The Pit of Despair and the Hippy Oxymoron

On Saturday, I saw one of the strangest sights I've seen in a long time. The lazy hippies were industriously working in the backyard.  Ha!  It was ironic... these guys digging a hole in the old sandbox play area.  It must have been important. They probably wanted to grow more "Mexican Tomato Plants" or something like that.  They seemed to be having a good time, but knew that I wasn't included in what-ever-it-was they were doing. 

At 12, I was still too young to be inducted into the ways of my older brothers and the hippie Wolf Pack! I wanted to feel a part of the tribe, but knew that was still a couple years off.

My leg was healing, I had returned to school and to kickball at recess and was interested in fitting in with my 7th grade friends and being noticed by the little cutie-pie I had my eyes on.  

My brothers were busy growing hair and burning draft cards and smoking.  I was a tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts and just tying to find my way through the world, trying figure out what life was all about and where I fit?

I didn't particularly care too much about grades. I didn't care too much about sports. I wasn't too motivated by anything except for survival and desperate to discover the meaning of Love. My life sounds like an old song from Sam Cooke

"Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology

Don't know much about a science book

Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too

What a wonderful world this would be

Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry

Don't know much about algebra

Don't know what a slide rule is for

But I do know, one and one is two
And if this one could be with you

What a wonderful world this would be"

                                                                         Android users Sam Cooke Wonderful life

I'm not sure that I had heard the word "Love," ever mentioned in my house. I called it the "L Word," because I was too embarrassed to say it in front of people or that I might get beat up if I used it. 

It was a foreign concept - and I figured that at the rate we were making progress on our NASA mission to land on the moon, that earthlings would know more about the foreign object some 239,000 miles away in the sky and conquer it - before I knew about this foreign concept that was right in front of me. I knew that the truth about love was out there somewhere - I heard about it... longed for it, but just couldn't quite make contact with it other than my brief encounters with Irene on Fridays (post 7/15/13 "20 Minutes with Irene").

Anyway, we had a great big area in our backyard that used to be a sand-play area. With the Veloci-Rooster defending its dominion territory, it has long since been forgotten.  But the long-hairs bagged the dreaded raptor(Blog Post 12/3/13) and had locked the hideous beast up in the chicken coop and now the hippie-types were working harder than I had ever seen them work before (many of them were not known for their sense of drive and ambition - other than Anti-War demonstrations). There they were stirred in delirious ecstasy digging a hole to the center of the earth for no apparent reason.

                            How do you spell OXYMORON?

I had no idea whether they were digging for lost treasure...archaeological finds from ancient ruins...remains of dead pets we may have buried there or old carburetors; no matter what their intended purpose - they were happy and passionate.  It was cute to see hippies -  both working and happy - that's not a sight you see everyday.   After watching the show for a while, I decided to make my way inside for lunch where I had to beat off the mangy cat - put up with with a few choice cuss words of the foul-mouthed Mynah-bird and find something in the refrigerator that wasn't covered in moldy green fuzz (which my dad claimed was good for us because it was penicillin). 

I had found some bread, cut off the green spots and popped it in the toaster when I heard the fire alarm clang on the back porch stairs.  I heard a thousand foots steps making their way inside the house, but smelled the brood before I saw them come around the corner. Bounding in my direction, I saw the hopeful gleam in their eyes, and the sudden light of epiphany about the purpose of the pit caused me to gulp in terror as my life flashed before my eyes.   

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT: Baby Brother dies in Pit Accident!  

Accident my foot! I jumped, scrambled over the table, took out two of the hippies... went through the legs of a third - shot under another table in the dining room like a greased pig, stepped on the cat's tail and knocked over the Mynah-bird's cage before being brought down by four of them.  I could usually hold my own against about 3 or 4 of them, but not 15.  They tied me up, dragged me outside and I knew I was going to die. 

The Veloci-Rooster and What Does the Fox Say?

It was October 1968 and I laid in the old hospital bed (that had been moved upstairs to my room) recovering from the big accident at McElliots' pool that should killed me.  My leg had been stitched together and looked worst than Frankenstein's face. Most of my leg was still numb felt like they had installed a metal plate inside my leg behind the 97 stitches that ran a zig-zagged path from above my knee all the way up my left thigh.

President Johnson had said that he would not seek re-election which made all of us Dahlins really sad, since we felt like we had bonded with him a couple months ago along the shore of that muddy Texas river. My dad said that the biggest laugh the President had during his time in the White House was when he pranked us with the bit about snapping turtles (Blog 9/14/13).

Everything was was going pretty good with the Apollo 7. It was still orbiting around the earth at this time, which was pretty important for the United States, because we had been so far behind the Soviet Union in the Race to Space!  We need some good news from all the bad news. JFK's brother, Robert Kennedy's assassination in June and Martin Luther King Jr's assassination 2 months before that - along with Vietnam war protest, the marijuana plants hidden in our backyard, the fleas in my bedroom and the crazy-attack Rooster, "El Pollo-Loco" the boys were about to bring home.  We desperately needed something positive to cheer about.   I did!

