The Secret Service and Gunshots on Harding!

I have been trying to write the unbelievable, bizarre, incredible, "too-crazy-to-be-true" stories of my growing up years in chronological order the best I can remember.  I began this blog about a year ago - beginning by telling about my first day in 5th grade (as my class moved up from one end of Saint Marks grammar school to the other end of the school building) in Sister Godzilla's class.















That first day of 5th grade was after my wild family let the monkeys out of the LA zoo - 5/3/13
                   It was after my brothers had learned how to harness  electricity for inventive forms of sibling and
                      neighbor torture, which also happened to include the occasional visiting nun - 4/26/13
               ...It was also the summer my family left me at behind at Salton Sea that ended in a high speed                              Highway Patrol chase to Indio - 5/27/13                                                                                                ...It was after nearly a dozen broken bones and having my leg nearly severed completely off


I continued to work my way through stories about our notorious neighborhood pranks and dangerously stupid UFO launchings that almost burned down the Lennon Sisters house on the corner, fishing for the old grouch next door, and the improbable meeting of a lifetime that led us to cross paths with the President of the United States (LBJ) while on one of our wild adventures across country - 9/14/13






With 30,000  visitors from 86 countries around the world to my blog, I am now in that chronological telling of the history of the world - or the history of Venice or the history of Saint Marks or the history of Harding Avenue in the summer of 1969, just after having my 13th birthday.



(Pictured to left is 900 Harding Ave. Venice. CA. circa 1965 i.e. "The Fraternity House")




My last posting has to do with the tragic death of Mr. Lennon and the pursuing turmoil it presented to the Lennons as well as to our neighborhood with the confusion that was stirred up by media frenzy linking the murder of Bill Lennon to the recent La Bianca-Tate murder spree of Charles Manson and his cult followers. Turns out that the murderer, a disturbed psycho, by the name of Chet Young, had also expressed murder threats against President Johnson back when he was in office.  Thus, necessitating the invasion of the Secret Service to our street for protection of the Lennon clan.

What I found out in my visit to Branson last summer from Joey Lennon was the key to solving the timing of the Great Fraternity-House Fire. He and Billy Lennon told me the events that took place while they were in protective lock-down by the Secret Service that shed light on the exact timing of that event.  I had previously put this event in my blog early in 1969 (for choosing 1969 I get a B+  because no one I had talked to - who lived on Harding during the big fire - could agree on the exact year - let alone the exact time that it happened).

Joey and Billy Lennon, however, knew exactly when that fire took place. It was almost 45 years ago to this exact day.

Most of the Lennon family - including all of the Lennon Sisters, their husbands and kids had all come back to live in the big house on Harding Ave for their protection - because Chet Young had gotten away and was still on the loose.  From across the street where we lived, it looked like a hundred Lennons were crammed in there at the time- but what does a 13-year-old know...none-the-less, it was a big number that exceeded the number of Venice hippies, friends and strays who were crammed in my house.

Since I shared my memories on the big fire I have heard some stories of others who have shed more light from their perspective (including the Tripps, who lived right next door, and an actual person who told me about how they were trapped inside on the second floor of the fraternity house at the time of the fire).

Now what I would like to do, since there are many new people to my blog, is to paste all of that together with the new information in its correct chronological time frame that took place within weeks of the Bill Lennon murder during the time of the invasion of the Secret Service to our street on Harding Ave (at this exact time 45 years ago).

At the Lennon house things got crazy that night. Gunshots had been fired...so the policemen and Secret Service detail frantically scrambled into action calling all the Lennons to take cover downstairs. The gunshots they heard (or what they thought were gunshots) were not far from the Lennon house and posed an imminent threat.  BAM... BAM... BAM... BAM... the loose windows at our house rattled from the serious of gunshots or explosions or from whatever was going on across the street.

To Be Continued.

PS if you are reading this and have memories of that night, I would very much like to hear your recollection - value your input and would like include your memory of the event in the upcoming continuation of the big event - so please share in a comment below or on FACEBOOK and I'll add it into the story.

