Tribute to my big brother, Karl Dahlin! 2.0

This is my Pictorial Tribute to my big brother, Karl H. Dahlin, who passed away last Monday morning, APRIL 7th at 9:25 am.   (I make sure to say that the time was specifically 9:25 am because those digits become very significant).

Karl was born on August 13th, 1948 at Saint Johns Hospital in Santa Monica, California (the second boy of the Dahlin tribe).


Mr. and Mrs. Dahlin, had one boy... then Karl...then another boy... then another boy... then another boy...

Five boys in a row - all about a year apart... (pictured from left to right) Karl, Kurt baby Erick with mom, Kris then Tony.



1955 - THEN IT HAPPENED: THE MIRACLE a Girl!   YEAH!  "We got one! We got one!"




Pictured from Right to Left  are the boys in descending order in their John Travolta suits - wide collars (way before their time) Tony, Karl, Kris and Kurt.  Erick, Mary and Mom centered

Jan 1956 - Here is Karl seen to the right at 7-years-old, being pulled in a wagon by big brother, Tony, at the new house at 925 Harding Ave in Venice.

From Left to Right Karl...Erick...Kurt...Kris...Tony(standing).
(Not pictured is Mary 1 year old)


Little did Karl know at this time that His mother was one month pregnant with another baby... due sometime in August!





August 13, 1956 -  The blessed event happened on Karl's 8th Birthday. Mom brought home another boy and presented Karl with his birthday present...a baby brother, Mark!

Dec. 1956 - 4 months later here I am, the baby on the floor, and Karl (in the very back, LEFT) can't take his eyes off of his precious birthday present.  

Ahhhhhhhhhhh....... 

The next Christmas here we are again on year older.

from Right to Left

Kurt...KARL...Erick...Tony...Mary...Kris and Mark on the rocking horse!

Here we are in 1960ish with address on pillar of "Harding" house...925 (Pay no attention to the clothes I'm wearing in lower right hand corner), and look at handsome Dad and cute KARL, far left standing behind Mary.

Now for "All Saints Day" (same early 60's era)

 Karl as First Pope 

About the same time Karl (rear right - Tony, next to him, probably standing on tippy-toes).














Same time, entire gang in front of Harding house...Karin crawling on ground probably eating snails...(Karl looking down in concern - either for her or for the snails - not sure!).

















Another Christmas goes by... Kurt and KARL











A year or two later sporting summer tans (probably just returned from one of our infamous excursion to either Kings River or a Salton Sea.

Order of appearance LEFT to RIGHT rear... KARL...Kurt...Tony (in back, probably standing on tippy-toes) Kris.

Front - Erick..Karin...Mary...Mark (and please don't look at the see through shirt) "ughhh!"










                            Karl at 13, the best looking of the bunch














This is about the time Karl brought home Bob from Saint Mark's school and he ends up staying and becoming part of our family.

Couple years later 1964-1965  Karl (center rear)
Tony definitely standing on Tippy-toes!








July 1964 just before heading out on one of our notorious family vacations to Salton Sea or to the Kings River.


Karl just before his 16th Birthday!

Pictured Left to Right KARL...dad, ("Mr. D" Carl with a 'C"who we called "daddio" at that time)  Kris and his baby brother, Mark ahhhhhhhhhhhh!









Karl taught me how to fish...
Kurt...Karin...Karl...and Mark in sombrero


                                 













                     At Salton Sea 1965

Dad sleeping on the ground, Kris in front, Me flexing behind... Erick doing something... and who knows what KARL and Steve Smith were thinking!








The British Invasion: "The Four Mop-Tops i.e. The Beatles!




Hair starts to become an issue here is Karl on one of our infamous Saturday "Hair cutting days" not wanting his hair to be cut...It is a water shed event that paves the way for all of the long in Venice CA.














Karl single-handedly corrupts the Lennons and leads them down the path of all things, "long-hair" most notability Pat Lennon and Billy.

























1973 Picture with entire family Including Bob and David and Lisa (don't forget Poochie) -  by this time our dog is the only one with short hair!