In the meantime my faithful and loyal dog, Poochie, laid on my bed and chewed his butt because of all the fleas. By taking down the pool, (seen to the right) we had gotten rid of most to the "mosquito problem" that we created in California when we had traveled back east with my Dad's "Sugar Water" invention in our hair(blog post 9/21/13). But now our house had become infested with fleas instead. 

Don Blaser next door had hated our mosquitoes and was even more passionately opposed to our migrating fleas that ended up on their perfectly groomed collie. 



Everyone wanted to blame my mangy mutt Poochie, but my dad said he thought the fleas were from the hippie-commies that my older brothers had evolved into.      

Here is a picture of them.

Oops sorry - wrong picture! 







Here's a couple pictures of the evolution of my sibling wolf-pack.
 

 



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                                                                   to This

I could be wrong, but I think they are picking fleas off each other in this picture...I wondered if that is why they launched the rockets so far away from Venice, so that none of our fleas would make it abroad the Apollo rocket-ships. Image having to live with a couple inside your space suit.  "No Sir," someone in charge of NASA probably said, "lets put the launch pads in Texas or in Florida."  
 
Anyway, at midnight they sent Syndrom and Cosmo and Ulrich over the chain-link fence at the toxi-water, drainage-ditch (near where they converted the marsh lands into what we call the Marina Del Rey) to fetch that great, big, ugly, killer rooster!  And from the story, Four Eyes came back and reported to me - it sounded like the dreaded Veloci-Rooster got the best of Ulrich and his "Small-Man" crew.

I not going to lie. When he told me the story, I thought all 97 stitches were going to pop!

That crusty old bird (if you can call it that) herded all three of the boys into a corner and took flight into an all-out air-assault.  He boys cowered together as the bird repeatedly struck them with it's sharp 4 inch talons.  Under the influence of hippie-herbal "Mexican Tomato Plants" the Viking Tribe on the outside of the fence thought this was the funniest thing had they ever seen.

"Reefer madness!...Reefer madness!" one of them kept shouting between hearty guffaws.
"Ha..ha...can you dig it bro"

 While the rooster attacked, the three trapped boys screamed like little girls that made the guys on the outside of the fence -  laugh even harder. "That bird is going ape on the little spaz'es...Ha...ha..ha"

"Dude...far out... groovy"

Smoking the cannabis may have made this funny for the guys on the outside, but for the three trapped monkeys on the inside it apparently didn't do anything to numb the pain

"In your face" Ulrich screamed angrily.

"Hey...hey...hey...hey...hey―" said one of outsiders in reply...until interrupted.

"Cheese it! The Cops!  The motley crew took cover until the patrol car passed and then sent a couple of guys over the fence who bagged the bird from behind, while it was distracted withdrawing blood from the angry "little-man" crew.

As Four Eyes related all the juicy details of the story... he told me about the boys conversation once they had gotten back from this latest escapade and regrouped at Wall Drug at 2:00 in the morning.

The three boys were still whimpering and whining from the 68 bloody pock-marks inflicted by the Veloci-Rooster that had been released in the Dahlin backyard.

In a sing-song voice, Primo said, "Cock-a-doodle-do, says the rooster. "
"Ow ow ow, says the little man crew..." Weltz added in perfect sync.

"Poochie goes woof" said another keeping pace with the song.
"The cat goes, meow"
"The bird goes, tweet"
"And mouse goes...squeak"

"Yeah, but what do the stupid dweebs say? ow, ow ow!" They all laughed at their cleverness

Chewbacca (who really wasn't paying attention) said, "Yeah... man... but what does a fox say?"

The hordes of hippies stopped dead in their tracks and couldn't come up with an answer. 
"Idiot" Ulrich shouted in an attempt at payback.
Chewbacca swatted him in the head

Laughter... then the boys started making up stuff.
"Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!

Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!"

"Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!
Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!
Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!"

"Joff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!
Tchoff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!
Joff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!"

"What does a fox say?"  They mimicked Chewbacca... and they all laughed again until they were bent over in tears.

When Four Eyes told me this part of the story, I told him this was the stupidest thing I had ever heard.
He said, "Yeah... but knowing your people, it'll probably become a song some day."
"My people? What do you mean by my people ?"  I hoped he was talking about hippies and not Swedes.
When he saw the intent look on my face, he stuttered (backtracking) and said.. "Oh...oh...oh...not Swedes, but probably hippies."

We both signed in relief - that I didn't have to hit him with the crutch next to my bed. Then we both laughed and said together "Yeah, like that will ever happen!"

"Jinx" I said first - which had stopped him from talking!  'Yeah,'  I thought 'like anything even remotely as stupid as the drug induced "Fox Song" could ever happen!' Right?

Now that we have acquired the dreaded Veloci-Raptor,  I guess I should probably tell you about the incident with the poor, poor, unsuspecting "the Chicken lady" and her two children.

What Does a Fox Say?

