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 Venice Infection Continues to Spread

Star Date: July 16, 1969       10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."BLAST OFF" 

I know dad will be upset because I wasted an extra penny on this post card with my 6 cent Apollo 8 stamp, but I felt like I had to splurge since they launched the Apollo 11 today with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins as humankind was on the verge of taking its first steps on extraterrestrial soil.   Yuri was the first human into outer-space in 1961 and the USSR had been way ahead of us in the Space Race. But now, the good 'O USA was about to finally leap into the lead!  Yee Haw! We were winning so I spent the extra penny on postage.

By this time, most of the pooping business had calmed down and we were regular again - well I don't know if "regular" is a good word to describe our troop from Venice.. but our bowels had certainly settled down.

When we rolled into Farragut State Park in Idaho to meet up with the other 35,000 Boy Scouts we were sweaty from fighting and smelled like an outhouse evidenced by the flies and mosquitoes in tow and also couldn't walk in a straight line - dizzy from carbon monoxide.

 It was pretty obvious that we were far from "regular."

We were like an infection spreading across the Midwest - more like the Bubonic Plague actually.


My adrenaline addiction helped me beat all the kids in the wrestle-mania staged in the back of Scout Truck and so things were looking up. I couldn't fight Cockerel, because he had diarrhea so bad and when our Scout Masters asked those in charge if we could camp next to the outhouses they graciously acquiesced to our request.

 "Wasn't that kind of them!"   Uh Huh!  

I was part of the Hawks patrol, thank God, because the Flaming Arrow patrol had Cockerel, Ronnie and "little Wiener" who staked their claim right next to the KYBO's.  In Boy Scout language or in Military language (I'm not sure which), KYBO was some fancy code word for the outhouses...it meant Keep Your Bowels Open! Seriously! I thought they must have read about us in the newspaper or something, because if there was anybody in the world that had their bowels open it was Troop 32!

It was embarrassing, really!  Those guys not only looked like they lived in KYBOs, but smell like it too! I pitched my tent as far-away as possible because I thought I might die from vomiting - you know my SuperPowers!

I felt a little sorry for Venice California because I think we had just soiled (that was a pun) their laid-back beach-city surfer reputation!  Anyway, if I could sing an ode to express the way I feeling right now in "Allan Sherman" style, it would go something like this:


Hello Mudder, hello Fadda
Here I am at camp "Diarrhea"
All the boys are overflowing
They say we'll have some fun when we stop pooping.



I saved the life of, naked Cockerel
he almost drowned from constipation.
You remember "Little Wiener"
He got gut-rot from last night's spaghetti dinner.

Now I don’t want, this to scare ya

But Cockerel now has "prune" eruptions

You remember the "Salton Sea" fuss

The Highway Patrol brought him back to us

Take me home, Oh Mudda, Fadda

Take me home to good ‘O Venice

Don’t leave me here in the back of the scout bus

or I might die from puking my guts up

Chronister smells like a bag of dog poop

And attracts all mosquitoes

Flies are attacking our dirty shirts

And everyone here has the “Hershey Squirts” 

Dearest Fadda, darling Mudda

How are my precious older Brothers?

Let me come home if you miss me

I’ll even let the hippies torture me!

Yellowstone was just okay

We made it out alive yesterday

I beat up Kissel, "Rollie-Pollie" and the Venice High Wrestler

Now I’m the champ, gee that’s better

Mudda, Fadda, kindly disregard this letter. 

for android users Allan Sherman: Hello Muddah Hello Fadda

The Prune Conspiracy: Prison for Cockerel? Part 4

(Continued)  Star Date: July 12th 1969

Unleashing the wrath of Venice upon the unsuspecting world.  There was no one with more spaghetti, more glue, more clumpy oatmeal or more Bisquick dough in their belly than poor, poor Cockerel!  By this time, the 15-year-old Boy Scout must had something like 32 pounds of this glop, clogging the inside of his intestines. Add to that the 900 pounds of prunes he consumed two days ago and it turned out to be an explosive mix of volatile reactants.


 "Thar she blows!" was the warning cry every time Cockerel's stomach began to rumble - as Alan blew taps on his bugle and Ray urgently leaned on the buzzer to warn scout masters up front to pull the truck over.

With most of us feeling better (with the exception of chapped and irritated behinds), the Senior Patrol Leaders who were trapped in the back with us, felt it was important to stage bracketed cage fighting. By this time in the journey, all the backpacks and camping gear that had been carefully confined to the very center section of the rear of the truck (upon our initial departure) was now nothing more than an indistinguishable jumble that filled the entire back end from wall to wall. No longer sitting on the benches, sweaty bodies of stinky teen and pre-teen boys reclined on disorganized mess.

I came to this thing to get away from fighting! I thought I was safe in my new tribe! At home, I had to contend with Ulrich and his angry-little-man-crew almost every day in bloody fist fights and as the baby boy of the Wolf Pack I was subjected to sibling torture and thought this was my chance to get couple weeks off from all of that physical and emotional terrorism.             BUT NO!