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.

There Was No Way Out!

Star date: Saturday September 10th 1966 The third longest day in the history of the world next to the day I was left behind at Salton Sea (blog Post) and the day the sun stood still in Joshua's time (recorded for us in the Bible).

8:00-10:00 am So far this morning "Chapped-lipped-Jimmy" and Tommy came over to help me on the finishing touches on one of the 7 wonders of the Fort-Building World ! (Blog pos 7-29)


10:00 am-12:00 noon The older boys woke up and began working on a way to make the "fire escape" pole even more diabolical, by hooking it up to the dangling electrical wires that dangerously hung out of the kitchen wall, which we used to electrocute unsuspecting guest, girl friends and even a Saint Marks Catholic school nun. 

Zit King or oldest my brother, "his highness King Gustav," came pulling up in his 9 billion horsepower legendary Ford "Rat Killer" that woke up the neighborhood for at least a quarter of a mile around...including Gherhing the Great, who made his way over to my house.

My house was the center of the universe (at least that is the way it seemed to an 11 year old.   

Chewbacca, my second oldest brother, while standing in the azalea bush, had the runaway rattlesnake climb up his pant leg and precariously snuggle up with his boy parts. He threw Puke Breathe, 3rd or 4th oldest brother (depending who you count) onto the top of the fort, trapping "booger-slurping Jimmy" inside.

Gustav threw the switch, electrocuting both Chewbacca and the rattlesnake in order to save Chewbacca's life. It worked!The boys were able to pull the pants off of the dazed Chewbacca and removed the stunned rattlesnake.

12:00 noon - 1:00 While putting the rattlesnake back, the hideous and dangerous Iguana from hell (AKA Del Diablo) got away. It was Chewy's fault. He freaked out when he got pissed on by a "harmless"garter snake, which subsequently sunk its sharp fangs into my arm, which slapped Chewy in the face when I swung around in alarm which caused Chewy to cry out "Ave Marie" in his native tongue who then tripped over a stick which opened the latch!

the dreaded Iguana "Del Diablo" assaulted Chewy then fled down three flights of stairs, across the street and into poor Mrs. Tripp's house and became an uninvited roommate in the wall heater(blog post 8/1/2013) 

 1:00 - 2:00 pm When the Wolf Pack (that's my brothers) all came back across the street, little Johnny Gillamonster (pictured below), stole his mother's Nova and broke the drive-shaft trying to show off to the hordes on Harding Avenue. 

The Wolf Pack viewed that unfortunate event as fortuitous bounce of luck as they bankrolled it, into a serendipitous distraction to stage an accident involving my best-est 5th grade buddy - Gherhing the Great.  When the good-hearted Helms Bakery delivery man came to check on my friend who was under the front bumper of the disabled automobile (with an entire bottle of ketchup spread all over his chest and around his head -  the Wolf Pack raided the delivery truck of its ever elusive delectable cream-filled eclairs (Blog post 8/3/2013)

With traces of cream still hanging from his lips and hair covered in ketchup, Gherhing and I discovered the stinky poop that Jimmy left in the "bathroom" corner of the fort.

As we filled in the four foot pit with dirt, the boys decided to terrorized my mom's guest - Jerry "TT" (blog post).  It was psychological warfare. They ran up the front porch stairs, in through the wide-open front door, past the living room interrupting mom and her guest! The long hair hippy-want-a-be's made sure to wave as they scurried past the living room, then proceeded past the fouled mouthed fowl - the Mynah Bird - that was taught to cuss, up three more flights of stairs - to the third floor where they picked up speed- running the length of the long back room as if it were a airport runway for a takeoff. The boys then leaped out of the third story window some thirty-forty feet from sure death below like suicidal flying squirrels.

Over and over they did this making sure that Jerry "TT" and mom saw their faces...in each interruption as they passed by the living room. 

And that's where we left off.

