'72 swim team

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My New Tribe
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Vampires, Frankenstein and Zombie Attackers pt 2

 The boys definitively got more than they expected...

They wanted to prove to the girls what big brave men they were, after freaking out like little girls over the rattlesnake scare (which was nothing more than Markie shaking a baby rattle under the back steps). But, now that they reached the big iron gate and Ulrich claiming to have sighted Albinos - at the same moment Chewbacca stepped on a twig - that's all it took; all twelve of them panicked and ran back down the long dirt road in the blackness of the night towards the old Lincoln Continental.

Clinging and tripping and jumping out of their skin in fear over every leaf that shook and every twig that cracked under foot, you would have thought they were being pursued by apocalyptic Zombies.

Halfway back down the road is where they had an other-world encounter with the dreaded monsters with laser eyes and sharp, flesh eating teeth. Several white Albinos had managed to escape unnoticed and did indeed lay a trap for an ambush. Three quarters of the way back to the car the plotting Albinos sprang from hiding places in the manzanita bushes and aromatic eucalyptus trees with the cunning of raptors.

The poor defenseless girls stood paralyzed as the "brave" Viking men abandoned them - fleeing in abject fear. The hippy guys were practically in the car while the girls were left to defend themselves against the Zombie attackers.

There was crying, screaming, cursing and confusion in a foreboding final doom of Biblical proportions. The girls were surrounded by the midget-clan of half-human Albino fiends wielding sickles, shovels, rakes and other instruments of death. The pathetic boys were too afraid to come back to their rescue. Ronald Reagan's wife, Nancy, was awaken by the clamor and called the police.

Hearing sirens, the tribe of white little people ran for the road, abandoning the plot of murdering the girls who likewise made a mad dash for the "Scuba-Mobile" and began punching the whimpering Viking men who were in a hurry to flee the scene before the police arrived.

By the time the older boys and the girls had patched things up and made it back to the house... all of us little kids in the neighborhood had already removed most of our white makeup and returned the gardening tools to the Blaser's house.

Yep, our "Zombie Attack" was a brilliant idea by my dad, especially since none of us ended in jail and the Wolf Pack became the prey in a fantastic prank of an epic payback they so richly deserved.

Well done, dad! Well done, daddio! 

This is still just Friday on Markie d's first week of fifth grade... and tomorrow would be a very - very long day. 

Oh. and just so you know... this story about how little we knew about Albinos was true. We did fear them as some type of night predator...but that was a long time ago in the days of ignorance and before political correctness.  Today we know that this group of people referred to as Albinos are as human as you or me. They just lack pigmentation that protects their skin against the sun's harmful rays... Yet, because they're different, they were shunned and looked down upon.

It is the tragedy of human nature to look down on and prejudge others...and to take advantage of those who we feel are safe to push around. Low self-worth creates the felt need in us to put other people down in order to make us feel better about ourselves. Bullies are weak people inside who are usually seeking attention, desiring popularity and want to feel big or powerful. In America we say that all people are created equal, but really don't treat each other that way. Jesus says, "We should treat people the way we want them to treat us."  Wow! If we listened to that advice alone...just think how much better off the world would be. 2000 years ago an educated Jewish teacher said, "We should learn to consider others better than ourselves."

IF ONLY!  Until that happens... it's Friday night and Markie D will go to bed with his boxing gloves on, just in case he needs to defend himself against a night-time retaliation of the Wolf Pack.       

Today however, I think you should still be afraid of Zombies, but who knows, maybe someday in the future Zombies, Vampires and Humans can all co-exist, but until then there are some unexplained phenomenon  that goes bump in the night that should still send goosebumps up and down our spines. There is nothing wrong with a dose of HEALTHY fear.

My advice: 
1) Wear sunscreen
2) Never pick up clowns hitching at night.





   

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Something between Vampires and Frankenstein

A look at the blossoming Wolf Pack. 
Welcome to dinner at my house.

