Peanut Butter and Unrequited Love...UGHHHhhhh!

Picture of my 4th or 5th or 6th oldest brother (depending one who gets counted into the mix), but this picture says it all. 

This just happens to be taken in the exact location we almost lost Kurt to the paddle-board-over-the-falls and the botched-rope-around-the-neck-rescue!  

As I said last time, I prayed for normal - but with the alligator, the attack rooster, the monkeys at the Zoo, the resurrected cat, with Iguana Del Diablo, the rattlesnake escapes, the Ouija board and the crop of well taken care of "Mexican Tomato Plants" anything to do with normal was well behind us. I always thought that normal lived next door to us or across the street at the Lennon Sister's house.  

As Catholics we weren't allowed to say the "Damn" word in our family. The Blasers next door were forbidden to say, "Darn it." Darn was just too close to "damn" and would count as a venial sin that could add to your purgatory time.  Being all grown up at 13, I dipped my toes into the shallow waters of Venial sin and said "Darn it" a couple times in front of Tommy Blaser, Kippy Lennon and Jeffery Lennon just to show them that I was older and more mature. On three occasions, I said the "Darn" word while thinking "Damn" in my head and wondered what my penance would be at my next confession.  I was a sinner!

 us - irregular

Them  - normal 

Us -  in front of our house

Them - in front of their house  

(continued) The morning I got back to Saint Mark's grammar school from the zero period for advanced math at Saint Monica High School -  wouldn't you know it, but the very first person I bumped into was Andrea!         Literally. I literally ran into her like a car wreck.

I think Marilyn Jones or Theresa Modesti pushed her into me - because they had been trying to set us up (that's how you do it when you're 13-years-old). I wasn't upset about running into her... as a matter of fact I liked how it felt to actually come into contact with a member of the opposite sex - who just so happened to be my - one "true love."  "Ah honey you are my candy girl"   This could have been good news on any other occasion...well, on any other occasion that I wasn't tattooed like a circus freak. "Darn" slipped out of my lips in the middle of our CATHOLIC school... what people didn't know, was that I was so mad at Chewbacca, that my brain - screamed that four letter word "Damn" inside! "DAMN IT...CHEWBACCA!" as anger and resentment filled my heart towards him.

Yes, I deserved to go to hell. I bent over to help Andrea with her books when I heard Sister Superior call my name. When I stood up and turned around in her direction - she screeched and called me into her office.

Charlie Brown once said, "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love." Today my peanut butter would taste like gravel in my mouth. "Lord..." I offered up as she stood there and screamed at me for drawing the disgusting images all over my body "...normal, wouldn't be at all bad from time to time." I drifted off as she droned on about the Blessed Virgin Mary and others things I paid no attention to.

It was pretty embarrassing that she intentionally kept the door to her office wide open...so that the entire student body could hear her chew me out by name. I felt like she was the jury foreman rendering the verdict of guilty to be hung by the neck until dead in front of the entire school. I sat quietly and looked through her to the wall behind her...picturing...wondering...imagining the devious prank I intended to pull on Chewbacca as pay back. At the moment I couldn't think of anything better than a rattlesnake up his pant leg, but he had already survived that once before. NO, this time it would be more creative. He had it coming and I would have to tap into the evil ooze to get back at him for ruining my life and for the destroying the one shot I had at discovering what love really was.





While suspended from school, I intended on dreaming up ways of getting back at Chewbacca then eventually heading over to the Venice Police station to play football when the regular kids from Saint Marks and Venice High school got out.

After all this was the beginning a new decade - the beginning of the 70's and Hey, this was Venice - if you have ever been to Venice beach - you would know that with all my body art and tattoos - I would have fit right in!  

                                                                               Picture taken from the Venice Ocean Park Santa Monica 20^th Century Face book 

"Peaches Flowers and granola"   Good bye for now, I have to go eat my gravel, plan my revenge and hope Mrs. Blaser doesn't want to wash my mouth out with soap... my peanut butter gravel was bad enough.

       

The Secret Service and Gunshots on Harding!

I have been trying to write the unbelievable, bizarre, incredible, "too-crazy-to-be-true" stories of my growing up years in chronological order the best I can remember.  I began this blog about a year ago - beginning by telling about my first day in 5th grade (as my class moved up from one end of Saint Marks grammar school to the other end of the school building) in Sister Godzilla's class.