2:00 - 2:30pm 
Tired of the entire interruption-affair, upset and frustrated mom came to the end of her rope. This is where she invoked THE CLAUSE!  The Clause rarely ever failed!  The only reason it didn't work at the Zoo when we let all the monkeys out, was because Ulrich said, he couldn't hear her over the adulations of the adoring crowd that he had been entertaining while precariously perched on the edge of monkey habitat (blog post 4/29/2013).

What Jerry couldn't figure out, was how on earth he kept seeing some of the same faces as they ran in through the front door and up the stairs.


IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE: How could a hairy tribe member, run in through the front door, head up stairs and come back in again through the front door? To Jerry this was like something out of the TWILIGHT ZONE. The scheme had the effect the boys desired; not only did it confuse him, but also incited him to anger. "YES!" They got got into his mushy head.  They owned him and they knew it.



Mom stood to her feet and screamed. "UNDER-PAIN-OF-MORTAL-SIN...You will stop that this instance! Do you hear me?" The only problem was that, several of the kids were not Catholic and did not share the same fear of purgatory like the rest of us...AND Gherhing the Great and I had been outside putting dirt in the hole, which was once a fort that rivaled the Sphinx in Egypt.

With blatant disregard to "The Clause" Dooh-Dooh Pants came back through for about the fourth time when Jerry took this act of disobedience as permission to chase down a few of the boys (he might of have some ulterior motive as well - yuck!). In both anger and secret delight, Jerry launched himself after Dooh-Dooh Pants and chased him up the stairs. Dooh-Dooh Pants made sure not to out run Jerry, but wanted to make Jerry believe he had a chance at catching him. Up, up, up, up they ran. See Jerry run. Run Dooh-Dooh Pants run!

When they reached the top floor Jerry knew, he had his prey in sight. Dooh-Dooh Pants was trapped in the long back bedroom - the very same room that held all the snake cages (last post). THERE WAS NO WAY OUT. Jerry had him right where he wanted him as a sinister smile of evil delight broke across his face - like the Grinch when he looked down on poor Whoville after stealing all the Christmas presents. 

 Dooh-Dooh Pants contorted his face in contrived fear allowing Jerry "The Toucher" to come within a foot of two.  As Jerry "TT" approached with that icky look on his face... Dooh-Dooh Pants face lite up with a diabolical grin of its own and took off running.  With no where to go, Jerry knew he had Dooh-Dooh Pants trapped.

Dooh-Dooh Pants "cut the cheese" and to the utter dismay and unbelief of Jerry "TT" threw himself out the window.  Jerry correctly reasoned that Dooh-Dooh Pants would rather commit suicide than to be caught alone with him.Leaving Jerry in a cloud of fish-stick and spoiled spaghetti stench Dooh-Dooh Pants flung himself out of that third story window jumping for the pole that perilously dangled from the tippy-top corbel of the old turn-of-the-century house.

Out Dooh-Dooh Pants flew and down he slid, falling the last six feet or so onto the azalea bush below. Up he looked and grinned in satisfaction to the glaring dissatisfied stare of Jerry "TT".

Enraged and empowered by the clause..Jerry "TT was now raging to catch a teenage boy.

Jerry came back down the stairs and stood in the front entry, just waiting for his next victim to come through the front door... the Mynah Bird had some choice words it parroted to Jerry. Jerry was standing there with hands clenched ready to ring the neck of a morally innocent bird when Gherhing the Great and I came in through THE BACK DOOR wanting to get into the fun.

This is where everything went terribly wrong! Gherhing the Great did manage to escape and slide down the pole, but the on the way up the stairs, I decided to zig when I should have zagged! Gherhing was moving too slow and I made a ill fated dash for the front room of the second floor that was filled with junk...

Bad choice, Markie d. Bad Choice!


Meanwhile the Lennon's on the corner... the famous Lennon Sisters and siblings were all securely tucked  away from the mayhem inside the safety of their house.

Next time, see if Markie D escapes the clutches of Jerry "TT" and Chewy's fateful fall!

Until then Know: Du är älskad!