Wolf Pack and Trouble in Outer Space.

(Sing this humming and snapping your fingers to the Addams Family theme song - it'll make more sense that way).   

"They're Hairy and they're kooky,

Mischievous and spooky,
They're altogether ooky,
The Dahlin Family."

Du, du, du, du..snap snap

"Their house is an Aslyum
When people come to see 'em
The inmates are a screa-um.
The Dahlin Family." 

That's just my family by the way, add to those numbers the Harding Avenue Gang and the Wolf Pack had numbers to be reckoned with.  On one hand, think of the damage that could come from assembling an unruly crowd of that size. Entire small countries have been toppled by less. On the other hand (on a more positive note) - the vast number of hippies in our Venice Tribe also lent itself to the possibility of...say...putting out a fire - should something go awfully wrong. I said "positive" not "realistic"!


Q. And what is "Murphy's Law?"
A. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong!

Problem was, that chaos always seemed to reign over order, and boy, did we cause a lot of problems.

While everyone in the neighborhood was gathered in our dining room (the room with the hospital-bed and bumper-pool table), Gustav my oldest brother and the oldest Blaser-boy from next door came up with a brilliant plan. What you have to remember is, that during this time in the sixties, everyone was all jacked-up and excited about exploring outer space and landing on the moon to gather green-cheese.

As I mentioned before, a new TV show came out two nights ago called Star Trek "Going where no man has ever gone before" add that to a couple TV shows which had already been out now for about a year, 
My Favorite Martin and Lost in Space, it was plain to see that rockets-to-the-moon and space travel were indeed on the forefront of everyone's mind.   

Every stupid fifth-grade-boy in the world already had the twisted theme song from Lost in Space memorized, so they could they could inflict silly grammar-school torment on a smaller kid. They would sing, "It's about time, it's about space, it's about time to..." SMACK "...slap your face" slapping their latest victim in the face at the opportune moment - then laugh at them for falling for it, and then running away in order to avoid adolescent retribution.  I probably don't have to tell you that the Wolf Pack (though, far too old for this kind of thing), was particularly fond of the ending part. The part where they slapped a younger sibling (like me) in the face.

300 slaps! You'd think, I would have caught on, right?   Duh!

Anyway... we were in the middle of the "SPACE RACE" with the Russians and they were winning. They had already landed a spacecraft on the moon and the United States seemed to be falling behind - landing on the moon seemed to be light-years off at a distance at our snail's pace!  This was all part of the Cold War and we were losing!

When we were still using monkeys, I wrote a letter to Washington asking if they wouldn't mind using any of my brothers in their rocket experiments. I told them it would be okay since they weren't a whole bunch smarter then chimpanzees (Oh, I made no mention about letting the monkeys out of the zoo). 

When we started to use real-live human-beings, I wrote another letter asking again - if they wouldn't mind using any of my brothers. I told President Johnson that they wouldn't have to feel too sad if we lost one of them should something bad happened, since I had like 28 big brothers. My dad said we had plenty to go around if something should ever happen to one of us (that's why I didn't think they cared if  they had left me at Salton Sea - I'm the second from the right in this picture - Oh and that was about a third of the group that were crammed in the station wagon and trailer, also pictured in the background. Blog Post: May 13, 2013). 

I never got a letter back from the President or from NASA. That was a disappointment!

Anyway, at this time we were sure there was life on Mars and it seemed like every week some hick-couple in an old Ford pick-up, out in the middle of the boondocks, saw a flying saucer - we called 'em UFO's - that's short for Unidentified Flying Objects.

It was always down an old, dark, two-lane highway,  far outside the city boundaries with no witnesses, where the aliens always seemed to abduct poor Clem in his jump-overalls or his wife Ethyl.

In pictures printed in the front page of the newspapers the UFO's looked like Frisbees, blurry footballs, a hat and one even looked like a cigar, but everyone was sure Martins had antennas and lived among us.

The Viking Tribe leader figured out a way to venture smack dab into the middle the UFO craze. They got dad's Polaroid camera, gathered up all of the necessary equipment and were destined to make local newspaper history.  This was one story, that we hoped would make it on  the front page of the paper, unlike all of the other times we ended up there, only to the embarrassment of my poor mom and dad.

Sending Donny next door to borrow a dry-cleaner bag from his dad's closet, the Dahlin's put all the other necessary stuff in a pile on the front sidewalk now officially deemed "Area 51"

McDonald straws, birthday candles and of course a Style Queen, hot-air, hair-blower for the initial lift off.

Although the original plan did involve UFO's, it didn't originally include a fiery crash landing on the roof of the Lennon house. We took our extensive resources and laid them out in  "Area 51." Little did we know, however, that in the very next hour or so we would have a "Roswell Incident" on our hands that endangered the entire Lennon family.  


Kids NEVER TRY THIS! EVER EVER EVER.

Until Next...

God Bless

上帝，造物主。

Gud velsigne

God zegene

Dieu vous

Бог благословит

Gud välsigne

Dios te  bendiga!