That first day of 5th grade was after my wild family let the monkeys out of the LA zoo - 5/3/13
                   It was after my brothers had learned how to harness  electricity for inventive forms of sibling and
                      neighbor torture, which also happened to include the occasional visiting nun - 4/26/13
               ...It was also the summer my family left me at behind at Salton Sea that ended in a high speed                              Highway Patrol chase to Indio - 5/27/13                                                                                                ...It was after nearly a dozen broken bones and having my leg nearly severed completely off


I continued to work my way through stories about our notorious neighborhood pranks and dangerously stupid UFO launchings that almost burned down the Lennon Sisters house on the corner, fishing for the old grouch next door, and the improbable meeting of a lifetime that led us to cross paths with the President of the United States (LBJ) while on one of our wild adventures across country - 9/14/13






With 30,000  visitors from 86 countries around the world to my blog, I am now in that chronological telling of the history of the world - or the history of Venice or the history of Saint Marks or the history of Harding Avenue in the summer of 1969, just after having my 13th birthday.



(Pictured to left is 900 Harding Ave. Venice. CA. circa 1965 i.e. "The Fraternity House")




My last posting has to do with the tragic death of Mr. Lennon and the pursuing turmoil it presented to the Lennons as well as to our neighborhood with the confusion that was stirred up by media frenzy linking the murder of Bill Lennon to the recent La Bianca-Tate murder spree of Charles Manson and his cult followers. Turns out that the murderer, a disturbed psycho, by the name of Chet Young, had also expressed murder threats against President Johnson back when he was in office.  Thus, necessitating the invasion of the Secret Service to our street for protection of the Lennon clan.

What I found out in my visit to Branson last summer from Joey Lennon was the key to solving the timing of the Great Fraternity-House Fire. He and Billy Lennon told me the events that took place while they were in protective lock-down by the Secret Service that shed light on the exact timing of that event.  I had previously put this event in my blog early in 1969 (for choosing 1969 I get a B+  because no one I had talked to - who lived on Harding during the big fire - could agree on the exact year - let alone the exact time that it happened).

Joey and Billy Lennon, however, knew exactly when that fire took place. It was almost 45 years ago to this exact day.

Most of the Lennon family - including all of the Lennon Sisters, their husbands and kids had all come back to live in the big house on Harding Ave for their protection - because Chet Young had gotten away and was still on the loose.  From across the street where we lived, it looked like a hundred Lennons were crammed in there at the time- but what does a 13-year-old know...none-the-less, it was a big number that exceeded the number of Venice hippies, friends and strays who were crammed in my house.

Since I shared my memories on the big fire I have heard some stories of others who have shed more light from their perspective (including the Tripps, who lived right next door, and an actual person who told me about how they were trapped inside on the second floor of the fraternity house at the time of the fire).

Now what I would like to do, since there are many new people to my blog, is to paste all of that together with the new information in its correct chronological time frame that took place within weeks of the Bill Lennon murder during the time of the invasion of the Secret Service to our street on Harding Ave (at this exact time 45 years ago).

At the Lennon house things got crazy that night. Gunshots had been fired...so the policemen and Secret Service detail frantically scrambled into action calling all the Lennons to take cover downstairs. The gunshots they heard (or what they thought were gunshots) were not far from the Lennon house and posed an imminent threat.  BAM... BAM... BAM... BAM... the loose windows at our house rattled from the serious of gunshots or explosions or from whatever was going on across the street.

To Be Continued.

PS if you are reading this and have memories of that night, I would very much like to hear your recollection - value your input and would like include your memory of the event in the upcoming continuation of the big event - so please share in a comment below or on FACEBOOK and I'll add it into the story.

Mr. D's Birthday... A Tribute to the "Dad of Harding Avenue"

It's a little bizarre that I had a dream last night about my dad.  It's been 29 years since my dad died and I still have dreams that include him...but that's not the weird part - the thing that made it so interesting to me was that today (Sept 1st,) is his birthday. Coincidence? I don't know, call it what ever you want, but since today is Carl R. Dahlin's birthday, I think I use this Labor Day Blog as a pictorial tribute to a truly great man and awesome dad!

Let's go back to the beginning...first of all Dahlin is a Swedish surname. My Dad's family immigrated from Sweden into Canada and then into the United States where they settled in Michigan - Those Swedes always looking for cold weather I guess.

Here is a picture of little Carl growing up in a Suburb of Detroit!


Dad's mom and two of his sisters. His mom is direct descendant of Leif Ericson (you know the guy who discovered America)!





Two of his blonde haired-sisters with all of the recessive genes you'd expect as Swedish imports!



Aunt Sally and Aunt Pearl

 Enlisted in the Army   Oh by the way - Watch out Elvis (Good looking guy right?)

