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.
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.” 
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 ?