Pictured Top row Left to Right Mr. D...Mark...Karin...Bob...Tony(definitely on Tip-toes) Erick and KARL

                       Mom with Lisa and David - Kurt with Poochie... Mary... Kris kneeling (bottom right)   

1973ish, You can see one of Karl's boats in the background parked on the front lawn of 925 Harding

(above) Karl second from right! 

Karl pictured far-left in front of old dead Christmas - tree and the Troop 32 Scout Bus

 1973 - 1974 

Karl and Tuna Canyon Crew

Mid 1970's Picture taken at Saint Mark's Hall 

Family Siblings including Bob (LEFT to RIGHT) Erick...Karin...Kurt...Mary...Bob...Tony(sitting not on Tip-toes) ...Kris...Mark..  and KARL far right!

A couple years later,  Mom with all the siblings (along with Pinky Parlett and Irma)

All ten of us with Irma

End of the 70's Karl front Left.

Late 90's (reunion) all the natural born boys in order from LEFT to RIGHT

Tony...KARL...Kris...Kurt...Erick...Mark













Four Brothers 2007 in Utah


Tony (kneeling) Mark (background) Kris... and KARL to far right!

Our family at my mother's memorial service August 2009











Karl in his element with our "Real Family" at the 2013 Harding Avenue Reunion at Donny's House:
Blasers
Dahlins
Lennons
Charlie
Rita
Koz ..etc...etc...

Karl (front bottom third from left)

A recent picture I took of Karl, this past July (at Donny Blaser's house) just before his 65th birthday.

My big brother was very special to me (of course, since I was his birthday present) Karl was extremely bright...and very talented.  He greeted me at my birth and I had the chance to be with him at his peaceful passing...interesting enough, on Monday morning at 9:25am.

He made custom built cabinets for the remodel at the kitchen for 925 Harding ave... As a craftsman he did work at Bob Dylan's house and I remember when he brought back a pair of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's shoes from the custom work he did there. He did work at Cheech Marin's house (of Cheech and Chongs).

Karl could do anything he set his mind to and taught me how to make 90 degree cuts without a T-Square - I still can't figure out how he did it.


Beside a rich fishing legacy...Karl leaves behind three children: David (Married to Malyn - two grandsons Westin and Waylin and one on the way), son Michael and Daughter Karlee...

...in addition to Janet... 5 or 6 brothers, two sisters...and a bazillion nieces and nephews.









Karl you are loved...I will miss you!  

(your birthday present) Baby Brother... Mark

THE DAHLIN ZONE and my biggest nightmare!

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.  It is a dimension in Venice California in the gap in time between now and then. It is the middle ground between what was fact and what was perceived to be. In it lies the pit of fears regarding the survival of Catholic school and lots of older brothers. It is the dimension of 1960’s in Markie D’s imagination. It is filled with tragedy, humor and a satirical look at the human condition.  

It is known as “The Dahlin Zone”  

I blogged my way through that first terrible week of fifth grade in September of 1966. It is now October 1968, I have just turned 12 and am in seventh grade in Catholic School. Sister Edith is my teacher, and (like a lot of the nuns before her), she has had her share of Dahlin boys (5 or 6 to be inexact, one right after another).  By this time in her long teaching vocation she was just plain tired of the plague that had infested Saint Marks some many moons ago beginning in the 1950's. Sister Edith will forever be notorious for her music lessons and will likely go down in infamy for her "head tones," for cracking rulers over hands of many-a-seventh grader, and for throwing erasers. She had a good arm and nailed me just about every time she hurled one of those chalk-filled bombs in my direction. She is probably in heaven right now playing catch with Jesus (However, I just hope she's not throwing erasers).

Anyway... I skipped reporting on last year - my sixth grade experience. If life wasn't already difficult enough, I mean, being shocked and shot, buried and shoved in the Hamper of Death, Milk Wars and pushing cars, left behind and knocked out, bitten by snakes, tormented and tossed like a salad in the trunk of Gustav's legendary Rat Killer...Sixth Grade was far worst than all of those things combined!

Besides starting the year off on the "wrong foot" with leprosy, and a stolen sweater that embarrassed the heck out of me...Du...Du...Du...I discovered my biggest NIGHTMARE!