Rising through the ranks - Staff Sergeant   Teaching hand to hand combat (Martial Arts to the Marines)

Meets a sweetie pie from Santa Monica - Hilberta Joan Sommer (her tribute blog post ) 

they get married and start having babies - He's not quite sure how to change diapers at first...

My mom's not sure how to do baby laundry at first...

 Four boys and the 'O Ford Woody

  

Late 50's  - early 60's begins selling lots at Salton Sea... An Inland Sea Paradise destined to rival Palm Springs... 

Four oldest Brothers and Ian Williamson (a neighbor friend who is about 9 feet all) 







Five boys then comes the First GIRL yeah! 

















Paints the VW van  red - eight of us on Easter Morning 1960 (with "Nana" in the van - my mom's mother). 











They get the hang of it ("hang" of it - get it? it's pun based on pictures above) and begin to have lots and lots of really beautiful children...to many kids for small house on Euclid in Santa Monica and buy the big house on Harding in Venice.

 He takes all 132 of us to Kings River

 Then lots of fishing! There he is on Santa Monica pier baiting hooks!

Fishing below Pine Flats Dam (Kings River) 1962 

He takes us to Salton Sea...  Dad is laying on the ground taking a nap! (Who knows what Karl and Steve Smith are doing?)  I'm flexing (some things don't change). 

My dad let Bill Lennon and the famous singing Lennon Sisters move into to Harding with all 11 of their kids. 

He also let Don and Mary (Lennon) Blaser move in right next door... and their 9 kids! 

Tommy Blaser out in front of the Blaser house with Karin (my baby sister) and Mr. Blaser's Lincoln Continental in driveway and the Fraternity house pictured in background 900 Harding Avenue.   

Then my dad let another Lennon Family move in across the street - Bob and Jeanette and their nine kids... We were surrounded by Lennons, 36 of them - with our mob we had enough to take over the World. 

  More Real Estate 

Then partners with Don Blaser - Dahlin/Blaser Realty

Another new car  - 1967 Ford Esquire Station Wagon will all the  bells and whistles and FM RADIO! 

 As the official designated unofficial Mayor of Venice _ I.e President of the Venice/ Marina Lions Club...President of the Venice/Marina Chamber of Commerce...Board member of Bank of Marina Del Rey...Treasurer of Venice Boy Scout Troop 32... President of the Venice board of Real estate (in other words he was involved in everything -  which made it mandatory for him to Golf!  

He brought home lots of Trophies... he won many closets to pin and Long Drive competitions! 

....earning him the occasional nap! 

 

not the most flattering picture (I know), but not only were my brothers ornery so was my sister and her gaggle of friends... Weenie Tripp, Theresa Blaser, Debi Gas, Mimi Lennon, Mary Blaser, Theresa McCarthy, Sally Lennon and an bunch of others who would put his hair in those great, big, giant, pink-foam curlers and put make-up on his face while he was sleeping and then sneak out and without saying a word and let the poor guy wake up and and head out doors into the neighborhood...without suspecting a thing -  looking like (Well, use your imagination)!  

Dad with Karl and Bob (at Bob's wedding with my 1959 220s Mercedes convertible in the background). 

with a bunch of us in the front yard... too many to name...

 With Ray Vandermark and little Mary Blaser and Barbara Blaser and Mrs. Blaser and me and Tony and Steve Kissel and Pinky Parlett, and David Smith and Theresa McCarthy Dahlin, Marylee (top) and Billy Blaser right in the middle of it all. 

Goofing around with Christine Blaser and Sally Lennon and little Mary Blaser and Theresa. 

with mom and crazy dog "Bluin" who got the frontal lobotomy from Veloci-Rooster (post XXX) 

messing around with wigs  circa 1980 

even the dog gets a wig makeover 

Dad hold pictures of his parents

diagnosed with cancer 1983...

begins losing weight... 

With Peggy Lennon (other "Harding" Lennons the one with 13 kids) 

His Last Birthday party at the Blaser's house everyone singing "Happy Birthday Mr. D" written by Markie Lennon.

Surrounded by the family, near the end. 

Dies January 25th 1985

Saint Mark's church filled to capacity as Lennon Sisters sign the "Our Father" as we commend his spirit into the loving arms of our Father who is in Heaven. 

  

If I had to guess, I'd say he's probably goofing off in heaven right now and golfing with Bill Lennon and with some of the other good 'O boys from the "Harding Ave Gang"...  (pictured Frank Nargie) 

....when he's not fishing with Karl (RIP). 

I miss you Dad!  We miss you dad and Venice misses you!

 Circa 2014