(Continued from last blog post "Fish Stick Fiasco") With the "beware-lost-rattlesnake " flag flying over the house and Kleghorn clanging the old alarm on the back porch, Dad walked into the house to find the Wolf Pack in hysterics. Four eyes and the girls were screeching, the mynah bird was cussing and the rest of the Viking brood were hair pulling, standing on couches and climbing walls and up on top of each other for safety. It looked like a fight at a hockey game had broken out. A couple of the boys were hanging from the molding over the doors and a couple were clinging to the wainscoting not wanting their feet to touch the ground. It was a sight! It was a typical Friday night at the Dahlin house.

As soon as I heard my dad, I stopped shaking the baby rattle and returned to the mayhem inside. Dad stopped at the wooden double-sliding doors that separated the dining room from the living room and just shook his head in utter dismay. He watched the hysterics looking for an explanation. Ulrich...tried to explain that the fugitive rattlesnake was somewhere in the room.

"KLEGHORN!" dad yelled, as a command to quit sounding the ancient and bullet ridden firehouse alarm.

Kleghorn joined the others in the dining room who had grown silent trying to prove to dad that they had heard the deadly snake slithering around the downstairs. There wasn't a sound, not even one shake of a rattler's tail. I smiled (mostly on the inside - afraid of giving my secret away). Dad shook his head, rolled his eyes and scavenged the kitchen for any leftover fish sticks as things returned to the normal high-decibel hullabaloo.

Being thoroughly embarrassed, the big brave hippies had something to prove to their girlfriends and began hatching their plan for the "Albino Camp Hike." (I'm pretty sure this isn't politically correct now-a-days, but this was the cultural/historical setting back then).

Back then, none of us were really sure what Albinos were. In the hierarchy of things that we had to be afraid of...we thought they were somewhere between Vampires and Frankenstein, right up there with ghost - way above lost rattlesnakes.

This Albino-camp-hike-thing they did was like a snipe hunt, combined with camp-fire stories about the "one armed hatchet murderer" and "submarine races."   Back then I was too young to knew what submarine races were and still thought snipe were real.

How perfect was this for the older boys...this was like shooting fish in a barrel. They would take all their girl friends on a late night hike behind that movie star - Ronald Reagan's house up on Amalfi drive.  They would walk that old dirt road lined with eucalyptus trees with these girls who were scared spit-less holding tightly to arms of the brave Viking men and crew.    Oh boy... could it get any better for those guys! 

They sat around the living room and told the girls about how dangerous the hike would be!

One of the guys tried to explain what Albinos were to the girls and said, they were half human and drank blood.

Gustav said they had thin transparent skin like desert geckos and could only come out at night.

Bjorn said the Albinos had to be locked up in this secure facility to keep them from straying off and eating the flesh of other humans.

Knut agreed saying they had razor sharp teeth.

Ulrich said they had red laser-eyes and if you looked into them you would be disintegrated. When Ulrich said this, three of the boys swatted him on the head...for exaggerating.

Dooh-Dooh Pants talked about their boney hands and pointed fingernails.

In broken Spanish, Chewy said they made the sound of the chachalaca.

They hadn't even left the house yet and the girls were already terrified and clinging to the boys.

My dad looked across the table and winked at me as though he had his own spark of genius.

The herd of wild hair and anxious felines jumped into the black Lincoln we called the "Scuba-Mobile" and headed off for Santa Monica Canyon.

Down, down, down the long dirt road they walked terrified in the darkness of the moonless night. Fearful and on edge the silly girls practically wrapped themselves around the brave, fearless Vikings. Cautiously they forged ahead along the path, wary of Albinos that might have escaped and lie in wait for fresh human flesh. With every step, hearts pounded in rapid palpitations. Fear had even gripped the older boys, but they pretended to be brave. Approaching the gates, the eclectic congregation peered through the wrought iron bars searching for the elusive Albinos.


Ulrich saw white figures swaying in the gentle ocean breeze and let out a blood curdling scream. Panic ensued, girls cried and feet fled. The mob ran hysterically back towards the large black car...when the very worst thing imaginable happened. Albinos had managed to squeeze through the bars and indeed laid in ambush.

I'm sorry, but I'll have to finish the gory and frightening details in my next terrifying blog post...

Until then...  Vet att du är älskad