Oh, I had barely made it out of Sister Godzilla's class by the skin of my teeth. I'm not joking when I say,  "I barely made it out." My only consolation was the fact that all of the Nuns at Saint Marks already had - like - eight Dahlins before I got there and were not, under any circumstance willing to subject themselves to that kind of pain ever again. Not one of them would ever consider holding anyone of us back for another year. Thanks to the shear number of Dahlins and the rather rambunctious nature of my brothers, who preceded me, I practically had FUNKING INSURANCE.  When I was promoted from fifth grade, it was Sister Godzilla's last year and she tried everything in her power to flunk me back into the fifth grade for another stint- since she was leaving. PAYBACK for the time we had electrocuted her (BLOG Post 4/26/13). Apparently, the Pope vetoed her, because the Catholic Church felt they couldn't afford to ruin a perfectly new teacher, recruited to be her replacement.

I made it!  Just like the Hamper of Death... just like the Templates... and just like Salton Sea, I made it out alive!

Having said all that, why couldn't they have moved me across the hall into the other sixth grade class? Why did they stick me in my mother's class? (The reason was obvious,, to spare the nun across the hall). Yep, my mom had begun teaching the sixth grade at Saint Marks and I mistakenly figured that this year would be like being on a holiday where I could just kick back and relax!  Nepotism had to have it's advantages, right?




I love my mom, but boy was I wrong!

Turns out that, I didn't have a clue!

My mom was funny and there wasn't room in our classroom for two class clowns and besides she could make an example out of me! 

In the future.. they are going to find out some things about little boys.  They are going to discover things like ADD and ADHD and learning styles and things like that.  In 1967 they didn't have those kinds of labels. I don't know if that was a good thing or bad thing. Without being defined or confined by a label I guess we really didn't have all the excuses we have today. But, the way I was wired...let me just put it this way...there was nothing in that classroom setting that was conducive to my particular learning style. We couldn't move enough, we couldn't touch enough, the desk chairs were too hard and too straight...there was too much order... I couldn't learn through my ears and the teachers talked too much. All of this to tell you that...I was special...and they just didn't know it or how to handle someone like me. Shucks, why stand when you can sit? Why sit when you can slough? Why slough when you can lay down? Why lay down when you can crawl around on the floor and grab the girl's ankles. 

Why obey when you can climb over the cloakroom wall and make everybody laugh and why study when you can cheat off Regina's paper.  (It was all pretty simple to me - I don't know why they didn't get it)

Sixth grade would be the hardest ten years I ever spent in school! I figured my mom  might just flunk me, since I was hers. I pictured it in my head - I would probably end up like Jethro Bodine (on The Beverly Hillbillies) as a 26-year-old in Junior High School (I guess by then, at least, I'd be as tall as Marilyn Jones and maybe even have hair on my lip by then like some of the other boys). Anyway, like The Beverly Hillbillies, I was a fish out of water. That very first week I learned that sixth grade in my mom's class would not be a "cake-walk" especially since I arrived on the first day with "leprosy."

I'm going to tell you about that story,  but it all begins a few years earlier about how the Dahlins managed to bring mosquitoes to California.

Yep, we are the one's...all right. And I'll tell you exactly how that came back to bite me (that's a pun)...let's say, it came back to bite me - like a bazillion times AND just two weeks before the first day of school. Everybody knows that sixth graders can be pretty cruel at times and should understand why I wished I have been committed to a Leper Colony Instead.

I would have gladly accepted the bell around my neck and publicly declared myself to be unclean rather than the ridicule of my friends.

...and it all began with my dad's frugal, hair-gel concoction of sugar-water... which I tell you about Next Tme...

...in the mean time, here is a picture of my hair that is as hard as a plastic, baseball helmet...that a gale force wind couldn't mess it up. That is where we get the derogatory expression... "Helmet Head."

Oh, and by the way, The Beatles just came out with a new song, "Hey Jude" sounds pretty cool to me and looks like it's probably going to be a pretty big hit.

Take a bad song and make it better...  Don't be afraid

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Markie D, refrain,
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders