my Aunt, Sister Mary Leoline, (native of Santa Monica - graduate of Saint Monica High School - who, during retirement lived in Venice at the Harding House) was the only nun to walk the entire March.  YES, SHE WAS THE ONLY NUN to march the entire way... THIS BRINGS ME TO THE JUBILATION SCREECH that disrupted the MOVIE THEATER... last Tuesday night!

A contingent group of my family in Southern California were watching "Selma" last Tuesday night, when at the end of the movie, a large cameo of original footage of Sister Mary Leoline -i.e. Aunt Mary - walks across the screen at the finish line of the Selma March in a single shot!

Pictured to the left is older brother, Kurt Dahlin, President and founder of Water Wells for Africa  (http://waterwellsforafrica.org) bringing the gift of water and life to 200,000 people every single day in Malawi.






This same excited gasp exuded from the four of us in Northern California who went to see the film the day before on Monday (with my mother-in-law, Sharon, who walked in the James Meredith march in 1966).

    

The same thing happened in Carmel California when my big sister, Mary Leoline (named after Aunt Mary), was watching the movie and also again in Las Cruses, New Mexico, when my little sister, Karin, was likewise shocked by the wonderful surprise of seeing this larger than life footage of our Aunt Mary "Bearing Witness for Change."  

VENICE - SANTA MONICA we have something to cheer about and can celebrate our rich heritage that made a significant impact in the world.

Here is the link to my Blog post that tells the Story of Aunt Mary.  

Stop racism: be an agent of change!  

Irene, my large squishy angel for nearly 20 years -  also worked on Harding avenue at the Blasers, the McClains, and at the Lennon house.

Good things can indeed come from Venice!

Grumpy Cat and the Christmas Lights

After Thanksgiving it is a tradition for "normal people" to put up Christmas lights. Though we lived in Venice, we had families on our block that liked to consider themselves on the fringe of normalcy and engaged in this annual yuletide ritual like the Blasers, the Nargies, the Tripps, and of course - the best Catholics in the world - the famous Lennon Sisters who lived across the street.


Mr Blaser, right next door, was a perfectionist and needed to have his strings of lights "high and tight."  They had to be perfectly straight and symmetrical... AND if you could believe it or not EVERY ONE of his light bulbs had to light up - or it was considered a high crime against the civil order of a 1st-World culture. (pictured above Tommy, Mrs Blaser and Grandpa).

(Pictured is Frank Nargie, the Mail Man). He and his wife Ida, spent an inordinate amount of time with their extensive "Annalee" doll collection and put up grandiose miniature city display inside their house that took up the entire living room).

 (Pictured Ida with collection)  

At this time of year Bob Lennon, the Vasquez family, and the Tripp family were busy with putting up Christmas lights as if they really didn't live in Venice, but were instead normal and  "All American"...like the families portrayed on TV: for example the Cleavers; Ozzie and Harriet; My Three Sons and Father Knows Best!

 (Pictured Leave it to Beaver)

 (Pictured Father Knows Best)

 (The Lennons - just look at 'em)

We, on the other hand, were completely out of the range of what normal Americana looked like!

 

 (Our front yard with the Lennon house in background)

 (Our Backyard: clearing bamboo for more marijuana plants )

(Even a trip to Kings River was a mob event - 17 of us pictured here). 

 (In the street...) our cars and bare feet.

 (At Tuna Canyon in Malibu) 

 Somewhere

  our house

The normal people at the corner - their house 

 



The Normal People in their backyard

             On the other hand - there was us. 

 While the Blasers had a new Lincoln Continental parked in their driveway, here is a couple pictures of our driveway 

...everything at our house was an event. Nothing just happened that was normal or in the way that regular people did things. Everything was a gang activity that eventually included water balloons, BB guns, ropes, makeshift straight-jackets, that eventually turned into a dog fight... and if you were lucky - it didn't include Electricity or a Water hose and a Pit.

Everybody knows that it is absolutely mandatory for all Catholics to leave their Christmas lights up until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th - the time we celebrate the visitation of the wise men. HOWEVER...if we finally got around to taking our Christmas lights down- it was usually late summer and about a month before we had to put them back up again...the big advantage was when we didn't take them down at all. 

Now that the guys were older, they were all too busy pruning the "Mexican Tomato Plants," harvesting the buds and hanging out in the hippy hutch in the backyard to be of any help in doing anything constructive.  

ONCE AGAIN the arduous task of putting up the annual lights would probably be incumbent upon me and Pinky...  (Pinky shown to the Left).












...sometimes I could get Karin (my little sister) to help, but she was 9 and didn't know how to tie a square knot - which was absolutely essential to success of this enterprise.







Today, besides what they were smoking out back, the greatest stumbling block to get any of my hippie brothers to help -  was due to the spontaneous fiasco that was taking place in the dining room when a member of the illustrious Wolf Pack clan discovered that  Lazarus "the Miracle Cat" (gag me) had brought a rat into the house and began to play with it...


The Disgusting Cat would let the poor rodent go and as it raced across the room for freedom and the scaly feline would pounce on it and bring it back to the starting point. Each time, Lazarus the cat would let the rat get further before the eventual pounce.

  This cat and mouse affair brought all of the hippies into the house which incited a wild betting frenzy.

Betting on the fate of this besieged rat turned out to be of more importance than helping little brother with the annual duty of putting up the Christmas lights.  RIGHT!?

I could hear them below hollering, screaming, some cheering on the rat others the cat... meanwhile some of us had more important things to do then to be wasting time betting on the life a rat.

I always voted for the underdog, so I was hoping the rat would eventually make its escape. Downstairs where all the revelry was taking place in our Mutant Zoo:  Johnny, the pigeon, was flying overhead, the spider monkey played with itself as it watched from the high wainscoting, and the foul mouthed Mynah-bird cussed at the boys for being locked up in its cage in the entry.

Grumpy is not even the word to describe the cat's disposition after losing the rat. With claws fully extended, the Grumpy Cat was downright fit to be tied and began throwing himself at the hippies in a tantrum.



I laughed! They deserved it!

I didn't think any of them heard me laugh. I had experienced the consequences of their wrath too many times to know that it wasn't a good idea - and tried to bottle up my secret jubilation inside.

I thought I had gotten away with it...but...little did I know that the older boys had retreated to the hippie-hut out back, the dark ivy cave we called Wall Drug, and began conspiring.  

Meanwhile, in order to begin putting up our Christmas lights meant that I had to face three of my greatest fears...





One of those had to do with the rope I threw over my shoulder that I was going to use to pull up the strands of lights to the tippy-top of the house...

To be continued...