Now, the pimple-faced leaders who were in charge of us wanted us to fight, and besides, I'm the second smallest kid in the outfit. I weigh like 90 pounds and there are guys in here on the Venice High School wrestling team who outweigh me by nearly 100 pounds!

Although he had smelled putrid from the fecal particulates spread on his uniform, I had beaten Chronister despite the smell and also beat the pudgy kid who reminded me of the Pillsbury Dough boy!  Then a lot of the bigger guys fought and I was scared about having to eventually go up against one of them.

I beat the other kid my age who was about 40 pounds heavier than me and found that I was somehow the champ of the lightweight division. I don't know why they couldn't just let it go at that and give me a piece of bubblegum and say I was the champion of the 14-and-under bracket.  BUT NO!

They wanted me to fight, Philip, the wrestler from Venice High who had side burns and a mustache. I was dead!  He was about 5' 8" and I was 4 foot something. Well, do you remember what happened in "The Sourdough Smackdown" in fifth grade to "Cursty," the chump who stole my toast (post 6/29/13) and to Terry the bully in the school yard (post 6/5/14)- I guess that same magic happened here. I think I was so freaked out that my adrenals went into some kind of overload and I jumped on the wrestler's head and had him pinned in a choke hold in about 2 seconds. The two Senior Patrol Leaders had to pull me off and even that wasn't easy.  I didn't mean it to happen, but in my adrenaline mode, I was like one of those drug addicts on PCP.

Now, they wanted to pit me against Cockerel - who was like André the Giant. 

The chants began: "Dahlin" half the troop yelled.
                            "Cockerel" the other half shouted in boyish merriment!

Yuck, I had to fight the humongous high-schooler who had rubbed diarrhea all over his uniform!

                            "Dahlin"
                            "Cockerel"
                            "Dahlin"
                            "Cockerel...Cockerel?  Cockerel? The stupid chanting stopped and the Senior Patrol Leaders began to panic. "Where's Cockerel? Has anyone seen Cockerel?  Their screams were met with lots of empty glares and shoulder shrugs.  Alan, squeaked out some frenzied notes (mostly sharps and flats) on his pathetic bugle and Ray pressed the buzzer with all his might.  Practically out of Yellowstone, the Scout Masters found a place to pull the truck off to the side of the road. The two older boys jumped over the back gate of the truck and had a conference next to the driver's door. Figuring that we left Cockerel behind somewhere in Yellowstone, the scout master came back and asked when any of us saw him last. No one could agree and all kinds of Twilight Zone theories were offered for the cause of his disappearance.

We turned the truck around and headed back inside the National Park, retracing our route. 20 minutes in, we were passed by a Highway Patrol with lights and sirens - headed in the other direction. That's when Kissel spotted Cockerel in the backseat of the Highway patrol vehicle, "There he is. There's Cockerel!"

AGAIN the bugle, and again the panic-buzzer-pushing. AGAIN we pulled over - this time making a u-turn.

The same things happened AGAIN... We're headed back out of the park and AGAIN the Highway Patrol come speeding back in our direction.  Rumors buzzed about him going to jail or the Scoutmasters being thrown into prison (I had been through this once before and figured that if we didn't try to lie like my dad did when he left me behind at Salton Sea (Post 5/27/13) then it was a good chance that nobody was going to have to spend time with Johnny Cash at Folsom prison). Humphries was sure they had him handcuffed. I figured if they did, it was because they didn't want him touching anything with his filthy paws.

The worst part of this whole story is not just that had Cockerel was left behind relieving his burgeoning bowels from "Prune-Gate" and that he was also hitchhiking...but the fact that he was hitchhiking in in his Boy Scout of America uniform and not just any old Boy Scout uniform that you might expect to see on one of those "regular kids" from Beverly Hills Troop 64 or Philadelphia, Troop 26, who rode in one of those nice travel-coaches with bathrooms - BUT No - his uniform was disheveled, filthy and stunk like an outhouse. He looked like a refugee and worse still  - is that fact that he told the poor Highway Patrol officers the whole story of the spaghetti, the near drowning, the stomach aches, the prunes, and about his endless bout with the "Hershey Squirts" and having to wipe off with pine needles and watching us drive off without him while he was still doing his business behind a shrub.    

It was painful for everyone involved.

I don't think I mentioned the part where this was the first time and last time I had ever seen Police Officers riding with their heads out of the windows of their car like police dogs as if trying to escape the stink in the back seat and suck in volumes of  clean Wyoming air.

The Highway Patrol officers escorted us out of the Yellowstone National Park...waited through one more diarrhea run (to make sure Cockerel made it back on board) and escorted us all the way to the Idaho State line!

We were on our way...to the National Jamboree at Farragut State Park in Idaho to represent the Boy Scouts of American and good 'old Venice California.

NEXT TIME: "The KYBO Patrol"    

I hear the whistle blowing... we headed into Idaho and I just hope that before this whole trip is over all of us don't end up singing the The Folsom Blues" from our prison cells.